Appspace 8.9 Pegasus Release Notes for Cloud

Spotlight Feature

Key Functionalities:

• Watchlist Creation and Management: Create and manage watchlists of individuals who are prohibited from entering your premises.
• Real-time Monitoring: The platform continuously monitors visitor information against your watchlists, instantly identifying matches both on visitor invitations and drop-ins.
• Alerts and Notifications: Security personnel and administrators receive instant alerts via enterprise messaging, push notifications, and the user inbox if a watchlisted individual attempts to gain access.
• Customizable Actions: Define custom actions to be taken upon detection of a watchlist match, such as denying entry or alerting security personnel.
• Comprehensive Audit Trail: Maintain a detailed audit trail of watchlist activities and matches for compliance and investigative purposes.

This robust feature provides peace of mind and safeguards the reputation and integrity of businesses and organizations by enhancing security and streamlining access control.

This release introduces a valuable enhancement to Visitor Management (VM), ensuring hosts are accurately informed of their visitor’s check-in location, even if it differs from the original invitation.

How it Works:

• Location Cross-Check: The system now cross-references the visitor’s actual check-in location with the location specified in the invitation.
• Host Notification: If a discrepancy is detected, the host is immediately notified of the visitor’s actual check-in location.

This enhancement is particularly beneficial for organizations with multiple offices or campuses, where visitors may inadvertently check in at the wrong location. It streamlines visitor management, improves communication, and enhances the overall visitor experience.

Spotlight Feature

Enhance your global communication strategy with multilingual Visitor Management (VM) notifications. This release introduces support for French Canadian, with additional languages coming soon.

Key Benefits:

• Personalized Experience: Notifications are automatically delivered in the user’s preferred language, as configured in their Appspace app settings.
• Enhanced Communication: External visitors receive notifications in the configured language of the location they are visiting.
• Reduced Friction: Streamline communication and improve the visitor experience by removing language barriers.

This feature is particularly valuable for organizations with a global presence or those operating in non-English-speaking regions. It fosters clearer communication, improves accessibility, and enhances the overall visitor experience.

Spotlight Feature

This release introduces a new “Check-In Timeout” feature designed for hybrid workplaces with virtual meetings. If the organizer of a meeting with a virtual conferencing link fails to check in, the system will automatically free the physical room while preserving the virtual meeting.

Key Benefits:

• Maximized Room Utilization: Prevents physical rooms from being held unnecessarily when meetings transition to a virtual-only format.
• Seamless Virtual Meetings: Ensures uninterrupted virtual collaboration even if the physical room check-in is missed.
• Improved Scheduling Efficiency: Optimizes resource allocation and reduces scheduling conflicts.

This enhancement streamlines the user experience, providing clear and context-aware navigation based on the reservability of each zone. When clicking on a zone:

• Reservable Zone: We’ve enhanced the map interaction behavior for reservable zones. Now, when you click on a reservable zone, the reservation sidebar will automatically open, allowing you to quickly book the space. The map will also zoom in on the selected zone, providing a clearer view of the available resources.
• Non-Reservable Zone or No Nested Resources: For non-reservable zones or zones without any nested resources, clicking on the zone will simply zoom in, maintaining the previous behavior. This distinction provides a more intuitive and efficient user experience when navigating and booking spaces.

This release introduces refined role-based access control for Space Reservation settings, enhancing administrative control and security.

Key improvements:

• Scoped Permissions: Account-wide roles (Account Owners, Account Admins, Portal Admins) retain full access to all configuration options. Local Admins’ access is now scoped to options affecting their managed locations, preventing unintended configuration changes across the platform.
• Granular Notification Control: Location Admins can manage notification settings specific to their locations, while general notification settings remain accessible only to higher-level admins.
• Concierge User Management: Location Admins can add Concierge users exclusively to their corresponding locations.
• Reservation/Resource Access Alignment: Access to existing reservations and resources now aligns with the user’s administrative role and scope.

Spotlight Feature

This sophisticated analytics system caters to various user roles, from content creators and location publishers to account administrators. Our intuitive dashboards leverage data on user engagement, content interaction, and community sentiment, empowering you to:

• Make informed decisions based on actionable insights.
• Tailor communications for maximum impact and relevance.
• Measure the return on investment of your communication strategies.

