The Allocadia team is excited to announce a big product release being rolled out over the next couple weeks. On Sunday, September 14th and Sunday, September 21, we’ll be rolling out product release 54. (We’ll notify your organization about your specific rollout date.) We think that Allocadia users will be happy with the new, exciting changes they’ll find. Keep reading for a summary of the new features, enhancements, and design updates in this release.
New Features
The biggest new feature in this release: We’ve updated the main budget tab, where our users spend the majority of their time inputting data, to HTML. We’ve been working hard on transitioning Allocadia to HTML, and converting the budget grid is a huge step forward. Overall, we’re about 90% finished with this update for end users.
What does the move to HTML mean for users? Here’s a rundown of the new functionality users will find (and love!):
- Searchable budgets, views and grouping. If you have a very large marketing organization, you probably have a lot of budgets and views set up in Allocadia. Now, you can quickly search for the budget or view you need. And, you can quickly change the way you look at your activities in the Budget tab, using the new searchable inputs.
- Updated workflow forms. Allocadia users can input data through easy-to-use forms. We’ve updated these workflow forms. Now, you can set up forms that ask for specific information about your spend (objective, audience, etc.). Users can be guided to add these other important attributes, creating a more complete picture of how and why marketing dollars were spent. These updated workflow forms will make roll-up reporting more complete.
- Filtered export. Before this product update, users weren’t able to filter data before they exported it. Now, you can exclude certain data from an export, making your end product cleaner and ready to use right away.
- Default field values. If you input data to Allocadia that has a consistent value for one field (for example, if “region” is always “Americas”), you can now set a default value for that field. Inputting data just got easier.
- More flexible page layouts. Some Allocadia page layouts are now a little more flexible. Move fields to different places on the page, put links in a grid view, or move required fields in the right-hand panel. We’ll continue to work on the flexibility of all page layouts, so that you’re in ultimate control of how Allocadia pages work for you.
Enhancements
We also made a lot of changes with usability in mind. Keep an eye out for these enhancements on the Budget tab that will make Allocadia users’ lives easier.
- Keyboard navigation. Our users asked for enabling keyboard navigation. We listened, and now we’re delivering. Now, you can use your keyboard to quickly navigate in Allocadia, just like you’re used to doing in Excel. Use tab, shift-tab and up/down arrows to move around.
- Multiple undo. Made a mistake? You can now click “Ctrl-Z” to erase your last change. You can undo multiple times to go multiple steps back.
- New default. Last-viewed shows up first. Now, Allocadia will remember what you were last working on. So, if you’re working on a budget and you navigate away to a different tab, when you come back to the budget tab, Allocadia will remember which budget you were viewing and take you back there.
- Browser search. Need to find an item in the budget grid quickly? Use Ctrl+F in your browser to find what you’re looking for.
- Easily resize columns. Double-click any header row to quickly resize the row to the largest value.
- Custom column widths. Column widths are now saved for each user, so your columns will always look exactly how you left them.
- New items go to the bottom of the list. Our users asked for this change. Now, when you add new items to a list, they’re added to the bottom of the list — not the top.
- Improved right-hand side panel. Make the right-hand side panel wider to show more information and view all of your data at once.
- Drag and drop improvements. We’ve added a new visual cue to help you easily see where you’re moving an item when you drag and drop.
Performance Upgrade
We’re especially excited about this update, and we think our users will be, too. Throughout the Budget tab, you’ll find that things move faster. Edit cells, load budgets, drag and drop data, recalculate totals and export faster than ever before.
Design Updates
You’ll notice a few more significant design changes to the Budget tab, too.
- Reorganized header. The header still includes all the actions you’re used to, but it’s now reorganized. We hope the updated layout is more logical and streamlined for users.
- Updated icons. The icons throughout the software are more intuitive. For example, the “tag” icon looks like a tag. And, when you hover over a cell, you’ll see the icon related to that cell type.
- New formatting. The right-hand panel is now easier to read.
What’s Coming Next
The first half of this year, we’ve been focused on updating Allocadia to HTML as well delivering some larger enterprise class features such as Audit Trail. Now that we’ve completed the bulk of the HTML transition, we can turn our attention to other improvements.
This fall, we’ll be focused on adding more new features for our enterprise clients. Look for features that bring out the performance side of our path to performance. We’ll be adding new features to help marketing organizations understand what’s working (and what is not) while investing every marketing dollar in the best possible way.
Interested in learning more about how Allocadia helps marketers combine the science and art of marketing? Download our ebook, The Science of Marketing Performance.