Monthly Product updates October 2019

New Product Updates on Web Version of Empuls

1. Reward notifications to stakeholders 

The award creators can now notify different business users such as reporting managers, BU heads, HRBPs and cost-center heads when their team members receive the awards. Select ‘Inform stakeholders when a user is given this award’ option on the ‘Create an Award’ page. (Fig. 1)

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2. Smart recommendations to avoid biased and duplicate rewarding

Empuls just got smarter. To assist users in their rewarding decisions, Empuls now prompts award givers with the complete reward history of the recipients. (Fig. 2).

These intelligent prompts helps award givers avoid:

1. Biased rewarding: Instances of rewarding / nominating the same recipient repeatedly.
2. Duplicate rewarding: Instances of the same recipients being rewarded by multiple users for the same reason.

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3. Award posts now stands out in the feed

To enhance the perceived value of recognition and to better inspire other employees, the awards feed has undergone a significant redesign. Now, the award post stands out amongst the rest of the posts, and also provides richer information about the award. (Fig. 3).

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4. User profiles are now richer

The user profiles are now redesigned to provide pertinent and extensive information (Fig. 4).In line with the organisation’s policies, users can now:

• Link their social profiles such as FB, LinkedIn and Twitter.
• Skills and languages known
• Mark contact number and date of birth as private (as per privacy policies)

Web:

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Mobile:

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5. Send awards in bulk

Admins can now disburse awards in bulk by uploading the award recipient list in .CSV format. The system auto-verifies and validates this list for format errors, before the rewards are sent to the respective recipients. (Fig 5).

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6. Auto-save of the user data upload format.

To synch the HRMS data with that of Empuls, the super admin exports user data from the HRMS to upload it in the Empuls platform. The format of this .CSV export generally remains the same at every download. The ‘user management - user upload’ page of Empuls is now re-designed to remember the column arrangement of the .CSV sheet previously uploaded, to enhance the user experience. When the admin uploads file, the system maps the columns to the column titles of the last upload. The admin is relieved from making a number of manual changes, except verify the column mapping before submission.  (Fig. 6).

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7. Edit posts and comments

Users can now edit the text, attachments and tags of the messages as well as comments posted by them. Click on the ellipses button to view the ‘Edit’ option. and the users can edit the text, attachments and  tags of the feed. (Fig. 7.1,7.2). 

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8. Add members to a group in bulk.

The group admin now can add users to the group in bulk in addition to adding them individually. Group admins will now be able to see the quick addition tags such as ‘department’, ‘location’ and ‘business unit’. Along with these, group admin such as "People reporting to me", "People reporting to me and my subordinates" and "People reporting to my manager" are available for the admins to quickly add. The group admin can view all departments, locations and business units by typing the custom tags "dep:", "loc:" and "bu:" respectively. Clicking on the respective category adds all members of the category to the group. (See fig. 8).

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9. Points administration

The current points administration UI doesn't clearly explain how points can be created in Empuls. It only vaguely defines when and how the payment needs to be made, the concept of reserve funds and the entire lifecycle of points. 

The new UI design allows users to gain a better understanding through an embedded tutorial which is  shown to a user when they visit points administration page for the first time. In addition to the detailed tutorial, the page also now displays the reserve fund information to ensure users understand the interplay between points and reserve funds better.  This screen also nudges users to top up reserve funds when these funds are running low in comparison to the redeemable points- thus giving better clarity on the payment process. The payment nudge also is a part of the to-do list items. (Fig. 9).

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10. SuccessFactors Integration

‘SAP SuccessFactors’ and Xoxoday integration is a landmark association that helps SuccessFactor users to redeem their accumulated reward points on the extensive and aspirational Xoxoday catalog. Successfactor super admin will be responsible for the configuration and reliable operation of the platform. After logging into the platform, the administrator has to update the platform settings, by selecting the conversion factor, the time zone, company logo, and themes. Along with the platform settings, the administrator also has to complete the configuration of SAP API, SAML metadata and then verify if the configuration has been done properly. Once the setup is complete, the respective employees will be redirected to the Xoxoday catalog for point redemption. (See fig. 10).

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11. Improved user experiences in platform login and background image upload

Empuls now accepts logos and images of larger resolutions and dimensions in the platform whitelabelling settings. It now provides size/resolution recommendations while allowing the users to expand, compress and crop the image. The login page background image, too, can be of a size, resolution and dimensions of user’s choice. (See fig. 11).

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12. Change badges to value cards 

Value Card and Badges have different functionalities. For instance, badges are automatically awarded based on achievement of milestones. On the other hand, values are awarded when employees exhibit values. 

Previously, ‘value cards’ were titled as ‘badges’ which restricted the use of badges in the gamification. 

To make these distinctions clear and more functional, the ‘badges’ have now been changed to ‘Value Cards’. This ‘badges’ feature is scheduled to be released shortly.

13. Menu caching

To enhance the product usage and its performance, admins can now configure the menu in a way most efficient for them and the employees (based on their access roles).

14. Notification Details Company Level Encryption

As a part of the security fix, now the content of the notification database is encrypted.

15. Group Content Settings

To avoid irrelevant content on groups and communities, admins now have the ability to define content posting rights.These rights are of three levels: view only, reply to, and post a new conversation. 

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16. No more errors in selecting the users for awards 

At times errors may occur in tagging the wrong user for an award. The newly introduced filters based on departments, sites and designations, help the award giver to accurately select the right recipient.

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New Product Updates on Empuls Mobile App

1. Attachments to give an award

The mobile app now allows the award nominator to add attachments to the ‘reason for recognition’. The nominator can upload documents (.doc, .docx, .pdf), excel sheets (.xls, .xlsx, .csv), presentations (.ppt) and images (.jpeg, .jpg, .png) right from his / her Empuls mobile app.  (See fig. 1.1 and 1.2).

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2. Organisational values in Awards and Nominations. 

The nominator is now able to mention organization values during award citations. Type # in the citation to view and select values created in ‘Value Cards’.  (Fig. 2).

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3. Error messages on disabled awards in Android and iOS.

To improve the user experience, the disabled awards now come with detailed error messages about why the selection is not possible. For example, if the award is for multiple recipients and user has chosen only one recipient, then the “Team award cannot be given to an individual” error appears.

4. Statistics in mobile app banner

The Mobile app banner now shows the details of the available budget, available points and points consumed till date, for the admins and super-admins.

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