Create a Group About Page and Improved Group Browsing

Group About Page

Collaboration groups are as diverse as the projects and teams they support. To get new users up to speed on a group's goals and actions, we have added the option to create a Group About page. Use the About page to share information that everyone in the group should know, including the group's objectives, code of conduct, and policies.

The About page will be the Group's landing page for members once they choose to follow the Group.

You can access the About page on the left hand navigation of the Group page. The About page works just like wiki pages in CubeTree, allowing you to embed videos, links to web pages, post images, and format text. The group admin can allow any member to edit the About page or lock the page so that only admins have permission to edit it.

You can create an About page for existing Groups and you will be prompted to create one as part of the process when you create new Groups.

Improved Group Browsing

We've made it easier to find and browse all of the Groups within your organization from the Groups > Browse Groups page and the Company > Company Groups page. Both pages have the same appearance and functionality. All of the Groups you can join within your organization are presented on these pages. Groups are sortable by Name, Description and Last Activity to help you quickly find the one you're looking for. To join a group from the list, simply click Follow at the right of Group name.

Check Group Names Before Creating New Groups

Release Notes -- July 23, 2010

You already know that the hidden power of CubeTree is how easy it is for users to create groups and invite co-workers to collaborate in them. Making it easy to create groups drives user adoption and helps teams execute on projects big and small. It can also lead to the creation of duplicate Groups if users don't have visibility on all the pre-existing ones.

To help prevent duplicate Groups we've added a "Check Group Name" button to the Create Groups Page. When you enter the name of a Group, but before you create it, clicking the Check Group Name button will let you know if the group name is taken as well as present you with links to similarly named Groups, their creation dates and a brief description of each. Then you can decide if you want to create a new Group or use one of the pre-existing ones for your project.

Posting Comments from Email

Release Notes -- July 23, 2010

Since we posted the Email Power User's Guide in June, we've seen increased numbers of users posting comments to their CubeTree with email. With the increased usage, users reported that some comments were unexpectedly clipped when they posted them via email. To make it clear exactly what will get posted when you respond to an email, we've add a "message terminator" to each notification. No -- a message terminator isn't a time traveling robot; the message terminator is a line in each email that says:

---- Reply ABOVE THIS LINE to add a comment to this message ----

As expected, anything you write above that LINE will be posted as your comment to the feed item in CubeTree. The message terminator will appear in every email from the system that you can respond to, to post your comment.

SuccessFactors Completes Acquisition of CubeTree

It's official. Today, SuccessFactors, Inc., the global leader in Business Execution Software, announced that it has completed its acquisition of CubeTree, Inc., a visionary leader in the rapidly growing social business software category. CubeTree will be a core part of SuccessFactors' Business Alignment product offering and extend the Business Execution Software strategy to let all individuals in every organization execute against their plans.

Together we will address a significant challenge in business execution: the way individuals and teams collaborate, share ideas and make connections across organizational silos and geographies to get work done. CubeTree's secure, integrated, social business solution gives companies a wealth of collaborative and social benefits, including:

• Instant communication, collaboration and sharing: Everyone in a company can quickly create rich profiles and begin engaging with everyone in their organization to get work done and find co-workers who can help and share insights as they happen.
• Rich Employee Profiles that provide deep insights into skills, talents, interests and expertise.
• Powerful Team Execution through work spaces that enable groups to immediately gather around a project, collaborate, share documents and get work done.
• Executive Dashboards that provide rich insights into the pulse of how a company is executing everyday.

You can read more about the details here.

Threaded Messages for BlackBerry and other Text only emails

Release Notes - July 16, 2010

CubeTree sends notifications with full "message threads" for many types of notifications when you receive HTML email from the system, (i.e., when a new comment is made, you see the original item plus a chronological list of all the previous comments, so you can see the context of the whole conversation.)

We heard from many of our BlackBerry users that they'd like to receive the same threaded conversations in the Text Only emails we send out. So we changed that and now both HTML and Text Only email notifications will include full message threads for Feed Commenting, Likes, Group Notification, Photo Tag, Share and Wall Comments.

Full message threads, with complete conversations, will now appear in both your email inbox and on all your mobile devices, including BlackBerry.

Email Subject Lines

We've changed the subject lines of our email notifications to be more descriptive. All the major and most common emails have new subject lines that describe who commented on what type of activity. e.g "Dave Lee commented on your wiki edit."

