New Features
3. August 2023
New feature Customer access and customer users
- Customer access can be activated per project (or subproject)
- Since not all customer‑facing contacts are always involved in projects, only the customer users who should have access can be selected
- Each customer user can also be given its own role to control permissions
- With customer access, only those users can be assigned to a project who are also assigned to the customer in question
- This is an additional security mechanism that prevents accidentally assigning the wrong customer users to a project and thus allowing one customer to see another customer's projects
New feature General guest access
- Unlike customer access, general guest access is not limited to a customer's projects
- General guest users are for example partners, suppliers, service providers, consultants or external reviewers/auditors
- In the Users menu item, customer users and general guest users are now added and managed in addition to internal users
New feature Roles for guest users and customer users
- Assigning permissions to customer and guest users is easy and secure by using roles
- Roles are managed centrally in the new menu item Guest Roles, which can be found under Settings > More
Identity and users
- Previously in Octaved Flow there were only Users
- Now there is a distinction between users and identities
- An identity basically consists of the user name (email address) and the password
- Several users can be assigned to one identity
- This makes it possible for a person (identity) to act as a customer user in one organization and as a regular user in his own organization (company)
- There is no need to log in again or write down another password
- Switching between the two organizations is possible without logging in again
- All user accounts have been automatically switched to the new logic. No further actions are required from the user's point of view, everything works as before
Changed functionality Login now in two steps
- Previously, username (email) and password were entered on one page to log in to Octaved Flow
- To enable the above features, the login has been split into two steps: In the first step the username (email address) is entered and only in the second step the password
- The division into two steps also corresponds to the general trend in the SaaS sector
New feature Board also for tasks
- The board was previously only available for projects, subprojects and work packages
- Now the board is also available for tasks
- Tasks had so far only a simple text editor for additional notes to the task, which was accessible via the icon yellow sticky note
- Now it is possible to switch between the simple text editor and a complete board with all elements such as meeting report, image/drawing or release request (note: switching is only possible as long as there is no content)
- As tasks can be used for collaboration with customers, the board's functions offer much more possibilities for this purpose
New feature Board element image now with additional text area
- Previously, the board element image could only contain one or more images
- Text was not provided
- Instead a text element could be added
- The feedback of our customers has shown that in the collaboration with customers, for example technical drawings are discussed, which are inseparable from the explanatory text
- Therefore it is now possible to save such an explanatory text directly with the image (the technical drawing)
New feature Comment function to board posts
- To each board posts now a comment can be delivered
- This can be several comments from different users
- It is also possible to reply to comments and to write your own reply to replies
- With comments and the corresponding replies, a two‑level structure is created, which remains clear even with longer progressions and discussions
- This function is useful for everyone, especially if you do not want to change the content of a board post yourself, but only want to draw the author's attention to something
- With the coming function customer users this feature then unfolds its full benefit. Because with it it is possible that customer users do not receive permission to edit board posts (one would like to keep control over contents), but comments as for example change requests can deliver
- With the comment function in the board this is then transparent and traceable
New feature Additional sorting option for board posts
- Board posts were previously sorted by default with the most recently edited board post on top
- However, with the comments feature, where comments and replies are sorted chronologically from top to bottom, this sorting is confusing
- Therefore, the default sorting is now that the most recently edited board posts are at the bottom
- The sort button can be used to reset the sorting to the previous order
27. Juli 2023
Improvement Project controlling
- In the Project controlling section, the colors have been refreshed and the design has been made clearer.
New feature Export of project plan in Excel format
- The project plan can be exported in Excel format.
- Even though the Guest access feature for customers is about to be launched, many of our Octaved Flow users' customers still want the project plan in Microsoft Project or Excel format.
New feature Filter by user in Kanban board for work packages
- In the Kanban board for work packages, it is now possible to filter by user as well as by project.
- When mapping workflows such as To do > In progress > Review > Done, the progress of a project as well as the status for individual users across projects can thus be displayed.
- According to the octaved flow model for the division of work, at least the project manager permission level is required to change work packages. To enable workflows for work packages, normal users with write permission can now edit labels for work packages.
Improvement Inbox
- Project managers can be notified via Inbox when a work package for which they have the Project manager role has been checked off as completed.
- If work packages have been scheduled with a time dependency, a notification can be sent when the previous work package has been checked off as completed. In case of a time dependency, the following work package is then not really the next one, but it is good to know that you can start earlier if necessary.
- As always, the notification can be done only in Octaved Flow, additionally via the system notifications (different for Windows than for Apple products) and additionally via email. This is adjustable per notification type.
Improvement Color groupings for tasks in work packages
- Tasks can be grouped into groups, each of which can be collapsed
- These groups can now be provided with individual colors
Further improvements
- After copying a time entry from a previous day, it automatically jumps to today.
- In Work times/off-days there is now a button to edit regular weekly working hours instead of a somewhat hidden entry in the menu.
- In the task list, the drop-down box for selecting labels can now be closed with an "X".
- Selecting a new board item to create a post automatically closes the list of available board items to make more room for content.
15. Juni 2023
New feature Mark projects as templates
- In the project settings, a project can now be marked as a template:
- With the help of the filter it is possible to hide templates in the project overview or to show only templates:
- Archived was previously a checkmark (checkbox) in the project settings and has now migrated to the selection field. This makes Archived another possible project status.
- All possible project statuses:
New feature Lock projects
- It is possible to lock work packages in Octaved Flow. No project work time can be posted to locked work packages.
- A possible use case is that there are fundamental discussions with the customer at the moment, so the work package should not be processed further
- In order to lock an entire project, all work packages had to be locked up to now. Although this is possible via a central function with just one mouse click, other statuses such as Closed are overwritten in the process.
- With the new selection field for the project status, it is now also possible to lock a complete project while leaving the status of the individual work packages unchanged.
1. Mai 2023
18. April 2023
New feature Relative shifting of planning when copying projects
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When copying a project, the planning can now be copied along with it and the planning can also be moved relative to an entered date in the process
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The use case is, for example, that there is a template with a standard schedule of a certain project type. The template is copied into a (regular) project. A date is specified by which the project should be completed. From this date, the planning is then applied "backwards" so that Octaved Flow determines the required start date based on it.
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Not only the start date is converted relatively, but of course the whole project planning including all dependencies.
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When relatively copying the planning, the calculation can be done from the end date or from the start date
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The new function can be used when copying templates as well as when copying current and past projects
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Subprojects can be copied in the same way as complete projects
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If there are holidays in the project plan of the original, they will be calculated out of it
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If there are holidays in the copy, they will be added and the project duration will be extended accordingly.
Improved Inbox for notifications
- What is the Inbox? The Inbox is the central source of information for collaboration. In the Inbox, all events are displayed chronologically: Was I assigned a task, mentioned in a post, or asked a question?
- The new design makes it even easier to see what's important: