Cascade for Outlook - Turn emails into actionable goals 📩
We are super excited to announce that the Cascade add-in for Outlook is now LIVE in the Microsoft AppSource! You can now view, update, and create your strategic goals without leaving your inbox.
Install the Cascade add-in to your Outlook
The Cascade add-in is available for both the desktop version and the web app of Outlook. To set up the Cascade add-in in your Outlook, follow the steps below:
1. Go to the Outlook Add-ins store. If you are using the Outlook desktop app, click on 'Get Add-ins' from the Home tab on the ribbon. For the Outlook web app, select a message first, then click on the three dots at the top of the message and click on 'Get Add-ins'.
2. Search for 'Cascade' in the Outlook Add-in store.
3. Click on 'Add' and follow the steps to install the add-in to your Outlook.
You can also go to the Cascade add-in listing page from Microsoft AppSource. Clicking on 'Get it Now' will redirect you to your Outlook application.
Power through your strategy, with Cascade for Outlook
With the Cascade add-in, you can get a quick overview of the status of the goals linked in an email, then deep dive into the details of the goals, and quickly update the goal details in a few clicks. You can also turn emails into actionable goals and include the email content to give your team a bit more context on the new goal.
Context available at a glance
Whether you are asked to provide an update on a goal that you own or involved in a discussion about strategic objectives and goals, you can click on the 'View Goal' action from the Home tab if you are using the desktop app or the three dots if you are using the web app to get a quick overview of the current status of the goals mentioned in the email.
Deep dive into the details and keep your goals up-to-date
Click into a goal to see the details and the current status of the goal. You can also perform a quick update on the goal if you have permission to do so. Without having to leave your inbox, the goal progress and status are kept up to date.
Create new goals in context with a few clicks
You can click on the 'Create Goal' action to turn emails into actionable goals for yourself or your team from Outlook. You will also have the option to include the email content as the goal details so that everyone can have a bit more context on this goal by ticking the option 'Add email as description'.
Simple status - a new global setting and experience improvements
With simple status now live for around a month, some users have requested the ability to switch manual status method on or off for their instance.
Based on this feedback, we've added a new global setting that allows users with System permissions to toggle manual status method on/off. Note that manual status method will be enabled (toggled on) by default.
If you decide to toggle manual status off, you will be presented with a confirmation modal. You can decide to proceed with the setting change, or leave things unchanged.
If manual status is disabled, this will change the display and behaviour of goals across several parts of the platform. This reflects the fact that status and progress are now automatically determined by Cascade.
If manual status is disabled (toggled off):
- Planner, sidebar and Cascade Tree: Status drop-down disabled and automatic icon displayed on goals
- Workboards: As per above, plus drag-and-drop disabled on Column view, visual feedback (click and hover states) disabled for all attribute groupings (List and Column views)
If manual status is re-enabled (toggled on):
- Planner, sidebar, Workboards and Cascade Tree: Status drop-down enabled for goals
- Workboard (Column view): Drag-and-drop enabled
- Workboards (List and Column View): Visual feedback (click and hover states) enabled for all attribute groupings
- Cascade Tree: Visual feedback (click and hover states) enabled
Note: Toggling on manual status does not 'convert' existing goals whose status is automatically determined to use manual status method, it only allows manual status as an option.
Some other updates you’ll notice in this release:
🔧 Improvements
- Status method confirmation modal aligned with existing system modal UI
- Visual feedback applied when status method confirmation modal closed
- Visual feedback provided when hovering or clicking on a goal from Workboards (List and Column view)
- Goal cards moved to top of new column when status updated from Workboard Column view
- Goal cards moved to top of new status group and relevant accordion expanded when status updated from Workboard List view
- Goal cards returned to original position when ‘undo’ option used on Workboard Column view (with group by status enabled)
- Goal card redesign applied to Cascade Tree, to align with Workboard Column view
Integrate Cascade with Microsoft Teams 👩🏫
Introducing the Cascade app for Microsoft Teams - make your strategy happen where you and your team work every day. You can now create, update your goals directly inside Microsoft Teams.
