Release Notes - May 27, 2010

Wiki Editor Enhancements

We've made two enhancements for Wiki editing this week and added new icons to the tool bar for them:

• Spell Check - We've added a spell check feature to the Wiki editor. Once you have created some content, you can enable it using the spell check button in the tool bar. Misspelled words will be underlined in red on your screen and clicking on them will provide a drop down menu of suggested, correctly spelled words. Click the suggested word to replace the word that is underlined. You can then continue editing. Click the spell check button again if you want to re-run the check.
  

• Preview - You can now choose to preview your Wiki page to see your formatting and appearance before Saving or Publishing. When you click the preview button on the toolbar, a Preview window will be displayed showing what your page will look like once published. Use the close box to dismiss the window.
  

Bullet Handling Improvements
We've made some improvements to how our editor handles bullets. Using the bullet button from the tool bar will now indent the paragraph the right with spacing much closer to the way it will appear after being saved (or for those of you who like acronyms, we have improved our WYSIWYG-ness). You can build hierarchical lists with bullets by using the "indent" button on a bullet-ed line to indent it further and change the bullet from a solid black circle to a hollow one. The "outdent" button will return a bullet-ed item to the previous level or if it's the topmost bullet, remove it entirely and return it to normal text.

Group Enhancements
We've added a setting to Groups called Invite Policy to foster higher adoption rates for open groups as well as more granular restrictions to control group membership where needed. We have also made it easier to send email reminders to members who have been invited and have not joined to join. Customers have also requested that we provide a way to remove users from groups, so we have added this capability as well.

• Group Invite Policy - Admins can now set a policy that determines who can invite people to a group. All existing groups will have the previous invite policy applied (i.e. we are not changing the behavior of existing groups). Group Admins and Site Admins for Public Groups can change the Invite Policy
  

• Public Groups: Previously, any member in the Company, regardless if they were following a group or not, could invite other Company members to join the group. Now Group Admins (Group Creators are Group Admins by default) can choose between the following:
• allowing all members in a Company to invite others (All Members) - this is the new default
• restrict inviting to members of the group (All Group Members)
• restrict inviting to Group Admins or Site Admins (Only Group Admins)
• Private Internal Groups - Previously, only Group Admins could invite other Company members to join private internal groups. Now, Group Admins can choose to enable any member to invite others or continue to restrict inviting to Group Admins only. The new default will be that All Group Members will be able to invite others. Note: Since these are private groups, Site Admins do not have the same privileges as Group Admins and are treated like any other member (i.e. must be invited and granted Group Admin access).
• Private Cross-Company Groups - Previously, only Group Admins could invite other members (internal or external) to join private cross-company groups. Now, Group Admins can choose to enable any member to invite others or continue to restrict inviting to Group Admins. The new default will be that All Group Members will be able to invite others. Note: Since these are private groups, Site Admins do not have the same privileges as Group Admins and are treated like any other member (i.e. must be invited and granted Group Admin access).
• Actions for users with Pending Invites - Customers have asked us to help them increase group membership acceptance. They have told us about situations where someone was invited to join a group the week prior, and that they still had not joined. They wanted a way within the CubeTree product to easily send another email reminding them making it easier to join (rather than dig through their email). They also wanted a way to cancel an invite that had been sent out. So, we did some work...

• Send Invite Reminder - To help Group Admins remind invitees to respond to group invites, we've added the ability for a Group Admin (or Site Admins in Public Groups) to send an Invite reminder. The Admin can go to the Member page, scroll down to the Pending Invites section, find the member and select the action "send invite reminder" from the Actions menu. CubeTree will send an email to the user reminding them to join the group and a link to their inbox.

• Cancel Invites - To help Group Admins manage group invites we've added the ability to cancel pending invites from a group. The Admin can go to the Member page, scroll down to the Pending Invites section, find the member and select the action "cancel invite" from the Actions menu. This will cancel the invite and remove it from the pending invites section.

