What’s New In LINQ

In-app Tutorials

We have added in-app tutorials so you can more easily learn how to model in LINQ. Head to the Help and Support menu and choose Tutorials.

A panel will open on the right hand side which has the video and script of the tutorial. On the left hand side is the modelling canvas so you can follow along with the video. You can also sync your model to the expected outcome of the tutorial chapter.

We will be introducing more tutorials as capabilities are released. You can also access YouTube videos and help documentation from the Help and Support menu, covering all aspects of using LINQ.

Infrastructure and Carbon Intensity

Now you can connect infrastructure to your systems. This means you can show how systems are used across your organisation, whether on-premise or in the Cloud. It’s as simple as connecting them up in the People & Systems model.

Once you have infrastructure in place, you can define direct (Scope 1 & 2) and indirect (Scope 3) emissions for your infrastructure. Our calculator makes it easy to set up emission factors and apply them to your supply chain. LINQs allocation metholdogy applies emissions at the organisation level against your systems and in each model at the action and system level.

You can now see the carbon intensity of the way you work today, and the carbon intensity of your planned change. Finally you can see which actions create the most carbon, what action to take to reduce your carbon, and the impact of your change in terms of carbon, alongside cost, time, and value.

Information Processing Control

Actions in LINQ models take information inputs, process them, and generate information outputs.

How the action is performed based on the information inputs can be controlled from the ‘Information Processing’ dropdown option in the Action Properties.

This allows you to set the conditions for the work, applying individual information entities to the modelled action, or treating many data elements as a single piece of information.

With the label set to ‘Processed’ you can keep track of how many items of work are flowing through your model.

New Capture Action Control

Capture actions inject the volume of work into your model. They show that this is the first thing that takes place, causing the process you are modelling to take place.

Like other actions, they have a duration (how long the action takes to perform) and a frequency (how often the action happens) and in addition, you can determine the volume of output from the action.

In the properties for the selected Capture, you can see that 3 information assets are generated. The percentage can be altered to determine the flow of information through the rest of the model.

This makes it easy to simulate what happens to capacity if workload increases. You simply adjust the percentages of Capture output, and check your insights!

Note and To Do

We’ve added 2 new nodes to the palette; Notes and To Do

The Notes node allows you to write notes and attach them to nodes in the model. Notes can be about anything – for the modeller or the viewer – designed to add context or simply remember something specific about nodes in the model. Note nodes are distinguished in the insights, so you can see them and get to them as required.

To Do nodes are similar. They can also be attached to relevant nodes and you can tag another user in your organisation to be included in the To Do. This is a great way for multiple people to help contribute to the completion of a model. To Do nodes also appear as a list in the home screen. Clicking on a To Do from home, will open the model and take you to the To Do node so the relevant action can be taken.

Workspaces for modelling change

LINQ creates persistent digital models of how your business operates. When change is being planned, we help you to understand the impact it will have through projects.

Once you have created your workspace, you can select the models which represent the areas of the business impacted by the change, and then model what your future state will look like. Whilst this work is taking place, your current state remains available to everyone else.

LINQs dashboards and insights show you the impact of your change and an organisation level and within each model impacted by the change.

Once your implementation has been completed, you can replace your old way of working, with your new model(s), maintaining your current state in sync with your business.

Deep model insights

We’re giving you control in how you choose to present the data captured in your models. The upgraded insights panel allows you to select the node type and the data you want to show.

Insights can be controlled through data filters and selections so you can dig into the content you need to create the narrative required to support decision making.

People and Systems

People and Systems are collected from your models, or are pre-defined before modelling begins. These organisation assets can be used in models and in this new view which shows the interaction between the roles in your business and the systems they use.

This is where you define the capacity of the people in your organisations alongside their cost to the business. Systems costs, capex and opex, can be recorded, all allocated through the actions captured in individual models.

The new infrastructure node enables you to capture the carbon emissions, direct and indirect associated with your systems.

The Organisation View

The new Organisation view is generated when you define connecting nodes in each of your models, and then use them as inputs in other models. Data, such as value and volume of work, flows through models so you can accurately see the volume of work through your organisation.

Double clicking on a model in this view, will open it so you can see the detail of the model and access the individual model insights.

The organisation model can be opened in the viewer, with organisation level insights available for roles, systems and information assets.

A new home page

The Home Page gives you immediate access to your organisations content. Scroll down the page to:

• See, access and maintain metadata about your models, and create new models,
• Open your organisation view and see how your models connect to form the Digital Twin of your Organisation, and navigate to individual models you have created,
• Get organisation level insights from all of your models combined into a single dashboard, including total cost, time and carbon captured,
• Manage current users and invite new users, and set access permissions for your users,
• Manage projects which are modelling the impact of change and transformation in your business, and
• Gain key statistics about the content you have captured for your business.

New cards will be added to Home as we develop new capabilities and reports.

LINQv2

Welcome to the new version of LINQ. We’ve spent more than 12 months re-building the platform from the ground up. We’re using the latest versions of the best libraries we can find which is enabling us to continue rapid development of new capabilities.

