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Just in From Playbook 2022: These 6 New Features Will Transform the Way You Work.

September 23, 2022

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Want to document processes in nearly half the time? Or make your team over four times faster at carrying out office operations? Of course you do.

And Trainual spilled the secrets to accomplishing all that during the hottest small business event of the year: Playbook 2022.

The even better news? Trainual announced brand new playbook-building features that will make your lives so. Much. Better.

“This is going to be a game-changer for businesses; the opportunities with this are endless.”
<blockquoteauthor>John Sproul, hiring and training director at Camel Express Carwash<blockquoteauthor>

Dreaming of cutting-edge technology that gives you a foolproof way to make sure employees (actually) read important policies, trains new hires as they work, answers employee questions before they have to ask, and even documents your processes for you?

Believe it or not, Trainual is now one step closer to making every single one of those dreams a reality thanks to some amazing new features that are available now (or will be coming really soon):

  • E-signatures: Achieve in-app insurance for team accountability.
  • Trainual Tags: Surface your digital how-tos from physical objects, spaces, and places, helping your team carry out processes over four times faster.
  • Mobile team directory: Get on-the-go access to team structure and info that helps everyone stay connected.
  • Trainual Capture: Automatically build step-by-step processes as you work with an advanced browser extension that makes documentation nearly two times faster. Coming soon.
  • Revamped Trainual Google Chrome extension: Surface your processes when you need them and help your team carry out online processes over three times faster with an added context-providing tool. Coming soon.
  • Role chart: Build accountability and organize your future team with an easy-to-build blueprint of the roles in your org. Coming soon.

Available now in Trainual

Let’s dive into how each new, innovative feature will push you ahead of the curve for policy implementation, training practices, and team connection.

Boost employee accountability with in-app e-signatures.

Every company has policies. You know, those uber-important rules that keep everyone safe, accountable, and aligned. While we don’t like to point fingers, it’s up to you to make sure every team member fully understands and agrees to follow each one.

With the new e-signature feature, you can require that your team signs on the (virtual) dotted line before marking content complete, ensuring each team member has reviewed and acknowledged every important policy.

Why use e-signatures?

When you require e-signatures to complete policies, your team members will not only think twice before buzzing right past it, but you’ll have documented proof that they agree to follow them.

A screenshot of the Trainual e-signature feature.

Admit it — when you have to sign something, you pay especially close attention to exactly what you’re agreeing to. After all, you don’t want to be bamboozled by any fine print. Your employees are just as smart, so they’ll be extra thorough in reading through company rules and expectations.

When accountability, alignment, and safety are your top priorities, it’s essential to add an extra layer of acknowledgment. With Trainual’s in-app, digital e-signatures, you can toss the crusty, out-of-date papers you make your new hires sign and make your employee acknowledgment as easy to update, track, and revisit as your employee training.

You can be confident that your whole team has read (and re-read) all your important guidelines and is ready to put them into practice. All thanks to the Scale plan-exclusive e-signature feature. Accountability (check).

🔥 Tip: Make sure you’ve filled out who reports to who right in Trainual. That way, everyone and their direct manager will receive copies of all signed documents via email. Don’t have a Trainual account? Try for free.

Be everywhere at once with Trainual Tags.

Picture this: Your team member needs a caffeine hit but doesn't have a clue how to work the new high-end office coffee machine. The printer is out of paper and your new hire doesn't know who to ask to refill it (or how to connect to it to print in the first place). Someone else is in your employee vehicle and can't remember the protocol for when the "low tire pressure" alert starts flashing. A remote worker accidentally sets off your office alarm system and doesn't know how to turn it off.

They need answers ASAP. And you can provide those answers (even when you're not there) with Trainual Tags — the cutting-edge gadgets that ease communication and expedite the execution of any process you choose, anywhere.

With Trainual Tags, your team can find the right information instantlyover four times faster than searching for answers via their desktop computer and over twice as fast as searching via the mobile app. Here’s how.