• Removing members from a group - We had a number of ways to add users to groups, but very few to remove users from a group. In this release, we added an Action for Group Admins called "remove from group". Once the member is removed they must go through the invite / follow process again to re-establish membership. Note: the member is not notified that they were removed from the group.

• Icons to make it easier to identify the role a member has in the Group - We wanted to make it easier for members of a group to identify who was a Site Administrator and who was a Group Administrator. We added two new icons to identify these roles:

Site Admin icon

Group Admin icon

Using Tasks to Get Work Done in CubeTree

We launched a new feature this week with group tasks, that when combined with personal tasks in CubeTree, gives you the tools to do project management for groups and create your own to-do lists. Tasks are a great way to track work and using them in CubeTree helps get your project assignments out of email--where they often get lost--and into a collaboration platform that will help you get work done.

Email is excellent for passing information to people, but it is not ideal for collaborating. Trying to collaborate on work in email leads to broad CC distribution lists, lengthy email chains, lost content and general confusion about what work is actually happening or needs to be done. If you're like us you've had the experience of missing deadlines and due dates because emails get lost in an email box as they get pushed off the bottom of the screen. Email just isn't specialized enough to be an efficient way of communicating and tracking time sensitive work items. You need another place to keep all those tasks and the conversations about them; since you're already collaborating on work in CubeTree, it's a logical next step to use tasks there to create action items. CubeTree lets you collect all your tasks in one place and then use email to notify people of the work assigned to them without relying on email to be the repository.

Using tasks in CubeTree helps you get work done and makes email work better for you. Creating a task will generate a notification in the assignees follow feed and will also generate an email notification that they've received a new task. With the task in their CubeTree profile, the assignee doesn't have to rely solely on email to find and remember it. If a task does go 'past due' they'll receive a 'balloon' reminder on their next log-in that can take them right to the overdue tasks. You can choose to assign tasks to yourself or to other co-workers.

When you create a task in CubeTree it is associated with the work that is being done. A task can be associated with an individual, a group or even a feed item. Like other items in CubeTree, tasks can be followed by multiple people. So even if a task isn't assigned to you, you can choose to follow it and receive updates in your feed on any progress. You can even recommend that someone else follow a task.

There's a lot of power in the task feature and it's really set up to help you get work done on CubeTree and share it with the others you are collaborating with. When you create a task you can not only provide a detailed description you can also attach a link or document that's relevant. Tasks have status: Open, In Progress, Stalled or Closed, so that members following it can stay informed on progress. You can also add labels or tags to your tasks to help you organize and sort them. You can create your own labels or select from a library of existing labels inside your organization to keep you in sync with your co-workers.

CubeTree tasks enable team members to clearly articulate work that needs to get done, assign ownership, organize and monitor status, all with a light weight, easy-to-use interface.

Release Notes - May 20, 2010

Group Tasks

This week we're launching a big new feature, Group Tasks, that will help you with project management. Group Tasks is a great tool to help you manage project work that you're collaborating on with your co-workers in a CubeTree group. You have already been using the Task feature to create your own personal to-do list in your profile. Now you can create and associate tasks with groups, so that the people who are following the group receive action item notifications in email and in their feed.

Each group now has its own Task page where you can sort, edit, assign and create new tasks. It's a natural extension of the collaboration that happens when you create groups in CubeTree that users have been requesting. Tasks let you assign work for group projects and put collaboration into action. Group Tasks, just like regular Tasks, leverage both email and feed notifications to keep people apprised of task status and changes.

You can still create tasks from a person's profile page; now you will have an option to assign that task to a group as you create it. You can do the same when you assign tasks from the application bar at the bottom of the screen or when you do so from the More... actions on any feed item.

CubeTree Customer Support Portal

Another big item we are rolling out to you this week is the new CubeTree Customer Support Portal. You can find it at http://support.cubetree.com or simply access it from the big 'support' tab on the right of the screen, right below the 'feedback' tab. Your log-on for CubeTree is the same as your log-on for the portal so you only have to log in once.

There's a lot of good information in the portal for you about CubeTree and it's a direct line into our customer success team.

