New Service Manager UI

[Michael Sharp]

Not for the first time we are seeing changes to the UI of the platform without our prior knowledge.  Why do these updates fall outside of controlled updates?  Can we at least be notified of impending changes please?

Regards,

Mike.

[Jeremy]

+1, our thoughts are the same as you Michael. It would be nice to know at least to give people a heads up.

[Adrian Simpkins]

Hi, jumping on here - I noticed these updates too, and now the drop down menu's do not work in Edge? They work in IE, but I can not get any drop downs to trigger in Edge ! Any ideas please?

Didn't know if you have seen this as well Jeremy / Michael?

Thanks

[Jeremy]

Fortunately for us we do not recommend these browsers, so if analysts have problems we suggest that they change browser!

However I have tested and this doesn't work for me either in Edge, further to this no dropdowns work sub-status etc....

[Adrian Simpkins]

Thanks for checking Jeremy - our standard browser is IE, but I use Edge mostly myself. I have advised all Users, but ideally need the drop downs to function correctly in any browser, guess I will await further comments from someone at Hornbill

 

[Alisha]

We are also having the same issue with drop-downs in Edge.

[Guest Chaz]

Can see the issue with Edge, just investigating and will report back shortly.

[Adrian Simpkins]

Thanks Chaz 

 

[Deen]

We have now produced a patch to correct the Edge related issues.  If anyone is still encountering problems please let me know.

[Adrian Simpkins]

Hi Deen, looks good to me, thanks for the quick fix, if I see anything untoward I will let you know

Many thanks

[Deen]

No problem Adrian.  The patch should have been rolled out for everyone and should no longer be an issue.

[Alberto M]

@Deen, I've just received this from a colleague.

This colleague has two tabs opened in the browser - she usually keeps two tabs opened while working with different views in each one - and in one tab, as she didn't refreshed it, she kept having the workspaces notification icon, while in the second tab, that has been refreshed, the workspaces notification icon doesn't appear anymore.

Is this workspaces notification icon supposed to disappear in this new version of the UI?

 

Regards,

Alberto

[James Ainsworth]

@Alberto M

Yes, the changes to the Notifications in the top bar no longer includes the extra Home icon.  All of the notifications remain under the single notification bell. 

[Martin.bowman]

@James Ainsworth Shame, I found the Home Workspace icon really useful to keep these separate given the number of other notifications I have in the Bell icon

 

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Martin,

I do understand that some may have found the Home icon useful.  We are working to make UI improvements throughout Hornbill and these improvements are to help all sorts of different types of Hornbill users.  One area that we are improving is based around "accessibility" to help with the visually impaired.   We also have a lot of users that only use Hornbill for collaboration and others that use multiple applications, so we are always looking for the right balance of information to display, without creating too much clutter.

There has been a number of UI updates rolling out of the last few months.  Things like an updated look to the icons used throughout Hornbill, or the Workspace list on the News Feed which has seen some nice tweaks, a revamped Workspace activity steam,  plus many others.  In most cases the individual changes are very subtle and may go unnoticed, but when put together, the result is a much cleaner look and feel.  There may be some UI changes that result in a slightly different way of working, but we will do our best to kept these to a minimum.  

Kind regards,

James

[Michael Sharp]

On 4/28/2020 at 9:59 AM, Michael Sharp said:

Not for the first time we are seeing changes to the UI of the platform without our prior knowledge.  Why do these updates fall outside of controlled updates?  Can we at least be notified of impending changes please?

Regards,

Mike.

@James Ainsworth the original query still stands (I actually like the home button adjustment by the way) - admins/managers are not being advised of these UI changes before they're literally thrown at us by Hornbill.  I don't see why this should be any different than the general updates or at the very least, notice would be appropriate.  Please can you advise?

Regards and thanks,

Mike.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi Mike,

Automatic updates of cloud based subscription models is very common these days.  All of our customers Hornbill platforms and some aspects of the applications are being continuously updated.  This has been the case since the creation of Hornbill.   Your Hornbill will have had potentially thousands of changes applied.   This ability to incrementally update Hornbill automatically has huge benefits to our customers as we add more features that you get to take advantage of, along with improvements to our technology.

We do provide previews of changes that have a high impact, such as the new Employee Portal.  We have also had complete UI re-writes in the past where again, a preview was offered.  In most cases when new features are added, they are not enabled.  This gives you a chance to learn about how you want to use these features before providing them to your end users.  With minor tweaks to the UI which may be a simple alignment or a change to an icon or a layout on a form has changed, these are happening every day.  Providing previews of these minor tweaks may not be the best use of your time being that they are a daily occurrence.  We do provide pop-up training on new features to make users aware of changes, but do not add these pop-ups to minor UI tweaks.  

Automatic updates are likely to be used more throughout all of our applications.  While there may be some minor UI changes that you come across, the real benefit is that you will always be up to date with the latest features and fixes.

Kind regards,

James

[Michael Sharp]

On 5/5/2020 at 9:24 AM, James Ainsworth said:

Hi Mike,

Automatic updates of cloud based subscription models is very common these days.  All of our customers Hornbill platforms and some aspects of the applications are being continuously updated.  This has been the case since the creation of Hornbill.   Your Hornbill will have had potentially thousands of changes applied.   This ability to incrementally update Hornbill automatically has huge benefits to our customers as we add more features that you get to take advantage of, along with improvements to our technology.

We do provide previews of changes that have a high impact, such as the new Employee Portal.  We have also had complete UI re-writes in the past where again, a preview was offered.  In most cases when new features are added, they are not enabled.  This gives you a chance to learn about how you want to use these features before providing them to your end users.  With minor tweaks to the UI which may be a simple alignment or a change to an icon or a layout on a form has changed, these are happening every day.  Providing previews of these minor tweaks may not be the best use of your time being that they are a daily occurrence.  We do provide pop-up training on new features to make users aware of changes, but do not add these pop-ups to minor UI tweaks.  

Automatic updates are likely to be used more throughout all of our applications.  While there may be some minor UI changes that you come across, the real benefit is that you will always be up to date with the latest features and fixes.

Kind regards,

James

@James Ainsworth I don't wholly agree with your comments here unfortunately - as these comments would generally apply to non-production/time-sensitive use services e.g. Facebook, Netflix and others.  Changes to the styling for example I appreciate would be a waste of your customer's time reviewing however changes to the operational aspects of the system I think do merit a weekly or monthly notification in advance of those changes going ahead or should be considered to be instead included in your update roll-ups.

Removing the House notification on the top ribbon is a good example of this and I don't get the impression this was customer led (or queried with) due to grumbles above and I can't see anything on the forums to request this.  Also, the drop down icons were not tested properly but rolled out automatically which (particularly if affecting a more popular browser) could have had severely impacting results.

I'm not averse to automatic updates at all but we rely on your product to deliver based on tight SLAs and think it unfair to have to react to unexpected changes to the behaviour of the product as well - this is one of the sold benefits of using Hornbill, as we are usually in control of these adjustments. 

Regards,

Mike.