Tags are quarter-sized stickers equipped with fancy near-field communication (NFC) technology. NFC tech isn’t just your regular contactless communication system. It’s next-level tech that uses two-way communication.

That’s how NFC technology allows you to pair a tag with your Trainual content while giving your team access to that content by simply tapping the tag with a mobile device.

Where can Trainual Tags go?

Anywhere! Stick tags by your office tools, on field equipment, in company cars — wherever your team needs a little extra guidance. All they have to do is scan a Trainual Tag using their phone and *poof* they've got their answer.

And you know what that means: You can wave goodbye to wasted time spent repeating yourself or your employee waiting for an answer (or trying to figure it out themselves).

Remember: You can leverage tags outside the office, too. Stick them on the company car dash, on your field workers’ tool kits, on equipment installed at a customers' home or site — you name it. The possibilities here are out of this world.

Some folks are even using tags to show off their products and services to prospects or to provide resources to customers. Tags work with publicly-shared Trainual content, too. Meaning, you can share anything with people outside of your org.

“We are doing a trade show today and we put a tag on one of our brochures that links to our Trainual page with a video introducing our team. A good hook to get people excited about [our company].”
<blockquoteauthor>Tim Conner, franchise operations support manager at Franchise Marketing Systems<blockquoteauthor>

👉 Need to get your hands on a batch of Trainual Tags? Head to the Trainual online store to purchase tags for as much as a couple of cups of coffee.

Give your team on-the-go access to team structure and info.

As your team composition changes, you start to lose track of all the who’s: who does what, who reports to who, and who to go to for help if you need something specific. Plus, you forget the little things — like your coworker’s oldest kid’s name, your manager’s favorite coffee spot, or which of your teammates are as addicted to Fantasy Football as you.

Trainual has two resources to help with these: the directory and the org chart. When you’re on the desktop version of Trainual, you can click on anyone and get a slick slideout that tells you more about them — their role, responsibilities, bio, and so on.

And now, your whole team has 24/7 access to the org chart and the directory while they’re on the move — with the Trainual mobile app for iOS and Android.

Screenshot of mobile Trainual app.

The updated mobile app puts all your team member need-to-knows right in everyone’s pockets. This is especially important to streamline communication. When an employee has your team directory and org chart in the palm of their hand, they have visibility of everyone’s contact info, team reporting structure, role-based responsibilities, and more — in seconds.

When your team downloads the Trainual mobile app, they can get to know each other better, stay connected, and instantly access each other’s info wherever they are. Whether they’re commuting, out in the field, on a coffee run, or anywhere else away from a computer.

Are you pumped yet? Just wait — you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Get a load of the features coming soon that’ll literally make your processes document themselves, put team member need-to-knows right in your pocket, and oh-so-much more.

Coming soon…

Document processes automatically with Trainual Capture.

You’re a busy bee and simply don’t have extra time to spend documenting each and every how-to in your business. You resort to lengthy videos or straight-up biting the bullet and carefully mapping out processes, including screenshots highlighting every important piece your team needs to know. Can you say “time consuming?”

Why can’t your processes just document themselves? Well, they can — very soon.

Screenshot of Trainual capture experiment tracker.

Because we’re creating the ultimate solution: an all-in-one tool that automatically records your online processes in real time as you do them.

That’s right — the upcoming Trainual Capture Chrome extension is a sleek documentation tool that records each step you make on an online platform and instantly compiles your activity to create a perfect, step-by-step training manual.

Will it really make documentation faster?

Oh yeah, it will — we clocked it. Using Trainual Capture will help you create processes in nearly half the time. It even takes screenshots of your processes along the way, highlighting the areas you click to draw attention to each step.

But here’s where the real win comes in: After your step-by-step process is built, you’ll be able to add it straight to Trainual or even export it as a PDF.