In Forums you can find the Frequently Asked Questions forum to get answers and the Ask the CubeTree Community forum where you can connect with other users and share best practices. There's also a Help Desk if you're running into trouble and need assistance; you can create a trouble ticket for us so we can know how to help you best. We're also posting Release Notes to both the support forums and the CubeTree blog.

Mining Your Organization's Information for Real Value

Getting the Most Out of CubeTree Part III

Many customers have been speaking with us recently about different ways they use CubeTree. One of the most striking applications I've heard about is using it to share "tribal knowledge" about the business for staying competitive in the marketplace and gathering competitive intelligence. Tribal knowledge is information 'known' yet undocumented and passed from person to person.

Organizations that are globally dispersed, with sales executives in many regions, each responsible for their own accounts and customers, need to communicate frequently about the competition they are facing. These CubeTree customers found that in some cases they were facing stiff competition for accounts where they should have a distinct advantage because they had done business with that customer in another region. Executives often didn't have tools that indicated there was an engagement in another region, or didn't know enough of the details to leverage the relationship in their account strategy. Several CubeTree customers have told me about how they use our solution to make the connections between people that their corporate intranet had not.

The primary difference between a traditional corporate intranet and a social enterprise solution is in how they are structured. The intranet's structure is usually articulated by a small group of people within the company; it tends to be a static environment where people go to download information but rarely post anything or interact. If an intranet admin doesn't have or know about a key piece of information, that data may not be revealed to the rest of the organization. Then when the information emerges it is difficult to alter the structure. Especially in low margin verticals, it is critical to the success of an organization to keep up with the pace of business, where information is constantly surfacing and is more valuable the quicker it can be shared with the right people.

In the case of a social enterprise solution, employees have access to a simple, open and feature rich tool-set which allows the structure to emerge and form dynamically.

With CubeTree, users get a set of collaboration tools, customized for the enterprise, for file sharing, blogs, wikis, sharing links, micro-blogging and more. The ease of contributing content makes the volume of shared data exponential -- with few barriers to entry. All of the data gets into the system. All of the content is indexed and discoverable; making it possible to mine an organization's collective consciousness for information that pertains to a specific, competitive topic. Users can follow the information critical to them and build a natural network of ties with other individuals that allow for the constant discovery and delivery of critical information; keeping them "environmentally aware" of information as it becomes available.

Using a social enterprise solution, like CubeTree, for sharing competitive intelligence distribution, these customers found that they were able to share and find pertinent information more quickly and accurately. Individuals were able to indicate where and when they were competing for business and others were able to respond proactively with information on customer relations, compelling selling points, competitors and best practices. It has been a more efficient and effective mode for sharing competitive tribal knowledge and competing in fast paced sales environments.

Release Notes - May 13, 2010

Announcing CubeTree Group Discussions

Group Discussions are a great way to engage members of a group to answer questions, offer best practices, share experiences or exchange ideas about a topic. Like Wikis and Blogs, our Discussion editor allows you to incorporate rich text into the discussion topic description. Other members of the group then add their comments to the discussion thread. Discussions are maintained for future discovery and our global search can be used to find text within the discussion topic as well as comments that are made. Discussions are treated like any other object and feed items are generated and displayed on the group wall. If you follow a group, you will see discussion items in your feed. Go to one of your groups and start a Discussion today - who knows what information you will uncover!


Feed Actions

Admin users were reporting that they were accidentally clicking the Delete action from a feed item when they meant to click the Comment action right next to it. We've adjusted feed item actions to show just Comment and Like actions now. You access additional actions, like Delete, from the newly added More... action.


Also, we noticed that really long Group Names were starting to wrap with each feed update. We've adjusted it to display correctly in the feed now.

Comment Email Notifications

Previously, when someone commented on your feed item or a feed item you are tracking and if you had elected to receive email notifications of comments, the email you received would include the comment and link back directly to it. This was somewhat redundant. We heard from users that they'd like to receive the email notification with the comment in it but then link it directly to the original feed item that was commented on. The email notifications now work this way and clicking on "View Item" will take you directly to the original item and show the comments as well.

