Operations
2023: A Year in Review
December 18, 2023
10min
Obzervr’s Year in Review looks back at all the exciting new features and enhancements released in 2023. This is part of our commitment to continual innovation and improving our product to serve your business needs better.
The 2023 enhancements to the Obzervr product significantly elevate the user experience by providing improved navigation, increased efficiency, and better team communication. New features have been incorporated to streamline role and access management, offer more user-friendly customization options, and enhance communication within teams. In addition, the updates have made navigation and data updates more efficient and added capabilities for enhanced data management.
Without further ado, lets take a look!
Security Groups
in: Manager
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Never forget to add or remove that one permission when setting up a new user with their permissions. Simply set and forget permissions for each role - you’ll only need to add or remove a user from that group for all the same permissions to apply.
Security Groups allow admins to be able to bulk manage user access to various parts of Obzervr based on commonalities of user roles.
Template Groups
in: Manager
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No compliance issues waiting to happen if someone unauthorized accidentally changes a form. For example, safety forms can now be restricted to being managed by safety teams, while ERP integration forms are managed by IT, and so on.
Template groups introduce more granular controls, allowing groups of users to be able to access and edit certain work templates and fragment templates. Previously, this access was based on read / admin access across all forms, where a user could either read / edit all templates, or none at all.
Assignment Dashboard and Widgets
in: Manager
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See more key information at one glance! Handover notes, shift information, and any supporting data needed to make important decisions all on one page, simplifying your workflow and saving you time.
The assignments dashboard allows you to add additional components called “widgets” to the assignment list, creating a dashboard that provides context to improve your management process. With widgets, you are able to choose what additional information you want on the dashboard, and where. The Widgets currently available are Notepad and Roster.
Status Reasons for Cancelled Work
in: Capture and Manager
You will now be able to add a Reason and Comment when work is Cancelled. This will help Supervisors communicate and provide context to other team members for why a work order has been cancelled, like they have been able to for On Hold work.
Field Feedback and Feedback Management
in: Capture and Manager
A mistake on a form? Workers will be able to capture Feedback for each specific field, much like they already capture comments. No scrolling required. Planners can easily see any feedback needed and action it all in one place. The new Feedback Management list for will be their go-to location for checking if forms need to be updated and it can be assigned to another team member to action.
Exceptions Comments and Exception Management
in: Capture and Manager
Take team communication to a whole new level with more nuanced commenting capabilities and a streamlined way to view and manage.
In addition to the comments that can be added to any field, we’ve added a way to add comments specifically to the exception itself. Both these comments can be surfaced in a new menu option called Exception Management, specifically for a simplified way to view and manage exceptions all in one place.
Learn more about how to add an Exception Comment in Capture here.
Learn more about how to use Exception Management in Manager here.
Compact View for Worklist
in: Manager
Customize your view according to your preference. See more on the screen with the compact layout! Or stick to roomy for a more mobile-friendly experience.
Toggle between Compact and Roomy view in Worklist settings.
Custom Columns for Worklist
in: Manager
Something specific you’d like to be able to check at a glance? Tailor Worklist accordingly. For example, a custom column for Group Reoccurrence Count will give a total count of reoccurrences created for the selected group. you can use a ‘Group reoccurrence count’ column for your safety checks to make sure all assigned users have completed their safety requirements.
With custom columns, add data to your view that relates to the assignments that aren’t available in the list of default columns.
Update In-Flight Assignments
in: Manager
When creating assignments in advance, what if the Assignment template used has been updated? Assignments can now be updated to the latest version, and if the field operator has already started working offline, no data is lost as both versions are stored!
This allows for seamless updates to assignments using the latest version of the group fragment. In the standard process, assignments can only incorporate the most up-to-date version at the time of creation. However, assignments that are open or on hold can now effortlessly be updated to the latest version. This guarantees that field operators have uninterrupted access to the most recent versions, regardless of when the assignment was originally created.
Sync and Location Picker Optimization
in Capture
Both Sync times and loading large location hierarchies are optimized with significantly less time needed to sync or load.
Other Minor Enhancements
Table of Contents Subpage Indicators and Filters
in: Capture
When collapsing a group on the table of contents page that you have open, you will have a 'subpage open' indicator to make navigation clearer than ever. Any filters applied to a page will also now persist if you change pages.
View Exports for Feedback and Exception Management
in: Manager
Save time by only exporting what you need! By using feedback and exception management, you can now export your view as an Excel file. This functionality is the same as exporting through a worklist.
New Columns in Feedback Management
in: Manager
Added new columns in the column chooser to allow more data to be surfaced:
- Group Identifier
- Section Identifier
- Team Description
