SuccessFactors Jam

New! Private Messages and Badges

2012-07-27T16:55:00.001-07:00

Private messages are new with July Release, and Kudos have been reworked and are now Badges.

Private Messages in Jam

Communications in Jam are public by default, which helps others—including co-workers we may not even know—discover and benefit from the knowledge exchanged. However, every conversation cannot be public; to address that issue, Jam now provides private messages. As a result, you can get more work done in Jam without having to switch to email.

On your Home Tab, there is a new Messages item under your name and photo in the left column. Clicking on it will take you to the Message page where you can read, reply and create private messages.

Badges

We've replaced Kudos with Badges, and the Badges are now the same as those in the SuccessFactors Employee Profile. Badging your co-worker is easier than ever -- you can put your pointer over their name in the feed and then click on Give a Badge. Choose the badge, add a sentence or two explaining your action, and you've recognized a colleague for their help, insight, teamwork or a job well done!

You can also give a badge from someone's profile page.

Informal Learning Solutions for Everyone

2012-04-24T13:33:00.003-07:00

In this release, we've added several new features that enhance the learning experience - formal or informal - for both learners and instructors.

Introducing Jam Learning Communities

In November, we launched integrated search capabilities between SuccessFactors Learning and Jam. Now, we've deepened the integration with Jam Learning Communities, where instructors can build an online Jam community for each of their formal courses with just a few clicks. Learners can go between formal and informal to get the most out of a course and learn continuously.

Blending instructor-led programs with online communities will improve learner engagement and training effectiveness. Jam Learning Communities can be used as part of the curriculum where instructors and learners can:

Participate in weekly discussions
Upload pre-work and post-work
Share relevant news articles and blogs
Post agendas
Ask questions
Stay connected with alumni for continued learning long after the course has ended

Add a Jam group within LMS as part of a curriculum.

SuccessFactors Learning Admins can create Jam Learning Communities directly within Learning, or choose to associate an existing Jam group to a new learning item.

Invites are automatic, and can be configured to be sent when the item is assigned, a learner enrolls/registers for a learning item, or when a user completes the learning items.

Learners have a direct link to Jam Learning Community for easy navigation.

New! Copy Group Content

We've made it easy to replicate content for courses that are often repeated or projects that use the same materials with Copy Group. You can set up a template group with videos, documents, folders, links, and other content including the About page. With a single click, copy the group and then invite new members. This significantly reduces the time it previously took to setup similar groups, and allows you to leverage best practices from other groups.

Time Saver! Group Admins can easily copy groups.

Content Viewers
Ever wonder who views your content? Now, not only can you see how many users viewed content, you can also see who viewed it. Similar to "Likes", content owners or admins can see who viewed content and the latest version viewed by clicking on the Views link. A full report is also available for download. Additionally, when you direct message users on a document, videos, wiki, etc. you will be able to check if they have viewed the content and which version they last viewed by clicking on the @members link.

See who's viewed your content.

Other Notable Changes

The user interface for Auto Groups has been enhanced with a select list that lets you choose fields more easily and review the membership rule as you build it. If you add a field by mistake, easily correct it by clicking the X. (Available in FireFox, Chrome, and IE8+).
Trash your groups by accident no more! We've added a confirmation step so you can back out if needed.
Email Defaults have been updated to send less email overall. You can still customize your email settings through Account > Email Settings.

New! Jam Search for BizX Mobile

2012-04-24T13:31:00.004-07:00

We understand that more and more, you rely on your mobile device to stay connected. Not only that, when you need info, you need it now! No more scrolling your feed for that document, video, wiki you know someone posted last week or last month. Get answers to your most important business questions quickly with Jam Search on BizX Mobile.

Now, do a quick keyword search to find the content you need. You can also filter results by object type - docs, videos, wikis, people, etc.

BizX Mobile searches titles, descriptions, and tags for all content, as well as keywords inside documents, wikis and blogs to deliver the best results. So, you can get access to the information you need anytime, anywhere.

Android

iOS

Blackberry

Major Upgrades to the free version of Jam!

2012-03-27T19:11:00.004-07:00

We've made major upgrades to the free version of Jam, and we're so excited, we're telling everyone!

Customers are using Jam every day to accelerate business processes, communicate and collaborate. But did you know that Jam has incredibly rich social learning tools that let you capture and share your knowledge easily with videos, social docs, wikis, blogs, and more?

So, What's New?

Create informal learning videos or record presentations with Screen Capture & Webcam.
With Social Docs you can view just about any file and collaborate by adding comments precisely where you want them.
Blog to get the word out.
Search and find experts and get immediate access to the content they've shared.
Work together within a Wiki or two.
And there's a lot more, including up to 2GB of free file storage.
Oh, and don't forget about BizX mobile capture and share wherever, whenever.

With such a broad range of content tools, we just couldn't call this edition Basic any more, so we're retiring that name. The free edition will be called Jam, and Jam Premier has even greater value. Learn more about the differences between Jam (free) and Jam Premier.

To learn more about what Jam can do for you, join us for a live Jam webcast for a product demonstration and a chance to ask any questions.

Check out the Jam How To Videos and other resources to get started using these Jam features today!

2012-02-03T12:11:00.000-08:00

New! Team Usage Report Helps Increase Adoption

Do you want to know how your team is using Jam? How does your usage compare to your peers? Or overall?

We're using social analytics to help you identify champions and promote adoption of Jam within your organization. The Team Usage Report makes usage data transparent for your team and/or direct reports. The report shows how your Jam usage compares to your peers and your manager for the past week.

