T.U.G. News - March 2015

We Tell You

Thank you to those of you who responded to the recent User Group survey. We realise the questions mostly applied to those who have previously been involved with the group in some way (attended meetings/posted to the forum), but all input is very welcome. We are always looking to ensure that the User Group provides the right level of support and information sharing, to all customers in all locations.

The results of the survey were discussed at the March User Group meeting. Although it seems that the group is doing pretty well in terms of meeting expectations and that most people find the meetings very useful, it was agreed that we could do more to encourage further interaction from customers who are unable to physically attend the meetings. Options to address this were discussed:

1. Allow customers to dial in to join the main open discussions (usually an hour slot)
2. Record the main presentations/discussions
3. Bring more of the output from User Group meeting discussions forward via the Connector rather than just holding it within minutes of the meetings that may not be referred to later

It was thought that options 1 and 3 are likely to be the most successful and useful for the most customers. Of course, if anyone has any new ideas of things we could do to encourage involvement from more customers, please e-mail me: user.group@triaster.co.uk.

Main User Group meeting - reporting back

Thank you to Andy Auker-Howlett for hosting the User Group meeting on 5th March 2015 at Lockheed Martin UK Ampthill in Bedfordshire. I believe we all found his presentation and tour very interesting.

Andy gave the group an insight into how Lockheed Martin UK Ampthill have developed their QMS (Touchstone) with the Triaster Solution and talked through their progress so far and what their plans are for the future. He also very kindly arranged for the group to be given a tour of some of the manufacturing areas, which everyone found very interesting indeed.

A full article on Lockheed Martin UK Ampthill and Touchstone is planned for a future edition of Connector.

Workshop

The group workshop on the day was a discussion around project start-up, which included questions from new customers looking to move their library into a live environment, to new projects using existing systems. One of the main points that everyone agreed on was to make sure that your system is working and complete in some shape or form, before you open it up to any end users to review. However, you should not try to ensure perfection; otherwise you'll never Go Live.

As per the earlier feedback discussion, we will bring all of the advice and comments from this workshop through into a future Connector article. So watch this space!

Triaster update

Andrew Ridgeley provided an update on development priorities over the coming year, explaining how there are now two distinct product areas; Management System (the Process Library) and Process Improvement.

He explained that over the summer, Triaster will be working through a period of consolidation; whilst customers catch up, in terms of feature usage.

Victoria demonstrated the improved Menu Editor which will be available in version 15.1 - which everyone was very pleased to see - along with the new automated Alerts and Approvals functionality.

Andrew also spoke about the some of the new functionality in development for version 15.2, such as the Map Review feature and the ability to hide properties on publish. Victoria provided visibility of the new Product Roadmap, which has been moved into Excel and simplified to make feature voting easier in future.

The next round of voting is likely to take place in the summer, with the next Focus Day Workshop, planned to be held around autumn time.

Jo Dolton ran through a general update which included the following points:

• The Triaster consultants are now specialising in specific industry sectors where/when practical, so that they can offer some further insights within the consultancy and training they deliver.
• Customer Journey Assessments are to take place over the next year, mostly via face-to-face meetings, in order to formally record the functionality being used, business areas involved and value/ROI being realised. An extensive list of questions has been created that should identify how and where Triaster can support our customers more and also enable value reports to be created that can gain/sustain senior sponsorship for your projects.
• Triaster's Technical workshops, although a good idea (from the User Group) these workshops have not seen the take-up we had hoped. This is mostly due to customers' IT support being involved in too many other projects to allow them to attend and learn about the Triaster Server. Also, more and more IT departments are operated by third parties and so staff dealing with enquires differ from one call to the next. It was suggested that webinars may be better suited, although these will not offer handson experience around the server environment. Therefore, instead of offering public courses with fixed dates, Triaster will continue to offer customer specific calls or meetings with IT contacts as required for each project.

AGM

As required by the User Group Constitution, a vote was held to elect/re-elect the User Group officers. There were no new requests to take up the role of Chair, so I (Linda Spinks) agreed to remain in this role. However, as there were no new nominations to take up the User Group Secretary role (which Jo Dolton from Triaster has been filling for the past few years) Julie Savage offered to swap roles in order to take this on and Jo Dolton will act as Treasurer in future. This makes sense as Jo coordinates the User Group Budget with Triaster anyway. These changes were approved by the group.

Next Main User Group meeting

Steve Ward of NG Bailey has offered to host the next main User Group meeting at their Bradford site, in approximately six months' time, however he will need to check room availability first.

Engineering Group meeting

The next Engineering group meeting date has not been agreed yet as it requires input from several customers who were unable to attend the main user Group meeting. Therefore, if you are working for an Engineering, Defence, or Manufacturing company, and would like to be involved with this group, please contact us so ensure you are advised as soon as a date is proposed.

We often receive feedback from customers who find it hard to get to User Group meetings because of their location. Please note that where User Group meetings are held is purely the result of which customers offer to host the meetings, so as much as we try to revert back and forth from south to north it's not always possible. The best way to ensure that you can attend the meeting and avoid travel issues, is to host a User Group meeting at your offices. We do not need anything fancy, just a room and the ability to order refreshments for which the User Group has a small budget to cover any cost involved. We do ask that the host shares their experiences of their project. So if you would like to host a meeting, please drop us an e-mail to: user.group@triaster.co.uk.

user.group@triaster.co.uk