For our Dutch Exact Online customers we have just adjusted the layout of the ‘Help startpage’. With the one aim to make the page better usable by offering you less options in a more clear way. Attention grabber is hopefully a big search field where you can type the keywords for the matter you need help with.

There was one change we got upfront some feedback on; the search field doesn’t come with a ‘Go’ or ‘Search’ button. Just an enter after your keywords will do. Although we got this feedback during our internal reviews we feel confident about the clarity of the search box itself. We think the appropriate action to fire the search (hitting the enter key on your keyboard) is obvious and so we could even make the page more clean. What could you do more than hitting enter on your keyboard after you put in your query?

The new help start page offers you:

• the mentioned search box
• a list of at the moment frequently asked questions
• a quick link to the guidance we offer for different processes
• options to contact us for a question, by phone an to chat instantly
• a way to retrieve your earlier communication with Exact

We certainly hope you find now easier what you are looking for, when you miss something just let us know via a reply to this post.

In June 2010 we have announced the availability of logistic functionality in controlled release for Exact Online.  In this period customers can get acquainted with the functionality and provide us useful feedback during visits, round table sessions or via support.

One of the things that we have learned from the feedback is about the ‘Getting started’-process. How to get started once you have extended your license with new functionality? Is new data required to get started? What is the basic process flow of the new functionality? Over the last months we therefore have researched of how we can better facilitate your first experience with the (new) functionality.

The direction of the new Getting started experience has been in the hands of our user experience team. A team dedicated to studying, analyzing, implementing concepts whereby the user takes the central position. Per functional area we have there fore defined a getting started page that will allow you to navigate throught the main steps of a process flow. We are still fine tuning the pages and are currently evaluating the usability of the pages with users, but I would like to show you an example of the purchase process flow that is displayed on the getting started page of logistics:

Click on the image to show full size

As you can see, you can (hopefully) recognize the basic steps in a logistics purchase process. The flow is interactive, when hovering over the flow you will be able to start the selected process or find help documentation related to selected topic.

Next to the process flow and the main settings required to start with basic process of the respective functionality, you also have direct access to other main sources of help (like e.g. our help start page or other related information).

I hope that with this guided start, you will have a great experience working with our software.

Last October, Sie-Hang Cheung posted an article with the title ‘Synergy 244 user feedback’. The article is about the first feedback we have received via the feedback button in the preview version of Exact Synergy Enterprise, product update 244. Over the last weeks we got lots more feedback from you. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your time and effort. Your feedback is very valuable.

We have used your feedback and the results from user research for the further development of the new design of Synergy Enterprise. We have not only built new functionality and screens, we have also made some good improvements like moving the vertical Communication menu to the top menu bar and a the positioning and behaviour of the Options menu. The user interface looks slightly different from the design which we introduced in product update 244. The interface that we are going to introduce in product update 245 has a solid foundation for further expansion.

I can imagine that you are interested in what you can expect in the next product update. In this post I will give you the highlights of the new design.

Finish Employee Self Service functionality

In product update 244 two self-service functionalities are missing: Medical leave and Expense claims. This functionality will be available. In both screens you will be guided through a wizard, as you know from the Personal time off page.

Person, Account and Project

All cards have the same look-and-feel and layout, which allows you to quickly find your way on the page. The cards are divided into a business card with contact information, a ‘More’ section with general information and tabs. The information on the tabs is arranged by subject. The order of the tabs can easily be changed via drag-and-drop.

Recent contacts

At the right top menu a Recent contacts menu is added. This menu shows an overview of recently contacted employees. It allows you to quickly navigate to one of the employee cards so you do not have to search.

As in the previous product update, the software that we deliver in product update 245 will also be a preview version. We are continuing to further develop this design.

Your feedback is always welcome! Please do not hesitate to contact us through ux@exact.com or comment on this post.