Team Usage Report shows how you compare to your peers using Jam.

Access this report weekly via email or daily from your Home tab to see how you measure up. The Team Usage Report will help increase usage and promote adoption of Jam by adding transparency of usage and creating friendly competition within teams, peers, org, etc. After all, who doesn't want to be #1?

Enhanced Social Learning with HD Video

We've improved the quality of video within Jam. Now, you can record and playback Jam videos in HD. When you record or upload a video, it will automatically be transcoded in HD, if available. You can toggle to SD or HD version during playback.

HD is indicated in the top right corner

Customers with bandwidth concerns should contact Customer Success to set the default for your company to a lower resolution.

Jam Home

For integrated customers, the link to Jam from within SuccessFactors has been moved. Now, it's even easier to navigate between modules. From the Home dropdown, select Jam.

Additional Features for Admins

We've added a few controls that you requested to better the Jam experience for your company.

Too much email? Now, site admins can disable Daily Emails by default for all users in the company. Go to Admin > Features. Users can override the default email settings at any time in Account > Email.
For confidentiality purposes, some companies wish to hide a user's start date from the profile. Go to Admin > Features and uncheck "Show Hire Date in member profile".

New! Customize Your Jam Environment

2011-11-17T21:10:00.003-08:00

Some customers have begun to upgrade to SuccessFactors Revolution UI (v12), and we've given Jam the same modern, fresh look of the future SuccessFactors suite. With the new Jam UI, there is a more consistent experience when navigating between Jam and other modules and a count notifying you of unread items.

What's more, site admins can brand the Jam environment for your company. You can set a custom name (e.g. Knowledge Hub - see screen shot below) for your company's Jam environment, which will appear on across all web and email references. You can also set a custom color scheme that matches your company colors and include company logo in emails.

To customize the Jam environment for your company, go to Admin > Branding.
Enter the custom name in the Product Instance Name field.

Integrated customers
To change the Jam Home link in SuccessFactors:

Log in as SuccessFactors Admin.
Go to Admin > System Properties > Text Replacement
Find the label 'Jam'. The box will be blank, but the default is 'Jam'.
Type in your custom name.
Click Save.
Repeat steps 3-5 for each language.

Enhanced Reporting Helps Measure Adoption

2011-11-17T21:10:00.002-08:00

How are users adopting social learning? Is Jam usage increasing over time? Who are the top contributors? Are users looking at the content on Jam?

Many customers are trying to gauge how their users are adopting social learning in the organization. So we've enhanced our reporting capabilities to help you measure engagement over time, identify champions and top groups, as well as define improvement areas. Company-wide and group level reports are available to admins.

Sample Activity Summary by Week Data

Nine new reports were added to highlight how users are contributing and viewing content across your company including:

Contribution Report by Object by Week and Month
Content Consumption by Week and Month
User Consumption by Week and Month
User Contribution by Week and Month
Group Member Activity Report

Sample Content Consumption by Month Data

Private Group Visibility

Previously, Jam reports contained data for public group activity only. Now, all existing and new reports contain aggregated counts for activity in public and private groups, which provides a more accurate picture of overall adoption and usage. Additionally, site admins can opt-in to Private Group visibility, which will let you run reports on any private group. To enable private group visibility, go to Admin > Features: Feature Management.

Blending Learning: SuccessFactors Learning Integrates with Jam

2011-11-17T21:10:00.001-08:00

SuccessFactors Learning and Jam customers can now take advantage of formal and informal learning content. With integrated Search, you can use the LMS catalog search to find learning items such as instructor-led courses or e-learning as well as social content in Jam such as videos, documents, and explore communities of practice.

Use LMS Catalog Search to find Social Learning Content.

Learners can access formal and informal content from one place, and choose the combination that meets their learning needs. For example, a learner who wants to enhance leadership skills may search the keyword 'leadership' in LMS. Results returned include a formal courses beginning in few weeks. Additionally, the learner can browse the social content results to discover videos, documents, sample presentations, and even groups focused on leadership to brush up skills before the formal course is offered.

Conversely, a learner who just completed a formal leadership course can use the catalog search to find social learning resources to supplement the formal course and continue building skills.

The integration between Learning and Jam is available to all customers with Integrated SuccessFactors Learning (SaaS) version 6.4.3 and the Premier Edition of Jam.

Security Passcode for BizX Mobile

2011-11-17T21:10:00.000-08:00

To help reduce the risk that your data maintained in SuccessFactors is exposed when a user loses their phone or leaves their phone unattended, we have added the ability for the Site Administrator to require a 4 digit passcode. This security passcode provides a secondary, easy to use method of authentication that ensures only the owner of the device can access their SuccessFactors account through BizX Mobile on their device.

When the mobile security passcode is enabled:

Each user that has mobile access enabled will be required to set a Security Code on their mobile setup page.
A 4-digit passcode must be entered every time a user opens BizX mobile or when the device times out.
Users who lose or forget their code can reset it from their SuccessFactors account on the web.

This feature is available to Integrated customers, and Site Admins can opt-in to activate the feature. To enable the security passcode, go to SuccessFactors Admin > Company Settings > Mobile Options > Mobile Passcode /Security Pin.

Existing BizX Mobile Users
Remember to update the BizX Mobile App as soon as it becomes available to take advantage of all the new features and upgrades.

