Announcing the New WorkSpan User Experience

Navigation

The first area we’ll focus on is getting around the application. We’ve updated our main menu and object navigation to feel more familiar and intuitive. Let’s take a look:

Global Navigation Bar

Our new Global Navigation bar has been simplified to allow you to quickly get to your work and notifications. From left to right, let's go over each item.

1. The Main Menu: This is the starting point allowing you to navigate to all the objects in the WorkSpan application. If you want to get to a particular Sales Plan, Partner Program, Marketing Plan, you name it, it’s in the Main Menu
2. The WorkSpan Logo: Our Logo acts as the home button everywhere in the app. No matter where you are, you can return to the Home Page by clicking the logo.
3. Global Search: We’ll cover this in detail later, but when you want to find anything in the app, you can type some of all of an object name or ID into the search box to find it.
4. The Quick Create button: This button allows you to create a new object with one click. On the home page, this button allows you to create just about any object you need by selecting it from the create menu. When you’re viewing a specific object, like an Opportunity, or an Activity, this button will let you create a new object of that type. The label of the button changes to let you know what object you’ll create on click.
5. Bookmarks: These are all the items you have bookmarked in the app for quick navigation to your most frequently visited Objects or Reports.
6. Requests: Here are all your Approval Requests, Membership Invitations and Endorsement Requests.
7. Tasks: Quickly review your current and new tasks, or see those you’ve assigned to others.
8. Inbox: Communications sent directly to you are here.
9. Notifications: Keep on top of all the changes to your work items. You can click on a notification to navigate to the item for a deeper review of the changes.
10. The Help Menu: Ask a question, review our Knowledge Base and Help Center, or submit a request, there are many options for you to gather more information about WorkSpan and how it can accelerate your Partner Ecosystem!
11. Finally, the menu under your Avatar gives you access to your Personal Profile, your Company’s Profile and the option to log out of the system, if needed.

Now that we’ve reviewed the basics of the Global Navigation Bar, let's dive into a few of the features in more detail.

Main Menu

The new Main Menu is accessed by clicking the menu button at the top left of the Global Navigation Bar. You’ll notice that we’ve added a new iconography for the objects in the system. These icons are carried throughout the app for quick identification. This is particularly useful when searching for different objects across the app, which we’ll cover in a moment. For now, take a look at the headings for each of the app sections (Network, Joint Sales, Joint Solutions…), you’ll see that each section has a collapse icon to the right of the heading. If you work primarily in one part of the application, that you can collapse the menu items you don’t often use, allowing you to see only the objects you interact with frequently. So if you primarily use Sales Plans and Opportunities, you can collapse the Joint Marketing section to focus on just the items you work with for faster navigation.

Search

We have completely revamped our search capabilities to better assist you in locating what you’re looking for quickly. You can perform a global search on all objects simply by typing a partial name or ID into the Search bar with the default “All” filter selected.  You’ll then be directed to our new results page which allows you to further filter by object type, or do more advanced searching if needed. If you’re looking for a specific object type, you can use the menu under the All category to narrow your search to that object.

On the new Search Results page, you can see how many of each object have been returned by the search listed next to each object type.  Click a specific object type to filter down to just those results. You’ll also be presented with a link to perform advanced search options if needed.

Landing Pages/Advanced Search

From clicking an object on the navigation menu, or when clicking the Advanced Search link from the Search Results page, you are directed to that object’s Landing Page. For this example, we’ve clicked Sales Plans from the Main Menu. When you first land here, you are shown the “My Sales Plans” tab listing all the Sales Plans where you are a member.  You can switch between the tabs to see objects you have been invited to, or items that are Discoverable to you or your company, etc.

Looking across that top header, to the right of the tabs, you’ll see some options for viewing the Sales Plans. You can sort the Plans in different ways (last modified, newest to oldest, etc.), or in most cases, you can switch to a table view of the objects, giving you a deeper look at the individual items. Most importantly, you’ll see the “Create New” button which allows you to add new Objects.

Navigating within an Object

After you’ve navigated to an object that you wish to work on, you’ll see new Object Header Bar which allows you to navigate the items linked to that object and take actions. Let’s take a look at what’s here.

