Anyway, things still aren't quiet here, as we're moving fast on a couple new features, and now we're using secret codenames for projects: Honeyduke, SafetyWeb, and Bertie Bott. All pretty cool functionality that are coming into the product as kind of beta features during v7, and will be finalized in v8 early next year. The code names are coming mostly from Harry Potter, but I think we'll have some Douglas Adams and Lord of the Rings code names too.
v7 is already at its 18th release, so here's a short list of what we've added so far this year:
- New Metric/US units selection - add the Name/Unit data for a map and you now choose what units to use
- Added the Map Copy button back to the ribbon, should be a nice fast way to copy a map to another page
- Added a Stack Help button to help you pick the right icon for a transmit/transport/etc.. shape
- Added Icon Search to help you find a master you want to use. So if you're looking for Changeover, just search that and you'll see what shapes are associated with Changeover.
- Reworked Kaizen/Starburst system, allowing you to pick what data you are interested in, and edit only those fields with bidirectional Excel export/import.
- Revamped the Sketcher Picture Import workflow to make it easier to scale an imported wall map picture
- Added a new MultiAdd quick master type, which basically allows you to assign default addons when you drop say an Activity Center MultiAdd.
- Honeyduke Solve, which is essentially a flow simulation for tokens (work items, patients, whatever might be moving through the value stream). This simulation gives us the ability to calculate demand in the presence of rework loops, document/workflow splits and merges. Very exciting. Use the Quick Transactional Pro stencil to try it out. We might bring this to other stencils but for now it's focused on Office/Healthcare applications.
- Performance has been a big focus in a lot of areas, which is not something most people will probably notice, but my hope is using eVSM will feel smoother and faster going forward, not clunkier and slower.
I wish I could say we have countless other changes, but I can't since I have over 1100 changes logged since the final v6 release. Regardless there are a lot of tweaks, fixes, and improvements and I would encourage you to try, buy, or upgrade to the latest release of eVSM.
We've done a lot of work under the covers, too, to help make the product more reliable. This includes a lot of work on tools to help us manage code development, profiling, and automated testing. I will write a little about this in the future. The next big challenge will be the Bertie Bott project, which I can't elaborate on, but it could be very useful. Possibly more useful than Honeyduke, and Honeyduke is very cool.