Introducing SuccessFactors Jam

2011-10-03T06:30:00.000-07:00

Rolling Stones. Miles Davis. Bruce and the E Street Band. The Clash. Guns ‘n Roses.

Scroll through your iPod and reflect for a moment on your favorite bands. Doesn’t listening to them inspire you? Especially when they're improvising and showing off their mastery! It’s incredible.

It’s the creativity, energy, spontaneity, and teamwork of the Jam session that we want our customers to experience when they use SuccessFactors Jam. And it couldn’t come at a better time.

We’re in the era of doing more with less. Blame it on the ongoing economic malaise, globalization, or who knows why. What I do know is that Jam actually helps –Jam helps you find information when you need it and share information easily so others can find it.

Experts, be they purchasing managers, system admins, training gurus, sales heroes, etc., get interrupted all day long. But what can they do? Document their know-how in a word doc with lots of screen shots? Who’s got time for that? How about scheduling a webcast to train everyone on their expertise? Only the five people who need the info that day will show up. Or maybe contact the training department to ask for help creating a video. But last I checked – the training department is tapped out and never has been in the business of creating 5-minute How-To videos.

Enter SuccessFactors Jam. In a couple clicks, you can, not only record the process, but also share it with the rest of your company so your colleagues can actually find it when they need it. Click record, do your thing, and click share. Jam takes care of the rest – the screen and audio capture, uploading, transcoding, streaming, and most important, making it discoverable through the Jam network.

How well does it work? Our Director of HR Systems created a Jam to show new employees how to get started with our talent system. She posted the recording in the onboarding group, and it’s been viewed 282 times. It’s 9 minutes long, so that’s 2,538 minutes or more than 40 hours of her time she gets back. And we’ve been able to update our records on our time, without having to schedule an appointment to connect with her.

We’re excited about Jam because it brings this kind of efficiency to your business. Beyond informal or social learning examples, our customers are using Jam to accelerate onboarding, increase learning performance around instructor-led training, and speed clarity around shared goals.

You can also use Jam on your mobile phone to view and comment on what’s on your company’s network. You can also record video and take and upload photos. This is especially popular with groups on the go, such as sales teams and retail employees.

When we can easily share our expertise and make our colleagues more productive, everybody wins. And when we find the information we need, when we need it, wherever we might be, we can be more productive ourselves. Which means there's more time for all the other good things in life, like getting home in time for dinner, spending time with our kids, or just listening to music.

SuccessFactors Jam: the rhythm of business.

It's all about Findability!

2011-09-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

How much time do we spend looking for information or answers we need to do our jobs? According to IDC, Knowledge workers spend 15-30% of their time searching for information. And they are successful only half the time! With this release, we make it easier to find and consume content with tags, related content, improved search results and content history.

Categorize Content with Tags

Now, you can crowdsource the categorization of content across the org with Tags. Connect similar content with tags to make it easy for you and others to find later. The tag cloud helps everyone discover new content, and the filters let you to see what's trending over the last week, month or all time.

Explore by Tags to find connected content across your social graph.

Tags can be added to videos, documents, wikis, blogs, photos, and links. As you type, auto-complete will suggest existing tags or you can add a new tag. Hashtags are also supported - simply add a hashtag when commenting on a feed item. When you click on a tag from the tag cloud or viewer page, you will see search results for all items tagged with the specified keyword.

On the content viewer page, comma separate tags when adding multiple at once

Shortcut! Add a hashtag by commenting on the feed item

Find Valuable Resources with Related Content
We wanted to expose you to even more valuable content related to what you are currently viewing. So instead of hunting around in groups or searching, we are bringing related content to you. Now, when viewing a document, video, wiki, etc., related content is automatically recommended in the right column of the viewer page.

Discover more valuable info with related content

Improved Search!
Even with so many ways to help you find content, we understand that sometimes you just need to search. So, we've given our search a major makeover!

The metadata has been consolidated for each search result, giving you more context so you can quickly assess the results to find what you need. Plus, we've added filters with counts of each item similar to the consumer tools you use everyday, and you can sort by Relevance, Date, Views, or Likes to find exactly what you need in seconds.

We've also added the ability to search within a group or search by a specific user. If I want to find content associated with Joe Smith, simply type his name in the search box.

Filter and Sort as needed

Content History

Just like browser history, now you have access to a running list of all the content you've viewed. Content history lets you quickly navigate back to content you were working on or referenced previously. It reduces the amount of time spent looking for things. Easily refer back to items you last viewed and add a comment, edit or direct message another user on that content.

Personalized content browsing history

In the case where someone asks you a question and you think, I was just looking at that yesterday... Now, without searching you have an easy way to get back to that doc, wiki, video, photo, etc. You no longer have to rely on bookmarks to get back to content you work on frequently. Content history keeps track of your viewing history and makes it easily available to you.

NEW Features for BizX Mobile on Android

2011-08-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

An update to the BizX Mobile Android app is now available in the Android Marketplace and from links on our website. New features in this update include:

Mobile Org Chart - View your company’s Organization Chart on your Android device with BizX Mobile and drill-down to find individual contact info in the ‘quick card’ for each employee. Simply navigate your way through the Org Chart from top-to-bottom to visualize the overall organization, gain better insights into a colleague's role or even to find other people that might be of assistance.

Navigate your Organization - With access to your org chart you can instantly find people and see how they are related, what their role is, and their overall reporting structure.

Find Contact Information Fast - Once you’ve located someone by using the Org Chart, you can use their contact information to make a call, send an email or send a direct message with a single click using BizX Mobile.

