Workplace 3.4 release notes

Squiz is proud to announce the release of Workplace 3.4. This release introduces its main new feature - engagement analytics, various improvements and bug fixes.

New features

Engagement analytics

The engagement analytics feature of Workplace provides organisations with a way to:

  • Measure and influence the engagement of their user with Workplace. Workplace system administrators can review reporting dashboard data to gain insights into their users reading habits and using this data, develop targeted content.

  • Identify their most popular news and information (e.g. the number of comments on a director’s announcement).

  • Share usage statistics with stakeholders through in-page analytics and reporting dashboard information, which in turn demonstrate engagement with important topics.

The engagement analytics feature is available through in-page analytics and a reporting dashboard.

In-page analytics

Available for news items and other types of pages. This feature offers a snapshot of user engagement statistics, showing a summary of information about the page’s total number of views, comments, number of times the page was marked as a favourite ("favourited"), the average time spent on the page, and when the page was last updated.

In-Page Analytics

Reporting dashboard

Allows Workplace system administrators to view content engagement metrics across their entire Workplace site and can be accessed from the in-page analytics feature. The reporting dashboard provides access to:

  • An Analytics Overview page, showing the total number of users, news items, pages, as well as social interactions which have occurred in your Workplace system.

    Reporting dashboard
  • A User Analytics page, showing which users have recently published the most pages/news items, high-level insights into the total number of users who visited, and time spent on the Workplace site, as well as a link to more detailed information in Google Analytics.

  • A News Analytics page, showing which news items have received the most views, average time spent, number of comments, other data and news item summary information, as well as a link to more detailed information in Google Analytics.

Improvements

Working with multiple images in classifieds is much easier

The Classifieds page provides users with the ability to:

  • upload multiple images to their listed item and

  • view a gallery of images for a listed item on sale.

The 'Show More' button on news items and other pages

This button allows users to access more than the last 10 comments. Previously, all comments on a page would be displayed, potentially impacting the performance of page loads.

The 'Create an article' form is more intuitive

This enhanced form reduces the need for users to enter metadata details via the Edit+ or Admin mode interfaces.

Staff directory data loads faster

These areas have been significantly improved, such that staff directory data:

  • Is now significantly quicker to load, especially for large organisations.

  • Can continue to be updated from a CSV file or a database (tested with MySQL).

Caching changes lead to reduced page loads and more responsiveness

  • Enhanced caching of the main navigation menu leads to reduced load times on every page.

  • Workplace’s internal API calls are now cached, resulting in improved response times.

Security improvements

  • Enhanced protection against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks on staff profile and search input fields.

  • User sessions now time out after 30 minutes of inactivity and notifications now stop polling after 15 minutes of inactivity.

Accessibility improvements

  • Buttons on the WYSIWYG editor for commenting, community discussions and news article creation are now accessible via the tab key (with the "shift" key to go back through the editor buttons).

  • Numerous UI enhancements have been implemented for improved compatibility with screen readers, including:

    • Opened and closed states for contact cards (available when clicking a user’s icon).

    • Free-form text fields on the staff profile feature.

    • Filter checkboxes and the names of tabs in search results.

    • Expanded and collapsed states on:

      • Tabs and accordions.

      • The hamburger icon which appears when Workplace is viewed on mobile devices. (This icon contains the global navigation top bar as well as the Quick Links section.)

  • Users are now notified that the page will be refreshed when the sort order is changed.

  • When a modal dialogue is open, the tab key no longer tabs to fields and buttons outside the modal. This prevents users from having to tab to every other field or button on the page.

Bug fixes

  • The feedback form no longer shows details of the previous user who submitted feedback and the current user’s details are now pre-filled.

  • Using double quotes (") in the title of news articles no longer prevents comments from loading.

  • Search using #hashtag terms is now possible. A bug in a previous Workplace release prevented the ability to search using hashtags.

  • Alerts functionality on the Workplace homepage has been fixed. Alerts now function without the personalisation feature (available through My Account > Content Preferences).

  • The non-responsive spinner encountered when clicking on notifications in Internet Explorer (IE) 11 has been fixed. Improved error handling specifically for IE 11 has also been implemented.

  • Switching to the next tab in the global search results no longer requires users to manually re-select Page 1.

  • Contact cards now launch email applications and phone calls when clicking on email addresses and phone numbers.

  • Issues with the presentation of Workplace email notifications in Outlook 2013 and 2016 have been fixed.