This ‘What’s New in LINQ blog’ will introduce you to the new capabilities providing an easy to access resource to find out how you can apply LINQ in your organisation.

We are keeping all of the old entries, as they provide a fantastic timeline of our journey so far.

Update to the Organisation Palette workflow

We’ve made using the Organisation Palette easy for everyone with a new editor workflow.

Create your nodes as usual in the LINQ Canvas and when you’re ready, right click on a node you’d like to appear in the Organisation Palette and click Add to Org Palette. The node will be added to the palette and every node of that type in your canvas will be converted to become an Organisation node.

If you’ve configured Custom Properties, they will also be part of the Org Node!

If an Organisation Node already exists for the node you are proposing, you will be given a list of options you can choose from and replace your node with one from the Organisation Palette.

Administrators have access to the new Org Nodes through Organisation Node Admin and can validate that the information is correct. Any updates will cascade to every node in every sketch.

It’s now easier than ever to ensure that your corporate assets are being captured once and used consistently across all of your sketches.

Compare Insight Version 1

The Compare Insight, which has been in Beta since March 2019 has now officially been released as Version 1.

This insight enables you to compare one sketch with another providing detail about the change that would occur moving from one state to another, supporting the business case for change.

We’ve tidied up the layout, enabled type ahead sketch selection and the ability to export the data based on the currently selected filters for information, actions, people and systems.

Session state is also preserved as you navigate between the Compare Insight and the sketches involved in it. This enables a much more interactive experience to visit nodes of interest from the Compare Insight.

Action Flow Insight Card

We have added a new card to the Sketch Summary insight. The Action Flow Summary provides a new view of how your organisation process flows from inputs to outputs.

Accessed from the 3rd bullet on the Sketch Summary, you can click to expand the view for each Action in your sketch.

You will see which information is required to enable the action, how the action is performed, which information is created as a result of the action, and what the next action in the flow is.

Every node in the card is clickable which will navigate the sketch to that node and show you the context for the selected node in the Navigation window.

You can also load and export the data table from this card which will produce an Excel spreadsheet with unique IDs for all data.

New Sketch Summary Data Tables

We’ve made it super easy for you to access the data in the LINQ sketch in 2 new data tables. You can now access the Information node list and the Action node list from the Sketch Summary overview.

This will create a sortable list of nodes which you can then export to Excel for use in other platforms such as Power BI.

Improved Custom Properties

We have improved the way that custom properties are handled when using Organisation Palette nodes which also contain organisation level custom properties.

Ownership of custom properties is now managed so that the organisation node takes over any duplicate custom properties which may already exist in the sketch.

Find out more about Custom Properties, Organisation Properties and the Organisation Palette in this support article.

End of year tidy up

We’ve tidied up a few things that have been on our to do list for a while!

Explorer

Searches are now remembered between the new Explorer and the Canvas. If you search for something and then view that sketch, when you come back to Explorer, that search will remain available to you.

If you set up a particular view in Explorer that you tend to work from, My Sketches, sorted by last edited for example, that set-up will be remembered between sessions.

Sketches in Explorer now have a ‘Save a Copy’ option – you no longer have to open the sketch in the canvas to copy a sketch!

Tag Management

The Tag panel had a small glitch when it was used to help updated content in the canvas. It no longer collapses on an edit – so you now have 2 fewer clicks to make when navigating to nodes from your tags

Node Layout

We’ve updated the node layout when you insert nodes into an existing flow and when you copy nodes to create new connections.

The insert node now features a zig zag which helps you to see what you have added, and we’ve corrected some edge lengths when you copy existing nodes in your sketch.

We’re always looking to improve the layout, so please let us know if you have other ideas we can look into.

Organisation Palette

The Organisation Palette is the new container for nodes which represent organisation assets which have been defined by the business. These organisation nodes may contain specific properties which accelerate their use within Sketches.

LINQ now supports the creation of the organisation palette, the customisation of nodes within the organisation palette and the update of organisation nodes used in sketches if the organisation node is updated.

Nodes can be manually added or imported into the Organisation Palette.

The contents of the Organisation Palette are available in the new ORG PALETTE located next to the default PALETTE in the LINQ Canvas.

The full capability of the Organisation Palette is described in this LINQ Support Article.

Organisation Library

In this release we have created an area for sketches have been categorised as Authoritative by the LINQ admins and that are able to be used by all LINQ users in your account. This will enable users to have a common view of underlying content and will enable a level of consistency between LINQ editors that had not been available before.

For sketches to be included in this area the sketch Visibility must be set as “Organisation” by the creator and have an accepted status by an admin as “Authoritative” These settings can be set by editing the sketch info, either from within the sketch or in the Explorer.

1. A user is able to set the Visibility as Organisation and Status as Proposed if they wish a sketch to show in the Organisation tab of peoples Explorer. When these are set the sketch will be placed into the “Proposed” section of the admin’s Explorer.
2. As soon as an Admin approves the sketch by changing the status to Authoritative the sketch will be available to LINQ Editors throughout the organisation.