How it’ll work:

First, you’ll download the Trainual Capture Google Chrome extension (coming soon). After logging in, you’ll click “Create capture” and start your capture, carrying out the process as you normally would. When you’re all done, you’ll hit “Finish” and take a look at your created how-to. Believe it or not, it’s that easy.

Your auto-documented process will call attention to the starting webpage, each field you fill out, each icon you click, and more — complete with written directions and easy-to-follow pictures.

You can edit your new step-by-step training manual as needed by changing the top banner image, any step image, and step titles until it’s just the way you want.

Now, we’re still smoothing out a few details before this goes live. In the meantime, make a list of all the online processes you need to document but haven’t gotten to yet. You want to be ready to speed-document as soon as the Trainual Capture Chrome extension officially launches. Stay tuned for more info!

Get instant access to the right content with the revamped Trainual Google Chrome extension.

Let’s say a team member on your customer support team steps in to help out your sales team on a busy day. After a successful conversation with a prospect, they need to process a sale for the first time (woo!). They head to your payment processing platform online and… stop. What do they do next?

Without an easy-to-access compilation of resources, they’d have to reach out to a few peers until they can find someone who can help. That could take several minutes or even hours (depending on who’s around to help). With Trainual, they can use the search tool to navigate to the documented information they need in a few minutes.

But what if they could get what they needed instantly — right where they’re working?

A man sitting at a laptop and saying, "Right over here."

With the upcoming revamped Trainual Google Chrome extension, your team members will see a Trainual help icon appear on the right side of their browsers right when they navigate to a specified webpage. When they click on the icon, the exact instructions they need will magically slide out on their browser. In seconds.

No need to bother anyone for help. No need to search. No need to tab back and forth between instructions and the platform they’re working on. It’s all right there — making process implementation over three times faster.

Give your team context right where they need it.

When these updates launch, you’ll be able to add a step of content to the Trainual Google Chrome extension so it appears on whatever external webpage you want.

Need some inspiration? Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Add PTO info to your benefits software. Your employee (pumped to take some well-deserved time off) heads to your benefits management software to make a request. But, wait — how much time off do they get again? How far in advance do they need to submit their request? Weren’t there some blackout days that were off the table? Answer all those questions right on your team’s benefits management platform by adding your PTO info to the Trainual Chrome extension.
  • Add how-tos to your to-dos page. A team member heads to your task management system to create a project for the first time. But… they learned how to do that a while ago and can’t remember how. Tell them everything they need to know before they even ask by adding your task management software info to the Trainual Chrome extension.
  • Add FAQs to your customer chat. What hot topics are surfacing in your customer chat? There’s no need to send everyone in customer support down a rabbit hole in search for an answer. Stick your customer FAQs right on your chat homepage for your whole team to reference.

We can see your wheels turning. For now, try to keep calm — the Trainual Google Chrome extension makeover is coming soon!

Map out the future structure of your org and build team accountability with a role chart.

Not every small business has a super-defined reporting structure where each person has a single manager they work under. So while org charts with single-path, top-down structures effectively show everyone’s position and who reports to who in teams with a streamlined structure, they’re not one-size-fits-all.

With the upcoming role chart, you can map out your current (or future) reporting structure by role, so your whole team has an up-to-date reference as your business grows and changes. When you lay out your company structure by role, your team can more easily see who reports to who (and when) — no matter how many hats everyone wears.

What’s even cooler is that your team can click on any role and see all the team members and responsibilities associated with it, making it easier than ever to find the team information they need.

Keep an eye out for all the upcoming Trainual changes so you don’t miss your chance to get ahead of the game with scary-fast process documentation, context right where you work, and a company role chart.

For now, give our new experiences a try. Boost employee accountability with in-app e-signatures, give people instant access to your content with Trainual Tags, and stick team member need-to-knows in everyone’s pocket with mobile directory and org chart experiences. Don’t have an account? Try for free.

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Article

Just in From Playbook 2022: These 6 New Features Will Transform the Way You Work.

