JXP 6.03 Beta Release

Written by Ed Nash Thursday, 02 December 2010 10:05

Another update was made today to the JXP 6.03 Beta version.  For all customers involved in the testing of the upcoming release you should have a look at the latest changes, the most important being the addition of a Training Notifications area at the top of the user home page.

Also, the release for the beta version was planned for December 5th, but a number of customers have expressed concern that they need more time to prepare their users for the changes.  I will update everyone on the planned release date as it changes.

JXP Update

Written by Ed Nash Tuesday, 30 November 2010 14:19

For some time now we have been working on updating all of JXP to use the new user interface framework first introduced a couple of years ago.  While we want to keep most of the interace and functionality the same, the new framework affords us a lot of flexibility in developing improved screens over the original.

A major change is coming to the Home Page each user sees when they firsty login to JXP.  Currently, user's can get a snapshot view of their day in the "Week Ahead" mini calendar on the home page.  In the new home page, users will be able to access all of their information directly, such as Timesheets, My Schedule, and Time-Off reports.  Hopefully this integration at the home page level will improve productivity, making access to the information employees need most as quick as possible, resulting in less time being spent in JXP.

Prior to this release we will be providing a testing/staging URL where the functionality can be reviewed and tried before being implemented.  Hopefully we will receive the feedback we are looking for to make this release a success for all.

I will post more information as it becomes available.

Skype Trial

Written by Ed Nash Thursday, 21 October 2010 10:58

The primary way of contacting me or anyone at Intekron has been, since the beginning, email.  Email has the advantage of providing a rich medium to share thoughts, ask questions, and to attach additional information that can assist in resolving issues or illustrating ideas.

However, there are other times when direct contact to ask a simple question is desirable.  To address this, I thought it would be a good idea to look for alternatives and have decided to give Skype a try.  Most people are familiar with Skype, but if you haven't looked at I suggest you go to their website and discover how it works (www.skype.com).

For now I will use Skype as a direct link to me, and will make it available onn the Home page and the Contact Us page.  We'll see how it goes and I will update on its effectiveness in the future.

Helpdesk

Last Updated on Thursday, 21 October 2010 11:47 Written by Ed Nash Wednesday, 20 October 2010 09:43

Until recently, support requests were being handled through a forums implementation.  This approach worked fairly well, but there were nevertheless some shortcomings that made it less than ideal.  For one thing, despite many attempts to fix it, email notifications were not reliable and some forum posts could go ignored for extended periods of time.

While looking for a replacement, it was important that there was a way to track problems posted by customers and provide a means to quickly resolve any outstanding issues.  So, rather than a forums approach, a help desk approach was adopted.

The benefits of a help desk is that customers can submit problem reports, and these reports can be assigned to specific employees for resolution.  The time taken to close a problem report is also tracked, allowing us to determine any problem areas in regarding types of issues.  The end result is that while we will be collecting a lot more data regarding problem resolution, this will enable us to determine those areas in customer support and product quality most in need of improvement.

In addition to simple problem submission and resolution, the new help desk also lets us publish some solutions to a public knowledgebase.  This new knowledgebase will grow as the help desk gets used, and will be searchable by customers and staff alike to help in retrieving known solutions for problems in the future.