Engagement Analytics adheres to stringent data protection regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, ensuring the trust and security of your data. Through a phased rollout, we’ll start with basic engagement metrics and gradually introduce more complex analytical tools, allowing for smooth adoption and maximizing the utility of data insights.

This strategic enhancement empowers organizations to harness the full potential of their internal communications, driving better business outcomes and fostering a more connected corporate environment.

Spotlight Feature

This release introduces a new Polls feature, empowering administrators to create ad-hoc polls directly within the Employee App using quick post capabilities. Gather instant feedback, spark engaging discussions, and make data-driven decisions with this interactive tool.

Key Features:

• Simplified Poll Creation: Easily create single-choice polls with a streamlined process.
• Scheduled Publishing: Control the timing of your polls with flexible scheduling options.
• Dynamic Visualization: Monitor poll results in real-time with an engaging chart displaying vote percentages.
• Sharebox Integration: Share polls seamlessly within shareboxes for targeted audience reach.
• Searchable Content: Locate specific polls effortlessly using the search functionality.

This initial release lays the foundation for a comprehensive polling solution within the Employee App. Future enhancements will introduce additional poll types, advanced configuration options, and deeper analytics to further enhance engagement and data-driven decision-making.

Spotlight Feature

Introducing a dynamic new way to foster interaction and knowledge sharing within your Appspace communities. The “Questions” post type empowers users to pose questions, provide answers, and participate in vibrant discussions.

Key Features:

• Interactive Q&A: Encourage users to ask questions, offer solutions, and upvote the most helpful responses.
• Community-Driven Knowledge: Transform your communities into thriving hubs of information exchange and collaborative problem-solving.
• Enhanced Content Organization: Easily filter and search for specific questions within a community.
• Best Answer Designation: Community owners can highlight the most accurate and helpful answer, ensuring clarity and knowledge accuracy.

This enhancement elevates community engagement and transforms the way your teams collaborate and learn.

Spotlight Feature

The Employee App is now fully certified for Microsoft Intune, enabling organizations to manage and secure the app using Intune’s app protection policies. This certification ensures compliance with Intune’s security and management requirements, allowing organizations to confidently deploy the Employee App to their employees.

Key Benefits:

• Enhanced Security: Leverage Intune’s app protection policies to safeguard corporate data and prevent unauthorized access.
• Improved Management: Manage and control the Employee App through Intune’s centralized platform, streamlining deployment and configuration.
• Increased Compliance: Meet your organization’s security and compliance requirements with a certified and secure mobile app.

This enhancement expands the Employee App’s accessibility and security for organizations utilizing Microsoft Intune for mobile application management.

Spotlight Feature

Limited Release

This release introduces a highly anticipated feature: customizable branding for the Employee App. Now, you can seamlessly align the app’s appearance with your organization’s brand identity, reinforcing brand recognition and creating a cohesive user experience.

Customization Options:

• Login Screen:

  • Replace the default logo with your organization’s logo.
  • Customize the button color to match your brand palette.
  • Personalize the welcome text to greet users with a branded message.

• App:

  • Brand the splash screen with your organization’s logo and colors.
  • Replace the default application icon with your organization’s icon.

This enhancement empowers organizations to create a truly branded mobile experience, fostering a stronger sense of identity and connection with employees.

The Employee App now features a redesigned Video section with an updated user interface and powerful new features to streamline your video browsing experience.

Key Enhancements:

• Intuitive Interface: The redesigned interface is more user-friendly and intuitive, making it easier to find and watch videos.
• Dedicated Search Bar: Quickly locate videos using the new search bar, eliminating the need to scroll through endless lists.
• “My Videos” Filter: Easily find videos you’ve uploaded or marked as favorites.
• Sorting Options: Sort videos by “Recent” or “Popular” to stay up-to-date with the latest content or discover trending videos.

Private authors have the same editing permissions as public authors but remain hidden from the content’s attribution. This feature provides a discreet way to collaborate on content creation while maintaining control over public authorship.

The Employee App now welcomes users in even more languages, enhancing accessibility and inclusivity for a global workforce.

Newly Supported Languages:

• Catalan
• Swedish
• Finnish
• Polish
• Korean
• Danish
• Romanian
• Norwegian

This release introduces a powerful new way to organize your intranet content with Topic Categories. Think of it as creating dedicated sections in your company library, making it effortless for employees to find the information they need.