More descriptive subject lines make it easier to scan the notifications in your inbox and locate activity you want to respond to.

CubeTree Mobile Collaboration Tools

Knowledge workers (i.e. You) need collaboration solutions that allow them to connect to the enterprise anytime, anywhere and using any device available. Once they get there, they need to be able to not just consume information, but they also need to contribute as well.

CubeTree mobile apps allow you to stay connected and get work done by enabling you to:

• Participate in the latest discussion regarding your projects and documents.
• Find and access the right people you need to contact for help and information.
• Update colleagues on the status of your work.Share documents you receive with others.
• Upload photos that capture key ideas and events.
• Complete project tasks.

CubeTree for BlackBerry

Our CubeTree mobile app is designed with the dedicated BlackBerry power user in mind. We take advantage of BlackBerry's strengths: background processing, push delivery and trackball navigation, so you can quickly get into the system, post your input and get your work done.

The BlackBerry app provides a dashboard view and direct links to your Follows Feed, Profile, Groups, Company Directory, and more. Our search is built into the application so you can search for members, groups and content and create custom bookmarks to quickly navigate to your favorite sources of information.

The CubeTree BlackBerry App supports BlackBerry OS 4.5 and higher and is available for free from the CubeTree Clients page.


CubeTree for iPhone

CubeTree for iPhone provides access to your Follows Feed, Profile, Groups, Company Directory, and more. Use the mobile app to post your Status, browse your Follows Feed, view Group walls and use the iPhones camera to take pictures of whiteboards and events and post them directly to CubeTree.

The CubeTree iPhone App is available for free from the iTunes App Store and is iOS 4.0 Tested.


CubeTree Mobile Site

The CubeTree mobile site enables you to connect using Droid, iPad, EVO, Nexus, Palm Pre, Symbian and other future devices like the Dell Streak. Accessing the website from your device provides access to your Follows Feed, Profile, Groups, Company Directory, Wikis and more. It's optimized to respond quickly at mobile bandwidth speeds and makes your on-the-go interactions with CubeTree easier and faster.


CubeTree Email

Email is an important part of how people communicate and CubeTree is both a way to get more out of the email you receive and a way to improve the quality of email you send.

Adjust your email preferences (CubeTree and Email Notifications Guide) to "tune" the email notifications that are sent by CubeTree to get the right signal to noise ratio.

Your mobile device extends the email functionality of CubeTree to any location. Take actions directly from your email to update status, reply to comments, share items or even unsubscribe from notifications to tune your system on the fly. The Email Power Users Guide has tips and tricks for using email to collaborate on CubeTree.

Let CubeTree mobile enable your collaboration and connect with everyone, everyday and from everywhere.

Contextual Help

Release Notes - July 9, 2010

We are continuing to provide more in-product assistance as we add new features and functionality to CubeTree. We've added detailed help to the right hand columns of many pages. With this release we are adding a new type of assistance - contextual help.

The presence of a little question mark icon in the application is an indication that contextual help is present for that item. Hovering over it will produce a pop-up with a short explanation and a link to learn more about that feature. E.g. hovering over the question mark next to Email Subscriptions on the My Groups page reveals a tip about changing your email subscription frequency and provides a direct link to your Account > Email Settings page to make further adjustments.

Over time question mark icons, to indicate the presence contextual help, will be added throughout the application to help users find tool tips and links to help for features in CubeTree.

Administrator User Policy Settings Change

Release Notes - July 9, 2010

We have expanded the company-wide options for setting user policies. Admins now have more flexibility in choosing how users are invited into the system, if they can modify their profile, and who can disable users. We've also moved the options from the Account > User Policy page to the Account > Features page under the User Management section.

The new options that can be turned on or off are:

• Enable users to edit their profile information: Companies that use an external system of record to populate Profile information can prevent their members from changing their Profile > Info fields (contact support@cubetree.com for more details).
• Enable Users to Upload a Custom Profile Photo: Companies that operate within highly regulated HR environments can restrict use of profile photos. Disabling this will result in removal of all profile photos that may have been uploaded into the system.
• Enable all users to disable other users: Companies that want Site Administrators to be involved in disabling users can prevent others from performing this action.
• Enable new users to signup and join this CubeTree network: Companies that want to control how users join the CubeTree network can prevent users from signing up for the service via the CubeTree signup page.
• Enable all users to invite new users into this CubeTree network: Companies that want to restrict inviting to Site Administrators can prevent other members from inviting colleagues. If this is disabled, the Invite link on the upper right navigation will not be displayed and Site Administrators invite users via the Admin > Invites page.
• Require admin approval for new users of this CubeTree network: Enable if Company wants Site Administrators to approve all invite requests.

