Release 2012-11-03: Longer Sessions

• A new Keep me logged in checkbox on the Login page allows you to stay logged in on a trusted device for up to 4 months! Make sure to update your links to point to Main.act (with a capital "M") and you may never see the login screen again! Companies may choose to disallow longer sessions, or decrease the maximum session length.
• The link in the Review Overdue email now goes directly to the My Reviews page where you may already be logged in, thus eliminating the final speed-bump for the most effortless reviews possible.
• PlanBase does not advertise to its clients, or share client information with advertisers. We have always endeavored to keep email to a minimum, consolidating all status updates into the maximum of one email per day. But for users who do not want any email, they can now turn off their email by editing their account. There is no way to turn off the security notification when someone changes your account password, or to prevent yourself from getting a password-reset email.
• Any modification to a user's account now takes effect on their very next click. They do not have to log out and log back in again, though the modified user can refresh their screen (by pressing the F5 key) to ensure they are viewing the latest navigation options available to them.
• Easier date navigation: move backwards and forwards through your history by clicking the tiny blue left and right carets next to the Review Month drop-down in the left-hand navigation.

Release 2012-07-02: Simplified Reviews

• A to-do list-style "My Reviews" screen makes it even quicker and easier for most people to update their reviews. It shows everything you need to review in one place and lets you update the reviews right there, without even clicking to another screen.
• Review overdue reminders are now available up to three times per month. Your application manager can ask PlanBase to set up this feature for your company at any time.
• New Select All checkbox on the Home screen lets you clean up all your old messages in a snap!

Release 2012-05-12: Longer Links

• Links to supporting materials can now be up to 500 characters long (was 255 chars). This affects objective/strategy reviews, tactic reviews, function links, and process definition links.
• Creation Status approval has been simplified - the two controls on the Strategy Edit screen have been merged into one for clarity and ease of use.
• Plan CSV Download now includes the Strategy Tag of the parent strategy next to each tactic.

Clone Strategy

Release 2012-02-26

Hoshin Improvements

• Cloning Strategies:
  • Clone (Copy) any strategy by clicking the little blue clone link next to that strategy on the Plan screen. The duplicate will include supporting strategies, tactics, and associated ad hoc metrics, but not owners or review information.
  • Cloning uses one strategy as a template for creating others. A strategy that represents a pre-defined approach or methodology may be an especially good candidate for cloning.
  • A cloned strategy does not retain any ties to the original strategy you used as a template; changing a clone does not change the original and vice-versa. You can even move a cloned strategy to a different plan!
• Missing Owners:
  • When building a plan, you no longer have to specify an owner of an objective/strategy/tactic. Leaving the owner blank is a handy way to suppress the "You have been assigned a strategy" message while you are sketching out an idea for a plan.
  • Objectives/strategies/tactics that are missing owners will show up with a gray background so that they are easy to differentiate from active parts of a plan.
  • Objectives/Strategies cannot move past a red creation status without an owner. Tactics now have a red creation status if they are missing an owner.
  • On the first and 15th of every month, the system will remind you to clean up any strategies and tactics you may have without owners.
  • A new "Missing Owner" creation status shows up on the Plan Status screen and the Plan CSV download.

General Improvements

• When adding a new user, you can now un-check the Send Email box if you have a more secure way of delivering temporary passwords, or if you wish to perform other setup on a user before giving them access to the system.

Release 2011-11-30: Improved graphs and Move Strategy

Improved graphs in PlanBase Scorecard bring a new level of visual management to performance measurement:

• Green, yellow, and red background shading highlights on-track, behind-plan, and off-track performance over time.
• Click on any graph to display a full-size version suitable for presentations, printing, or copying to other applications outside of PlanBase Scorecard

As another improvement, you can now move strategies around when building or modifying a plan in PlanBase Hoshin. Easily undo a move if you change your mind. This feature enables you to:

• Move an objective/strategy to a different part of a plan
• Combine one plan into another
• Promote an objective/strategy to its own new plan.

Existing customers can access ShowMe learning modules on these new features.

Inquire today about how PlanBase Hoshin and PlanBase Scorecard can elevate your planning and process improvement!

Release 2011-10-05: Scorecard CSV

A new entity spreadsheet download (opens in Microsoft® Excel® or other spreadsheet application) shows a rolling 15 months of data (same as the Entity view screen) for every metric in an entity and its immediate sub-entities. Like the Heat Map screen, it shows two levels of entities. The CSV file format is easily machine-readable and should be compatible with most spreadsheet-type programs. This spreadsheet download can be used for "slicing and dicing" or reporting on data in the system or as a reverse of the Batch Data Load process.

Easier Password Reset

• Users can now reset their own passwords if they lose them, so long as they have set up a secret question for their account. A new column on the Users screen shows super-users who has and has not set up their secret question.
• The Plan Status screen can show the email address of every owner of every item displayed on that screen. Just click the little blue, show their email addresses link next to the Email link below the Report Settings box.
• A new Reset button on the Users screen allows super-users to unlock a user's account and email them a new randomly-generated password with just two clicks; one on the Reset button next to the person's name and one on the "Are you sure?" dialog that pops up to confirm the email address.
• The Add User screen has been streamlined so that a super-user can supply an email address, check off the necessary permissions, and the rest of the screen fills itself out. When the super-user clicks Submit, the system now emails the new user the necessary login information.
• The system provides a randomly-generated temporary-password suggestion when a super-user changes someone else's password or adds a new user.
• A new Increase User Limits screen allows the application manager to increase their limits without picking up the phone or typing an email.
• If you have not changed your password since February 27th, you will be forced to change it the next time you log into the system. This manual password change is the only way to activate the security benefits of the 2011-02-28: Pareto Analysis release.