WorkflowMax News - 1 to 1 Catchup with BlueRock
Good vibes for WorkflowMax
On 2nd May I met 1 to 1 with Ryan Kogan, Head of Growth and Partnerships for BlueRock for constructive discussion about development of the new WorkflowMax. I was thrilled to be able to connect directly as I did not expect that, and Ryan is clear he is available to us WorkflowMax partners for this purpose.
Clearly the whole process has been a huge roller-coaster as we all could all reasonably expect, but the passion and commitment from the BlueRock team is as strong as ever, the team has grown and is continuing to grow - at pace - and there is huge excitement about possibilities after getting through the current migration challenges. Investment in the product continues.
I can also report that BlueRock really is investing in us WorkflowMax Partners. The partner portal has been released and the early hiccups with choosing the right emails and transferring and billing etc are resolved.
Heaps of files have migrated already with happy WorkflowMax users. The migration process to bring data over is really solid and information is coming through accurately. Errors are happening on only a very small percentage and from what I can see generally limited to issues from the format of attachments. Solvable.
There is ample migration capacity to deal with the number of files expected to migrate after 1 June.
The big worries I had were:
- Sluggish performance and timeouts
- Reports not available or producing rubbish data
- Not hearing back on older support tickets
SLUGGISH PERFORMANCE
BlueRock has been working on this for a while now, and that was worrying me. However, there is 100% certainty of a sea-change in performance over the next few weeks. How can Ryan be so sure? It's because the changes started weeks ago and the funnel is 2-4 weeks. They know what's in the funnel and when its coming out. The performance issue is not bandwidth, its a series of tweaks and adjustments in a whole range of areas and the work will continue over time with decreasing intensity over time. Stand-by and Believe.
REPORTS
Many of us have been concerned about missing standard reports and reported rubbish data in various different report scenarios - there is no denying it. BlueRock know it and getting it sorted is absolutely top priority. Everyone is aware that many WFM users cannot migrate until this is sorted. Surprisingly to some, many WFM users don't use reports at all so are unaffected. This is the second big Stand-by and Believe.
OUTSTANDING TICKETS
Back in February, despite planning on the best information available BlueRock found themselves significantly under resourced in support capacity. It's been catch up ever since and is now at the point where ticket volumes coming in are pretty much matched with ticket volumes going out. That said, there are some older tickets (such as a handful in my name) that saw the worst of the time delays and are still in a kind of archive loop which is now being addressed as a stand alone issue.
We discussed the specifics of some older tickets I have been concerned about:
Failed Migration of 2 files with a huge amount of document attachments
Still no answer about migration failures on a couple of files with HUGE numbers of document attachments (like really huge). There is genuine commitment to get this sorted. There is also a viable back up option beyond downloading a heap of zip tiles (in one case over 400 zip files were generated). Connect Dropbox to the old WFM file using the existing integration and upload all attachments (this could take several days). You can then choose to keep them as an archive in Dropbox, or later on to re-connect to the new WFM with the new Dropbox integration.
Using Costs as Templates feature not available
This is where a cost is added from the database complete with it's integration settings, cost rates and margins, and then the description is changed as required. The new WFM wont' do it as it doesn't keep the settings when the description is changed. This ticket was still showing as Open and will be followed up. It is an example of a way old WFM can be used that I take for granted, but is not well known. There is most likely a viable work around!
Multi-line data field formatting
This is a bug which was showing as escalated to product team. Some data fields such as Job Cost Notes and Quote Terms are not formatting correcting when more than one line of text is added. The "returns" to move from one line to the next are not being picked up, so the text just runs on as one line when saving and when printing.
Phase Descriptions
At the moment I'm seeing this as a small bug where you can enter Phase Descriptions in a job but they don't show in some views in the job, and they don't print onto Standard or Custom Print Templates even when selected. It's kind of a new feature but certainly would be nice to have. Was showing as open, rather than escalated to product so checking on that.
Other tickets are only a couple of days old, or there had been communication so I was not concerned.
For myself, I remain very focussed on supporting successful migrations in the most appropriate way to suit you. Mostly this is about a smooth transition and carrying on with as little disruption as possible and in a few cases it's also about reviewing the use of Workflowmax to start afresh in the new product. Whichever way it is for you, and however much or little support you would like, I will continue to do my best to smooth the journey. As your independent WorkflowMax partner, I'm always happy to hear from you.
Cheers, Helen.