Building Collaboration and Getting New Users Going on CubeTree

Inviting new users to collaborate with you on CubeTree and following others are key steps to getting the most out of the service.

During the sign up process CubeTree will provide assistance to help the new user find others to follow.

After the new user has finished selecting colleagues to follow and setting up their account, they'll be presented with the "Let's get Social" pop up to give them two ways to start connecting with co-workers. To get the most out of CubeTree it's good for your new users to also invite some of their colleagues they want to collaborate with. If the new user isn't sure who they want to invite, they can play the Company Quiz to find collaborators and colleagues. If they know who they want to invite they can go directly to the Invite Page to get started inviting them by email address.

We've also added getting started tips to the Home Page for new subscribers. They help orient your new users to CubeTree, get them started building a personalized News Feed and show them where to find tools and features to start collaborating. The Top 3 Things to do on CubeTree will appear in the getting started panel, inviting them to:

1. Collaborate on your next project - Groups are designed for colleagues to brainstorm, collaborate, and share ideas about a project or topic. Create a Group or Find one to join.
2. Share your wisdom or gain some - If you've got ideas, CubeTree has ways for you to share them. Create a wiki page or blog post.
3. Connect with Colleagues - Find Experts. Follow Colleagues to find updates on their activities on your Home page. Connect with Colleagues.

Clicking on a link will navigate to the appropriate location where the user can complete the process.

Users can also Hide the Getting Started Panel to make more space on the page and come back to it later by clicking Show on the right hand side. Five days after the user has joined, we no longer show the "Top 3 Things to do on CubeTree".

These three categories, the company quiz and the getting started pages are all there to help your new users get up and running on CubeTree quickly. Enterprise social networking and collaboration are going to be new to many of your users. Successful adoption is encouraged by allowing users to make connections with the people they work with, find projects they are collaborating on and build a News Feed of items that matter most to them.

CubeTree and Email Notifications

Release Notes - July 2, 2010

Email is an important part of how people communicate and CubeTree is both a way to reduce email "spam" (information getting sent to you regardless of your interest in it) but also as a way to improve the quality of emails that you do receive (choosing the topics and information you care about).

There are two ways you can "tune" email notifications that are sent by CubeTree to get the right signal to noise ratio.

1. You can use different forms of Direct Messaging to send email notifications to others members of CubeTree.
2. You can adjust your email preferences to change the notifications you receive.

How Direct Messaging Works

There are two type of Direct Messages you can send CubeTree members. You can Direct Message a single user or you can Direct Message a entire group of users or all your followers.

Direct Message a Single User (@user)

Sending a Direct Message with "@user", e.g. @justin, will send your message to the member's @user feed (Home > @user) and will generate an email notification to that user if their "Direct Messages" email preferences is enabled. (see Email Preferences below).

Direct Message to an Entire Group or All your Followers (@@email)

Please Note: On Aug 12, 2010 we changed the special keyword from "@@email" to "@@notify". @@email is still supported, but the system will automatically make the change from @@email to @@notify for you.

Sending a Direct Message using the special keyword "@@email" will send your message to everyone in a Group (if you are posting to a Group wall or on an object within a Group) or to all of your followers (if you are posting to your Profile or on an object associated with your Profile). The feed item will appear in the @user feed (Home > @user) of each member messaged and will generate an email notification to the users if their "Direct Message to All Followers (using @@email tag)" email preferences is enabled. (see Email Preferences below).

Adjusting Personal Notifications you Receive

Email Preferences Page

The Email Settings page (Account > Email > Email Settings) is the place where you can tune what email notifications you will receive from CubeTree. This page is organized into six sections that correspond to different categories of emails: High Priority, Medium Priority, Low Priority, Daily, and Group Email notifications.

High Priority Emails

High Priority Emails are notifications associated with CubeTree events or activity that are the most important. This category of emails includes all of the Direct Messages that people send you plus all of those notifications that pertain specifically to you: When items are sent to your CubeTree inbox, when you're tagged in a photo, when one of your personal integrations needs attention, updates on your tasks, nudges that people send about status and items posted to your wall.

You can turn these on and off to stop receiving notifications sent via email. Feed items will continue to appear in CubeTree for each of these events in the following locations:

Direct Messages to you (both @user and @@email) will appear in your Home > @user page.