Sketch Metadata

The main change in this release, and a fundamental building block for further enterprise enhancements, is Sketch Metadata and Categorisation. This will make it easier to work with multiple LINQ sketches, and help users communicate the purpose and intent of their work in LINQ.

Sketch metadata will be editable via a new popup dialog from either the Canvas or Explorer. We have added the following fields:

• Sketch Description
• Status of the sketch – Draft, Proposed or Authoritative
• Visibility of the sketch within the organisation – Confidential, Normal or visible to the whole Organisation
• Custom fields that can be tailored for each organisation. We anticipate these will be used for things like “Who is the custodian of the sketch?”, “What department does the sketch belong to?” or “What is the purpose of this sketch?”
• Sketch Tags – users can select tags from a list of standard tags used in the organisation, or create their own tags.

The goal for sketch metadata is to add a powerful layer of information that can be used to manage and organise sketches. Sketch metadata will be used in a number of ways:

• the information entered will help other people (or your future self) understand what a LINQ sketch is all about
• the metadata fields will be searchable in the new LINQ Explorer, allowing better discovery and management of sketches
• Sketch metadata will enable the new Organisation Library feature; sketches with ‘authoritative’ status and ‘organisation’ visibility will be listed in the library.
• Sketches with authoritative organisation content will participate in the Organisation Palette feature.

New Explorer

We’ve redesigned the Explorer window to make it easier to navigate and to take advantage of the new Sketch Metadata functionality

We now have the ability to show a subset of sketches by selecting a tab on the left of the screen. These include:

• Gallery – where you can select from a predefined set of curated sketches that can illustrate how LINQ works
• All Sketches – self-explanatory in that it will show you all the sketches that you have access to
• My Sketches – sketches you have created
• Shared – sketches that you have shared
• Published – sketches that you have published using our publish function
• Organisation – those sketches that have been set as authoritative content by your administrators
• Proposed (admins only) – those sketches that have been submitted for approval to become authoritative organisation sketches

There is also the ability to single click on a sketch and see all the enhanced metadata about the sketch.

The search function has also been enhanced to select metadata and tags as well as the sketch name.

The sort function can still sort by A-Z, Z-A and Last Edited

Addition of Hourly Rate field for Systems

With the rise in internal IT cross-charging and Cloud Based compute resource charging the requirement to take the costs of a System into consideration has become integral in calculating the cost of producing information outputs.

Given these needs we have now added to ability to attach an Hourly Rate to a System node.

When an Automated action is undertaken we simply multiply the Hourly Rate of the system by the duration and frequency of the action that the system carries out.

In the case of a Manual action where you still want to account for the cost of the system that the Person is using to undertake the action, we take both the cost of the the system and the person into consideration.

For a more in-depth description of how the new System Hourly Rate works, along with the new Automated to Manual transitions available in this release please watch this video.

Conversion of an Action node between Manual and Automated states

With many customers creating Digital Twins of their organisations and using those to sketches to model multiple future states the requirement to efficiently and effectively transition Action nodes from Manual to Automated (or vice versa) was becoming more important.

In this release we have added functionality to the LINQ physics engine to ensure that the switch between states is as easy as possible. We have added the following operations:

• Drag an edge from an existing People node to an Automated Action node to convert it to a Manual Action
• Drag a new People node (from the palette) to an Automated Action to convert it to a Manual Action
• Drag an edge from an existing System node to Manual Action node to convert it to an Automated Action
• Drag a new System node (from the palette) to a Manual Action to convert it to an Automated Action
• Keep a System and an Action connected when a connecting Person node is deleted

For a more in-depth description of the new Automated to Manual transitions available and how the new System Hourly Rate works in this release please watch this video.

Impact Assessment Insight

Welcome to the Impact Assessment Insight.

The new Impact Assessment Insight allows you to look into the future!

You can measure the impact of change by selecting the affected parts of your current business in new ways.

• Based on a manual selection on the canvas itself. Nodes(s) or entire LINQsets, it’s up to you.
• Output Value (the same as the current Savings Potential)
• or select automatically all the nodes with a specific tag.

You can also model the level of Upstream and Downstream impact that suits your assessment needs.

For all the details watch this video

Compare Beta Insight

We’ve released our very first Beta Insight!

The Compare Insight allows you to compare two sketches and have the platform do all the hard work of working out what’s different and the benefits that change can bring to your organisation.

For more details read this blog post.

Sketch Summary

With this release we have added a new Insight!

The Sketch Summary Insight does exactly what the title suggests in that it gives a graphical overview of the Sketch (or sub-selections of nodes)

The cards in this Insight include:

• Sketch Summary
• Sketch Inputs and Outputs
• Cost / Value Analysis
• Value LINQSet Summary
• A Node Selection Summary

For more details on what each card contains please log on and have a look at a sketch you’ve already created (the Sketch Summary Insight is accessed via the DASHBOARD dropdown) or read this support article.

New Custom Properties!

As we model more and more complex environments the requirement to capture additional details about the individual LINQ nodes has become more valuable.  To answer our customers needs we have moved beyond the ability to create basic text and numerical properties and added logic checking for some of the new fields to ensure data input validation.

