Product Updates

Karbon Practice Intelligence (KPI) newest workbook: Repeating Work For many, it’s a busy time of the year: swamped with tax work while balancing all of the other tasks that are due. You might also be spending hours tracking and managing your team’s work to see that nothing falls through the cracks—that could result in surprises closer to April. If this sounds all too familiar, discover how the Repeating Work workbook will alleviate the pain.   The Repeating Work workbook helps you track your progress and compares it with previous years. The visual indicators assist you to see where the work is and who it’s assigned to—which is a critical path to determining whether you are ahead or behind schedule. As a result, you are able to identify bottlenecks early and know how likely your firm is to get the work done on time. Work items can easily fall through the cracks if you don't have all the information or if input is required from others on the team. To prevent this from happening, the Repeating Work workbook identifies which work items have been in a particular status for too long, so you can take action before it’s too late. Don’t forget to take a look at the other workbooks in the KPI series.

Updated Karbon Practice Intelligence (KPI) Work Status workbook The updated Work Status workbook has come a long way from its first release 6 months ago.New filters have been added, including work type, client, and client manager, in addition to the existing ones for time and status. Your custom statuses have also been included to give you a deeper understanding into your process.The workbook is designed to help you identify how the status of your work has progressed over time and how your firm has performed to date. After selecting the desired work type(s), you can quickly see your average completion time and how that has changed over time, how much work was completed, and how much of that work was completed on time. Not only can you drill into average completion times and understand which work items took the longest, but you can see how this varies by client, client manager, or even who was assigned the work. This helps you understand where the bottlenecks are and where you could make adjustments.To see the workbook in action, watch this videoThe power of these workbooks increases when combined. For example, when you combine the Work Outstanding workbook, with the Work Status workbook, you can see all the work due and apply lessons learned from the Work Status workbook. You can use the Work Status workbook to understand which clients' work traditionally take the longest and account for this in the Work Outstanding workbook.To experience the power of the other workbooks refer to release notes dated Nov 17, 2022

Thanks to all who joined me and our Product Managers on our 2022 recap webinar.It was great to see so many familiar names on the call. For those who weren’t able to join us live, we recapped on our key improvements in 2022, including a sneak peek at Billing and Payments coming in 2023.Catch up on the recording to see: Insights and KPI Triage My Week Client Portal Document Management Time API Billing & Payments  We’d love to hear what you think, and any questions or feedback you have. You can add your thoughts in the comments below. 

Use smart suggestions to complete work faster and easier when sending Client Requests, and truly understand your firm's process flow with the updated KPI work status workbook.Smart suggestions for Client RequestsSmart suggestion functionality has been added to Client Requests. This is the same experience you will have seen when sending emails from work timelines. From the Client Request sending modal, Karbon now suggests a list of 6 contacts to send to, based on contacts that are associated with the work item. Sending Client Request emails is now faster and easier because you no longer need to search for the appropriate contact.  Plus, it gives you full confidence that you are selecting the right contact. If you have multiple contacts and emails, the ones associated with the work will be displayed.Updated KPI Work Status Workbook (coming soon Dec 19)The newly revised Work Status workbook improves on the initial workbook released in June 2022. While the original version showed the time, status, and number of completed work items, this version provides more detail and allows you to truly understand your firm's process flow by breaking down your work by client, client owner, employee, and work type. The workbook is designed to help you identify how the status of your work has progressed over time, and gives insights into how your firm has performed to date. This historical view will help answer critical questions such as: Where are the bottlenecks in my process? What is my lead time for delivery? Which customers’ work takes the longest to complete? And What is the time it takes for my employees to complete their work? Combined with the Work Outstanding workbook, you can see all the work due and apply lessons learned from the Work Status workbook.

