New Features Policy | Communifire Documentation

Our clients directly influence how the Communifire platform grows and evolves. Since the beginning, we've worked with our clients to expand the value of communication, knowledge management, and collaboration into new areas, focusing on creating useful functionality and solutions.

Summary

• While we have internal road maps for future releases, we don't publish road maps with specific release dates.
• Suggested features and improvements are tracked in our public Suggestions and Feedback discussion forum. We encourage and display comments from clients.
• Our product managers and Client Success Team review the suggestions on a regular basis.
• New features are selected and scheduled based on a number of factors, including resources required and projected impact and benefit.
• We do our best to provide consistent updates, however, we cannot guarantee every feature request will be addressed by our team.

This policy does not apply to bugs. See our Online Support to learn about our approach to bug fixing.

How to Suggest a Feature

The first step in making a feature request is to submit it into our public Suggestions and Feedback discussion forum. We encourage and display comments from clients to help understand the requested feature and how it might be valuable for all clients. Please make sure that you include all the details about the feature and include examples, use cases, user flows, or diagrams to illustrate your need for the feature. It helps us if you are as detailed as possible and explain what the feature might look like, how it should work, and the impact it might have on your organization.

When a feature request comes in, we start with this question: Where does it fit in the Communifire product roadmap? From that answer, there are three paths forward:

1. We're not going to do it - If we're not going to do it, we tell the client. This sets expectations and lets the client know if they need to explore a workaround, develop their own integration with our REST API, or consider switching to another product. We are happy to help and provide our assistance.

2. We'd like to do it – This may be a feature that we've discussed internally. It may be scheduled on our road map. Or, it may be something that is on our road map but not yet scheduled. We will seek to find more information and investigate the situation. We want to know what a client was experiencing when they decided to submit the request. Once we know more facts, our product team can start thinking about options.

3. We don't know – This is similar to #2 but we haven't yet identified where the feature fits in the product road map and the value it provides. These are features that maybe we'll explore in the future.

Our Client Success Team may ask for further information about the feature to determine if:

• We have already implemented the feature, but the feature works differently than you expect
• A workaround is already in place
• We are already working on the feature
• We have determined that we cannot accommodate the requested feature

How to Track When Features are Implemented

We're continuously improving and updating our products. To see the latest changes, updates, bug fixes, and new features, please take a look at the New Enhancements page.

How We Choose What to Implement

When we plan a new feature release, we use many factors to help decide which suggestions to implement, including:

• Client feedback - Client interviews and other research activities, comments on privacy issues in our issue tracker, questions, and posts on support community forums.
• Client Success Team insights - Our support team knows which issues are the most challenging and most common for clients.
• Product analytics - Some clients opt-in to send us analytics, which helps us understand how existing features are being used.
• The difficulty of implementing the proposed improvement – Some features are straightforward and provide 10x value, while others look simple but require months of complex engineering.
• Product strategy - Our long-term strategic vision for the product.

What Happens When We Choose to Implement Features

While we have internal roadmaps for future releases, we don't publish roadmaps with specific release dates.

Axero management has established internal policies to ensure that systems under development are engineered to satisfy the user's requirements, within the determined cost, schedule, and quality guidelines. Our System Development Life Cycle policy (SDLC) provides a structured approach to managing development projects.

The Axero SDLC consists of the following phases:

• Determine System Need - The period in which an information system need is identified, and the decision is made whether to commit the necessary resources to solve the deficiency.
• Define System Requirements - The period in which the User Requirements are broken down into more detailed requirements.
• Design System Components - The objective of this phase is to transform the detailed, defined requirements into complete, detailed specifications for the system to guide the work of the Development Phase.
• Build System Components - The objective of this phase is to transform the detailed, system design into complete coded software units and eventually, into an integrated product for release.
• Evaluate System Readiness - The objective of this phase is to ensure that the system as designed and built satisfies the requirements of the user.
• Deploy the System - The final phase of the development life cycle, when the system is released initially to a pilot site and then into the production environment.

Methodologies

A process model covers the whole life cycle and defines each phase described above. It also defines the tasks and activities to be performed within that phase. Axero primarily follows Agile (Scrum) system development and occasionally introduces Waterfall methods to add structure during the Evaluate System Readiness phase.

The Axero Software Development Team is self-directed, operating in successive iterations (typically 2 to 3 weeks), and adapts its development plan at the end of each iteration.

During the execution of our SDLC, we often consult with clients to obtain feedback and guidance on how expectations for new features can be met. These include formal client interviews and group brainstorming sessions. Occasionally, at our discretion, and if we feel it provides value for our development team, we give clients access to alpha releases and/or access to trial installations to verify functionality.

How to Get Access to New Features and Improvements

Cloud clients: Your site automatically receives new enhancements when we complete service release upgrades, usually at the end of each month.

On-premise clients: To get access to new features and software updates, you will need to upgrade to a release that contains the change. Please contact our Client Success Team here to schedule your upgrade.