Here are release notes on the latest update in the Viima's app:
1) New Board Templates: Phase-Gate & Idea Validation
There are now two new board templates: Phase-Gate (a.k.a. Stage-Gate), and Idea Validation. The first is great for running a systematic, step-by-step process with frequent check-ins. This is great for New Product Development when initial investments are large and the environment is complicated (not complex). The latter is a slightly more lightweight, albeit still systematic process for testing and validating new business or product ideas.
We’ve also done a lot of work under the hood to make board templates more flexible and going forward we will introduce many new templates to support the most common best practice innovation processes.
For more info on each of the templates, please check this piece.
If there’s a well-known innovation process that you’d like to see us support, please contact us!
2) Mandatory custom fields
In the past, you could only make a custom field mandatory when creating an idea.
We’ve now expanded on that feature by making it possible for board admins to define a custom field as mandatory in any status phase of the process.
This could be a helpful feature if you’d like to reinforce a process where each status phase requires specific pieces of information to exist, or actions to be performed.
If a custom field is made mandatory, it means that the field requires a value whenever the idea:
A) is created
B) is moved to another status than the current one
…where the custom field is active
…and if it the custom field is visible for the user performing the action (e.g. admin only mandatory fields aren’t required by normal users when creating an idea, or if an idea responsible is moving it to another status)
If you have custom fields that have been marked as mandatory when creating an idea, they are automatically migrated to this new feature and no action is required from you.
To use this feature, please create a new custom field, or edit an existing one, from the admin portal.
Please note that this feature is “soft validation” and intended to help you manage your processes, not to enforce data validity at the database level.
For example, this validation is not done when:
Admins use the mass update functionality for moving ideas
Integrations (e.g. with JIRA) move ideas to another status in Viima
3) New custom field type: Checkbox
There is now a new type of custom field: a checkbox.
You can use this to, for example, create checklists for people to work on during each status phase of your process.
Other minor improvements:
Text search in the list of existing boards and board templates when creating a new board (instead of having to scroll through all options)
Support for 8 new currencies
Organization admin can now change the name of their Viima organization
Minor bug fixes and security improvements
PS. We’re now looking for beta testers for our upcoming workflow automation feature that allows customers to create rules that automate tasks, actions and workflows within Viima. If you’re interested in getting early access to the feature and providing us with feedback soon, please contact Jesse.