Our latest upgrade introduces User Groups. If you have a large number of users, this should make management much easier.
The User Groups feature allows an account administrator to manage permissions at a group level rather than for each individual. To manage your groups go to the Groups page (you will find the link under Settings on the Admin page).
All accounts have a group called All Users which cannot be deleted and all users automatically belong to this group. Here you can create / rename / delete groups in the left pane. The right pane displays which users are members of the selected group.
On the Folders management screen you can now manage the permissions for your User Groups. The groups are listed at the top of the right pane and are differentiated from the normal users by a multi-person icon. By default the All Users group will have all permissions in new accounts (not true for existing accounts), but you can easily disable the permissions for this group and use your own groups to manage the permissions.
And if you decide groups are not for you…you can still manage permissions individually.
As part of an initiative to make our Admin tools more simple, we have rolled out a new page layout.
The page is organized in two columns. The left-side has links for all of your account configuration settings and the right-side displays information about your current usage and product plan. You will notice that some of the configuration links have a “+” to the right. For instance the + next to Users is a shortcut to create a new user.
Over the weekend we rolled out some new upgrades to Mumboe. Check the customer forums for a complete list of release notes. As always, your feedback is appreciated.
Documents Tab Makeover and New Functionality
We’ve made some significant improvements to the Documents tab. Previously, you could only upload a PDF, TIF, or Word document. Any other file types would have to be uploaded as attachments to a Note. With this release you can upload any file type to the Documents tab. Mumboe will index the following files types, which enables a full text search:PDF, TIF, RTF, and any Microsoft Office document. The Auto Extract feature will work for primary documents of the following types: PDF, TIF, RTF and DOC(X).
You will also notice the layout has been improved. The tab now allows you to sort documents by a variety of fields. A labeling feature has been added to allow you to better organize your documents. And you should find it much easier to change individual document states between draft/final and signed. Clicking on the document title will bring you to the details page for the document where you have access to the version history and more details about the document.
Related Agreements
On the Agreement Summary tab users now have the ability to link to related agreements. This feature has been requested by a number of clients that wanted a way to link or relate agreements together so that users could quickly see other agreement records that are tied to the current record. In the sidebar area you will now see the Related Agreements area. Adding related agreements will display the hyper-linked title of related agreements.
We love to hear your feedback and ideas. Please keep the great ideas coming!
Automatically extracting data from documents is a complex feature, typically involving a discussion of linguistics. We tried to simplify the subject in our new Auto Extract video by explaining the advantages and value of the end results: fast, accurate and consistent data extraction from existing documents. Please let us know what you think and thanks again!
Our users asked us for more easy ways to get information into Mumboe. The Dropbox feature allows users to email information and documents directly into Mumboe. Each user has a personal Dropbox with four unique email addresses that allow for a variety of options:
Dropbox – Using the generic Dropbox address you can send emails and attachments to your Mumboe account. Within Mumboe at a later time you can use the email and/or attachments to add new Agreements, add new Documents on existing Agreements from email attachments and add Notes on existing Agreements.
Add New Agreements – Use this Dropbox address to add a new Agreement record in Mumboe. Email attachments will automatically become Documents in the Agreement Record. The subject line of the email will be the Agreement Title. The email itself will become a Note for the Agreement. You can also specify the Agreement Type in the body of the email by including for example “Agreement Type: NDA” (where NDA is the name of your Agreement Type).
Add Documents – Use this Dropbox address to add new Documents for existing Agreement records. In the subject line of the email include the Mumboe ID for the Agreement record, and any attachments to the email will become new Documents.
Add Notes – Use this Dropbox address to add new Notes for existing Agreement records. In the subject of the email include the Mumboe ID for the Agreement record, and the email will become a new Note.
Click on My Dropbox in the upper-right corner on the application to see your personalized Dropbox addresses and information on using the feature.
Based on user feedback, we’ve changed the name of Advanced Search to Reports. The Advanced Search link has been removed from on top of the main navigation bar and replaced with the Reports link on the main navigation bar. You’ll still have the same great functionality, but now it will be more obvious and intuitive for users.
Our users also asked us to modify the scope and layout for Search Results. Previously, a search would present the results in a report format with results only coming from data related to agreements. In our new format we have included search hits related to Agreements, Contacts and Templates. The results are presented in a format more similar to a Google search. Relevant data is displayed and you can filter the results to limit them to Agreements, Contacts, Templates, or choose to have all results displayed. You’ll always have the option to turn a search into a report with a single click (see right sidebar for options).
After months of work and a lot of input from customers, partners and our own internal team, the new Mumboe web site made its debut this week. Why the change? We are always striving to make both our site and the Mumboe application simpler and easier to use, while incorporating the key information and features our customers want.
We undertook this update with two goals in mind:
Make the the web site’s design more in line with the application for a more seamless experience;
Add more interactive features and content to help potential customers, press and other visitors to the site quickly understand what we do and how they can benefit.
As part of the design, we also created a new About Mumboe video. It’s not your usual “corporate video,” so be sure to check it out!
Kudos to the Mumboe design team for keeping the emphasis on clarity and usability, while giving the site a fresh look and feel. Check out the new design, and tell us what you think!
