Over the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing some changes to our web backend which focus on connectors and user experience. We hope you enjoy these new improvements!
Operation Simplify
We’re working to de-clutter and simplify our web backend, with a focus on making the platform more approachable for new users. The first round of changes for this project will roll out in the next few days, consisting primarily of collapsable areas across most pages on the website. In our Screen designers, we’ve leveraged these collapsable areas to better group and collate common field properties for easier reference and discoverability.
A new option is also being added to the Settings menu – namely “View Mode”. This allows web users to toggle all areas open or closed based on whether they choose a Basic or Advanced view. For power users, the Advanced mode provides access to all areas without any need to toggle.
For direct customers, the left-hand menu will soon feature a new Help & Support section, with links to our embedded tutorials and support documentation. Single sign-on into our support site is coming soon, reducing the need to maintain a separate login for our Freshdesk-powered support site.
We’ll also be progressively adding short contextual help videos into the platform over the coming months.
Connector Improvements
We’ve made a few tweaks to our SharePoint connectors for Forms that open up new possibilities when pushing data to Microsoft’s workhorse platform.
New Metadata/Keywords Option on SharePoint Documents Connector
You’ll now be able to apply metadata to documents you create via our SharePoint Documents connector. This metadata can be static text or dynamically generated via a formula, and will be added to the uploaded file via SharePoint’s Enterprise Keywords facility.
Easy Refresh of Columns on SharePoint List Connector
Currently, if columns change on your target SharePoint List, you’ve needed to delete your associated Form connector and recreate in order to see the new columns in the field mapping area of the connector. No more! Once this improvement goes live, a new Refresh option will appear on your SharePoint List connector, enabling you to refresh the column list and update field mappings without deleting 🙂
Send Media Files Separately
We’re adding the ability to separately send photos and other media files captured on a Form entry through connectors. This option will be available for most storage based connectors (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox etc) as well as on our email connector.
This has been a popular request from many customers, so we’re excited to finally provide this!
Website as a Service Enhancements
For customers with their own branded version of our web backend, we’re adding some tasty new options that expand your customisation options.
Custom Side Menu
You’ll soon be able to completely override and reorganise the standard left-hand menu in the web platform. Not only will you have control over the order, groupings, title, icon and link targets of everything in the menu, but you’ll also be able to open external pages from other websites inline via an HTML iframe option.
We’ve also catered for restricting menu options based on the logged-in user’s access level and permissions, so you can control who gets to see what on the menu, similarly to our standard menu.
New Default Landing Page Option
Along with your awesome side menu superpowers, you’ll also be able to specify the default landing page for users after they log into the web platform. This will be definable by access level, so you can send administrators to a different spot compared to regular users.
We’ve gotten stuck into the enhancements and new features promised on our roadmap, and this is just the beginning – its going to be a huge year 🙂
As always, please let us know what you think!