 To date, we have released multiple Karbon Practice Intelligence workbooks that support you in managing your firm. The newest addition measures work outstanding. Need to know how much work is left to complete in the coming days, weeks, or months? Or, more importantly, if the workload is well-balanced amongst your team members and is able to be completed on time? The Work Outstanding workbook helps you answer these questions quickly and easily–before work becomes overdue. Firm owners, managers, and team leads can quickly see the work remaining and how it’s distributed across your team (work items, tasks, and budget hours). This provides the ability to balance workloads or reassign responsibilities so work is prioritized, which saves you both time and effort when managing your work. Rather than navigating through unorganized information, or creating your own extracts of data to support your standups, this workbook focuses on the work that needs your attention or is at risk of not being completed on time. As with all of the new workbooks, you get access to your data through KPI. This newest release means there is a new table available in your Snowflake account. The Work Item Internal Task Details is now available and provides you with a snapshot of all your tasks. This allows you to gain better insight into the work distribution across team members at more granular levels. Our help article will guide you through getting access to this table in existing KPI Workbooks.The other suite of workbooks includes:BudgetStay on track and under budget by measuring performance, including tracking both time and costs against each work item budget. This provides the ability to manage ongoing work and identify where you are close to going over budget, so you can intervene before it’s too late. It also helps you analyze work over budget and understand both the impact and root causes. EmailUnderstand your emails from both a volume and response time perspective by filtering out the noise so you can see insights into your high-volume clients. This workbook also provides a true measure of your response time to and from your clients, meaning you can effectively measure your service level agreements while also understanding how effective clients are at getting back to you.TimeSee your time data how you need it. This is flexible and provides you with the means to aggregate your data based on the attributes that make sense for you. Whether that’s the individual raw time entries or an aggregate view by week, client, user, work type, role, task type, or work item, this workbook can answer all your time-related questions.If you’re not already using Karbon Practice Intelligence, speak with your Customer Success Manager or Sales Executive to learn how KPI can help your firm excel.

WorkNew ‘In Status’ columnIf your firm uses the First In, First Out (FIFO) or Last In, First Out (LIFO) for production planning and processing, being able to sort work items based on when their workflow status changed is essential for knowing what to action next.To enable this, a new column called 'In Status' has been added to the Work List. When a work item changes into a new status (including creation), the duration it has been in that particular status will be included in the work export (date and time). Items without a status change date will always be at the bottom, regardless of sort direction.Client PortalEntities with the same emailFor clients that manage multiple entities with the same email address, we have added the client name to the request. This increases transparency over who the work belongs to, so they know what to action and for which entity. This will appear on both the magic link view as well as the logged-in view.SettingsPermissions page is easier to navigateThe permissions page has been redesigned to make the user experience more efficient for admin users who want more control over employee access levels. Basic user permissions for standard, restricted, and admin are now under ‘Access’. ‘Extras’ has been renamed ‘Permissions’ to make it clear that users have an access level and then additional permissions. Descriptions have been included under each section, so users don’t have to leave the page to understand what permissions include. Finally, the Invite Colleague modal has also been updated to match these new improvements.Company Details new fieldsCompany Tax Registration Number, Phone Number, and Address fields have been added to the Firm Details section. These additional fields extend your ability to map to invoicing when it is released.TimeTime admins can edit colleagues' time entriesWe have added extra permissions in settings for time admins to edit and submit a colleague’s timesheet entries in cases where the user can’t do this themselves. Admin users with this permission can now make adjustments to a colleague’s timesheet. Click on the time entry that needs editing, and edit the required information including notes. The admin user can submit, approve or decline the colleague’s timesheet.View history of time entry changesThe timesheet activity section has been expanded to include additional information including an overview of all changes made and by whom, so admins can keep track of who did what and when.KPI workbook (released Oct 10)New time workbookThe new time workbook allows powerful flexibility to view your time data how you need it. Quickly view your time entries by team member, customer, work type, or even work item. The new workbook also provides you with the raw tabular data, so you can see everything from individual time entries to aggregated results. Previous releasesIf you missed an update, you can still see a list of what we released in Karbon. For API releases, see the Karbon Developer Center.

TriageRespond to meeting or event invitations in TriageConnecting your calendar in Karbon will ensure you can respond to meeting invites directly via Triage. Responding with your preference to the meeting or event will automatically be added to your calendar. You can change your response at any time by clicking on the calendar event in My Week. Karbon Practice Intelligence PowerBI workbookAnalyze budget to plan for inefficienciesWe’ve added another workbook to Practice Intelligence. The budget workbook allows you to perform a detailed analysis and look at the budget retrospectively.  Have visibility and answer critical questions about potential reasons that actual time/cost are over the budgeted amounts, view active work items that are already over budget to look for efficiencies, and plan accordingly.  Use filters for work types, team members, and work item status directly in Karbon to explore detailed information and understand which clients are over (or close to going over) budget. Document managementAuto-create new folders for repeating work itemsRepeating settings for work items is used to set and forget work items that need to be repeated on a regular basis. Document management users in Karbon, can automatically create the required folders in your Document management system and start copying work files when a repeating work item is started (ie. when tasks and budgets are created for the work). This will ensure that you are always on track with up-to-date information in your folders which avoids confusion, making it easier to navigate for everyone in your firm. To configure, we have added a new section in Repeat settings > Connected folder to auto-create folders.  My WeekView information faster with an overlay in your calendarSimilar to the work overlay released earlier this month, this functionality has been added to the calendar. After you drag and drop a work item into the calendar, you can view event descriptions in an overlay via the work title. This will enable you to work faster and view critical information about work items, directly on the calendar. 