Install Cascade for all users in Microsoft Teams
You can pre-install the Cascade app for all users or a segment of users inside Microsoft Teams if you are a Microsoft Teams administrator.
Go to https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/ and log in with your id and password. From the left navigation menu, go to Teams apps > Set up policies, select the user group policy that you would like to pre-install the Cascade app. If you would like to pre-install Cascade for all users, select 'Global (Org-wide default)'.
Click on the 'Add apps' button and add 'Cascade' from the sidebar.
Once this is done, your users will be able to see and use the Cascade app when they log in to Microsoft Teams.
Install Cascade for your Microsoft Teams account
From the left navigation menu, click on 'Apps' or the three dots icon, then search for 'Cascade'. You can then install Cascade to your Microsoft Teams account by clicking on the 'Add' button.
Once Cascade is installed, you will see the Cascade icon on your left navigation menu and receive a welcome message from the Cascade bot.
Keep track of your goals in Microsoft Teams
The 'My Goals' tab is where you can view and manage your goals directly inside Microsoft Teams. You can deep dive into the details of your goals by clicking on a goal and perform a quick update if you need to.
There are multiple places where you can create a new goal inside Microsoft Teams. You can create a goal for yourself or your team from the 'My Goals' tab or by interacting with the Cascade bot. You can also turn conversations into actionable goals in a few clicks by clicking on the three dots option above the message, then go to 'More actions' and select 'Create goal' in Cascade.
Search and share a goal with your team
Once Cascade is installed on your Microsoft Teams account, you can also search and share a goal in channels or conversations so that you and your team are on the same page. To share a goal with your team, click on the three dots icon from the chatbox, select Cascade, then search for a goal and share it with your team in chats.
Simple status - easily update your goal status
We've been listening to your feedback about goal tracking and are excited to introduce a simple way to change your goal’s status, with our new 'Manual Status' option. To complement the current automatic status option within Cascade, you will now be able to set the status of your goals without needing to update (or being affected) by goal progress.
Key highlights include:
1. Update your goal progress and status separately - when you choose the manual status option, your goal progress will no longer affect your status automatically. This means updates to goal progress or status will not impact the other at all.
2. Identify status option at a glance - we’ve added a nifty icon for automatically tracked goals so you can easily differentiate between status types
3. Updating goal status is easy - with manual status enabled, you can now define your goal’s status using a simple drop-down. This will give you the option to switch between manual and automatic status options with a single click.
4. Visual feedback - the status option selected affects the relationship between goal status and progress, so we’ll prompt you to confirm before applying the change. There is also the option to hide the pop-up from being displayed again in future.
Finally - a banner message will be triggered every time the status option for a goal is changed from manual to automatic (or vice versa), so you’ll always be kept in the loop. There is also the option to undo this change if you like.
This all sounds great - how do I start using simple status?
The status of existing goals in Cascade will continue to be automatically calculated based on goal progress.
Newly created goals will have the automatic status option applied by default.
When you’re ready, you can switch to the manual status option using the drop-down. In this case, the goal will be set to ‘Not Started’ status by default.
Some other updates you’ll notice in this release:
🦋 Bugs fixed
- Labels applied to goals will remain visible on Planner, even on smaller screen sizes
🔧 Improvements
- To reflect the new status option - the grouping and filtering options, and Summary Digest email notifications have been updated
- Consistent colouring of status labels have been applied across all goals, regardless of the status option applied
Levelling up Workboards
Over the last few months, we’ve been looking at ways to make it easier to manage the flow of work across the Cascade platform. Building on the recent launch of simple status, we’re unveiling some improvements to Workboards to help take your work to the next level.
Key highlights:
1. Drag-and-drop goals - with a few simple steps, Workboards can now be used as a Kanban board! In addition to the status picker, you can now update the status of a goal directly from Workboards by picking up a card and moving it to another column.
Here’s how goal drag-and-drop works:
- To get started, bring up the Workboard Column view and apply the Group By Status option. Note the status drop-down is disabled on this view.
