One of the great pleasures of delivering Blueprint as a SaaS application is that we’re able to stay flexible and update the product approximately every six weeks. To that end, we dedicated the February Update of Blueprint to fulfilling the top three customer requests we’ve heard over the past few months on the forums and out in the field.
Take a look at this screencast for a quick rundown or see the full details after the break.
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.
The latest monthly refresh of Blueprint went live this morning, and I’m excited to give you the scoop on the changes. Over the past 6 weeks, we’ve focused on addressing the top pieces of feedback that we’ve heard from customers. With this release, you’ll find it much easier to keep track of who’s currently using Blueprint, to collaborate with new users, and to print out your process diagrams in exactly the right format. We use your feedback to drive our release schedule, so make sure you give us your thoughts!
Let’s take a look at the improvements in detail:
User Management: In today’s business environment, it’s more important than ever to ensure that you’re getting maximum utilization of your software. One of the great benefits of Blueprint’s SaaS model is that you can add users to your account just in time when they need access to the tool. When they’re done, you can remove or reuse their license so you’re not paying for software that isn’t being used. This can save you a ton of money compared to traditional desktop tools like Visio that require a big upfront investment and then only get used a few times a year by many people.
In this release, we’ve greatly enhanced our user management capabilities. You can now see at a glance who has access to your account, when they last used Blueprint, and how many seats you have available. If someone doesn’t need access anymore, it’s just one click to archive them and make their license available to someone new.
Today I’m happy to announce that we’ve gone live with the latest batch of Blueprint improvements. This release is unique–not only will all current Blueprint customers get to use the changes immediately, but anyone who’s signing up for a new account also will enjoy the benefits. Over the last month we’ve focused on two areas: giving you the best experience possible for documenting the details behind your processes and creating a simpler and easier signup process for new users.
Let’s take a look at the improvements in detail:
Structured Documentation View: The documentation view in Blueprint has always been a place to record the “narrative” behind your process–the procedures, training material, KPIs, and the like. But we’ve also heard from you that it’s important to be able to see all of the inputs and outputs, stakeholders, and opportunities for improvement that you’ve recorded in context on that view as well. As of today, the documentation view is your one stop shop for viewing and editing all of the details behind your process.
This has been one of my favorite improvements to Blueprint so far. We’ve been using the updated interface internally for the last few weeks and it’s already made us much more productive at capturing and disseminating information about our processes inside Lombardi, and I think it will do the same for you and your team. Let us know what you think on the Blueprint forums!
Today I’m proud to announce the availability of the Summer ‘08 Update release of Blueprint! One of the great benefits of delivering Blueprint in SaaS model is that we’re able to stay nimble and quickly add functionality that improves the value of the product for everyone. So following shortly on the heels of our main Summer ‘08 release, we’ve added features to address some of the most common requests we hear from our customers.
Let’s take a look at them in detail:
Microsoft Word Export: Blueprint now gives you the ability to automatically generate a Microsoft Word document containing all the details of your process. This is a great way to communicate your process to stakeholders that don’t have a Blueprint account. For example, we’ve been using this feature internally to generate “specifications” for our processes when we need to interact with outside vendors.
Today I’m proud to announce the availability of the Summer ‘08 release of Blueprint! In the Spring ‘08 release, we delivered what we feel is the best process diagramming tool on the market, online or off. Over the last two months we’ve focused on improving the “other half” of process documentation — the standards and procedures, narratives, and data that make up the details that live behind the picture of the process. Let’s take a look at the improvements in depth:
Rich Wiki Editing Of Process Documentation: Blueprint now provides a rich, wiki-style experience for filling out the details of your process. You can link to external documents, embed images, and format your documentation any way you please. Already have something written up in Microsoft Word? No problem. Just paste it in and we’ll leverage what you’ve already done.
I’m very happy to announce that the Spring ‘08 release of Blueprint is now live. A quick rundown of the new features is below. But don’t take my word for it: log in now and check it out. Sign up for a your own account now if don’t have one yet.
Improvements in the Spring ‘08 release:
Improved usability in the diagram view : Significant ease of use and productivity improvements have been made in the diagram based upon customer feedback and testing. The toolbar in the diagram view has been replaced by the Blueprint “plus sign”, which allows you to click where you want to insert an item and have it show there immediately. New Blueprint users will be able to get started quicker and experienced users can get their job done a lot faster.
The Blueprint product team is continuously improving the product based upon customer feedback. We’ve recently made some exciting usability improvements and introduced some new features that we’d like to tell you about…
Multi-level Undo
Made a mistake? Blueprint views include a new action toolbar with a one-click access to easily undo your recent changes. You can also print your process diagrams and export to Powerpoint for sharing with others.
It Should be Easy
We’ve made numerous changes to improve the ease of use and usability of Blueprint. These changes include improved help, guided wizards for creating processes, search capabilities, improved process lists, and easier navigation.
Diagram Labels
Gateways and splits now include text labels for improved readability and legibility of diagrams. Blueprint also supports having labels on flow lines as shown below.
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