Karbon Practice Intelligence PowerBI workbookWithin Practice Intelligence, a new workbook has been added to allow you to analyze email activity and performance. The new email workbook will give you the ability to understand the volume and response of emails sent to and from clients. You can explore detailed information by using filters like date, contact, or client manager and navigate to each conversation directly in Karbon to action if required. My Week In-page search You can now find information quickly with in-page search in My Week. The search will return results for notes, emails, and work items. The first 100 items will be displayed, and you can scroll through to find more items using the arrow keys.Calendar collapse and expandBy default, the calendar in My Week displays an expanded view. You can now collapse the panel to provide more space to display your work items. To collapse, click on the cross in the top right-hand corner of the calendar. When you want to expand the calendar, click on the calendar button in the same place. WorkFind information quickly with overlaysSimilar to My Week, when selecting a work item in Work, an overlay will give you an at-a-glance view of the high-level information. In the overlay, you can mark tasks off quickly or click ‘View the full work item’ to go directly to the entire work item view. To bypass the overlay and navigate directly to the work item, simply right-click on the relevant work item.  Duplicate a section in TasksTo save you time and effort, we have added an extra option in the navigation menu in tasks, so you can quickly duplicate a section. This gives you error-free and easy access to edit information rather than retyping. Compose emails in context with TriagePreviously, when clicking on an embedded email address within an email, you were redirected to your email provider outside of Karbon. Now, Karbon will automatically open a new email modal, so you can stay in context with your workflow. Time & BudgetsNever miss a time entry againCharge clients accurately for work performed for time entries. You can now make Task Type and Role fields mandatory for time entries. When a new time entry is created, users won’t be able to save until these fields are populated. You can turn this on in Settings. 

Today we’re introducing the new Karbon Client Portal. We know visibility and efficiency are critical to your practice, so we’ve made it easier to engage with your clients, securely share information, and communicate with ease. The portal allows your clients to manage and comment on specific tasks, and ask questions all in the context of the work item. Your team is immediately notified and can take action. This eliminates the need for email and keeps everything together in one place, so it can be viewed anytime.As well as improving existing functionality, we’ve added new features to help you engage with your clients, making it easier for them to accomplish what you need them to do.Magic linksThe PIN has been replaced by a magic link. A magic link is a unique URL that clients receive via email along with their tasks. When clicked, your client will immediately (and somewhat magically) be able to view the latest requests and complete them on their desktop or mobile device. Plus, clients can easily access and download documents your team has sent at their own convenience.Because a magic link can only be accessed from your client’s inbox—and only used once—it’s a more secure alternative to a sharable or guessable PIN. For added security, the magic link expires after 30 days. If your client attempts to access the link after 30 days, they will need to generate another one. Client loginBusiness plan subscribers get the added benefit of clients having their own login section, allowing greater flexibility to view everything, including a history of open and completed requests, plus the ability to upload and download documents. Renamed headingsThe heading in Work > Tasks has been renamed from ‘Client Task’ to ‘Client Request’, which better aligns with terminology across the platform.SettingsThe Client Tasks tab has been renamed to ‘Client Portal’ where you can add your firm’s logo, set auto-sending options, and find a dedicated link to your Client Portal. You can add that URL to your website and/or outgoing emails for a great way to promote the feature and save you administration time, and allow your clients to access their information quickly. If you are a Karbon customer, register for one of our upcoming global webinars, where we’ll cover: An introduction to the Client Portal How to collaborate effectively with clients How to empower your clients to self-serve, find information, comment, and ask questions Session 1: Monday August 22, 9am PDTSession 2: Wednesday August 24, 9am AESTSession 3: Thursday August 25, 11am BSTClient AssetsVisit our help centre article for assets to introduce this to your clients including a video and email template.