We have added or changed the following Custom Properties (The standard Text Custom Property remains unchanged):

Number (now with the ability to allow integers only and also configure and check against a defined range)

Pick Lists 

A Preconfigured Yes/No Pick List

Additional URL Fields (they create hyperlinked icons when entered)

To create a custom property click the cog in the properties panel.

Then select the type of additional field from the drop down list. You will then be able to add a unique name for the property and configure the options specific to that property type.

And finally, select the node types that you want to allocate the property to and click +ADD

System Summary Insight - Executive Summary

In this major release we bring a new Insight to your LINQ data that gives you a view into your environment taking the systems you use as the focus point.  We have four new cards to give you various views of your system world.

The first of these is the Executive Summary

This card gives an overall view of the systems in your sketch including:

• The number of unique systems in your environment
• How many of these systems supply information assets
• How many systems automate actions
• How many systems are used by people and therefore are manual tasks
• A warning if there of nodes missing data that are used to generate these statistics
• A bubble chart to show you how your systems are used in relation to the value of outcomes

System Summary Insight - Individual Systems

In the last card we focus on the individual systems and what impact they have on our environment.  Not only do we see a summary of the system’s place in the world but also detail on how much they are used, the cost of the system but also the percentage of the information in our sketch that relies on this system.  As you can see below 77.8% of our information relies on this single system and would definitely be a system that an organisation should focus on from a protection and risk perspective!

System Summary Insight - Automated vs Manual actions

In the second card of your System Summary Insight we delve a little deeper into the mix of manual and automated actions that you are undertaking to help you identify areas of waste and possible delay.

The first section gives you a simple overview while the following section uses a stacked bar chart to visualise the ratios of automated and manual actions completed by each system.  If you hover over the section that you are interested in then more information is displayed.

As with most of our cards we also give you the ability to see the underlying source data in a tabular format.  We give you the option to sort by each of the available fields so you can focus on what is important to you and also supply an export function that will export all the system related information shown in view you have open (All System Summary data, All selected card data or specific table data)

System Summary Insight - Information Assets

In the third card we show a view of the system data that is related to the information assets supplied or created each the systems.  These can be sorted by either description or value, can be shown in tabular format and again, can be exported for further analysis.

Context View

With the new Context view we give you the ability to take the visualisation two levels upstream and downstream to give you a better idea of how your selected node fits within the Information Flow.

Edit Node Labels In Search Panel

Rather than navigating to the node in the canvas or moving to the Properties panel to edit, you can now edit the description by double clicking on the node description in the find panel.

New Search Functionality

You can now search for Output nodes directly by using the keyword ‘output’ in the search bar. This extends the existing search feature which can find nodes by any property – description, type, costs and many others.The new multi-select in the Find panel is a powerful insight when combined with the new multi-select in the Navigator panel.

To help in choosing the right node from the search results, we now show the node description in grey italics next to the property that matched your search.

Navigator - Multiple Node Select

You can now see relationships between multiple nodes selected in the canvas. This is especially useful when viewing the relationships between disparate nodes of the same type.  For more information on how this works please watch the video here.

Sketch Sorting

It’s easy to lose track of which sketches have been shared with you and which ones you have shared with others, so the Explorer View and Panel now has a “Published By Me” filter, so you can quickly understand which content you have provided with others.

Enhanced Visualisation Panel

The visualisation panel now provides more control about the content you display on your sketch. You can choose your currency symbol, control whether Value or Action Cost are displayed on your sketch or not, and see which nodes have flags applied to them.

Warnings Panel

We all need a little help from time to time, ensuring that our data capture is correct, so that we can gain the insights we need from our work. The new LINQ Warnings Panel will help you see where you have missed vital data capture so that you can gain the maximum knowledge from your Information Flow Modelling.

Turn it on using the warning triangle in the panel selector on the left hand side and view your errors in the Warning Panel which is alongside the Hints Panel. Selecting a warning will take you to the node that is missing data.

Cost Allocation Insight

We now show you the cost of creating your Information Outputs by allocating the cost of Actions to each output created. If you have Action costs already captured in your sketch, simply turn on Cost Allocation in the Visualisation panel to see how much your Information Assets cost to produce.

Find out more information on our Support Site here.

Usability Enhancements

We’ve made some changes to help make things easier when you are working in LINQ. The Balanced Scorecard header now floats as you scroll down the table making it much easier for you to reference what you are looking for and also to change the sort order or display property as you are using the data.

We’ve also made sure that as you move between the Canvas and Dashboard, zoom settings are remembered so you no longer have to keep resetting your view.

The links that are created when you Publish a sketch remain as secure as ever, but are now significantly shorter when you choose to paste these links into email.

Quickly duplicate people & systems

Duplicating the people and systems you have already created in your sketch against new information and action nodes is now quicker than ever. Simply drag an edge from an existing people or system node to the new node you want it to connect to and LINQ will duplicate the person or system for you, with all of the properties also being copied from the source node. Watch this video to see it in action, then try it for yourself.