Inbox items will appear in your Home > Inbox

Feed items related to being tagged in a Photo will appear in your Home > My Follows Feed

Integration Emails are a courtesy notification telling you that we've detected a problem with one of your integrations. If you turn these off, you won't get notified if we have detected an issue.

Feed items related to Tasks will appear in your Home > My Follows Feed as well as in Home > My Tasks.

Nudges for Status Updates will appear in your Home > My Follows Feed and Nudges for Task Updates will appear in the Task Feed for that Task.

Medium Priority Emails

Medium Priority Emails include notifications on feed Comments and Likes, Invites that have been accepted, first clicks on your Links, Docs or Wiki pages, weekly new feature announcements and edits to Wiki pages.

You can turn these on and off to stop receiving notifications sent via email. Notifications will continue to appear in CubeTree for each of these items in the following locations:

Feed Comments and Likes will be displayed the Feeds or Walls in which they were made. If you are following those items, then they will appear in your Home > My Follows Feed as well.

Invites sent to you will appear in your Home > Inbox.

First clicks on your Links, Docs or Wiki pages will not generate an email notification in CubeTree if you turn off the email notification.

New feature announcements appear each week on the CubeTree product blog and in the CubeTree support forum.

Low Priority Emails

Low Priority Emails include Employee of the Month and Company Quiz notifications. If you turn off email notifications for these events, they will continue to appear in the Company > Company News Feed.

Daily Emails

The Daily Emails category let's you set your preferences for once a day email notifications. These include the daily Summary Email, Active Task Reminders and Daily Status Nudge.

The Summary Email is a summary of daily activity. If you turn off all the Summary Email options you will not receive this email notification. This information is not provided anywhere else within the CubeTree UI.

Active Task Reminders are notifications that you can receive in email. The notification for an Active Task Reminder only appears in email. However you can always see the status of all your Tasks on the Home > My Tasks page.

The Daily Status Nudge is a reminder, in email, to update your Status on CubeTree. This is only delivered via email notification. If you disable it, you will not receive an automated, daily reminder. You will still receive Status Update Nudges from other CubeTree users as applicable.

Group Notifications

The Group Notifications category shows the current status for each group you are following and allows you to manage your email subscription for each. You can choose to receive email notifications for each group immediately, daily, weekly or never. If you choose never, you will not receive email notifications for activity in that Group. However, you will still be able to go to that Group's Wall and view activity.

Using Email to Interact with CubeTree

You can use your email client to stay connected to your colleagues using CubeTree. You can post updates, comment, and keep up to date and aware of all the projects you're involved in using your standard corporate email client.

Your Status Update:

Set your personal profile status by emailing an update to your CubeTree account. Every user on CubeTree has a specific email address to use to post a status update. You can find it by going to your "Account" page and looking for it at the top of the page.

CubeTree uses the text from the Body of the email as the Status Update. This text will be included on your mini-badge and visable to all members in your company.

Responding to Comments via Email:

You can post a comment within CubeTree by responding to emails for applicable feed events (those that support the Comment action including Comments and Direct Messages you receive from the objects and people you are following). To do so, reply in email to any of these notifications and whatever you put in the Body of the email will show up in the feed as a comment you've added to the feed item.

Unsubscribing to Emails

You can turn off an email notification by clicking on the "Unsubscribe" link provided at the bottom of any email you receive. When you click on "Unsubscribe" you will have the option of unsubscribing from the specific notification type ("Just this one") or to stop all email notifications sent by CubeTree ("Stop all emails). You can always return to your Account > Email Settings to re-enable email notifications.

Changes to Group Email Subscription Frequency

Release Notes - July 2, 2010

We've made a change to the frequency of email notifications received by users subscribed to Groups. We heard from many users that sending emails immediately following a post to a group created the same overload and continuous interruption that occurs with collaborating in email. In response we've added Daily and Weekly digest email notifications to all Groups to give the same visibility of activity without creating email overload.

Any user who was subscribed to email notifications for a Group has been automatically migrated to the new Daily frequency notifications. Each new Daily digest email explains how a user can change the frequency or unsubscribe all together from the email notifications and provides links to do so.

Group Notifications settings are adjustable from the Account > Email Settings page in the Group Notifications section. Users can now select from 4 choices: Immediate, Daily, Weekly and Never for each Group they are subscribed to.