I know, sometimes we let this blog get a little too quiet. But if you’ve been following us for a while, then you know that when this happens it’s usually a sign of us being busy building new things. This year we’ve been expanding into some new territories, and have proved Isimio to be an effective application in the hospitality industry on two separate occasions. We handled hotel reservations, built-in guest messages, maintenance visits, and more – all on our standard scheduler.

In the workforce management space, we’ve been focusing on adding new functionality for field-service operations. You may have noticed some updates to the mobile app, with better functionality while working offline, new things to do with forms, and some cool new configuration options.

Most importantly, we also launched this new website! Pretty cool, right? The setup guide is still where it was, so these resources are always available to you.

If you’re interested in what’s been happening with Isimio, here are our product updates for September 2021:

Isimio Scheduling

• [New Feature] Grid Mode. In grid mode, you can select any relational or picklist field from your object to serve as both the row and the column in the scheduler! Create custom views for all jobs by client and role, or sort all bookings in a grid of rooms over loyalty status.
  
  With this feature we have also enabled picklist fields to be selected as rows in the normal scheduling view, in addition to relational fields.
  
• [New Feature] Recurrence: Like “repeat” on steroids, recurrence can keep a record repeating indefinitely on a set pattern. This pattern can take into account a day/week/month interval, days of the week, or day of the month. It can be left without an end date to create perpetually-repeating records.
  
• [New Feature] Map Lookups. This feature allows you to fill in a field by searching for, and selecting a result on a map. You can focus on a location instantly by typing in a post code, and the selected record can be tagged into any compatible lookup field on the object you’re scheduling.
  
• [New View] Calendar Month view allows you to list all records in the span of a particular month. One column for September, one column for October, one for November, etc.
  
• Configuration-based styling has been added to the object level. Also added custom selectors, allowing you to configure completely custom styling rules without the need for a CSS plugin.
  
  Additionally, Isimio now supports CSS variables in custom styling. This means that you can configure to use the value of a particular field as a styling property – for example, having a formula field that controls the background colour of the record.
  
• Configuration is now cached on a platform cache partition, reducing the time it takes for the application to load after a page refresh
  
• Fields belonging to row objects can now be configured as Sortable. This causes the scheduler to sort by the value of those fields, rather than the record name.
  
• Lookup fields can now show more information in addition to the name
  
• Validators can now have multiple criteria conditions, allowing for more complicated checks using configuration. These criteria now also support Not Equal To and Contains operators.
  
• A new utility lightning component was added, which can be embedded in screen flows. This component can send commands to the scheduler from the flow, such as instructing it to refresh or to close the modal window containing the flow.
  
• Isimio will automatically check object and field names when configuring the schema, and alert you if you have entered invalid values
  
• Introduced Loading Helpers for objects. These are Apex classes that can implement custom logic to specify exactly which records the scheduler should load. Use these to create complex filters that explicitly detail which records should appear in Isimio.
  
• Dozens of performance optimisations, fixes, and other minor changes to improve usability not worth mentioning explicitly

Calendar Feed

We are now trialling a new tool to generate calendar feeds dynamically. These feeds are compatible with Google Calendar, Outlook, and any other calendar applications that support the popular iCal format.

This integration can allow users without access to the CRM or the mobile app to subscribe to events from your system, and keep an up-to-date calendar in whatever tool they choose.

To try this out, please contact us.

Isimio Workforce Management

• Isimio Workforce Management now includes our Mobile Forms offering. This allows your staff to remotely fill forms via our mobile app. These forms support merge fields (data coming from the CRM), various types of inputs, and signature capture.
  
• Work orders now support two new patterns: single day each month (regardless of weekday), and specific week of the month.
  
• The mobile app now supports customer-level translations. Most texts in the app can now be overridden.
  
• Work notes on the mobile app can now link to an attached file on the work note record. Great for sharing documents with workers.
  
• The mobile app now has better offline support. The following are now supported offline:
  • Signing in/out of a shift
  • Photo capture
  • Mobile Forms
    
• Mobile Forms have been upgraded with new input types, such as Picklist and Textarea. Fields can also now be set as required and be given default values. Forms can now be saved as draft even while offline, and be reloaded later. Mobile forms which have been submitted and rejected (sent back to the user who submitted it) will now show all their pre-submitted values.
  
• Changed the way photo capture is implemented to support newer operating system restrictions (I’m looking at you, Android 11). Users can now also enter a title and description when submitting a photo.
  
• Added pull-to-refresh to several pages, such as the home page, shifts list, and forms list
  
• Pay estimate can now be shown for job offers
  
• Introduced a new invocable method to send SMS messages (using select APIs), which can be used to automate the sending of messages to workers and clients
  
• Various fixes and performance optimisations

The above is included for new and existing customers, so please get in touch if you are interested in learning more about them.