September 23, 2022

Jump to a section
Share it!
Sign up for our newsletter
You're all signed up! Look out for the next edition of The Manual Weekly coming Wednesday am!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Want to document processes in nearly half the time? Or make your team over four times faster at carrying out office operations? Of course you do.

And Trainual spilled the secrets to accomplishing all that during the hottest small business event of the year: Playbook 2022.

The even better news? Trainual announced brand new playbook-building features that will make your lives so. Much. Better.

“This is going to be a game-changer for businesses; the opportunities with this are endless.”
<blockquoteauthor>John Sproul, hiring and training director at Camel Express Carwash<blockquoteauthor>

Dreaming of cutting-edge technology that gives you a foolproof way to make sure employees (actually) read important policies, trains new hires as they work, answers employee questions before they have to ask, and even documents your processes for you?

Believe it or not, Trainual is now one step closer to making every single one of those dreams a reality thanks to some amazing new features that are available now (or will be coming really soon):

  • E-signatures: Achieve in-app insurance for team accountability.
  • Trainual Tags: Surface your digital how-tos from physical objects, spaces, and places, helping your team carry out processes over four times faster.
  • Mobile team directory: Get on-the-go access to team structure and info that helps everyone stay connected.
  • Trainual Capture: Automatically build step-by-step processes as you work with an advanced browser extension that makes documentation nearly two times faster. Coming soon.
  • Revamped Trainual Google Chrome extension: Surface your processes when you need them and help your team carry out online processes over three times faster with an added context-providing tool. Coming soon.
  • Role chart: Build accountability and organize your future team with an easy-to-build blueprint of the roles in your org. Coming soon.

Available now in Trainual

Let’s dive into how each new, innovative feature will push you ahead of the curve for policy implementation, training practices, and team connection.

Boost employee accountability with in-app e-signatures.

Every company has policies. You know, those uber-important rules that keep everyone safe, accountable, and aligned. While we don’t like to point fingers, it’s up to you to make sure every team member fully understands and agrees to follow each one.

With the new e-signature feature, you can require that your team signs on the (virtual) dotted line before marking content complete, ensuring each team member has reviewed and acknowledged every important policy.

Why use e-signatures?

When you require e-signatures to complete policies, your team members will not only think twice before buzzing right past it, but you’ll have documented proof that they agree to follow them.

A screenshot of the Trainual e-signature feature.

Admit it — when you have to sign something, you pay especially close attention to exactly what you’re agreeing to. After all, you don’t want to be bamboozled by any fine print. Your employees are just as smart, so they’ll be extra thorough in reading through company rules and expectations.

When accountability, alignment, and safety are your top priorities, it’s essential to add an extra layer of acknowledgment. With Trainual’s in-app, digital e-signatures, you can toss the crusty, out-of-date papers you make your new hires sign and make your employee acknowledgment as easy to update, track, and revisit as your employee training.

You can be confident that your whole team has read (and re-read) all your important guidelines and is ready to put them into practice. All thanks to the Scale plan-exclusive e-signature feature. Accountability (check).

🔥 Tip: Make sure you’ve filled out who reports to who right in Trainual. That way, everyone and their direct manager will receive copies of all signed documents via email. Don’t have a Trainual account? Try for free.

Be everywhere at once with Trainual Tags.

Picture this: Your team member needs a caffeine hit but doesn't have a clue how to work the new high-end office coffee machine. The printer is out of paper and your new hire doesn't know who to ask to refill it (or how to connect to it to print in the first place). Someone else is in your employee vehicle and can't remember the protocol for when the "low tire pressure" alert starts flashing. A remote worker accidentally sets off your office alarm system and doesn't know how to turn it off.

They need answers ASAP. And you can provide those answers (even when you're not there) with Trainual Tags — the cutting-edge gadgets that ease communication and expedite the execution of any process you choose, anywhere.

With Trainual Tags, your team can find the right information instantlyover four times faster than searching for answers via their desktop computer and over twice as fast as searching via the mobile app. Here’s how.