Mobile Org Chart

Videos from CubeTree - With BizX Mobile you can watch videos from your account on your Android device. Video thumbnails now appear in the app for your Follows Feed and Group Feeds for all available content.

Use Video on BizX mobile for many collaboration opportunities, such as:

Social Learning: You and your co-workers can share expertise and make your knowledge go further by sharing How To demo videos. Your followers can learn, ask questions, and get answers quickly!
New Hire Training: House all new hire training including videos in an on-boarding group.
Video Projects: Share a video, gather feedback from your colleagues, review new versions and repeat until finalized.

To view a video, tap the thumbnail to start play; videos play in both landscape and profile modes. Tap the Done button at the top left to return to browsing your the feed for the item where you can post a comment on the video you just watched.

Instant Notifications - Turn on push notifications for BizX Mobile on your Android to receive message alerts in your notification bar when you're sent a direct message or when a co-worker replies to one of your comments on CubeTree. Select the message from your notification list to read the content or tap the notification to launch the BizX Mobile Android app and get access to detail information.

Push Notification on Android

Mobile Video Capture and Upload from BizX Mobile

2011-08-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

CubeTree makes it quick and easy to create, share and stream video securely inside your organization. With the latest updates to BizX Mobile for Android, iPhone and iPad you can now use the camera on your device to capture video and upload directly to your account. Video playback is provided directly in the feed using BizX Mobile or using our native web viewer.

Use video capture and playback on your Smartphone for many social learning opportunities when you're traveling, moving between offices or working in the field:

Make a how to video for a best practice procedure and share instantly with your organization.
Record and share competitors displays.
Capture and distribute presentations from key leaders at industry conferences/trade shows.
View a How To video for just in time learning!

Explore Content by Views, Likes & Featured

2011-07-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

Discovery is critical for social learning and collaboration. But, with the amount of content shared, how do you discover new, popular and valuable content?

Now, you can Explore content across your social graph. With Explore, you can quickly find new, high quality and relevant content that you may not have noticed otherwise. We're using the power of the crowd to make good content visible by letting users rate or 'Like' content such as docs, wikis, videos, etc. You can 'Like' an item directly from the Home feed or from the viewer page, and Views and Likes are now visible for each content item.

We've made 3 significant changes to help you discover new content:

New Explore Tab at the top allows you to discover new content in 3 ways: Most Viewed, Most Liked, and Featured.
Quick ways to Explore: On Home tab, new right column shows top content across people and groups you follow. In a Group, the new right column highlights what's featured and popular in that group.
Explore top content in groups using new left navigation option.

Browse by Most Viewed, Most Liked, and Featured content across your social graph.

Featured Content

Admins want to make sure important content such as new learning course materials or a message from the CEO doesn't get swept away in the rapid contribution of others' collaborating. With Featured content, Admins can make information stick to the top. From the viewer page, choose More > Feature. The content will appear in the right column of the Home tab or in a Group, as well as in the Featured view in Explore. (To unfeature, simply select More > Unfeature.)

New Multimedia Features

2011-07-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

With a focus on making it quick and easy to author, distribute, and consume content, our robust set of multimedia authoring capabilities now includes Screen Record, Webcam and Mobile video capture. Playback is provided on the web directly in the feed, using our native web viewer and using our Mobile clients.

These multimedia tools enable social collaboration and learning in many ways:

Rollout a new process to your sales team with Screen Record
Use your Webcam to record video blogs, new employee introductions or a message to your direct team
Capture store displays with Mobile Video Capture
Discover content and learn by watching Video Playback
Train retail staff on new product lines accessing the information from their smartphones with Mobile Playback

Time-Based Comments on Video

Curious about what others think about a video? Want to start a discussion or ask a question and draw others attention to a specific time point in the video?

Now, you can add comments or ask questions at a specific time point in a video. From the viewer page, click comment and the video will automatically pause at that time frame. Add your comment, click Post Annotation, and the video will resume playing. Marks on the control bar indicate comments, which will appear at that time point as the video plays. To turn annotations off, simply click the red X when a comment appears and no further comments will be displayed.

Mobile

Now you can take full advantage of multimedia content when you're traveling or working in the field. Employees at all levels and across geographies can capture content in real time and share immediately, so information is current and discoverable. Learning doesn’t need to stop after a formal course, and video capture helps promote continuous collaboration and learning throughout the organization.

There are many opportunities for creating videos and viewing others' content directly from your iPhone, iPad2, or Android:

Record and share competitors displays
Distribute presentations from key leaders at industry conferences/trade shows
Share summaries of wins quickly across regions
Catch up on a new features in a product demo video
Capture customer testimonies of your your product/service
View a How To video for just in time learning

To record and share a video from your smartphone:

Launch BizX mobile app
Chose Post and select Photo or Video
Choose Take a New Photo or Video or Choose Existing
Take a New Photo or Video will default to Photo Camera, so you will need to switch to video mode
Record & Share.

Move Documents or Videos, Activate a Group & More Updates

2011-07-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

In our latest release, we've added several new features for authors and admins that address several customer requests.

Move a Document or Video: Previously, you could move a wiki from one location to another. Now, authors and admins can also move Documents and Videos from one group to another.
Group Creation Control: Enable or disable the ability for all users to create groups. By default, this feature is enabled so any user can create a group. When disabled, only Site Admins can create groups. Go to Admin > Features to adjust this setting. (Site admins only)

Directory or Alumni Display: Enable or disable the display for Directory and/or Alumni on the Company tab. (Site admins only)

Documents & Wikis View Setting: Select the default view that group members will see, Folders or List, for group documents and wikis. (Group admins only)

Group Creation Status: Choose to activate your group immediately... or later, once you've had the chance to add content, create an About page, and set the tone for the group. (Group admins only)

New Languages Supported

An additional languages are now supported: Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Russian, French Canadian, and UK English.

