As we stand on the brink of a new year, filled with promise and potential, we’re thrilled to unveil our latest software release. This isn’t just an update; it’s a testament to our shared commitment to innovation, growth, and resourcing for a brighter future. As you finalize your plans and set up company-wide resources for a successful 2025, rest assured knowing we’ve got your back.
We’ve meticulously planned and crafted this release, ensuring it embodies the spirit and ambition that defines you—our community—to GO BIG!
This. Is. It. The moment we take a bold step forward, equipped with a range of new features designed to empower and inspire all departments across your org. We’ve poured our hearts into this update, envisioning the countless ways it will help streamline your workflows, spark creativity, and drive success. So, as you embark on this journey into the new year, know that we’re right here with you, cheering you on and developing the tools you need to plan and conquer the brave new challenges that lie ahead. Together, let’s make the new year truly extraordinary! 🎉
Introducing Department Idea Box
Introducing a backlog for all! 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 a new app 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. This is the first Brightidea app that generates a multi-pipeline flow on the backend. Ideas can be routed into one of three streams based on complexity and ROI:
- “Strategic Project Pipeline” for high-risk, high-cost, high-complexity ideas
- “Backlog” to park ideas waiting for prioritization
- “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 for greater efficiency. Updates to pipeline setup, now available at the main template configuration level. Adjustments to app step and stage configurations for enhanced template management.
- User Experience Enhancements: Updates to action items, making task management more intuitive.
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, 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 be tricky. 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. The Project Room updates help streamline navigation and search, while the Whiteboard updates help your team communicate and customize ideas 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 palette in Whiteboard. With the ability to select a 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.
The much anticipated Winter 2024 release is more than just a set of new features—it’s a reflection of our commitment to empowering your innovation journey. We can’t wait to see how you’ll leverage these tools to GO BIG and achieve even greater success in the dawn of a golden age of innovation & transformation.
Here’s to a year of big ideas, seamless collaboration, and groundbreaking innovations. Let’s make 2025 our most innovative year yet!
GO BIG!
Brightidea team