Tags are quarter-sized stickers equipped with fancy near-field communication (NFC) technology. NFC tech isn’t just your regular contactless communication system. It’s next-level tech that uses two-way communication.

That’s how NFC technology allows you to pair a tag with your Trainual content while giving your team access to that content by simply tapping the tag with a mobile device.

Where can Trainual Tags go?

Anywhere! Stick tags by your office tools, on field equipment, in company cars — wherever your team needs a little extra guidance. All they have to do is scan a Trainual Tag using their phone and *poof* they've got their answer.

And you know what that means: You can wave goodbye to wasted time spent repeating yourself or your employee waiting for an answer (or trying to figure it out themselves).

Remember: You can leverage tags outside the office, too. Stick them on the company car dash, on your field workers’ tool kits, on equipment installed at a customers' home or site — you name it. The possibilities here are out of this world.

Some folks are even using tags to show off their products and services to prospects or to provide resources to customers. Tags work with publicly-shared Trainual content, too. Meaning, you can share anything with people outside of your org.

“We are doing a trade show today and we put a tag on one of our brochures that links to our Trainual page with a video introducing our team. A good hook to get people excited about [our company].”
<blockquoteauthor>Tim Conner, franchise operations support manager at Franchise Marketing Systems<blockquoteauthor>

👉 Need to get your hands on a batch of Trainual Tags? Head to the Trainual online store to purchase tags for as much as a couple of cups of coffee.

Give your team on-the-go access to team structure and info.

As your team composition changes, you start to lose track of all the who’s: who does what, who reports to who, and who to go to for help if you need something specific. Plus, you forget the little things — like your coworker’s oldest kid’s name, your manager’s favorite coffee spot, or which of your teammates are as addicted to Fantasy Football as you.

Trainual has two resources to help with these: the directory and the org chart. When you’re on the desktop version of Trainual, you can click on anyone and get a slick slideout that tells you more about them — their role, responsibilities, bio, and so on.

And now, your whole team has 24/7 access to the org chart and the directory while they’re on the move — with the Trainual mobile app for iOS and Android.

Screenshot of mobile Trainual app.

The updated mobile app puts all your team member need-to-knows right in everyone’s pockets. This is especially important to streamline communication. When an employee has your team directory and org chart in the palm of their hand, they have visibility of everyone’s contact info, team reporting structure, role-based responsibilities, and more — in seconds.

When your team downloads the Trainual mobile app, they can get to know each other better, stay connected, and instantly access each other’s info wherever they are. Whether they’re commuting, out in the field, on a coffee run, or anywhere else away from a computer.

Are you pumped yet? Just wait — you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Get a load of the features coming soon that’ll literally make your processes document themselves, put team member need-to-knows right in your pocket, and oh-so-much more.

Coming soon…

Document processes automatically with Trainual Capture.

You’re a busy bee and simply don’t have extra time to spend documenting each and every how-to in your business. You resort to lengthy videos or straight-up biting the bullet and carefully mapping out processes, including screenshots highlighting every important piece your team needs to know. Can you say “time consuming?”

Why can’t your processes just document themselves? Well, they can — very soon.

Screenshot of Trainual capture experiment tracker.

Because we’re creating the ultimate solution: an all-in-one tool that automatically records your online processes in real time as you do them.

That’s right — the upcoming Trainual Capture Chrome extension is a sleek documentation tool that records each step you make on an online platform and instantly compiles your activity to create a perfect, step-by-step training manual.

Will it really make documentation faster?

Oh yeah, it will — we clocked it. Using Trainual Capture will help you create processes in nearly half the time. It even takes screenshots of your processes along the way, highlighting the areas you click to draw attention to each step.

But here’s where the real win comes in: After your step-by-step process is built, you’ll be able to add it straight to Trainual or even export it as a PDF.

