September 2021 Product Release Update

The Electric Product Team is always working to improve our existing offering for our customers. Check out what the product team has been working on this past month and a preview of what’s coming up in October & November of 2021.

This month was all about devices and applications. On the device front, we focused on improved visibility into more aspects of your device management. For customers in implementation, we’ve provided visibility in Turbine to see the status of their MDM enrollment and a tool to nudge users who may be slow to enroll. No more reaching out to your CSM to get this data or see which devices have yet to be enrolled. For existing customers using our procurement & provisioning services, you’ll now have more real-time notifications around the status of your device requests. Again, eliminating the need to reach out and empowering you with self-serve visibility.

On the application front, we were able to expand our automated approvals functionality to those customers using Microsoft Teams. What’s does automated approvals allow you to do? Put simply, you can approve or deny your users’ IT requests with a click of a button. No back and forth conversation required. As well, we released a new application management setting called pre-approval. If pre-approval is selected for an app, we will complete all requests your users make in relation to that application. No more being bugged for approval.

Want to see these releases in action. Login to your Turbine account here. Not yet an Electric customer? Contact us today.

Released This Month

Visibility Into Your Device Inventory, Even Before “Go Live”

For those of our customers going through Implementation, you will now have visibility into your Device Inventory to see what percentages of devices are enrolled in MDM vs. not, even before you “go live” with Electric. While your implementation specialist is always on hand to answer questions and guide you through the process, you will no longer need to rely on them as a middleman for this information. Simply login to Turbine and check the data in real-time via the Device Management Page.

Application Pre-Approval

Know that for Zoom you want Electric to just handle your users’ requests instead of bugging you for approval on each one? You got it! With our pre-approval feature, you can tell us which applications do not require your sign-off if a request is made in relation to them. No need to Electric to reach out and ask for your approval – saving time for both you and your users. Just remember, if it is turned on for an app, then it applies to all requests – including SysAdmin.

Provisioning & Procurement Request Process Improvements

In an effort to improve your experience with our Procurement & Provisioning services, we took a look at where we could improve the backend management of these requests. We identified several key areas where we could improve how these tickets are documented and routed to our agents, reducing the need for back and forth communication, technician error, and ultimately improving your experience – especially through request notifications.

While this will not change how you make these requests, you will experience improved engagement with our hardware lab team and near real-time task notification related to your requests.

Automated Approvals Are Now Available for Microsoft Teams

For our customers using Microsoft Teams, you now have access to our Automated Approvals functionality. No more back and forth communication with an agent over chat. Simply receive the automated request notification and approve or deny your user’s IT requests in one click. It’s that simple!

Upcoming Releases

Onboarding Redesign

When it comes to onboarding and offboarding requests, we’ve heard your call for enhanced status visibility. As well, we understand that no two onboardings or offboardings are the same and that each may require a custom task or two associated. So in October, we are making some vast improvements to our on/offboarding experience within Turbine – both through a redesign of the request form and the addition of additional task-level visibility. Here’s what you can expect:

On/offboarding Page Will Now Be Your People Page – For now, it will be a simple name change that comes with this release. However, we have big plans for this page including allowing you to take actions in Turbine by user (ex. device assignment), on top of checking the status of their on/offboarding. Transitioning the focus of this page from just on/offboarding to more universal IT management by user is the first step.

More granular progress insights – We want to make onboarding and offboarding request status less of a black box. So we will be adding a new status page for each request that includes subtasks for each step of the process.

More flexibility in the request form – When submitting a request you will have increased flexibility to add and remove tasks from each request. As well, we will have additional customized questions unique to each SaaS application that ensure that account creation is unique to each user. Finally, we will be adding a section to the request form for additional hardware instructions, allowing you to customize the provisioning and procurement components of your requests.

Automation of Your GSuite Offboarding Tasks

Back in July we kicked off our first SaaS integrations with Google to ensure that any GSuite related onboarding tasks were automated. Well, now we’ve done the same for GSuite related offboarding tasks! You’ll immediately see the benefits when you go to submit an offboarding request. GSuite related questions will be auto-populated with answers that pull from your GSuite account. No guessing or hunting down info required. From there, at the day and time you specify, the departing user’s accounts will be locked and de-provisioned, data will be transferred to your specified location, and an auto-response message will be set live for their email. Offboarding, now made simpler.

Device Storage & Inventory

We are thrilled to announce that beginning in November we will be able to offer our customers device storage services. Ditch the IT closet and let Electric store your devices for you. Eliminate worry about making space in your HQ (or an employee’s home…yikes!) and handling logistics around shipping to local or remote employees. With device storage through Electric, we’ll handle secure storage along with the other procurement, provisioning, and shipping services we already provide you with today. As well, you’ll have full visibility into your stored devices, directly in Turbine! Interested in learning more? Contact your CSM or email csm-team@electric.ai.

If the product release information above sounds like it could provide leverage to your organization and you’re not already an Electric Customer, then contact us to discover how we can start making IT simpler for your team.