NEW CubeTree for Android on BizX Mobile

2011-06-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

BizX Mobile is now available for Android devices and gives you access to your SuccessFactors CubeTree account. The app allows you and your executives, managers and employees to stay connected and productive even when you are away from your desk or on the road. The app is available in the Android Marketplace and from links on our website.

BizX Mobile for Android brings key CubeTree features to your device:

View updates about the people, groups, and documents you follow
Post updates (with photos) and add comments
View entire documents and links
View coworkers' profiles, and email, call, or text them directly

Read Your Feed - Use Follows Feed from the Home screen on your app to read all the latest comments and updates you're following on CubeTree in real-time. Document thumbnails, comments and conversations are all accessible in the feed using the BizX Mobile app. From the Follows Feed you can add comments, send direct messages, "like" feed items, post photos and preview documents to stay on top of your latest collaborations.

Read Your Documents - Documents from CubeTree can be previewed in their entirety directly on you Android. Clicking on a document thumbnail from a feed item launches the document viewer and allows you to view, zoom and turn to any page. The document viewer supports PDF, Word and PPT document previews - all without having to download the document to your device!

Find Contact Information - BizX Mobile knows everyone in your directory and is your business social address book for your company. With complete information for anyone in your business, you can find phone numbers, email addresses and profile information fast. Then create a new contact or add information to an existing one on your Android by using the "Save Info" on any CubeTree profile.

NEW Feed Reader on BizX Mobile for all Platforms

2011-06-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

No one wants to miss an important feed item, so CubeTree is helping keep track of which items you've read. And that includes items you read on your mobile device. So even if you use a combination of devices to access CubeTree - phone, PC, iPad, the Feed Reader will note which items you've seen and which you have not.

Feed Reader allows you to easily see what's new since the last time you logged in. The count of unread items is displayed next to your Follows Feed, Groups, Notifications and Unread Feed so you can easily identify what you haven't seen and quickly prioritize what to read. On Biz-X Mobile unread items in feeds are marked by a colored bar on the left side of each item or bold text in the feed item. As you scroll through and read that item the bar is removed, the text returns to normal and the unread items count is updated everywhere on CubeTree so you're always in synch. Read more about Feed Reader on CubeTree here.

Feed Reader is availble on BizX Mobile for Android, BlackBerry and iOS devices from links on our website.

New CubeTree Features for iPhone & iPad on BizX Mobile

2011-06-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

Videos from CubeTree - On March 14, 2011, SuccessFactors acquired Jambok, a social business learning platform. Jambok's robust multimedia capabilities complement the SuccessFactors BizX suite. In just a few short weeks, we've added video to CubeTree AND to BizX Mobile for iPhone and iPad.

With BizX Mobile you can watch videos streamed from your CubeTree account on your iOS device. Video thumbnails now appear in the app for your Follows Feed and Group Feeds for all available content. To view a video, tap the thumbnail to start play; videos play in both landscape and profile modes. Tap the Done button at the top left to return to browsing on CubeTree where you can post a comment on the video you just watched.

Use Video on CubeTree for many collaboration opportunities, such as:

Social Learning: Use CubeTree for social or informal learning within your company. You and your co-workers can share your expertise and make your knowledge go further by sharing How To demo videos so your followers can learn, ask questions, and get answers quickly!
New Hire Training: House all new hire training including videos in an On-boarding group.
Video Projects: Share a video, gather feedback from your colleagues, review new versions and repeat until finalized.

Mobile Org Chart - View your company’s Organization Chart on BizX Mobile and drill-down to find individual contact info in the ‘quick card’ for each employee. Simply navigate your way through the Org Chart from top-to-bottom to visualize the overall organization, gain better insights into a colleague's role or even to find other people that might be of assistance.

Navigate your Organization - With access to your org chart you can instantly find people and see how they are related, what their role is, and their overall reporting structure.
Find Contact Information Fast - Once you’ve located someone by using the Org Chart, you can use their contact information to make a call, send an email or send a direct message with a single click using BizX Mobile.

If your company is using CubeTree integrated with other SuccessFactors modules, your administrator must enable the Mobile Org Chart feature. If your company is using a stand-alone version of CubeTree, this feature is enabled by default.

What's New? Video, Compliance, SharePoint, Link Previews & More!

2011-05-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

New! Video Upload, Screen Record & Playback in CubeTree

On March 14, 2011, SuccessFactors acquired Jambok, a social business learning platform. Jambok's robust multimedia capabilities complement SuccessFactor's BizX suite. In just a few short weeks, we've added video to CubeTree.

Previously, CubeTree allowed you to upload a video file, but viewing the video was cumbersome as you had to download the video file, store locally and playback from your PC with an external viewer.

Now, you can upload video files or record your screen and playback directly in CubeTree! You can share and comment on videos within groups or from your profile, which offers many collaboration opportunities:

Social Learning: Use CubeTree for social or informal learning within your company. You and your co-workers can share your expertise and make your knowledge go further by uploading your How To demo videos so your followers can learn, ask questions, and get answers quickly!
New Hire Training: House all new hire training including videos in an On-boarding group.
Video Projects: Share a video, gather feedback from your colleagues, upload new versions and repeat until finalized.

