Civis Analytics never stops working to improve Civis Platform, our flagship all-in-one data warehouse and analytics engine. With 2022 winding down and 2023 on the horizon, what better time to take stock of Platform’s continued evolution and preview the next wave of Platform enhancements? Lead project manager Matt Fessler and senior product managers Stephanie Dority and Jake Armstrong revealed all on Civis’s latest webinar, Drive Better Audience Insights in 2023 Using Civis Platform; here are the highlights.
Civis Platform continues to offer users a unified data infrastructure for person-level analytics, with an emphasis on:
As a recent Civis blog post explains, we embrace continuous improvement principles to build a better data platform. We’re constantly working behind the scenes to make changes and come up with new product ideas — an ongoing process best understood as a four-step cycle: Plan, Do, Check, and Act (PDCA). The PDCA philosophy produced a series of Platform milestones in 2022, chief among them:
New import and export scripts let users easily pull Salesforce data into and out of Platform. The new scripts, released in July 2022, can be scheduled on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, just like other script templates. You can find these scripts under Platform’s Data top-nav for easy discovery.
“We previously had a Salesforce integration, but we’ve made it faster, more robust, and added other features so that users can more precisely determine which data they want to bring in and when,” Armstrong explained, adding that Civis will sunset Platform’s legacy Salesforce integration at the end of January 2023. “If you have any existing jobs using [the legacy integration], please migrate those as soon as possible,” Armstrong urged webinar attendees.
Platform’s new auto-share mode makes objects easier to find and share with teammates, simplifying the collaborative process. This update, released in July, ensures users and groups have access to any projects and objects needed to get work done; in addition, objects newly added to a project are now automatically shared.
Auto-share mode was inspired by Platform client feedback, Dority said. “Users wanted to make sure that as people were added to or removed from a project, they could continue to be shared on it,” she explained. “Collaboration is a big strategic goal for our platform, and [auto-share mode] is a very useful way to ensure that collaboration continues.”
“We understand your time is very, very important to you, and that it takes time to open a [help] ticket and await responses, though our client success team is pretty amazing,” Dority said. “We’re giving more power to our users by making Platform more self-service, and making it easier to utilize in-app controls.”
The Civis team also spotlighted Platform improvements slated to roll out in the weeks to come, namely:
Workflows are extremely powerful ways to chain and execute jobs on a preset schedule, connecting related jobs and automating them as a single unit. This suite of jobs is treated as any Platform object, allowing the sharing and permissions Platform users have come to expect. A rebuilt user interface promises to make Workflows easier to use for non-coders, while boosting speed and flexibility for all Platform clients; highlights include a no-code graph builder to define workflows, as well as a new Monitor view to more quickly diagnose and correct workflow issues.
“Workflows have traditionally been a little bit of a challenge in terms of the learning curve and technical requirements,” Armstrong said. “Our primary tool for building workflows is a scripting language called YAML, and in the past, you needed to learn that language to build out workflows to their maximum potential. We’ve removed that barrier to entry, and made sure that as many of our users as possible can use Workflows and get the most out of Platform.” Workflows 2.0 is currently live in beta.
Surface actionable information in the Data Details page using a single point of reference. In the near future, you will be able to:
We’re also enabling users to more easily navigate Civis Platform as a whole and more quickly find specific materials or features. In addition, a modified homepage offers a more tailored Platform launching pad, complete with useful information like points of contact, release notes, and API documentation.
“We want the homepage to be an anchor point as well as a jumping-on point,” Fessler said. “We’re going to streamline the user experience to get rid of things that people are not using, and make sure that it’s easy to navigate to your next task.”
Look for all these Civis Platform improvements — and others we’re not yet ready to disclose — in the weeks and months ahead. For more on the latest Platform enhancements, be sure to view Drive Better Audience Insights in 2023 Using Civis Platform on demand, and if you have additional suggestions on evolving Platform, you can share them at Hello@CivisAnalytics.com.
