Munich-based SaaS construction collaboration vendor Think Project! has announced the forthcoming release of a new update to its web-based platform. The stand-out items for me are the integration features, underlining how sophisticated SaaS tools are increasingly being linked to other back-office enterprise systems, and not just by proprietary connections, to seamlessly share data between different applications.
Available to users from 10 June, the new version features:
- a refreshed product interface – more than just a cosmetic overhaul, the updated interface incorporates numerous functional improvements, many requested by end-users
- new version of Crystal Reports and new export formats – high quality, complex reporting outputs now possible to Crystal Reports Service 2013, and to Excel (‘business intelligence’ is a growing area of functional importance to SaaS vendors in this market, with Conject, 4Projects, Asite, McLaren and eBuilder all adding BI features – post).
- Mobile Version Check – uses QR codes and Adobe PDF Services to help determine the status of a printed document; for example, is a drawing current or obsolete, is an invoice approved, open, allocated, etc? (Unit4’s Business Collaborator has offered a similar feature since it launched BC6.1 in February 2013).
- Deep Links services for cross-linked information – information in think project! can be linked with information in other systems (eg: internal document management or cost control systems), either statically or dynamically call up the most up-to-date version, so avoiding double-handling of information.
- Outlook Connect – a testament to construction’s continued reliance on email correspondence is the repeated request for integration with Microsoft Outlook. think project! Outlook Connect maintains the complete structured project repository, allowing emails to be transferred into it by drag & drop.
- RESTful API – The think project! backend has long offered an application programming interface, API, based on SOAP (the Outlook Connect uses this), but a new REST-based API has been added, opening up opportunities to dock various frontends onto the think project! backend.
- Two factor authentication using RSA tokens – As an option, think project! offers an enhanced level of login security using RSA authentication technologies, requiring exchange of a six-digit numeric code within 60 seconds (Google’s similar two-factor Authenticator may be familiar to some readers; other SaaS construction collaboration providers also offer RSA-based services; I believe it’s an option at Conject, for example).
1 ping
[…] using USB device RSA tokens has been an additional option offered by Conject and think project! (post). And customer and end-user security expectations are also influenced by advances in authentication […]