Winter Release 2024

We are pleased to announce our Winter 2024 Product Release. We encourage you to check out our blog to read through the updates and view the list below for high-level changes. If you have any questions on feature availability, reach out to your Customer Success Manager.  

Transform Your Backlog

We get it—backlogs can be overwhelming, but they're also a goldmine of potential progress. That's why we're thrilled to introduce new features designed to help you tame the beast. With our latest updates, you can transform your backlog into a lean, mean, prioritizing machine. Say goodbye to chaos and hello to clarity as you easily organize, track, and conquer workflow with these new features.

We’ve officially launched the first Brightidea app that generates a multi-pipeline flow on the backend under the Idea Box family, “Department Idea Box.” This is great for a single department that needs to collect, prioritize, and move ideas into effective work streams. Ideas can be routed into one of three streams based on complexity and ROI:

1. “Strategic Project Pipeline” for high-risk, high-cost, high-complexity ideas
2. “Backlog” to park ideas waiting for prioritization
3. “Just Do It” for low-risk, low-cost, low-complexity ideas

In addition to the app rollout, we also have some improvements to our Stage Gate functionality which is tightly coupled with the strategic project work-stream:

• Improved Scoring Tools: A floating gate scorecard has been introduced for more dynamic evaluations. You now have the added ability to edit and update scorecards, ensuring alignment with evolving project needs.
• Streamlined Workflows: Core workflow improvements have been implemented for greater efficiency. Updates to Pipeline Setup are now available at the main template configuration level. Template management has been enhanced through adjustments to app Step and Stage configurations.
• User Experience Enhancements: Updates to action items make task management more intuitive. Revamped emojis in Project Room for a more engaging and expressive collaboration experience.

Streamline Your Flow with Efficiency

In today's fast-paced world, efficiency is the key to success. Whether you're managing a team, running a business, or simply trying to stay on top of your personal tasks, streamlining your workflow can make all the difference. That's why we're excited to introduce our latest software release, specially designed to help you achieve just that. With a suite of new features and enhancements, we're here to transform how you work, making every task smoother, faster, and more intuitive. Let's dive in and explore how you can streamline your flow with our latest updates:

• Enhanced Duplication: Administrators can choose which elements to replicate when duplicating an initiative. This makes it easy to select between using the default configuration or individually copying specific settings from the selected initiative.
• Copy Project Room: You’ve asked, so we’ve delivered! You can now seamlessly copy Project Rooms, similar to the copy/template creation options available in Whiteboard and Memo.
• Rich Text Editor 3.0 (BETA): We are excited to announce the beta release of the updated Rich Text/HTML widget. This update enhances the user experience by allowing you to configure widgets on site home pages. To try it out, please contact your customer service representative.

Enterprise-Grade System Management

Managing complex global systems can take time and effort. Our latest release introduces a suite of enterprise-grade features designed to elevate your system management game. With these new capabilities, you'll have everything you need to stay organized, efficient, and ahead of the curve.

Brightidea AI: Has been enhanced with the power of AI for collaborative brainstorming! Our improved AI-powered Whiteboard now allows you to easily generate ideas, create images, and engage with a chatbot. Packed with features, Brightidea AI helps you expand ideas using sticky notes, organize and summarize concepts on your board, correct grammar and spelling, provide summaries, and adjust the tone of your content. As always, administrators have the ability to enable or disable these functionalities for users.

Improved Label Management: We have extended label editing to View Idea 3.0 and Expertise to give administrators more extensive control over messaging to their users.

Advanced Timezones: For global teams, we’ve closed the gap to ensure all areas of the site respect time and date formats within the entire platform. Our advanced timezone feature also ensures daylight savings is respected.

Project Room and Whiteboard Upgrades

We've enhanced our Project Room and Whiteboard features to make collaboration seamless and intuitive. From a streamlined UI with smart logos for external links, to powerful search capabilities across all Project Rooms, managing ideas has never been easier. Plus, with new emoji support and an eye-dropper color selector, your team can communicate and customize with precision.

• Project Room UI Updates: We’ve enhanced the left navigation menu with a more streamlined UI. This update provides a more condensed view, including efficient object name editing through double-clicking. Furthermore, we’ve added the ability for users to include external app-specific links (e.g. Google Doc, Box, Jira, etc.)
• Project Room Search: You can now search across all Project Rooms under userhome for faster access to the content you seek.
• Emojis: We have enabled emojis 😀 in idea comments and on the Whiteboard canvas. 👏 Users can now express their opinions, making it easier for them to support and engage with each other with a vast emoji library.
• Eye-Dropper Tool: We’ve expanded our existing color pallet in Whiteboard. With the ability to select color anywhere on your desktop, our new eye-dropper allows you to select and set colors for all objects, text, and other elements.

Platform Performance Enhancements

We're committed to ensuring our platform runs as smoothly as possible. That's why we've made significant updates under the hood to boost performance and reliability. These improvements are designed to provide you with a faster, more stable experience so you can focus on what you do best:

• Critical System Upgrades: We've significantly updated core components across our platform, delivering noticeable performance, security, and functionality improvements. These upgrades enhance load speeds, bolster overall system stability, and position us to integrate future innovations seamlessly. The result? A more reliable, efficient, and modern platform experience for our customers, ensuring that your work is supported by cutting-edge technology every step of the way.
• File Uploads: Our improved file upload process ensures enhanced scalability, reliability, flexibility, and security behind the scenes, providing a seamless and robust experience for users.
• Text Engine Improvements: We’ve updated the text engine in Whiteboard for better readability, performance, and interactions. To streamline workflows, we have made considerable updates to bullets, text box sizing and functionality, default text options, text links, hotkeys and more!
• Customer Support Tickets: No large release is complete without customer feedback! We’ve resolved 200+ high-priority support tickets through rolling prioritization and execution throughout this cycle.