Sidebar Favourites, Expanded Profiles & Lesson Matrix Roundup
Sam Webster
Software Developer
It’s been a busy time since we launched the new Smart Dispatching System. Since then we have introduced the much requested sidebar favourites, have made improvements to the lesson matrix editor, added more fields to people’s profiles like preferred name, and more. Let’s dive in!
Sidebar Favourites
| Sidebar & Navbar Favourites, Updated Icons, Colours & Search |
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We know how much you all wanted this, and the sidebar has had a big update. Now you can pin any item from the sidebar as a favourite on both the sidebar and the top navigation bar. We updated all the icons and colour coded them to make each item and section more visually distinguishable. You can also search the sidebar to find what you need quickly, show favourites only, enable icon only zen mode, and drag your favourites to the order that suits you.
| Custom Links & Navigation Settings | Profile Dropdown & Exit Organisation |
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We also added the ability to add custom links to the sidebar, a good place for links like the weather radar, NAIPS, planning tools, legislation and so on. You can also pin links as a favourite too. We updated the profile dropdown menu too, this is the menu on the top right accessed when you press on your profile picture - this is where you can now exit the organisation since we moved it from the top of the sidebar.
Expanded Profiles
A bunch of new fields were added to people’s profiles, including preferred name, next of kin relationship and bio, which stay on your account for any organisation you are part of. There are also new notes, job title and internal reference (such as an internal membership number or student ID) fields that are specific to each organisation.
Profiles can now be completed partially too, so you are no longer forced to enter in every box, just fill in what you can and add the rest when you want.
Updated Lesson Matrix
The lesson matrix editor, where you map all your competencies against each lesson also got an update recently, it now uses a layout similar to the scheduler, where the lessons across the top are frozen and the competencies down the left are frozen, which makes navigating and scrolling around big units much easier to see where you are in the matrix.
It will even highlight the X & Y axis as you move your mouse around, making it much faster to identify the correct mapping. The redesign makes better use of the screen real estate, but keep in mind it is still meant to be used on desktops. Reordering lessons can now be done from the actions menu on the top right.
The Rest
Now that the dispatching system is behind us, the team is primarily focused on the notifications centre and communications overhaul, and continued development of the API which if you are a developer and keen to get hands on with the API then please submit feedback so you can be in the loop and potentially early access. As mentioned, these are both key parts of the Smart iOS/Android application.
There have been six releases since our last release article, so as always, check out the release notes for all the details. Here is a small selection of some other changes across the last few releases:
- New “delete maintenance note” permission.
- Updated expirations manager with tabs for expirations vs assignments.
- More finance settings to control invoice behaviour.
- Ability to delete events directly in the scheduler.
- New “S” lesson record status if all the grading is to the lesson standard.
- Permanent link to the student dashboard from the students manager.
Wrap Up
Many new features and changes like the sidebar favourites are once again a direct result of your feedback, we pride ourselves on our support, taking every piece of feedback and every ticket on board. Michaela, our support superstar maintains an average response of just over 20 minutes (often much less) every time you send in a question or have an issue. We know nowhere provides that kind of personalised support, which is all done in house, here in Australia, provided by a qualified CPL and MEIR pilot - again shout out Michaela, what an absolute legend.
We hope you can see and feel the care and attention our whole team put into Smart with every release we put out, our whole team is incredibly passionate about making this home grown software for the Australian and NZ aviation industry the best it can possibly be. Until next time!