Development updates | January 2020

Development Updates

For many, the start of a new year is a great time for a new beginning. The key, however, is to build on those changes to reach better outcomes in the long run. It’s no different for our product team at Tungsten Network, which is why the upcoming portal redesign – launching on Thursday 23^rd January – is Phase 1 in a year full of enhancements and new features across The Network including improvements to our customer support offering.

We’ve outlined the improvements happening this month, as well as the scope of the project elements coming soon. While you’re here, we’ll keep you notified of further changes in our monthly newsletter – so, make sure you’re subscribed, so you don’t miss anything.

Our themes for development this year centre around three core principals and our wider strategy.

• Quicker connections – On-boarding and enrolment
• Slick service improvements – Customer support and SLA improvements
• Flexible sending and receiving with our Total AP & Total AR solutions

With these five goals at its heart…

1. Improve your user experience so you can perform tasks quicker and easier.
2. Provide a more modern and intuitive design, so you complete day-to-day work in the portal with more ease and enjoyment.
3. Increased security, providing more peace of mind during invoicing of customers, small or large.
4. Improve the platform’s structure and revise outdated code to ensure we can build and deploy functionality rapidly and meet the deadlines we’ve set for improvements.
5. Incorporate new features and functionality that add value to you and make ours the best e-invoicing software on the market

Ad Hoc Release – Service Cloud

Release date – Monday 27^th January

The team is working on upgrading our ticketing and support system so that our operators can field enquiries and respond to your needs more efficiently. On Monday 20^th January, we’ll release back-end changes which will be the foundation for us to make further improvements to the technology stack of The Network, including enhancements to our customer support offering. You should only notice stylistic changes to the ticketing form, but if you experience any problems, please contact our support team via [email protected] or raise a ticket in the portal so that we can resolve any issues that might have arisen during deployment.

Portal redesign

Launch Date – Thursday 23^rd January

You will have access to a new navigation layout, as well as a refreshed user experience – in terms of visuals and usability – from Thursday 23^rd January 2020. These changes lay the groundwork for us to add new features and functionality throughout the year, akin to consumer platforms you use every day – all with the view to make your day to day invoicing tasks faster, easier, secure and more satisfying.

KEY CHANGES IN THE PORTAL REDESIGN

• Moved the menu navigation from the top of the page to the left-hand side to make it easier for users to navigate and know which menu item they have chosen.
• Main menu items have been renamed, e.g. Invoicing to Invoices, My POs to Purchase Orders etc.
• No changes have been made to user permissions which means that users will still have access to whichever menu items they previously had access to.
• All the sub menus have remained the same, except for transaction purchases.
• Purchasing of transactions was previously a subcategory under ‘Invoicing,’ this has now been moved under ‘Your Account’ as it is more suitable to house it here.
• Search functionality has been added to the homepage.
• Reskinned the rest of the Portal to match the new menu styling and colour scheme, also in preparation for the development of new apps, e.g. customer connect.
• Users are still able to upload their logos, but a Tungsten Network logo will now be displayed by default if a personal logo isn’t uploaded.
• Users will be logged out after 30 minutes of inactivity. Still, we will show a session timeout message warning the user and giving them the option to stay signed in – enhancing the security of the portal.
• Removed ‘tree view’ from the Account page on the left-hand side and replaced this with the easier to use ‘breadcrumbs’ method.
• Changed the ‘message’ icon to be more identifiable as an icon as previously users provided feedback to indicate this was not immediately obvious.

COMING SOON – Enhanced reporting tools and functionality

Launch date – Est. end of Q1 TBC

Our approach to building the new reporting functionality has been threefold:

1. First, we started to capture and analyse metrics on report usage.
2. Next, we asked customers for quantitative and qualitative feedback.
3. Finally, we’re combining this with backend functions to improve speed and optimise performance as well as front-end design.

The enhancements to the reporting tool will stabilise the reporting function, ensure data accuracy and increase the usability of running the right reports for your day-to-day needs and management accounts.

Want to BETA test the new reporting functionality?

Coming Soon – Automated Customer Connect

Launch date – Est. end of Q1 TBC

We’re automating our customer connect functionality to make it quicker and easier for buyers and suppliers to connect over our network. Suppliers will now be able to search and see if they have other customers on the network, making it quicker to send electronic invoices from the first sign on.

Once a connection request is sent, the back-end process is accelerated so that buyers can accept the connection sooner.

Want to BETA Test the new Customer Connect functionality?