Key Benefits:

• Improved Knowledge Organization: Group related topics into categories for a more structured and intuitive knowledge base.
• Enhanced User Experience: Simplify content discovery and navigation, allowing employees to quickly find the information they need.
• Increased Efficiency: Reduce time spent searching for information, boosting productivity and employee satisfaction.

The Appspace Editor, serving both the Intranet and Employee App, has undergone a significant transformation to enhance content creation and user engagement. This upgrade delivers a host of new features and improvements, ensuring a more vibrant and intuitive experience for all users.

Key Functionalities:

• Enhanced Text Formatting: Enjoy greater creative control with new formatting options, including dividers, font colors, highlight colors, and strikethrough.
• Improved Image Handling: Effortlessly align, resize, and position images for a more polished and visually appealing presentation.
• Structured Content: Organize and present information effectively with the table of contents, call-out blocks, and expand/collapse blocks.
• Technical Content: Seamlessly incorporate technical content with code blocks and formula blocks.
• Table Enhancements: Gain greater flexibility in table creation and manipulation with new insertion options and width/height adjustments.
• Streamlined Collaboration: Collaborate more efficiently with versioning capabilities (available on Intranet).

This revitalized editor empowers users to create richer, more dynamic content, fostering a more engaging and collaborative digital workplace. It’s a significant step towards a more vibrant and user-friendly Appspace experience.

Experience a revolution in search with our completely reimagined Global Search, powered by cutting-edge Elasticsearch technology. This foundational update transforms how you find information within the Employee App, making it dramatically faster and more intuitive.

Key Functionalities:

• Contextual Search Relevance: Search results are no longer confined to basic keyword matching. Our new engine understands the meaning behind your query, delivering highly relevant results from across Employee Comms, even if specific keywords aren’t present.
• Spotlight on Search UI: A sleek, redesigned Global Search UI takes center stage within the Employee App. Contextually aware, it appears wherever users are, providing instant access to powerful search capabilities.
• Search Result Highlighting: Quickly identify key information within search results with intelligent highlighting. The UI emphasizes the most relevant portions of content based on your search terms.
• Crafted Experiences: Enjoy a tailored search experience for different types of content. Whether it’s news articles, announcements, or policies, the UI surfaces the most important information in an easily digestible format.

Spotlight Feature

Spotlight Feature

This release delivers significant improvements to device analytics and reporting capabilities, addressing customer needs for deeper insights, enhanced visibility, and streamlined integration with external tools.

Key Enhancements:

• Detailed Device Analytics: Drill down into granular device data to gain a comprehensive understanding of device performance, health, and usage patterns.
• External Reporting Tool Integration: Seamlessly integrate Appspace analytics with popular reporting tools like Power BI and Splunk for advanced data analysis and visualization.
• Location-Based Reporting: Analyze analytics by location and sub-location for granular insights and targeted reporting.
• Content and Channel Visibility: Gain clear visibility into active content displayed on devices, including channel assignments, for improved content management and reporting.
• Player Statistics Capture: Capture and analyze player statistics, including historical snapshots of player count and average stability, for performance monitoring and optimization.
• Enhanced API Integration: Leverage improved API integration for seamless data exchange and content caching capabilities.

New Graphs and Widgets:

• Device Counts: Track total device count, fleet health, device app uptime, and online/offline status with percentage change comparisons to previous periods.
• Fleet Health Over Time: Visualize fleet health trends with line charts and stacked lines by device type.
• Device Registration and Online Status: Monitor device registration and online status over time with line charts.
• Device Status and Content Status Overviews: Gain insights into device and content status distribution with donut charts.
• Device App Version Overview: Analyze device app version distribution with stacked bar charts by device type.
• Location-Based Device Counts: Visualize device counts at each location by type using donut or stacked bar charts.

These enhancements provide customers with the tools and insights they need to effectively manage their Appspace devices, optimize content delivery, and make data-driven decisions.

Spotlight Feature

Firmware Support

Strengthening our partnership with IAdea, this release introduces a native integration that delivers enhanced performance, streamlined configuration, and out-of-the-box LED synchronization across their entire product line. This upgrade optimizes the Appspace experience on IAdea devices, particularly for room booking scenarios.

