Announcing the Year End ‘08 Blueprint Release

This morning I’m happy to announce that the year end release of Blueprint has gone into production. This is the culmination of our effort to make Blueprint a complete repository for all of your process related assets.  The biggest change that you’ll notice immediately in this update is the ability to upload and store files as part of your documentation. We’ve also addressed several other top customer requests that we’ve heard on the forums and from out in the field.

Take a look at this screencast for a quick rundown or see the full details after the break.

Let’s take a look at the improvements in depth:

• File Attachments: In addition to the structured information that Blueprint already helps you collect –inputs, outputs, opportunities for improvement, stakeholders, and the like–we’ve heard the need from customers to be able to keep related assets alongside and in context with the process. Those might be spreadsheets containing data that’s been collected about the process, Word documents and templates used by participants during the process, or perhaps even screen shots of systems and services that are interacted with.Therefore we’ve added the ability to attach files to any process or activity inside Blueprint. You can upload any type of file or asset that you’d like to keep track of along with your process. And just like all the other types of content in Blueprint, it’s a snap to share with other people in your organization and it’s all covered by a full audit trail and revision history.

  

• Easy Invites: Our design team is always looking for ways to improve the user experience in Blueprint, and one of the issues we found with previous releases was that it was harder than necessary to invite additional people to collaborate with you in the product. To that end, we’ve cleaned up the home page and given you the ability to send an invitation to collaborate right there. Just enter your colleague’s email address, hit return, and they’ll be up and running in two shakes.We’re so excited about this change that we’ve given all new accounts the ability to invite an unlimited number of users during the 30 day free trial period. So don’t hesitate to start sharing your processes… tis’ the season!

  

• Password Rules: Process documentation can be some of the most sensitive information an organization creates, so we understand that the security of your data is a paramount concern. Especially as more and more people begin using Blueprint in your organization, ensuring that everyone keeps their login information secure becomes increasingly important. To that end, we’ve added the ability to configure password strength policies for everyone on your account. You can set minimum lengths, content rules, expiry dates, and all the other rules that you need. And we’ve made it dead simple to configure.

We update Blueprint every 6 weeks, so keep an eye out for some more neat stuff coming in February. And if you want the inside scoop and some sneak peeks along the way, be sure to follow us on twitter!