Getting Started with Video in CubeTree

Video is currently available with CubeTree Premier edition at no additional cost. CubeTree Site Admins have the ability to Enable or Disable video from the Admin | Features menu.

If you are an existing CubeTree customer and want to begin using video, contact us at support@cubetree.com.

Supported Clients, Browsers & Formats:

Video Playback is supported on CubeTree Web as well as via the iPhone/iPad BizX Mobile application. The table below lists the supported browsers and file types:

Operating Systems	Microsoft Windows: XP, Vista, Windows 7 Apple Mac OS X: 10.4 or higher Linux: most versions
Browsers*	Google Chrome 5.0 or higher Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0, 8.0 Internet Explorer 8 may require your cubetree.com domain to be set as a trusted site Mozilla Firefox 3.0, 4.0 *Some browsers may require Adobe Flash.
Video File Types	ASF, AVI: All supported formats, Avid: QuickTime ABVB, QuickTime Meridien, AVI Meridien, OMF ABVB, OMF Meridien, OMF DV50, DS High Definition, DirectShow: All supported formats, Grass Valley: GXF MPEG-2, Leitch: MPEG-2, DV25, Media 100: Square, 601, MPEG-1: Elementary Stream, System Stream, Layer II Audio, MPEG-2: SP@ML, MP@LL, MP@ML Elementary Stream SP@ML, MP@LL, MP@ML, MP@HL, HP@HL 4:2:0 Program Stream 4:2:2P@ML, HP@HL 4:2:2 Program Stream SP@ML, MP@LL, MP@ML, MP@HL, HP@HL 4:2:0 Transport Stream 4:2:2P@ML, HP@HL 4:2:2 Transport Stream Layer II Audio, AC3 Audio, MPEG-4: ISMA, 3GPP, 3GPP2, MXF, Omneon: MPEG-2, Pinnacle: MediaStream, QuickTime: All supported formats, Quantel: Clipnet MPEG-2, SeaChange: MPEG-2, SAF, 4:2:0, 4:2:2, Layer II Audio, Sony: IMX 4:2:2, MXF D-10, VSR2000 High Definition MPEG-2 VOB WAV, Windows Media 8 and 9

NOTE: Unsupported file types can still be uploaded to CubeTree to share and download, but these file types cannot be played back in CubeTree.

Folders for SharePoint Content & Wikis

SharePoint

In the March 2011 release, we added the SuccessFactors SharePoint Connector which allows you to publish or copy documents from SharePoint to CubeTree, and the ability to create folders to organize your documents within groups.

We've taken these features one step further. Now, with the SuccessFactors SharePoint Connector, you can copy folders and their contents to CubeTree. Not only does this save time enabling you to copy multiple documents with one click, it also provides you an option to preserve the folder structure, which is very important for customers who have well organized content on SharePoint.

Organizing Wikis

Depending on the nature of the content, sometimes social documents are important and at other times wikis are what you need to get work done. When you are referencing content later, you may not be able to remember if the content is in a document or a wiki, but you remember the topic or the author.

To help reduce the need for searching (and remembering!), wikis and documents have been combined within CubeTree groups. This means you can assign wikis and documents about the same topic to the same folder. The type is not what's important - the content is!

Compliance & Profanity Filters

Customers are concerned about employees using inappropriate language or non-compliant references in content posted to CubeTree within their company. This type of content can pose legal risks to the company and is subject to audit.

We have heard from Human Resources and Legal departments that they need a non-invasive way to monitor and flag content that employees contribute in CubeTree to ensure compliance with company guidelines. These companies indicated that they want to flag content that contains either of the following:

Profanity, inappropriate words/phrases, derogatory remarks, etc.
Highly confidential information, client names, proprietary financial data, etc.

Site Admins can now Enable or Disable the Compliance filter or Profanity filter from Admin | Features. A dictionary of terms will be maintained in CubeTree, and terms can be added in any language. When enabled, Compliance and Profanity filters will scan all content posted to CubeTree, and detect any items that match a term in the dictionary, and flag them in an activity log available to the CubeTree Site Admin.

Several new capabilities are available to CubeTree Site Admins. Go to Admin | Compliance, where you can:

Enable or Disable a term in the dictionary
Add custom terms in the dictionary
View activity log of flagged items (Log history as well as a full downloadable report are also available).
Ignore a flagged item
Choose the Alert action which will send an email notification to the user, group admin, and the user's manager about the item prompting them to review the flagged item, and delete, if appropriate.

Feed Reader

No one wants to miss an important feed item, so CubeTree keeps track of items you've read. Even if you use a combination of devices to access CubeTree - phone, PC, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, the Feed Reader will note the items you've seen and those you have not.

Feed Reader allows you to easily see what's new since the last time you logged in. If you are in meetings for a few hours, out of office for the day, or returning from vacation, the count of unread items is displayed by users and by groups you follow. This allows you to quickly evaluate and prioritize what to read.