- Click to pick up a goal card, and drag it to the desired column (status) - this will be indicated by an area bounded by a dotted line. Note you must have edit permissions for the goal to drag-and-drop.
- When dragged to a new column, goals will be sorted in ascending order based on the goal ID (unique identifier for a goal).
Remember that simple status allows you to manually set the status of your goals, independent of progress. This means your goal first needs to have the manual status method enabled, which allows drag-and-drop.
- If you move a goal with automatic status enabled to another column, you’ll be prompted to switch to the manual method.
- There are two options here:
- Accept the change and proceed with status update (card will move to new position)
- Reject the change by dismissing or closing pop-up - this maintains the goal’s current status (card will return to its original position)
- As with the status picker, a banner message will be displayed to confirm any change to the status method and provide the option to undo if required.
2. Goal card redesign
Key changes:
- Status picker and progress bar have been added
- Icons have been introduced to represent tasks (not completed), risks (unresolved) and alignment (1 level up and 1 level down)
- Goal owner is now indicated on bottom right of the card
- Status column design has been refined and is now fixed in place while scrolling so you always have the right context
- The height of cards has been reduced so more cards are visible at a glance
As always - to drill down into a specific goal, click the goal title to launch the sidebar.
Here are four ways the goal card re-design can help you level up:
- Instantly see where efforts are falling short - If the due date for a goal has passed, the due date and icon will be displayed in red.
- Connect ‘who’ with ‘what’ - hover over the goal owner to see how many co-owners are assigned to the goal. For more detail of co-owners, launch the sidebar by clicking the goal title.
- See your progress at a glance - the progress bar will gradually fill up as the target value is reached. If the target is reached or exceeded, the progress bar will become solid.
- See relevant details at a glance - If the number of incomplete tasks, unresolved risks or alignment (1 level up and 1 level down) = 0, the count will be displayed with a dash (‘-’)
I’d like to level up my Workboard - where to from here?
This feature is now live across all client instances, so give it a whirl. We’d love to hear your feedback!
Some other updates you’ll notice in this release:
🔧 Improvements
- Order of status values across platform has been refreshed to better reflect the goal lifecycle. Goals will now be displayed on Planner, Workboards, Dashboards (goal and table widgets), Snapshots, drop-downs and settings in the following order: Not Started > Behind > On Track > Nearly There > Overdue > Complete.
- Long goal titles (> 75 characters) will be truncated on smaller screens when viewed on Planner
May Updates
28 May 2021
🦋 Bugs Fixed:
- Goals aligned to multiple plans weren't properly displaying the additional alignments on the Planner.
- Opening pdf attachments from a Snapshot was overriding your existing tab. Now they open in a new one so you don't lose your place in Cascade!
- Our new UI was impacting the layouts of some Embedded Dashboards.
- New Goals added on the Planner were stuck with just one Template.
20 May 2021
🦋 Bugs Fixed:
- Long Custom Attribute titles were stretching the Goal Hub, not anymore!
- The Timelines on your Snapshots didn't quite line up where they should.
- Sharing Dashboards was leading to some strange spacing in Notes widgets.
14 May 2021
🔧 Improvements:
- When you remove all of the Plan Principles from your Plan Settings, the whole section now doesn't display so that you have more space on your Planner.
- Continuing our recent UI update, we've beautified the buttons on the Admin/Organization pages.
- And your widgets now save faster on Dashboards!
🦋 Bugs Fixed:
- When editing column names on Snapshots, some of you noticed that a white background made it hard to edit white text. Who knew? We've fixed it though, so edit away! ✏️
- Snapshot exports were missing the 'Today' line when the timeline column was included.
- Speaking of things going missing, our Attribute information icons (i) got lost in our latest UI update. We've found them and put them back where they belong.
5 May 2021
🔧 Improvements:
- You can now select anyone as a Manager when inviting more people into Cascade using the "Invite Users" popup. Go ahead and invite your team!
- To help you stay on top of your work, we've changed the default sorting of columns on the Workboard to sort in ascending order.
🦋 Bugs Fixed:
- Following the theme of sorting; Tasks in Snapshots were not sorting correctly, but we've pulled them into line!