Getting the Most Out of CubeTree: Live Event Support

This is the second in a series of posts on how to get the most out of CubeTree. Several customers have talked to us recently about how they use CubeTree to support live events. This week you'll learn about how BCD Travel uses CubeTree to support their big annual meeting for their Commercial Group. BCD is an international travel agency, with 10,000 employees and offices all over the world. Recently they brought 150 people from their Commercial Group together in Boca Raton, Florida for a four day conference to receive training, share information and collaborate.

Getting ready for the meeting, BCD decided that they wanted a single place online they could use to publish all the event information leading up to, during and after the event. BCD already used CubeTree extensively as their social enterprise solution, with nearly 500 active users, so using it for event support was a natural extension for them.

They started with creating a group in their CubeTree for the event. Attendees then received invites to the group where they could find all the pre-event information as well as post comments, ask questions and browse the profiles of other attendees. With all of the conference materials posted to the CubeTree group people were motivated to sign in and use their accounts frequently building up to the event.

Use of CubeTree before the meeting led to a sense of familiarity between this group of 150 individuals, many of whom didn't know each other very well before the event. It really changed the way that they met each other at the conference; it wasn't the same getting to know you small talk, it was much more familiar and relevant, like: 'hey you wrote that blog post' or 'I saw your comments online and I wanted to ask you a question...". It jump started the conference because people were already somewhat familiar and comfortable with their peers.

At the event, BCD used the CubeTree group to store all the information generated at the event. There were several break out sessions and round tables during the week. Attendees used the document sharing feature in CubeTree to post documents and add comments to them as needed. Attendees could also post comments and ask questions right in the conference feed. During the presentations, the event's group page was projected onto a huge screen in the meeting hall.

Based on good feedback from attendees, BCD is exploring ways to leverage the CubeTree mobile apps live during a meeting for voting, live updates and real-time polling much the same way you'd use a rented audience response system.

The content generated became part of their social enterprise and didn't need to be downloaded, imported or otherwise manipulated in another system to be useful. After the meeting attendees continued to go to the event group page to access all the content from the week. It became a living repository of all that was learned and shared. People also started posting pictures and notes from their time in Boca Raton, helping them stay culturally connected to the people they had just met.

BCD Travel’s large-scale employee event gives a powerful example of how a social enterprise solution allows people to get more benefit out of live events. Not only did group file sharing prove to be useful throughout the conference, but sharing employee profiles and interacting online weeks before the event built momentum and increased participation once people were together. Continued document sharing and interaction online in CubeTree helped people stay connected even after the conference ended, making the event’s positive outcome even more far-reaching. Use of CubeTree for live event support by BCD and other users shows how a social enterprise solution helps employees collaborate and work together more efficiently.

Release Notes - May 6, 2010

Navigation Improvement
We have added a count of the number of bookmarks and tasks to the Group Members left navigation item.
Blogs
We made improvements to user experience around how blogs look, especially when they appear within groups. We added additional navigation aids so it's easy to tell if a blog belongs to a group or an individual.
In-Feed Document Previews
Recently we added in-feed document previews for most formats including .PDF, .DOC, .PPT, .XLS, and more. For file types not yet supported in preview, we've added document titles and descriptions to the feed to help users describe their content.

SuccessFactors to Acquire CubeTree

In case you have been busy working and not browsing the web, we wanted to let you in on some exciting news. CubeTree just announced that it is being acquired by SuccessFactors, Inc., the global leader in Business Execution Software. By combining CubeTree's innovative tools with SuccessFactors' Business Execution platform, SuccessFactors is redefining the social business software landscape.

You will still be able to use CubeTree’s functionality as a stand alone offering, and now will also be able to leverage all of our collaboration tools in an integrated suite focused on solving the number one imperative in business today: execution.

We remain dedicated to our customer’s success and focused on our joint mission to drive execution through improved collaboration, communication, and employee interactions everyday using Social Enterprise Software.

You can read more about the details here.