This month we welcome the latest release, Perspective Version 3.3. While this could be considered more of a minor release for us, a lot of effort went in to improving the overall performance and usability of the product—from the load time of e-Reporting, to adding tab orders to all data entry forms, to customizable hot keys to improve navigation.
We were also able to roll out two frequently requested features into one significant change to attachments. The new ‘add attachment’ form allows you to add multiple files to a record at one time using convenient drag and drop functionality. For example, if you have several pictures to add to an incident from a camera, you will now be able to do this in one quick step which will help speed up your entry time significantly.
As always, our Development team was also hard at work resolving bugs to improve the overall stability of Perspective. If you are using Perspective SaaS, your upgrade is complete. For everyone else, the update is ready for download today.
—Ryan Thiessen, Director, Product Management
We recently announced that our newest product, Perspective’s Lenel OnGuard Connector, has been certified by Lenel for integrating with the latest two versions of Lenel OnGuard. This is a significant milestone for Perspective, and the culmination of a lengthy process that began over two years ago!
We always knew that we wanted to integrate with Lenel. As an access control provider, they’re on the front lines of data collection, and in terms of the access control market, they’re one of the leaders, certainly amongst our client base.
Many of the events that occur—and need to be reported on—begin with an alarm triggered in an access control system. And, given that one of the biggest pain points for any reporting or record management system like Perspective is data entry/collection, it makes sense to pull in data that’s already been collected. As a result, integrating with Lenel to bring in the data that outlines the when, where and what of an event has always made a lot of sense, but as with many integrations, it wasn’t that straightforward.
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Our primary focus with the release of Perspective Version 3.2 was on improving its ability to be used around the world. Whether dealing with a single site in Quebec, Canada where the primary language is French or a company headquartered in the United States with operations in Mexico and China where the users’ primary language is split between English, Spanish and Chinese, we wanted to ensure that Perspective could be set up to accommodate each and every user, including those that don’t know any English. This meant everything; not just data entry fields, but also system messages, help files and the titles at the top of each data entry form.
As a result, with Perspective V.3.2, you can now configure up to 21 languages (up from 5 in V.3.1) to be used in a single Perspective database, meaning that all field labels, form labels, button labels and user messages can be set up for each of those languages. Spell check dictionaries can be added and help links can be redirected to custom help guides for each language, giving each user a consistent experience. The development team took the approach, “If we can see a word in English, it must be configurable.”
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Since we started developing Perspective in 2005, integration has always been a key part of the solution and strategy for PPM. We identified convergence not just as a trend but more a new way of thinking about business line applications. We first looked at integration as being a one-way process for incident reporting. As incidents occurred and were detected we wanted an easy way for that information to be pushed to Perspective. This would ensure the process of follow up, recording and investigating of an incident could occur regardless of where and when the incident was first detected, recorded, or reported. This level of integration led us to the Perspective Gateway and e-Reporting where any incident could be submitted via e-Reporting or the import API and subsequently reviewed via the Perspective Gateway, then accepted or rejected into the system.
As our clients expanded their use of Perspective and embraced integration between systems, we introduced Integration Services for full two-way integration of Perspective data. This allowed other systems to search data within Perspective, so additional information could be added to existing incidents as it was discovered throughout an investigation. Two-way integration has led to a huge number of possibilities, including integration of person data from other systems, and easily working with systems where data includes photos, videos and other attachments.
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With Perspective 3.1, the goal was to expand the visibility and flexibility of loss information for incidents so that we have the forms and reports to best track financial information as it relates to incidents. It is important to track loss information with the record of events for any incident so that metrics beyond what is occurring, and how often, can be accurately reported. By measuring the monetary impact of those incidents, costly trends can be identified, the savings of new initiatives will be known, and recovery rates of investigation can be easily demonstrated.
With Perspective 3.0 and earlier, we allowed a single loss amount to be entered for physical items and/or vehicles. With each loss, we also had the ability to track the amount of that loss that was recovered. This approach allowed us to measure simple physical losses and recoveries. Perspective’s list was preset to track direct, indirect and averted losses only, and did not have the flexibility to track any other type. Because of these limited system values, it wasn’t flexible enough to track addition loss information.
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