After publication of the blog “Saving time: Come out, Come out, wherever you are!” I got a lot of feedback on the article and functionality which could be divided into two groups. The ones that where extremely positive about the provided functionality and the ones that had some doubts and presented me with a more critical view on the feature. After examining the feedback and contacting some of you to discuss your views it was clear we missed out on the advanced user of Exact Synergy Enterprise with this feature. These users for example remember accounts by number, location and all sorts of other properties but never seem to view the card itself. Meaning it wouldn’t show up in the recently used view nor in the “my” view since they are not the manager of the account. This principle also applied to the other browsers we adjusted.

After the feedback round we concluded that we needed to react to these findings fast and update the functionality so we can support these advanced users in their daily work. In cooperation with you, our users, we decided to upgrade the functionality the following way:

• Setting the default value of the find-in box to the “all” view.
• Performing an immediate search after the find-in box is changed by the user; this will eliminate the need for an extra button click to get the documents in the selected view.
• Retaining the last selected find-in value for every individual search browser and individual user.

We are confident that the made changes are satisfactory for all our types of users. The changes will be available upon general availability of product update 244.

Happy finding!

Thank you for the feedback! We highly appreciate it! 

Photographer: healingdream

Ever been in the situation where you wanted to create a task or something else in Synergy Enterprise which requires, for example, a mandatory account. You just viewed this account, document, project or person and want to setup a meeting with them but when you enter the meeting request can’t seem to find it? Who created it? Who is the manager? What was it exactly called again? The Synergy Enterprise search dialogs don’t have the same possibilities as, for example, the document, project or account search function. And there you go, opening a new window in your browser to start a new session in Synergy to get to the account search function and find that required account, copy the account id number, paste it again in the first browser window in the mandatory account field. Boy, that can be pretty time consuming, especially when in a hurry it looks like it takes ages, lets submit it, What? Why did they made the project mandatory to…..  

Exact Synergy Enterprise 244 find in demo

To address this limitation we upgraded the search dialogs with a ‘find in’ option in Exact Synergy Enterprise release 244. This option allows us to quickly filter on “Recently viewed”, “My” and “All” Documents, Accounts, Projects and Persons (resources). Making everybody’s life easier, hopefully you enjoy it to!  

This topic and demo covers the search for existing document, Accounts, Projects and Persons, wondering how you can easily work with new documents in these cases? See ‘Nothing Gonna Break My Stride’  

Feedback is highly appreciated.

Aad ‘t Hart has recently published articles about Functions and Features versus the User Experience, Simplicity, web identity and more. In this blog I want to zoom in on Employee Self Service (ESS) facilities in a simplified version of Exact Synergy we are creating, and especially requesting a day off. By making Exact Synergy simpler we aim to make it more designed for specific goals, more modern and easier to use.

The ESS portal gives your employees access to their personal data in a secure and transparent environment. As an employee you can for instance enter or change your time off period, enter an expense claim or change the personal address. This undoubtedly leads to reduction of administrative costs.

In the new simplified version of Exact Synergy, that will be available as a beta version in product update 244, we particularly focus on ESS features. One of them is Time Off.

The screenshot above is the entry part of Time Off. As you can see the screen is truly focused on getting the task of asking time off done easily. Also the user is presented the information he or she naturally needs, for instance “What is my balance?” The entry fields are linked based on the choices the employee made so the employee can quickly fill in the request and ask for approval without being confronted with unnecessary fields that may be left blank.

Now you can ‘dream’ about how to spend your personal time while entering the request instead of the think about which procedures to follow to enter a time off request. And that makes a lot more fun…

If you have any questions regarding this post, please create a comment to this article.

Image credit for the header image: neloqua.

In earlier articles on Features and Functions versus User Experience, Is simplicity the new gold and the Survival of the Sexiest I already referred to changing end user expectations. At Exact we take this very seriously and we do not only want to deliver useful products, but also want to create usable and desirable products. Creating excellent user experiences requires in depth knowledge about the user, their context, their needs and emotions. Therefor it’s essential to get the end users involved in the overall product design process in the form of creative workshops, feedback sessions, user research, surveys and many other involvements.