Contributor User Role

As a LINQ Administrator, when you create a new user in your organisation, you will now see a new type of user – Contributor. We’ve done the foundational work to introduce a new type of access into the LINQ workflow. When the work is complete, Editors will have full access to the LINQ capability in order to create sketches, Contributors will evaluate the insights gained from the sketch and publish the story to the Viewer, who will access the read-only Viewer to understand what it means to them. The full experience is not yet ready; you can assign Contributors, but right now, they will have the same access as Editors. In the New Year we will be communicating the additional users this adds to your current subscriptions.

Easier User Management

This month’s release has mainly been dealing with some background management utilities which provide more flexibility for us in terms of administration. As a result of those changes, managing your users is now much simpler. The “Guest” user – which was necessary due to the way we had developed our account creation process to revolve around a single access domain, is no more! Now you can add a user to your organisation using any email address they provide you with and you can set them with an appropriate level of access; Administrator, Editor or Contributor.

Publishing sketches - Major enhancements!

We have introduced a new Publish Sketch workflow and a slew of new privacy related control options when publishing a sketch.

• You can now choose to not publish specific data that may be deemed sensitive within your organisation and that you choose to make not visible to those that you are sharing the sketch with. These de-selectable fields include:
  • Value
  • Action duration and frequency
  • Cost related properties
  • Custom Properties
  • Tags and flags
• Dashboards and Insights can now be individually published.
  • It should be noted the removing some data deemed sensitive will affect the visibility and ability to select of some Insights and Dashboards

• • You can now choose how the sketch is viewed on opening it with the Focus selection option.

• • If an introductory note is included in the dialogue above, a pop-up appears when the sketch is opened.

• • For viewers who are new to LINQ we have added a “Learn More” button which shows links to various introductory and training materials (the following pop-up also appears directly if an introductory note is not included)

• • We have given you more control over the email send when you share your sketch. You can edit the Subject and Body of the email received by the recipient of the published sketch. We can also generate a URL to share in the event that you don’t want to send an email from within the LINQ environment.

• • Note: LINQ publishes exactly what you seen on the screen, rather than the latest saved copy. If you make a change to the layout, flags or insights while in read-only mode and then you publish your sketch, it will publish the sketch with those unsaved changes rather than your last save point.

Sketch name length

We’ve changed the character limit for sketch names to 128 characters (just over 3x what it was before)

Clear Action Frequencies and Durations

Once you had added frequency and duration to an Action node, we gave you no way of clearing that data, so we’ve added a “reset” to the action node’s frequency and duration with the addition of the ‘Clear’ button to the action duration calculator. This simplifies refactoring of existing information supply chains. You can now copy and paste elements of your Information Supply Chain into a new sketch, reset duration and frequency and re-model these nodes accounting for new data.

Annual Hours / People Hours Distinction

With the ability to model ‘meetings’ in a LINQ sketch (many people connected to a single action), we have found that it is useful to distinguish between the annual hours of the action and the annual hours of the people involved. For example, a weekly meeting with four attendees may take one hour, the annual hours of the meeting equal 52 hours. However, the annual people hours total 208 hours.

To display this distinction, we have added three new properties to action nodes within the Balanced Scorecard dashboard and the Excel exports

• Annual hours – frequency X duration of the action
• People hours – frequency X duration of the action X number of people connected to the action
• System hours – frequency X duration of the action X number of systems connected to the action or connected to people who are connected to the action

Select All Nodes

If you have ever had trouble keeping track of nodes when following an upstream or downstream information flow – then do we have a new feature for you!

In the navigator panel we have added a new “Select All” button that selects just the nodes visible in the navigator view.

For example, in Downstream mode, the “Select All” button will select every node downstream of the focused node (including the focused node).

With all the nodes selected we recommend using tags to mark the nodes, then flags to highlight the nodes on the canvas. With these combined features it is a lot easier to keep track of a single information flow.

Bonus tip – you can use the find panel to remove a tag once you have finished following a flow – search for the tag, select all the results with SHIFT + click, and use the properties panel to remove the tag.

New Image Export and Print Improvements

We have added an option to export a sketch as a Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) image.

This export type overcomes the size limits encountered with our PNG image export. You can now export any size sketch as a SVG image. SVG also has the additional benefit of being scale independent, allowing you to use the resulting image in both print and screen applications.

To export a SVG image, select the “Export SVG Image” option from the image export button, in either the navigator panel toolbar or canvas toolbar.

Small improvements have also been made to the print system so that large sketches no longer have empty pages appearing before the sketch content. We have also fixed a Chrome related issue where occasionally no print content would appear.

New Excel Export

A new export option has been added to the canvas – “Full Export”. With this export, more advanced reporting from LINQ can be achieved with products such as Microsoft BI.

The “Full Export” option produces an Excel spreadsheet (.xlsx) that contains unique identifiers for each node, edge and LINQset, along with: node-to-edge relationships, node-to-LINQset relationships, properties and tags.