Key Enhancements:

• Native App Optimization: The Appspace App now includes a dedicated driver for IAdea hardware, ensuring optimal performance and compatibility.
• Integrated LED Control: Enjoy seamless control of IAdea LEDs directly within the Appspace platform, enhancing room booking functionality.
• Simplified Device Management: IAdea devices are now natively identified in the Appspace Console, streamlining device management tasks.
• IAdea Care Integration: Effortless device registration and control through planned integration with the IAdea Care cloud platform.

The Device Directory Report now includes additional filters to refine your device data and gain deeper insights into your device fleet.

New Filters:

• Device Group
• Device License
• Device Tags
• Connection Status
• Sync Status
• Registration Date

Resolved Issue:

• The “Application Name” column in the Device Directory Report now accurately reflects the channels published to a device, including both single channel and auto-play modes. Previously, auto-play mode incorrectly displayed “Interactive Mode” instead of the actual channel list.

This release improves camera and microphone access on various Android-based devices, including Crestron, Logitech, Neat, and IAdea. The Appspace app now requests the necessary permissions during installation, ensuring a seamless experience for features like Visitor Management that require camera and microphone functionality.

This enhancement resolves previous limitations where the app could not connect to built-in cameras and microphones on certain devices, providing a smoother and more consistent user experience across a wider range of Android hardware.

Key Benefits:

• Proactive Issue Identification: Receive real-time notifications about device connection status, enabling swift action to minimize downtime.
• Improved Resource Utilization: Eliminate unnecessary polling, freeing up server resources for critical tasks.
• Enhanced Communication: Modernized notifications deliver device location and health updates via preferred channels, including email and (future) Enterprise Messaging.
• Scalable Foundation: New V3 APIs lay the groundwork for future UI enhancements, ensuring flexibility and seamless integration.

This release introduces a new inheritance mechanism for device settings, simplifying software update management across your organization.

Key Features:

• Location-Based Configuration: Configure software update settings at the Location level, and these settings will be automatically inherited by all devices within that location.
• Override Capabilities: Sub-locations or individual devices can override inherited settings to accommodate specific needs or requirements.
• Simplified Management: Effortlessly manage software updates for large numbers of devices, ensuring consistency and reducing administrative overhead.

This enhancement provides greater flexibility and control over device software updates, streamlining your workflow and ensuring your devices are always up-to-date.

This release introduces a significant enhancement to microservice communication, optimizing message routing for improved performance, reliability, and reduced infrastructure costs.

Previously, microservices subscribed to a broad range of messages, including those irrelevant to their domain. This led to decreased performance, reliability issues, and increased infrastructure costs due to unnecessary message processing and queue overload.

This update refines the message subscription process by replacing wildcard variables with specific values in the WebhookEventHandler. This ensures that microservices only receive messages relevant to their domain, eliminating unnecessary processing and improving overall system efficiency.

Benefits:

• Enhanced Performance: Reduced message processing overhead leads to improved system performance.
• Increased Reliability: Targeted message delivery minimizes the risk of queue overload and message loss, improving system reliability.
• Reduced Infrastructure Costs: Optimized message routing decreases the volume of unnecessary messages, leading to reduced infrastructure costs.

Spotlight Feature

Enhance your workflow and boost productivity with the new Appspace plugin for Google Calendar. This integration seamlessly connects your Google Calendar to Appspace Space Reservation, allowing you to book meeting rooms and resources without leaving your familiar calendar interface.

• Unified Scheduling: Schedule meetings, invite attendees, and reserve resources all within Google Calendar.
• Resource Browsing: Easily view available buildings, resources, and their details, including rules, constraints, general information, map views, and real-time availability.
• Simplified Booking: Book meetings with ease, leveraging the plugin to invite attendees from the Appspace directory and select available resources.
• Effortless Management: Cancel or update existing meeting reservations seamlessly.

Employees can now seamlessly reserve their workspace by simply plugging their laptop into a Logidock Flex docking station. The integrated Appspace desktop app runs discreetly in the background, automatically scheduling reservations on the user’s behalf. This eliminates the need for manual booking through the app or kiosk, creating a frictionless and efficient workspace experience.