October 2024

As a software company, recurring usually means good things. All startups are after recurring revenue, after all. But we fight recurring. Because our users hate recurring tasks.

One thing frequently recurring task was customer data entry. We didn’t want to become the repository of customer data as nearly all our customers use CRMs, but some don’t and adding name, number, address etc over and over again became a drag. Now, simply find an order containing information from a common customer and add that to your list of Templates. The next time they give you a call or shoot you an email asking for new parts, start your process with that Order Template pre-filling your key tracking and Customer information into the system and fast track that order to production.

Oddly, users we asked preferred the template process to creating a database, which I did not expect. Another reminder to check your biases and talk with users frequently, if you needed it.

Another repeat process comes from having to click in and out of specific information sources to see detail. We started to address that a while ago with the roll overs for Runs in Flows, and we’ve started to expand that there and in Threads now. There are Tooltips for Events both in the Thread and in the “gantt” chart, as well as for Assets in Flows.

We have another improvement coming to Threads in a couple of weeks that saves literally 100+ hours per task. But I can’t talk about that quite yet. Keep your ears to the ground, and let’s meet up at Formnext and let me tell you all about it. Let me know when you’re free or pick a time that works for you.

If you’ve got some spare time before then, here’s a draft white paper I’ve written on the importance and means of capturing engineering Intent. Would love some feedback, if you’ve got any