“SEO should be the foundation for which the website is structured, so search engines can find it in the first place.”
I recently read this comment on a LinkedIn marketing discussion group about search engine optimization. From Mumboe’s point of view, we couldn’t disagree more. Too many sites get so carried away with SEO that they become virtually unusable. They dump lots and lots of keyword-rich content on their pages, and repeat those keywords often to improve their search engine rankings. And in many cases, it works. The web sites show up in the top listings on major search engines.
There’s just one problem with this approach: Search engines don’t buy products and services, people do. And people want web sites that make it easy to quickly find what they need, understand what you offer, and buy your product or service.
When we launched Mumboe, we had a good discussion about designing the web site for usability versus SEO. It was a pretty short discussion: usability won hands down. Fortunately we’ve got a couple of terrific UI professionals on staff here that keep pushing both the Mumboe application and the web site in the direction of better usability. If you were one of the early Mumboe users, you’ve seen the changes as they’ve evolved over the past year.
Our focus on usability is why you won’t find the long pages of text on the Mumboe web site that you do on so many sites today. We keep things fairly streamlined on purpose to make it easy for people to do what we want them to do: sign up for the free version of our product. We figure that making it easy for people to see the product for themselves, free, with no strings attached, is the best way to figure out whether or not they want to use it. Pages of features and benefits text can’t replace the actual experience of using the application.
Does that make it more challenging to drive traffic to the site? Certainly. But we don’t think that’s an excuse to abandon usability in favor of high traffic numbers. For a good perspective on the topic, check out this article titled “When is Usability More Important than SEO?”, written by a search engine marketing firm, no less.
If you’ve ever purchased enterprise software, or been one of the hapless employees at your company tasked with learning a new business application, then chances are you’ve been introduced to the bizarre and Byzantine practice known as software training. All too often, this “training” is designed to make up for what the software lacks in usability. It occurs at your expense, in addition to the actual cost of the software. And it’s usually designed to make you feel hopelessly inadequate.
If any of this sounds familiar, you’ll get a kick out of a recent BusinessWeek.com article titled “What’s Terrible About Software Training.” The article is written in the form of a tongue-in-cheek “thank-you” letter from a fictional software company outlining the training options available to the customer that just purchased its software. The article begins:
“Thank you for purchasing this software product. We at MicroBugs are fully committed to ensuring that you use our product as effectively as possible. To accomplish this goal, we are providing you with some information concerning your software training.
“Training is absolutely required to use our products. Even though business applications have been around for decades, we at MicroBugs have done our very best to make the interface as difficult as we can so that it will be impossible for you to really figure out how to use the software without some training.”
Of course, we at Mumboe believe that the true test of a software product is it’s usability. That means that software should be easy to try, easy to learn and easy to use, with minimal training required. Yet there are software vendors out there that build entire businesses out of charging for training. Some even name their training programs “universities”! They host annual conferences where you can learn the endless intricacies of their product, all in the name of making you more productive. Really? Is that how you want to spend your valuable time (and money) as a business?
Fortunately, the newest generation of SaaS providers are offering businesses feature-rich applications in simple, affordable packages. Increasingly, companies large and small are embracing these applications as an alternative to the expensive, complex software systems that require additional, and even more expensive, support and training. Those who have endured the traditional enterprise software training circus will find this a welcome a change.
Do you have a software training horror story? Tell us about it here!
If you’re a Mumboe customer, you know that, as a SaaS provider, we release new updates to the Mumboe application every few weeks as they become available. However, the latest Mumboe release includes new features and services that we think are especially worth shouting about. Available today, these new offerings were developed from feedback about what is most important to you, our customers:
Read-Only Users: For only $6/user/month, Read-Only Users are an affordable way to give more users in your organization access to Mumboe. Read-Only Users can search and view agreements but can not make edits or changes, create tasks or perform other actions in the system:
Account Backup Service:Some businesses have hesitated to adopt SaaS applications due to concerns over “who owns the data.” Mumboe listened, and addressed those concerns with a new Account Backup feature. For only $24/download, account administrators can create a snapshot of all the data in their Mumboe account, including primary agreements as well as supporting documents, notes, tasks, events, contacts and even agreement summaries. You can also order a backup DVD shipped to your office for an additional $20 (includes shipping and handling):
Easily order a backup of your Mumboe account data.
Free Getting Started Consultation: To help our customers set up and configure their Mumboe account , Mumboe is offering a free 30-minute Getting Started Consultation. The consultation includes a one-on-one web meeting in which Mumboe staff will guide you through basics like setting up agreement folders, creating custom fields, adding other users to the account, and other common tasks. The consultation is free to new Mumboe Pro account holders for a limited time only. Click here to schedule your consultation now!
User Interface Enhancements:TheMumboe user interface has been further streamlined to increase user efficiency and productivity, and make it easier to find information. For example, the Mumboe Dashboard, which serves as the “home base” of the application, has been redesigned to make better use of space and include more direct functionality for managing agreements. Context-sensitive help links are embedded in each page, while video tutorials allow users to view short demos of specific features:
The new and improved Mumboe Dashboard.
To see the full extent of the changes, sign up for a FREE Mumboe Express account today. There is no credit card or commitment required, and you can cancel anytime.