The original Excel export can be found under the option “Basic Export”

We’ll be sharing some insights created from the Full Export, so you can see the questions you are able to answer by making use of this data in Excel.

Property Tips

We have added a hover display for a Property field to include all text in that field.

Not only is this useful for Description of a text field when it is longer than the frame shows:

This can also be useful for the creation of custom fields containing a large amount of text where you would like that text to be easily visible – for example a “notes” field as shown here:

For more details please watch the release video.

Layout Undo and Property Description Label After Zoom

We have enabled the ability to undo an “Apply Layout” step when manually applied. This does not affect the underlying data but undoes the visual layout as decided by LINQ’s logic engine if this does not suit your visual aesthetic.

As you zoom out, the labels are automatically hidden for you.

For more details please watch the release video.

Insight Panel

The new Insight Panel allows a LINQ Capture Expert or a LINQ User to easily and visually communicate “What if?” scenarios and quickly identify missing node data.

The Insight Panel is accessed by either clicking on or dragging the Insight link on the very right hand side of the screen.

Run ‘What if’? Scenarios

• Live analysis, right on the canvas. Immediately see the effect on Saving Potential relating to cost and time if certain tasks are not undertaken.

Build and Present Your Business Case

• Ready-made business case slides for common scenarios
• Showcase important information flows with supply-chain ‘photos’ and highlighting

Gain Buy-in and Collaborate

• Share presentations, supply-chains, and evidence based data with decision makers and stakeholders

Ensure data accuracy and completeness

• Easily identify Action and Data nodes that have missing or incomplete data. Navigate directly to the effected nodes and see the addition of data change outcomes in real-time.

For more details please watch the release video.

Balanced Scorecard Dashboard Update

We’ve given the Balanced Scorecard a make-over! It now provides more detail about what is going on inside your Value LINQsets. This diagram shows all of the improvements. You can find out more about Dashboards on our Support Site here.

Accessing learning materials and help

We’ve tidied up the menus in LINQ. It’s now clear where to go to manage your settings, where to go to get Help and how to access our learning resources. A simple change, but one which means you can more easily find what you need.

Editing many action nodes at once

When you have many Action nodes selected, you can now make changes to either duration or frequency and have this change applied to all selected nodes. This means that you can quickly move from modelling the cost of a single transaction to all transactions in a year in just a few clicks; select all of your relevant Action nodes, and in the Properties window, update frequency and hey presto, you’ve annualised your Information Supply Chain!

Balanced Scorecard Dashboard upgrade

We’ve improved the way sorting works in the Balanced Scorecard. Now it makes sense! You can also expand and collapse all with the click of a button. Access to your insights is easier and understanding how to communicate what you’ve found is becoming clearer. Watch this space for more improvements…coming soon…

Learning content for new users

If you’re a new user to LINQ, when you log in for the first time, you will have access to our new learning content; a series of 8 videos which will take you through the process of capturing and gaining insight from you Information Supply Chains. You can also access those videos from this link. Enjoy!

Editing inside a LINQset

You can now create new content directly inside a Value LINQset. You can paste copied nodes and make connections right where they are supposed to be, rather than working outside the LINQset and then connecting it up. It’s a small change, but a huge productivity gain!

A tour of the canvas

We’ve added a new helper to introduce all of the elements of LINQ. New users will see this when they log in, but anyone can access this tour from the Learn menu.

An updated Gallery

We’ve improved the presentation of the Gallery and added some new content under Learning LINQ. The new sketches work with the new video content, so you can watch the videos and follow along using the sketches provided.

A fresh new look

We’ve updated the look of the Explorer View. It still provides the same level of capability, but now looks the part too! We hope you like the brighter look and feel.

Many Actions to One Information Asset

We’ve extended the LINQ language to allow you to connect many actions to one information asset. When the action that is being undertaken is the same, but is performed by different people at different times, creating the same information, this relationship helps to show shared actions through your business. We’ve described more scenarios here. There is also a video going into more depth here.

Many People to One Action

We’ve extended the LINQ language to allow you to connect many people to one action. When the action is a meeting which is attended by many different people, it is valuable to be able to describe the people involved accurately and fully determine the cost of holding that meeting. We’ve described more scenarios for you here. There is also a video going into more depth here.

Tagging & Flagging

We have created Tags and Flags so that you can easily categorise, organise and highlight important nodes or Value LINQsets in your sketch. You can now add a Tag and turn on a Flag against any node in your sketch, highlighting that there is something important about them, drawing attention to them or reminding yourself where to continue your work when you return to LINQ. The new Visualisation Panel controls Flag visibility and provides insight into nodes that have Tags assigned to them. Find out more here.

Copy & Paste across Sketches

It’s now super fast to make use of content you’ve already captured.  You can select your existing content from one Sketch and paste that into an existing sketch you own, have had shared with you (as an editor) or create the start of a new sketch using that content. All your valuable information, including custom properties will be available for you to re-use. Learn more here

Supercharged URLs

We’ve updated our URL property so you can now connect to any type of content that you already have in your business from the LINQ nodes. You may want to record a web address using a URL, a document stored in your Document Management System using an Intranet link or to a file on your own PC or on your file system. Now you can! LINQ becomes a visual catalogue to your organisational information asset.