You the end user can join us shaping the products and services of the future. You will get the opportunity to share your knowledge on various business processes, get early previews and provide feedback on early design studies and even get an opportunity to visit our new head quarters in Delft.

All users, new and loyal, from a wide range of business processes are welcome. However we typically focus only on a few functional areas at the same time and this might mean that you have to be patient with your involvement.

Your call to action:

1. If you are a prospect or customer, leave a comment below if you are interested to participate and mention your field of expertise
2. If you are a partner, create awareness among your customers for this create opportunity
3. If you are an Exact employee, promote this among the customers you work with

If you are too shy or prefer to be less visible don’t hesitate to email me on: aad.hart@exact.com and I will make sure you get in contact with the User Experience team.

We are looking forward to work with you.

As an Exact Globe Product Manager I am investigating the current user interface and want to share some of the current options and challenges.

 In Exact Globe you have several options to make your own process flows in the main menu. Using these options helps to focus on the things that are most important or frequently used and to have a visual insight into the process you are performing.  The visual process flow of individual orders is widely used, the process flow in the menu is used less. What is the cause of this and can we improve the user experience here?

Maybe the most well known process flow in Exact Globe is the sales order process flow for a single order: 

 It gives you relevant information of the flow of the sales order in an intuitive way. This flow is shown standard in several entry and overview applications.

Exact Globe also offers the possibility to organize your work on the main menu level into flows that are relevant for your daily work.  The most well known of these is the role bar and it is mostly used in combination with the panel menu.  It is situated to the left of the main panel menu: 

 You can define several process flows, in the example you have the logistic flow, finance and reports. The main part of the menu is still the function based menu with the functional tabs and access to all menu paths per function.

Another way of working is the explorer menu where you have your complete functional menu to the left and can create process flows in the central part of the menu:

 Experience tells us that the possibilities to show process flows in Exact Globe are not widely used. The following are 4 statements that may explain why and possible enhancements to the user interface. I am very interested to hear from you if they are correct:

1. What is often seen is that people use the default screens and settings. Could the user experience be improved when Exact offers standard role based or industry specific templates for these process flows?
2. Another reason can be the limited flexibility in creating the process flows:  At the moment you can only add menu paths from either top to bottom or left to right.  Could the user experience be improved by the ability to show multiple flows grouped in one overview?
3. An opportunity for process flows is the integration with Exact Synergy. When using Synergy and Exact Globe you often have processes that require both products. Wouldn’t it be great if you could see this flow from one screen?
4. The advantage of showing the menu in a process flow is that you have instant visual insight into the specific process flows that you as a user are responsible for. Could the usability be improved if you had a direct insight into the KPI’s of this flow in the same screen?

 Of course I am also very interested in your experience with the current user interface and possible enhancements you see!

We are entering a new world with new success factors. Rajesh Patel mentioned, during the Exact Partner Conference, ‘the survival of the sexiest’. It’s not about sophisticated functionality anymore, but it’s about convenience. In earlier articles about Functions & Features versus User Experience and Is Simplicity the new Gold I already wrote about this. It’s a trend that will change the way we look at business automation. Features versus User Experience needs to be balanced very carefully. You can clearly see this in the Featuritis Curve.

We currently make significant investments into knowledge, expertise and research towards improved User Experiences. This is also why we are, and I admit late, working on multi-browser support and a mobile web application for Exact Synergy Enterprise. I’m very interested to learn your emotional experiences with our solutions.

As of last week product update 395 of Exact Globe is generally available. In this product update Exact Globe is certified for Windows 7. With this introduction video we will answer some of the FAQ’s around the topic. Next to that we will show you some of the new features we have developed which make use of the new options in Windows 7.  Exact is excited that Exact Globe is one of the first enterprise solutions that received the certification. We are convinced that we will provide an improved user experience and that we will enhance the user productivity.