Feed Reader includes several features:

Visual Indicator for Unread Items: You will now see a blue line on the left of any Unread items in your Feed. The visual indicator will help to quickly identify and scan new items.
Filters for People or Groups you are Following: When you have Unread items, you can toggle the view between the People you are following or the Groups you are following. The associated name will appear with counts of unread items in the left navigation on your Home tab. Click on the Person or Group name to read all new items that have been.
Custom Views: On the top right of your Follows Feed, filters allow you to choose between viewing All items or only Unread items. Additionally, select to view your feed in Threaded conversations or in Real Time, as the items are posted in CubeTree.
@user: Shows direct messages including @@notify messages. The counts indicated items that you have not read yet.
Replies: Shows new feed items from conversations you've participated in. For example, if you comment on someone's document or someone has commented on one of your documents, your Replies feed count will increase whenever anyone else comments on the document - including users you are not following. This helps to quickly identify hot topics that you are involved in.
Mark All Read: If you simply want to clear the unread counts, click Mark All as Read. Counts will begin to increase as soon as new feed items are generated.

Feed Reader tracks when you use multiple clients, so items are marked as read when you pull data from CubeTree from Web, BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone and Android. Note that items pushed to you by CubeTree via mobile Push notifications, email, or CubeTree for desktop will not be automatically marked as read. So, if you've read all updates through email or mobile push notifications, click the Mark All Read button to clear the Unread counts on your feed.

Link Preview

CubeTree Links now provide a preview within the feed by retrieving the Title, Description, and associated Images from the web. When sharing links, the previews provide more context about the content and helps users to decide if the link is interesting to them.

To share a link preview:

Select Link from the Post Box
Insert the URL and click Fetch Preview
CubeTree will pull in Title and Description, which are editable.
If multiple images are available, you can scroll through the images to select the one you want to display.
You can also select not to show an image by selecting the checkbox.

NEW BizX Mobile Apps

2011-04-14T15:26:00.000-07:00

BizX Mobile is a new app from SuccessFactors that gives you access to CubeTree and your SuccessFactors account from a mobile device. The app allows you and your executives, managers and employees to stay connected and productive even when you are away from your desk or on the road. BizX Mobile is available for BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad; information on how to download the app can be found on our website.

SuperApp for BlackBerry - SuperApp capabilities built into our new app take advantage of BlackBerry's unique strengths to create an always on, seamless experience for BlackBerry users. Read more on all the new CubeTree features for BlackBerry here .

iPhone and iPad in One App - BizX Mobile supports iPhone and iPad with one app. Fully featured on both platforms, the app takes advantage of additional screen space on iPad to help you get more done, faster. Read more on all the new CubeTree features for iPhone here.

SuccessFactors ToDos - In addition to CubeTree access, BizX Mobile brings SuccessFactors To-Dos for Recruiting Management to BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad devices. Use BizX Mobile to Stay on top of your Recruiting To-Do list, approve requisitions and provide candidate feedback from anywhere you're connected on your mobile device. When your company's CubeTree is integrated with your SuccessFactors account you can access both of them from the same application. Find out more about Mobile Recruiting on BizX Mobile here.

NEW BizX Mobile for iPhone and iPad

2011-04-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

iPhone and iPad - BizX Mobile supports both iPhone and iPad with one app that you can install on all your apple devices. Fully featured on both platforms, the iPad app takes advantage of the extra screen space to show you even more information in both profile and landscape modes.

BizX Mobile brings everything you can do on iPhone -- read your Follows Feed, Browse your Groups, search for people's Profiles and recieve Push Notifications -- to your iPad. In addition, BizX Mobile has these new features for both platforms:

Instant Notifications - Turn on push notifications to receive pop-up messages when you're sent a direct message or when a co-worker replies to one of your comments on CubeTree. Tap the View option from the pop-up message to open the iPhone app and read the details. Or tap the Close option and read the message detail later from the Notifications feed on the home screen.

Expanded Directory - BizX Mobile know everyone in your directory and is your business social address book for your company. With complete information for anyone in your business, you can find phone numbers, email addresses and profile information fast. Then create a new contact or add information to an existing one on your iPhone or iPad by using the "Save Info" on any CubeTree profile.

Read Your Feed - Use Follows Feed from the Home screen on your app to read all the latest comments and updates you're following on CubeTree in real-time. Document thumbnails, comments, wikis and conversations are all accessible in the feed using the BizX Mobile app. From the Follows Feed you can add comments, send direct messages, "like" feed items, post photos and preview documents to stay on top of your latest collaborations.

NEW BizX Mobile for BlackBerry

2011-04-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

BlackBerry SuperApp - BizX Mobile includes SuperApp capabilities that take advantage of BlackBerry's unique strengths to create an always on, seamless experience for BlackBerry users to let you:

Receive push notifications on your BlackBerry when you receive a message on CubeTree.
Email with one click from links inside of CubeTree.
Place calls with one click from CubeTree profile information.
Copy contact information from CubeTree into your BlackBerry address book.
Post a new or existing photo from the camera directly to CubeTree.

Document Viewer - Now you can get Social Documents on your BlackBerry. View entire documents from your CubeTree without having to download them first. In the Document Viewer page thumbnails allow you to rapidly flip through the document or zoom in on individual pages to read details. You can then add your comments to the document feed item to let others know what you think.

Push Notifications - BlackBerry push notifications arrive on your device when a co-worker sends you a direct message or replies to one of your comments on CubeTree. The SuccessFactors icon appears at the top of your home screen and indicates the number of unread notifications you've received. The BlackBerry "Asterisk" also appears on the application icon to indicate you have a new push notification. Read push notifications in the the BizX Mobile app or in the Message app on your BlackBerry.

Expanded Directory - With expanded profiles, BizX Mobile is the directory for your company network. With complete information for anyone in your company, you can find contact information fast and even save it to your BlackBerry address book. With SuperApp capabilities you can take many actions with just one click, including direct message, nudge, call, email and text co-workers from the CubeTree directory.

