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CUSTOMIZABLE WORKFLOWS, WORKFLOW NOTIFICATIONS, AND MORE 

CXO version 24.1 offers enhancement to the Workflow functionality for increased ease-of-use and uptake. Additionally, some smaller features from our innovations portal have been addressed.

Highlights of this release include:

• Effortless navigation
• A focus on the numbers
• Enhanced collaboration
• Enriched report export features

Effortless Navigation

With a cleaner and more modern user interface, with CXO Software 20.3, users enjoy an effortless navigation experience so they are always in control. Key enhancements in this area include:

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Focus on the numbers

In CXO Software 20.3 the report controls have been redesigned for clarity. General enhancements benefitting all controls include:

• The use of our own, brand new, tabular font ensures all figures are vertically aligned to make them easier to read, so users can focus on the numbers.
• A new clean look and feel, ensures the report immediately draws the user’s attention so they can understand the story behind their numbers.

Specific enhancements to individual controls include:

• Tables
  Table design is updated in version 20.3 to meet IBCS reporting standards. When drilling down, a new function enables the company to determine if the child rows should display above or below the parent row.
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• Charts
  Charts have been enhanced with easier access to tooltips and drill behavior is now clearer.
• Tiles
  Tiles have been completely redesigned in version 20.3. The new rectangular tile provides a larger area to display trends, making them easier to recognize, and now introduces a variance label so users can understand which variance is being displayed. A new option allows you to set a transparent background, so you can overlay a tile on an image for a polished, presentational effect.
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Enhanced collaboration

Version 20.3 encourages users to collaborate more by making it easier to create and share Storyboards and making comments more visible and simple to share.

• Create and share Storyboards with ease
  Storyboards are easier to find and to preview as they now have their own section, available under the Storyboards tab.
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  Every part of the Storyboard workflow has been improved:
  • Creating Storyboards is faster and easier than ever with the new Quick Storyboard creation feature. Adding pages to Storyboards requires less clicks and your most recently used Storyboard now appears at the top of the list.
  • Editing Storyboards is even more intuitive and efficient with new drag & drop functionality.
  • Sharing Storyboards is faster as you can now select multiple users at once, rather than adding users one-by-one.
  • Viewing and interacting with Storyboards is more intuitive with a direct play option to run the Storyboard and a new page slider widget for easy navigation between pages while the Storyboard is playing.
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• Simplify use of comments
  To encourage collaboration the comment feature has been redesigned in version 20.3 to better reflect how users work and interact with their reports:
  • Comments are easier to use and more visible. A new indicator at the top of a report indicates whether a report contains comments, which is convenient when you are viewing on a smaller screen, for example on a tablet.
  • A key message can be entered at the top of report. Users can now add a key message at the top of a report for other users to see. This ensures the most important message is shown at the top, helping users to review their reports quickly while focusing on the most important comments to understand the story behind the numbers. This is especially useful for busy executives like the CFO.
    

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• More control with Customizable Workflow

• Increased ease of use through Workflow Notifications

• Improved User Group Management

• Productivity gain through Maintenance messages

More Control With Customizable Workflows

What are CXO Workflows?

Since version 22.3.0, CXO has offered Workflows; a feature which allows customers to manage their CXO financial closing process from within CXO. With workflows, you can indicate for reports and storyboards who is responsible for adding and validating data and commentary by which date. This way, you can be more efficient as there is no uncertainty about responsibilities and due dates. Because Workflows provide information about report/storyboard completion, they also enabled the implementation of Status Indicators (see screenshot below). On each report for which the customer has a Workflow, we now show an icon which indicates whether data and commentary are ready or not. This gives end users valuable information whether a report is ready for use or now. Workflows are accessible via the CXO web application in the same way as Reports and Storyboards.

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What are CXO Customizable Workflows?

One challenge with the original Workflows is that CXO predefined which five steps every workflow had to go through. Your closing processes may be slightly different than what is described in those steps. Customizable Workflows allow you to adjust the steps in each Workflow to reflect your closing process. The Status Indicator released in the first version of Workflows is compatible with this enhancement, and pre-existing Workflows will continue to work when upgrading to a new version of CXO.

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Increased ease of use through Workflow Notifications

When users are added to Workflows, they already received updates via their own Workflow screen. To avoid users having to browse to workflows to see if actions are available for them, we implemented two notifications which will increase users' awareness of their need to act. Via the already existing notifications menu, a user now gets a notification when they are added to a workflow template, as well as when they have to execute a step in a workflow instance. This way, users are better enabled to meet their deadlines.

Improved User Group Management

In version 24.1.0 we have added a functionality which shows the members of a user group when managing this user group in CXO Designer. This is accessible via the new ‘Users’ tab accessible per user group. As user groups can have many members, it is also possible to export the user list to a csv file for further analysis. Detailed information can be found here: User Groups - Documentation - insightsoftware Confluence (atlassian.net)

Productivity gain through Maintenance messages

It can happen that your EPM source system is down or undergoing maintenance. As a result, you may want your CXO users to not look at the data in CXO at that time. To address that need it is now possible to set a pop-up text under System Announcements. This text will display for 24 hours when users enter CXO. More details can be found here. Please note that this is an addition to existing functionality. If you want to prevent users to look at non-finalized data, we recommend using the Draft Period functionality. Alternatively, you can set up workflows as the status indicator will show whether or not data on a report are finalized or not.

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