1. The first element you see is the Breadcrumb Navigation. This gives you some context on how you navigated to this object and lets you quickly get back. In the above example, We were in a Sales Plan and navigated to one of its linked Opportunities.
2. Just below the Breadcrumb is the Object Name with its Icon. Next to the name is an edit button (if you have edit permissions) use this to update the name of the object. Next to the edit button is the Membership Badge which tells you your membership level for this object. In the above example, we are the Owner of this object.
3. Now, look at the right side of the Object Header Bar. First, you’ll see the Sharing Status for your object. You can see the names of the people and partner companies that are members of this object and can click the Share button to add partners as needed. 
4. Finally, under the Sharing Status are the Actions that can be taken on the object. Let’s take a look at each:
   1. Enter Private Mode: This toggle will enter or exit Private Mode, which allows you to hide all the fields that are marked as Private on your objects. Note: Private mode will turn on or off for ALL objects as you navigate the app. So once you’ve entered Private Mode, your Private fields will remain hidden no matter which objects you navigate to until you exit Private Mode.
   2. Next, you’ll see the “Add…” button. This allows you to add new objects or link existing objects to this Opportunity.  When clicked, you’ll see a menu of all the objects you can add. In this case, you may want to add a new Task to this Opportunity, for example.

3. Options and Configuration: After the Add button, you’ll see any additional actions, like the Bookmark icon, and the Configuration icon to set additional features for this Object.

Our New Table View

As you navigate around the objects in WorkSpan, you’ll encounter items displayed in a table layout. If you’re familiar with using spreadsheets these should feel very familiar and utilize many of the same tools.

For most table views, you’ll be able to save views and switch between them quickly. You can show and hide columns, create filters and sorting, then save that view for later use. You can switch these views by clicking on the View Control dropdown (shown above as Default View) next to the Search Input. Speaking of the Search Input, You can search the table for keywords across columns for quick filtering of the rows.

To the right of the search box are the actions and controls that exist for the table. Items that are disabled can be used when you select one or more items from the table by clicking the checkbox on the item’s row. Note that there’s also a Select All checkbox on the header row. These bulk action items can be different for different objects. 

The other buttons are common to all table views:

1. Export: Allows you to create a download of the current view to your computer as a .csv file.
2. Access Level: Quickly filter the items in the table by your Membership level.
3. Filter: Allows you to create simple or complex filters for the table view with a guided builder.
4. Sort: Quick-sort the table by a specific column.
5. Columns: Show only the columns you want to see and move them around by dragging them to change their order.
6. Save View: Once you get the table into just the right state, save your view to use again later! These views will be listed in the View Control drop-down we mentioned above.

When you’ve engaged a control like a Filter, Sort or Column change, you’ll see that the button remains highlighted in blue. This is your indication that one of those controls is in use on your table. You’ll also note that you can sort or filter on individual columns if that’s more your style. These actions will be treated just like using the builders in the table controls above and will be reflected in those controls in the same way.

A Few More Items of Note

Now that you have the basics of how to get around WorkSpan, we want to point out a few other items for you to be aware of that will allow you to get in and get working quickly!

Quick Access Cards

Back on the Home Page, you’ll see your Quick Access Card. This card allows you to navigate to your most used Partner Programs, Marketing Plans or Sales Plans. As you filter through these items you’ll see the most recently updated Objects. You can take common actions directly from the Quick Access Card, or dive into your most recent work here.

Recently Updated Card

Just below the Quick Access Card lives the Recently Updated Card. Where the Quick Access Card filters by specific object type, the Recently Updated card lists all objects that have been updated in WorkSpan. This card allows you to pick up where you left off by surfacing all objects that you’ve been work on.

 Memberships Card

To the right of the Quick Access Card you'll see the new Memberships Card. This allows you to see and manage all Invitations and Requests to Join. You can quickly filter on request type or Approve All with one click.  You'll also note that each invitation or Request has it's own individual Accept and Decline button if you need to consider them one at a time.

You'll notice on the Requests tab, the Approve All button has an additional feature. You can accept all the Requests, but also assign them all a specific Membership level. So if you have a series of Requests that you want to grant Collaborator access, you can now do so with one simple motion.

Video Walkthrough

Want to see the new user experience in action? Have a look at our webinar we recorded to walk our users through the new WorkSpan.

Thank You!

We truly hope you love the new experience as much as we do. We welcome any and all feedback at any time. Feel free to drop an email to feedback@workspan.com with your comments. We’d love to hear from you! Welcome to your new Ecosystem Cloud!