How it’ll work:

First, you’ll download the Trainual Capture Google Chrome extension (coming soon). After logging in, you’ll click “Create capture” and start your capture, carrying out the process as you normally would. When you’re all done, you’ll hit “Finish” and take a look at your created how-to. Believe it or not, it’s that easy.

Your auto-documented process will call attention to the starting webpage, each field you fill out, each icon you click, and more — complete with written directions and easy-to-follow pictures.

You can edit your new step-by-step training manual as needed by changing the top banner image, any step image, and step titles until it’s just the way you want.

Now, we’re still smoothing out a few details before this goes live. In the meantime, make a list of all the online processes you need to document but haven’t gotten to yet. You want to be ready to speed-document as soon as the Trainual Capture Chrome extension officially launches. Stay tuned for more info!

Get instant access to the right content with the revamped Trainual Google Chrome extension.

Let’s say a team member on your customer support team steps in to help out your sales team on a busy day. After a successful conversation with a prospect, they need to process a sale for the first time (woo!). They head to your payment processing platform online and… stop. What do they do next?

Without an easy-to-access compilation of resources, they’d have to reach out to a few peers until they can find someone who can help. That could take several minutes or even hours (depending on who’s around to help). With Trainual, they can use the search tool to navigate to the documented information they need in a few minutes.

But what if they could get what they needed instantly — right where they’re working?

A man sitting at a laptop and saying, "Right over here."

With the upcoming revamped Trainual Google Chrome extension, your team members will see a Trainual help icon appear on the right side of their browsers right when they navigate to a specified webpage. When they click on the icon, the exact instructions they need will magically slide out on their browser. In seconds.

No need to bother anyone for help. No need to search. No need to tab back and forth between instructions and the platform they’re working on. It’s all right there — making process implementation over three times faster.

Give your team context right where they need it.

When these updates launch, you’ll be able to add a step of content to the Trainual Google Chrome extension so it appears on whatever external webpage you want.

Need some inspiration? Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Add PTO info to your benefits software. Your employee (pumped to take some well-deserved time off) heads to your benefits management software to make a request. But, wait — how much time off do they get again? How far in advance do they need to submit their request? Weren’t there some blackout days that were off the table? Answer all those questions right on your team’s benefits management platform by adding your PTO info to the Trainual Chrome extension.
  • Add how-tos to your to-dos page. A team member heads to your task management system to create a project for the first time. But… they learned how to do that a while ago and can’t remember how. Tell them everything they need to know before they even ask by adding your task management software info to the Trainual Chrome extension.
  • Add FAQs to your customer chat. What hot topics are surfacing in your customer chat? There’s no need to send everyone in customer support down a rabbit hole in search for an answer. Stick your customer FAQs right on your chat homepage for your whole team to reference.

We can see your wheels turning. For now, try to keep calm — the Trainual Google Chrome extension makeover is coming soon!

Map out the future structure of your org and build team accountability with a role chart.

Not every small business has a super-defined reporting structure where each person has a single manager they work under. So while org charts with single-path, top-down structures effectively show everyone’s position and who reports to who in teams with a streamlined structure, they’re not one-size-fits-all.

With the upcoming role chart, you can map out your current (or future) reporting structure by role, so your whole team has an up-to-date reference as your business grows and changes. When you lay out your company structure by role, your team can more easily see who reports to who (and when) — no matter how many hats everyone wears.

What’s even cooler is that your team can click on any role and see all the team members and responsibilities associated with it, making it easier than ever to find the team information they need.

Keep an eye out for all the upcoming Trainual changes so you don’t miss your chance to get ahead of the game with scary-fast process documentation, context right where you work, and a company role chart.

For now, give our new experiences a try. Boost employee accountability with in-app e-signatures, give people instant access to your content with Trainual Tags, and stick team member need-to-knows in everyone’s pocket with mobile directory and org chart experiences. Don’t have an account? Try for free.

Article

Just in From Playbook 2022: These 6 New Features Will Transform the Way You Work.

September 23, 2022

S
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Organize the chaos
of your small business

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