We’ve got a lot of new Binocs stuff to share with everyone. Everything listed below has already shipped and is available in your Binocs environment.
Sortable lists
Quickly see which competences haven’t been updated for a while, sort the demand channels on priority or see which users have been logged in recently. This is now a piece of cake. All lists in Binocs are sortable by clicking on the column name.
Be realistic in your requested time frames
Demand managers request services between a requested start and a requested finish. But they are not always aware of the leadtimes needed to perform a service. This results often in too narrow timeframes leading to demand unintentionally planned late. From now on Binocs shows the demand manager if the requested time frame is shorter than the leadtime of the requested service.
Never be afraid to remove demand folders
Removing stuff is always a little scary. You want to be sure you don’t remove too much. Too make you more comfortable, when you’re deleting a demand folder Binocs will show you how many demand lines will be removed. If it’s larger than expected you can still cancel by clicking away.
Configure your own default configurations
A standard Binocs installation comes packed with default report configurations. Everybody can add new configs, but you couldn’t delete the standard “out of the box” configurations in the past. From now on that’s possible (admins will see a trash can next to each configuration). Now you can only keep the ones you need or create completely new configurations (e.g. with their own names etc.).
Creating your own configurations made easier
Everybody can create their own report configurations. To make it even easier we grouped the fields in the report configuration.
More impact on the team member assignment process
Binocs plans demand choosing available competent team members. From now on you have more control on how Binocs chooses these team members. Express a team member preference for a particular service in the competence detail. Binocs will follow the preference if it leads to an acceptable plan. If not, another resource with the right competences will be selected.
User management made easier
Never forget the administrators. Although these are the screens only few users see, we still want to make the admin life as easy as possible. So we revamped the user screen. In one glance admins see if there are pending invites and can send new invites if necessary. Invitation mails are no longer automatically sent on user creation, but are initiated by the admin when they think the time is convenient (e.g. sending the invites to a group of people at the same time).
The breadcrumbs
In addition to all the major improvements above, we’re shipping smaller updates, fixes, tweaks, and performance improvements often — sometimes daily.
Thanks again for everyone’s feedback. A lot of these improvements start out life as user requests, so please keep that feedback coming.
We’ll be back soon with another batch of improvements. Thanks for being a Binocs user!