December 2023 Snapshot

Make Your Intranet
Accessible to Everyone

This month’s Snapshot is filled to the brim with
exciting news and events.

April 2022

Dear ShortPoint Community!
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As we wrap up 2023, we give you a rundown of all the exciting events that happened for ShortPoint. We are truly grateful for your continued support as we look back at what we achieved this year.

Major Releases
2023 Highlights
New and Updated Support Articles
Faces of ShortPoint: Meet Oksana, Our Customer Experience Manager

Yvette Tunguia
ShortPoint Content Unit Manager

Major Releases

ShortPoint Live Mode Public

The most significant achievement of the ShortPoint team in 2023 is the release of the Live Mode public version. It brings a major update to the product that both simplifies and improves its overall intranet editing experience. It enabled a WYSIWYG interface that allowed users to design visually instead of relying on wireframes and widgets.
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A project that started a couple of years ago, painstakingly developed and rigorously tested by our team of experts, having gone through several iterations with the help of valuable feedback from early adopters, has now come to fruition and is enjoyed by all.
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You can refer to our release notes on our Roadmap page to know all the details of the ShortPoine Live Mode public release. You can also explore everything new about ShortPoint Live Mode through resources such as ShortPoint Academy, new support articles in our Knowledge Base, or contact our Support Experts.

Automatic License Activation

We continue to receive feedback about ShortPoint from different channels, but one thing that always comes up is a request for licensing details to update on all site collections automatically. Having to activate licensing on every site collection manually was a pain point, especially for those who have more than a handful of sites to maintain.
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This year, we released Automatic License Activation to SharePoint 2019 and Microsoft 365 environments. Next time you need to update the licensing details for your organization’s tenancy, all you need to do is visit one site collection where ShortPoint is installed and the rest will be updated automatically.
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Check out our support article to learn more about Automatic License Activation.

SharePoint Web Part Design Element

There is nothing like having the flexibility to use different tools and resources to showcase important content on your SharePoint intranet sites.

In the latter part of 2023, we introduced the SharePoint Web Part Design Element. It allows you to incorporate out-of-the-box SharePoint web parts into a ShortPoint-designed page while retaining their basic functionality. This adds to the number of options you have in displaying your content on your page as well as giving you the ability to mix and match between ShortPoint Design Elements and SharePoint web parts.

Learn from our support article on How to Embed a SharePoint Web Part into ShortPoint to get started in using this new feature.

2023 Highlights

Our Quest for Excellent First-Time User Experience

We began 2023 with one major focus in mind and that is to improve ShortPoint’s first-time user experience. We looked into the processes a customer goes through when they initially interact with ShortPoint and how we can make it more seamless, intuitive, and, easy to navigate. We also gathered feedback from all channels to validate our findings and make changes where it matters.
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Continued Installation Improvements
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We introduced auto installation from our official website at the end of 2022. However, we did not stop there. We continued to enhance the installation process to ensure that it is straightforward, quick, and easy to implement. All requirements and resources were also examined to make certain that they were readily available when needed.

Now, anyone can perform a ShortPoint Install and start designing a stunning SharePoint intranet in just a few minutes.

New User Resources

Another area we paid attention to was the resources available to new users to learn about the features and functionality of ShortPoint. We came up with two major projects that were launched this year.

The ShortPoint Assistant is an integrated checklist that guides new designers through the solution's editing interface when they first insert a ShortPoint web part. It highlights all the essential features that designers need to quickly create a modern and engaging SharePoint intranet site, ensuring a swift and efficient start.

The ShortPoint Academy is where a new designer would go for more in-depth and step-by-step tutorials on how to build their first SharePoint page with ShortPoint. Our product experts walk through every step of the process and provide tips on maximizing the value of the solution.

UX Updates

We have also embarked on enhancing the user experience when creating in ShortPoint. Two major improvements are worth mentioning.

In the past, SharePoint action buttons were accessible and visible when creating a page using ShortPoint. This meant that SharePoint and ShortPoint actions were often interchangeable and oftentimes caused confusion to designers. This year, we implemented Isolate Mode for the ShortPoint editing interface where all other SharePoint-related command buttons are blurred and inaccessible. This contributed to a streamlined editing experience, reducing confusion about the appropriate actions for ShortPoint and eliminating irrelevant options during the page design process.

One of the most embraced features released this year was the integration of a Templates Library in the product. In just a few clicks, designers have access to a collection of page and section templates right within the product and they can be inserted directly without having to copy and paste them into the page. This has proven to be a more convenient and efficient way to incorporate the famous SharePoint intranet designs that ShortPoint has always been known for.

This is a rewarding journey and it does not stop here. You can expect continued enhancements toward an improved first-time user experience in the future together with frequently requested features.

Articles

New Articles

Updated Articles

The Faces of ShortPoint

Meet Oksana Aloshyna, Our Customer Experience Manager

Customer support and education are two daunting tasks in the world of software development. However, if you have someone like Oksana Aloshyna, our Customer Experience Manager, at the helm, it is an adventure towards achieving excellence.

Oksana began her journey at ShortPoint right when it was just starting to take flight. She single-handedly took care of our early customers together with Sami and Anas, our founders. She believes this gave her so much understanding of what the ShortPoint solution is all about and for whom we are making it. Armed with this knowledge and experience, she manages her team well to develop support, education, and content strategies on a bigger scale. “Our product has a lot of features and there are countless ways to use it, so we make sure our customers feel supported and safe when using it, and there is a helping hand anytime they need one,” she says.

What Oksana finds to be fun about her job is the freedom to create and initiate something new. She might be checking out new software that her team can benefit from in one moment, reviewing a new video storyboard the next, or preparing a presentation for a proposed project. She states “I’m very lucky to be able to take up projects that interest me and can be of use for the company, and dive into them.” Her biggest challenge, on the other hand, is making videos. She feels that it is a battle between herself and her perfectionism. “I always want to create more video content, but often get very involved with the smallest details and it takes me way longer than I would like to,” she quips.

Outside ShortPoint, Oksana is a travel bug. She thrives in experiencing the outdoors. She loves to visit places near the sea or ocean, take treks in the mountains, and soak in nature in all its forms. She is a huge fan of freediving although she is yet a rookie at it. She also enjoys attending summer music festivals and getting together with friends and family to explore a new city or country. She is also learning to play the guitar. She consciously chooses the activities she gets into. “Real-world experiences are very important for me. I try to spend a lot of time away from the screens and since a year ago I stopped using social media to be more connected with the world and people around me,” she remarks.

After all this talk about travel and going to amazing places, would you believe that Oksana is very bad at understanding verbal directions? Yes, she gets confused easily when told to go to the left, right, southwestern, etc. She would rather you point it out to her. Well, we have sophisticated GPS apps nowadays that show your exact path and location so I don’t think we will encounter a lost Oksana anytime soon.

See you in January

More exciting news is planned for January. Stay tuned! And if you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, please send us a note. We love to hear from you.
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See you next month, ShortPoint hero!