It just gets better and better: first update

The benefit of cloud software is we can respond to feedback with sprints delivering updates every 14 days. So here is the first release.

NEW FUNCTIONALITY

Onboarding:  We heard you. New users arrive at the Home Page and go “Hmmm”. And we know there was too much pop up help – because 54% of you didn’t get to the end!!!  It will continue to improve. So here are the changes, so far:

• Drastically reduced pop-up help. Help is still there – just click on the ? top right
• Left menu simplified and only single level
• Home Page has “CREATE NEW MAP” button
• Home page has “Invited to panel” with the maps you have been invited to by team members or from outside
• Map Page has each map name as a link so single click to launch
• The Diagram Editor now has a “HOME” button on the toolbar to open the Elements Home Page

Drawing: We were probably being too clever. So we have made it more consistent with the Powerpoint/Visio drawing approach. You can discover the neat advanced features later. A couple of quick changes here, with more to come next release:

• Left panel is open when you edit a diagram, so you can drag objects (but you don’t need to….)
• Add new resource window now has “CREATE RESOURCE” button

Reporting: This is a whole new area of functionality, enabling you to report on map content:

• Run a report, which happens in the background
• When the report is ready there is a Notification
• Open the report from Notifications and you can filter and sort using column headers
• Export to Excel (XLSX)
  To find out more, check out the Reporting help

Whew!! Not bad for 3 weeks from the team.

NEXT 2 WEEKS

The focus for the next 2 weeks, will focus on the drawing experience

• Reduce Diagram Editor load time by 30-50%
• Undo/redo
• Warning before deleting a drilldown
• Import map as a drill down
• Improving line behavior

BROWSER & DEVICE SUPPORT

Chrome is only officially supported browser, but Firefox and Safari appear to work well with minor issues. There are significant performance issues with IE11 due to standard code libraries, so we are having to replace these libraries, and this is a priority over the coming sprints. We don’t officially support iPads, but it is possible to view and edit content, albeit with a few quirks.

KEEP THE FEEDBACK COMING IN

Our priorities are driven by your experience out in the field, so if you are thinking it, then tell us. The easiest way is to use the FEEDBACK page on the Answers website.