Read Your Feed - Use Follows Feed or Groups from the Home screen on your app to find and read the feeds you want in real-time. Document thumbnails, comments, wikis and conversations are all accessible in the feed using the BizX Mobile app. From the Follows Feed and from a Group you can add comments, send direct messages, "like" feed items, post photos or preview documents to stay on top of your latest collaborations.

Less Friction, More Done.

2011-04-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

A big part of Web 2.0 has been about making it very easy to connect and share thoughts and ideas. Look how easy it is to sign up for a Twitter account or post on Facebook. Using these networks for communication is a lot easier than email. A lot? A wicked lot. Allow me explain with an example: let's compare helping a friend find a caterer.

With email, you read the subject "Need help finding a caterer".
You've now got to decide whether to open it, and in this case, you do. You then read the message and find out your friend is looking to cater her parents 50th anniversary.
You can recommend a caterer, so now you hit reply (or may be reply all, a second decision), type in your response and click send.

What's the cost? Not much -- a couple small decisions, a little typing, and 3 clicks.

Now on Facebook, you read essentially the same message as a post that shows up in your News Feed.
You decide to share your recommendation, click in the comment box and simply type in a sentence or two and hit return (or click Share).

Done. With Facebook, one less decision, a little less typing (no salutation, no closing), and 1.5 less clicks. It may not seem like a big difference, but if you add up all the times in a day we could help others, the difference is significant. How significant? The answer depends on how many users, but it adds up pretty quickly -- have you seen the valuations of Facebook or Twitter lately? Low friction adds up.

Social business solutions also need to take as much friction out of the system as they can. If you read this Blog, odds are you use CubeTree, which means you’ve taken some time and set up your account, filled out your profile, and found people and groups to follow. As you use CubeTree at work, I bet you’ve run into more than one co-worker who was slow to set up their account. I meet folks like this often, and for the most part, it’s not that they’re fundamentally opposed to using social software, it’s that they’re busy with work, family, etc, so finding time to get started is difficult. There's too much friction to get started on social. With the latest release of CubeTree, we’ve made it a lot easier for people to get going on their internal social network.

Now your CubeTree accounts are provisioned, your profile is populated, and you’re also connected to others because CubeTree looks into your profile and sets up connections and groups based on that data. In fact, group and personal activity feed items start as soon as you turn CubeTree on for your company, even before someone logs in.

Those who have been putting off setting up their account will start to receive emails with summaries of discussions and links to participate. It's in our nature to contribute, so It’s only a matter of time until the social procrastinators click on one, and when they do, they won’t have to create an account, they won’t have to fill out their profile, or even set up following relationships. They will just have to click in the comment box and contribute their idea. Increased participation on your company's social network will greatly enhance its value. Will the valuation rival Twitter's or Facebook's? It's not likely, but one thing is for sure: Less Friction, More Done.

Closing the Quarter - Coordinating Work With Business Social Networking

2011-03-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

The end of a fiscal quarter is a busy time for many companies. It causes a flurry of activity between departments to sign contracts and agreements needed to bring on new customers ahead of calendar deadlines. Nobody involved in quarter-end wants requests to go unanswered or for deals to be delayed. Yet the process of signing contracts is sensitive, detailed, deliberate and can't be rushed. The only area where efficiency can be gained in the process is in better communications and response time. But how can this be done ?

Efficiently coordinating all the work involved at quarter end can challenge even the largest organizations. It is exactly this situation that our own company was facing and that our legal team was able to streamline by using our own CubeTree Social Collaboration Software. The old process relied on email alone as the system that everyone involved had access to. But it turned out to be a real problem when lots of requests were coming in at once to multiple people; it wasn't easy to know who on a long CC list was already working on which requests. That meant too much valuable time was being consumed just assigning work to people; time that those involved could have been using to actually process requests.

The solution for our team was to use several Web2.0 collaboration tools to help coordinate work more efficiently through CubeTree in 3 simple steps:

Step 1: First a private group was created in our CubeTree account. Privacy was important, by nature the information being exchanged is sensitive and needed to be kept secure. Everyone critical to the process was then invited to join the group. This included an immense cross-functional and global team of all types and roles from individual account reps, to senior managers, to legal and accounting departments -- all the folks who are critical at quarter end to closing deals, reviewing contracts and coming to agreement with customers.

Step 2: Second, customer facing reps were instructed to submit requests for contract approvals by posting them to the private group. Along with their requests they were able to upload digital documents and links to external information. This kept all the needed information in one secure location. The legal support team then created a single document in the group that tracked ALL of the incoming requests and who was assigned to each. This allowed everyone involved to see the status of each time sensitive item.

Step 3: Finally, with the tracking document shared using Social Docs on CubeTree, it was easy for individuals to communicate about individual contracts. Reps could add comments and updates to their own line items as new information surfaced, if there were last minute chages or simply to request a status update. For the support personnel it was easy to pick up unassigned requests as they became available because each person could see the status of ALL open requests. No more sorting through email chains to figure out if a contract was already being worked on.

The Result? More contracts processed in less time with fewer delays. For sales reps, using CubeTree meant clearer communication about the status of time-sensitive requests. With one place to submit, communicate, and update they could rely on always having the most current information. For the support team it meant that they could efficiently handle the deluge of incoming requests that come toward the end of any quarter. Without having to rely on email there was little wasted communication, which meant less time spent coordinating work and more time available for bringing the quarter to a successful close.