Record your conversations

We’ve created a new Information Node subtype for Verbal Information. You can use this to show that information doesn’t make it into a system but forms part of your information flow. This node helps to highlight risk and bottlenecks. Learn more here

Recording Organisational Cost

That organisation which supplies content to you has a cost to your business. That could be the cost of the information provision or the SLA that you have with them. You can now record the cost against the Organisation node. Simply enter the cost in the Cost field and this property will be available in the Dashboards.

Custom Node Properties

Against any node type, you can now create your own properties to document more knowledge about your information flow. These can either be text or numeric and can be associated with any of the node types. You might want to record Risk against Information, or Team against People. Now you can.

Custom Properties travel with your sketch when you share it internally or externally. Find out more here.

Multi-node Property Editing

When you select several nodes in your sketch, either on the canvas, or via the Find Panel, you will be able to update properties for those selected nodes in one go. Even if you select nodes of different types, common properties across your selection can be edited at once.

This is really useful for correcting spellings, mass update of node descriptions, or changing the node subtype to enhance your sketch. Find out more here.

Enter any action time & duration

We’ve removed the 24 hour validation on the Action Calculator. You can now take a more transactional approach to describing the actions that take place in your business. Perhaps you know that your team performs 5000 transactions per day. Previously you would have had to reconcile that down to what one person in the team did, rather than thinking about the team as a whole.

Now you can go to town and consider teams as easily as individuals through your business. Of course, all of this drives the insights delivered through the People Dashboard. Learn more about the People Dashboard here.

URLs for Everyone

LINQ is really great at providing a ‘big picture’ view of your business. But how can you use LINQ to navigate from your big picture view, to detailed documents and supporting data?

The answer is the URL (uniform resource locator to its friends).

You can use URLs everywhere in the supply-chain. LINQ information, people, systems and actions all get their own URL fields, and you can use them to point to anything you want on the internet, or intranet.

Just click on the URL to jump to that location.

People Dashboard V2 - Bring your HR to life!

People dashboard V2 is out. We think we have created something special, a powerful tool that brings HR to life.

People dashboard takes everything LINQ knows about people and your business, and helps you drill into:

• The outcomes people support, and the linkages to what people do
• The information they create, and the strategic value to the organisation
• The work they do, and the interactions of that work in the wider organisation
• The systems they use, and the utilisation of those systems

We know the new dashboard is really useful for hiring, on-boarding and planning. You can see how a person’s activities fit into the wider business, what their work supports, and you’ll know what training to provide when people move around the organisation.

We can’t wait to see what you will do with it!

People Dashboard

The best, and most successful transformations always start with an ‘Aha!’ moment. That instant when you discover something you didn’t know about the business, and now you can see a much better way.

Aha! moments happen when you…

• See where your information goes, and what it contributes to
• Learn about other parts of the business and what they do
• Understand the true flow of the business

This week we release phase one of the LINQ people dashboard – it’s your way to:

• See how your work aligns to the strategic goals of business
• Understand what happens to the information you make and how much it gets used by others
• Identify activities getting in the way of what really counts

Let us know what you think.

We can’t wait to hear about your Aha!

Little Tweaks

This week’s release is all about polishing LINQ. We got feedback about naming and renaming sketches – it didn’t quite feel right – so we’ve tweaked that for you.

‘Save’ and ‘save as’ now pop up a dialog so you can choose a new name.

We also made ‘renaming’ obvious with a dedicated button in the sketch list. You can also do it the old way by clicking directly on the sketch name.

Transfer and Delete a Project

Finished with your consulting project?

LINQ now includes a phased delete process for closing down your LINQspace.

The delete process has a project-definable transfer period where members can send project sketches to your clients, or back to your organisation’s LINQspace for use in later projects.

Your important projects are protected from accidental deletion, by a two person confirmation system.

LINQ usage page

We’ve built a very handy usage page, where you can see a condensed overview of your organisation’s billing structure.

Project Parking

Do you need to put your consulting project on hold?

Parking a LINQspace keeps all of your project sketches, while turning off access to the project.

While your project is parked you’ll pay a lower fee; and you can reactivate your project at any time.

Send LINQ Sketches to Another Organisation

Send-a-copy now supports sending sketches to LINQ friends in other companies.

Great for collaboration! Now go out there and make the world a better place!

Increased Resolution for the Action Duration Calculator

We’ve increased the duration resolution in the Action Duration calculator. Now you can calculate Action duration and frequency down to 1 second intervals or up to 10 years.

Faster Ways to Insert Nodes into your Chain

Drag and Drop an Information or Action node onto a green or orange connection to automatically insert new nodes into your chain.

Or, double click on green or orange connections to do the same thing.

LINQ Engine Upgrade - V8 Turbo!

This weekend we switched on a major upgrade to LINQ’s engine. Over the course of six weeks we’ve done the software equivalent of:

• Swapping our 1.6 litre engine with a tuned V8
• Adding a turbo, and super-charger
• Squeeze in some electric motors

And then we painted some sweet flames down the side!

