April Roundup: Multiple improvements

April saw another great month for the CrowdComms team and we're excited to continue adding new features to help you run engaging and inclusive events.

As well as maintaining the enormous amounts of functionality the platform contains, from today, we're proud to announce our new Single Sign-on feature; A first step on the roadmap to a new account management area; A new section for embedding content in your agenda sessions and a long-overdue lick of paint for the Dashboard! 

Let's get into a little more detail...

Single Sign-On

Click here to go to training guide

This is a biggie. A really exciting feature that means your attendees will now be able to sign in to events in a much more flexible way. 

Instead of having to register and create an account using the CrowdComms system you will be able to offer alternative ways to login.  With sign-on, users only have to enter one set of credentials to access event  apps via desktops, smartphones and tablets. This greatly increases productivity while keeping data secure. You choose your provider, add the authentication information into the CrowdComms Dashboard and we'll do the rest! You can even customise the text alongside it and add any logo you'd like to support it. 

if you're the independent-type, we've created a short video to explain how to implement it here, or if you'd like help or training on how to set it up, just talk to your account manager or get in touch and we'll take you through it.  

Dashboard Password Management

Hopefully you're getting to grips with our new security features on the Dashboard (Multi-factor authentication, password expiry et al). With this in mind, we've taken our first steps towards a new Account Management section for all users of the CrowdComms Dashboard. 

There will be more to come over the next few months, but as a start, you'll now have a profile section in the top right of the screen you'll be able to use to change your password and log out. 

You'll obviously need your existing password to choose a new one, but it's a simple process and means as you approach the 30 day password expiry you'll be able to change to a new one before having to use the reset link at login. 

Livestream Viewers

In order to get an accurate figure of your Livestream total views, and who's currently watching we've improved the livestream viewers count. In order to pull the most up-to-date figures you'll need to hit the refresh button when you want latest data. 

We've also moved it to a more convenient position in the top right hand corner of each of the session pages of the Dashboard. 

The new 'Embed' tab

In the coming months you'll start to see a few new media types you can embed into your agenda sessions. So, in order to future-proof this section we've removed the buttons to add a livestream from the top right hand corner of session pages and replaced them with an 'Embed' tab. 

Embedding a Livestream now a slightly simpler process. Rather than going through a series of pop-up windows to select what you need, you'll now be able to choose existing Livestreams from a drop down list or create a new stream using the plus button. Once selected, just click the link icon and save the page to embed your stream.

Please note: There is an update coming to this functionality based on our usability tests, so expect this view to be tweaked slightly in the near future.  

A 'lick of paint'

Not technically a 'feature' but we feel it's worth mentioning in this month's roundup is the colours. We've replaced the Blue and Pink with our Brand colours of Teal and Purple. It's been on our to-do list for a while and it's nice to give the Dashboard a little facelift. We think it feels like a nice transition and while we can't promise it'll make you more productive, it does feel a bit more like home. 

More to come on this front in the future.