Release Notes - Package 253
The 253.0 package release of OnePlace marks an important milestone with the release of a number of separate projects we've been working on. We're rather chuffed to be sharing the details of these with you as they're both super cool and, represent some highly valuable capabilities.
Behind the curtain, there's an incredible amount of work that goes into the build and it's worth taking a moment to give a huge shout out or even a "hells yeah" to the whole team - Gus, Jason, Warrick, Melissa, Paul, Don and our most recent addition, Tommy. Not only are they kicking goals but their sleeves are firmly rolled up for a massive 2019!
Please feel free to contact James Kleinig if you want to discuss anything in this update for clarity or questions or just to catch up.
Note
This update looks great in the Confluence Mobile App or the iPhone App Try it out!
Included in this update:
New Features
See below for a high-level breakdown of the new features we're building into OnePlace.
Multi-lingual
The ability for client users to change the language of the fields, headings, pop up messages etc., is important because it both broadens our ability to sell into non-English speaking markets, but also means global firms with non-English speaking users have the option to use OnePlace in the language of their choice. Which is cool, right?
We’ve initially translated French Canadian to cater to the needs of our Canadian clients, and we can now translate other languages on as needs and case-by-case basis.
So please let us know if you see a big need to translate another language; it takes about three weeks to process the translation.
Document Builder
We actually released Document Builder late last year, but it's a notable inclusion because it's kinda awesome. |
Every firm has an ongoing need to produce proposals as they pitch their firm's capabilities, experience and people in order to win new work.
Within firms, there is inefficiency in how they produce draft proposals and how they store and maintain their proposal content. By combining OnePlace and Microsoft Word drafting proposals becomes both faster and easier.
Currently, most firms are using a combination of past proposals, spreadsheets and/or Sharepoint to try to manage this, or they use dedicated pitching products like Pitch Perfect or Qorus Breeze.
What have we built to help?
Document Builder is a content tool which sits in Word, firms use it to create capability statements, proposals and CVs drawing on data and information stored and maintained in OnePlace. It helps people to quickly and easily add sections of text into Word documents, but it also helps them to add and update sections of text which can be used by others.
Is it ready?
Yes. It's ready to be deployed to clients now as an MVP or BETA product for clients with an appetite to trial it. For selling into firms who are quite mature in their pitching processes we'd probably recommend referring to Pitch Perfect, who we are talking with about establishing an integration.
We have a handful of clients who are poised to begin installations of Document Builder like Haynes & Boon and Al Tamami and a lot of other firms are very interested.
We need as many of you as possible to get your hands on Document Builder to find any bugs we may have missed or raise questions we may not have thought of.
Sales team, you have your very own instance of Document Builder on our production OnePlace org so you can take full advantage of the magic, get to know the product and test it out all at once! Check out the How to use Document Builder guide to get started.
What's next?
We have an exciting roadmap for Document Builder which we expect to be ready around Q2 2019, which includes:
Adding People
Adding Matters and Experience
Connecting proposal docs to Companies in OnePlace
iManage and Net Documents integration
Want even more info?
Experience Builder
Experience Builder will be the tool firms manage their firm’s CV. Some firms are very reactive and cobble together their CVs, others take a very proactive and sophisticated approach. We're building features into OnePlace which can help our clients to more easily find their relevant work experience and people so they can generate their firm's CV when needed, this will allow them to meet the specific needs of their clients and prospects.
The work these firms do on behalf of their clients is often deeply nuanced and complex, but the details of this are rarely reflected in the information captured in the firm's systems. This valuable information which describes the nature of the work is known as the firm's experience. For the business development folk tasked with finding experience, it can be an inefficient and time-consuming exercise which can have far-reaching impacts on a firm.
What have we built to help?
Loads. We already have a bunch of capabilities in OnePlace to capture Matter descriptions, and Lawyer Bios, but what’s in this release is the Beta that we can show select customers allowing firms to find their content super quickly and easily and store it for use. All of this capability combines to form what is essentially a product, called Experience Builder.
What's next?
We have a little more refinement to do, but we will start working with some clients and start gathering feedback and suggestions for where we need to focus development and improvements with the goal of having a full release for all customers coming out soon by around March/April.
List Builder
Marketing teams within firms produce long lists of contacts who they send function invitations, publications and surveys. The process to draft, review and finalise is time-consuming for those involved due to its 'clunky' nature. Our existing functionality with Manage Contacts has served us well but has some limitations for complex searches. The product is in need of updating and the review and partner approval process can be difficult.
What have we built to help?
We've built an awesome fully functional Beta for firm's marketing teams to build lists of contacts more effectively. It's built directly into the Function or Publication page in OnePlace and is sure to make their internal processes much quicker.
What's next?
We are going to walk through this Beta with a small subset of clients to get their feedback for List Builder.
At the same time, we're also building a view of these contact lists for Partners and secretaries so they can easily review the draft contact list and add or remove contacts as they see fit, called List Contributor. This combined with List Builder (above) will speed up the process for firms to distribute communications.
Feature Tickets in 253
2019 is gonna to be a biggy!
Given all the new clients we won towards the end of last year and looming early this year (well done guys!) we can be sure that lots of new functionality will be added to our roadmap. We'll also be looking to grow our integrations with a number of strategic partners, so things certainly won't be slowing down!
In 2019 we're aligning our client-facing releases with the SalesForce release cycles (Spring 19 etc.) so the messaging to clients (and prospects) is more of a unified collaboration. This won't change our regular hotfixes which will continue to occur many times a month.
There's plenty to be excited about this year as our momentum continues to grow and we continue to expand on our platform with complementary and awesome new features.
Focus for Q1
Continue to refine the major features discussed in this update, gather learnings get these into the hands of clients so we can work together to build product maturity.
We'll also be working on Business Plans, which is a super exciting capability for firms targeted at legal and management users.
We're planning to announce a number of these features to clients to coincide with the SalesForce Spring 19 release.
Monthly Product Webinars
To help you stay on top of what's happening on the product side we'll begin hosting product updates every month for each region where we can share what’s happening, what we're building etc. and give you an overview of what’s on our roadmap. It’s also an opportunity to discuss bits and pieces we're hearing from clients and prospects which we might want to factor into our roadmap. And of course, it's just nice to say hi and catch up!
Weekly Office Hours
We'll also be setting up a weekly "Office Hours" time slot, which is a one-hour Zoom meeting where you can jump on a call with the development team to ask questions and discuss aspects of OnePlace with the team in San Fransisco/Seattle/Denver.