So what will you notice?

LINQ loads and saves are faster now, and search is much faster.

But the real change is behind the scenes. We’ve laid down foundations for the new analytics features you’ve heard us talk about, and improved the way we deal with concurrent modifications.

From here on it’s ‘pedal to the metal’ for LINQ. We’re looking forward to delivering new ways for you to see and transform your business.

Warmest Regards,

The LINQ development team.

Connection Hints and Helpers

Almost every new LINQ user comes across times when LINQ won’t let you connect something to something else. LINQ helpers recognize those moments and explain why, and how you can use LINQ to get maximum results.

Already an expert? Well that’s awesome! You can just click ‘Got It!’ on the helper and it will stop appearing for that situation.

Pro tip: The on/off switches for all the helpers are in the ‘My Settings’ menu.

Introducing the ‘Something Happens Here’ Node

The ‘Something Happens Here’ Action node (it looks like this: ‘?’) is a great way to mark the parts of the chain that you know must exist, but you don’t know enough about what happens in there.

You can add the ‘Something Happens Here’ node to the canvas just like the other Action nodes.

Import Users

Adding users to LINQ is much simpler now: add users to our template spreadsheet, and import them all at once.

LINQ administrators, you can find this option under ‘User Management’.

Where Does This Connection Go?

Click on any connection on the canvas, and the navigator panel will show you what is at both ends.

Excellent for finding your way around big sketches!

Helpers

Over the coming weeks we are adding features that make it easy for new users to get started with LINQ.
The first helper describes what the connections between nodes mean. You can turn them on and off in My Settings menu (under the cog icon).

Custom Naming of Value LINQsets

You can now label Value LINQsets (groups) so that you can find your content quickly. And they are included in the Excel export.

Dashboard

We have added the first of our LINQ Dashboards – the LINQ Balanced Scorecard.
Now you can compare cost and value from any of your information supply chains in a easy-to-read table.

Information Output Indicator

We’ve had a customer or two asking for a indicator to identify the information nodes that are supply chain outputs (these are the ones that allow you to enter value). We added a little bar indicator on information nodes that are outputs.

Expandable Navigator

Where does that information come from? What’s involved in producing that report? Who uses that information and where does it go?

The navigator now works as a resizable split screen, complete with independent zoom controls. Now you can run an analysis view alongside your supply-chain.

Getting the big picture just got a lot easier with LINQ.

LINQspaces for consultant partners

LINQspaces are independent, access-controlled, workspaces designed to make working with external organisations easy. Each LINQspace has independent user lists, independent sharing, and the sketches inside a LINQspace are completely separate from other LINQspaces.

LINQspaces are available for consultant partners. If you would like to use LINQspaces now, please get in touch via partners@13.210.234.248, or get  in touch here to find out more.

External guest users

Now you can share your great ideas and LINQ sketches with people outside of your organisation. You can set up a guest user for an external user and share with them without worrying – LINQ ensures they can’t get the special access rights that internal users can.

LINQ Gallery

What if you have no sketches of your own? Maybe, you just need someone to give you an example, or a start-point you can build up from. LINQ Gallery has what you need.

The Gallery has sketch examples, templates, and videos for a variety of applications. Over time, this will be the place to discover:

• Best practice information supply chains for your organisation and the wider industry
• Tutorials to get the best out of LINQ
• Information Supply Chain building blocks

The ‘Jono Freebie’ - Bookmarks

Our lead dev Jono snuck a little present into LINQ. You can bookmark the sketch you are working on in your browser, and return to it later.

LINQ Explorer

We’ve made you a new workspace specially designed to make finding, managing and sharing LINQ sketches much easier.

When you start LINQ, you go straight to our new explorer with all your sketches front and centre. Click on the sketch to see who has access, collaborate with a few clicks, and see who’s been working hard on your sketches while you were away on your vacation.

And, because it’s so cute, we put a mini version on the canvas too.

Click and Add

Last release we made drawing a supply-chain faster and easier. This time we made it quicker and simpler.

Click and drag from an existing piece of a supply-chain and then click where you want the next bit to appear. LINQ figures out what node is likely to come next and adds it for you. Use your mouse wheel to ‘spin’ through all the type options like: a file, a database, paper etc.

Hey! LINQ is reading your mind.

Watch Video

Export to Excel

What do you do when you have a great LINQ sketch, but you need to share the information to other applications? You export to Excel (or OpenOffice).

LINQ exports all of the information about nodes, values, costs, and LINQ sets into a handy spreadsheet, and summarizes everything for you too. All you have to do is click the export button.

Watch Video

UI Changes

To help you get the most out of our Share feature, we’ve made some changes to the toolbars on the Canvas page. You’ll see some new tools when you’re working on a shared sketch, and there’s also a new way to edit the name of your sketch (just hover and click on the name!). We’ve also combined the file menu with the sketch name too, so now there’s just one simple place to manage your sketches.

Watch Video