Sync both ways with Google and Outlook calendars Calendars are at the center of most of our working lives and based on your feedback, we know a calendar integration in Karbon is in high demand. With that in mind, we're thrilled to announce our two-way calendar sync in My Week.This new feature allows you to sync Karbon with your Google or Outlook calendar (Exchange coming soon), allowing you to see your availability all in one place and lessening the burden on context-switching between calendars.The fact that the calendar integration is a two-way sync means that your calendar is updated in real-time. Google or Outlook calendar events will immediately appear in Karbon and vice versa.This means that all your calendar events will be current and accurate. You can book with confidence, knowing that there’s less possibility of multiple bookings and schedule disruptions. Fast and easy setupIt takes less than 30 seconds to set up the integration. Simply navigate to My Week and click on ‘Connect calendar’ and sign in to your calendar provider.An example is a Google Calendar connection Stay focused Once your calendar is connected, you’ll be able to respond to a single or repeating calendar event. Your Karbon calendar entries will replicate all the event details, conferencing info, description, organizer, and attendees. Hovering over a particular event will display more information, for easy referencing. Join meetings via Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and Skype right from the event in your calendar in My Week. Plus, time entries from your calendar event will appear on timesheets in Karbon, saving you time and double handling.You have the ability to view your calendar by day, schedule, and week or choose a particular date through the date picker. And you can easily block out time by dragging and dropping items from My Week into the calendar (day view only) to prioritize work and plan your day.Easily see the color coding of your events in Karbon from your calendar provider, to make it simple to glance at your schedule and quickly see what your day, week, or schedule looks like. And you’ll instantly understand where the majority of your time is being spent so you can adjust accordingly if needed.   If you are a Karbon customer, register for one of our upcoming global webinars, where we’ll demonstrate how to: How to connect your calendar to Karbon Best practices for using My Week and calendar to help you organize work into manageable actions plans using the drag and drop feature How using calendar in Karbon can save you time and provide visibility across your schedule Session 1: Tuesday August 16, 12pm PDTSession 2: Wednesday August 17, 9am AESTSession 3: Wednesday August 17, 2pm BSTAutomatically connect repeating work items with your Document Management System (DMS)Once you connect Microsoft OneDrive, SharePoint or Dropbox to Karbon, you can set up your repeating work items to automatically connect to your specified DMS folders, guaranteeing your team a single, centralized source of truth. In the ‘Repeat Settings’ of any work item, a new section has been added called ‘Connect Folder’—this is where you can connect your DMS folder and start copying files automatically.  The connection won’t take effect until tasks and budgets are created.   To the comment section! We know you’ve waited a long time for calendar integration and will have lots of great thoughts on how you’re excited to use it today, and how you’d like to see the feature further develop over time. 

Below is some information on the Client Portal Security. For more information on the Client Portal please see this FAQ and How to Guide. To see it in action, please see this demo video.  Client Portal SecurityKarbon takes our responsibility for our clients, and their clients’ data security seriously. The Karbon Client Portal is a Karbon platform feature that allows trusted advisors to engage with their clients and share information in a manner that is more secure than email.This document outlines our security approach to Karbon’s Client Portal Magic Links and client login.Client RequestsThe Client Portal is protected by many of the same safeguards that protect access to the Karbon platform.All client request messages are configured with transport layer security (TLS) encryption protocol (an advanced form of secure socket layer - SSL encryption) to encrypt client request messages and submitted client documentation or artifact during data transmission (i.e., data travel) activities over the internet.This encryption transfers all messages and artifacts within the Client Portal over the internet in ciphertext, reducing the likelihood of your data being compromised during your client’s use of the Client Portal. Encrypting the Client Portal with TLS means that your client’s use of the Client Portal is secure and our client’s activities and data is encrypted and safely shared. Magic LinksMagic Links, provide a convenient and secure method for a party to verify their Identity. When a client receives a Client Request from Karbon, it will include a unique Magic Link to access the request from the body of the email.Magic Links can only be used once by a single device. A magic link can only be used a single time. Once it has been used, the device that received the email is considered a trusted device. Any attempt to reuse the link on any other device will be declined. If a client wants to access the portal on a second device they can request that a new link be generated and sent to them.Magic Links expire after 30 day. Regardless of whether a link has been activated or not, its access to the portal will expire after 30 days of being generated. At this time the client will be prompted to generate a new link.Magic Links are only valid for the lifetime of the work item. Once a work item associated with a magic link has been marked complete, the magic link is no longer available for use.Magic Links are unguessable. Unlike a PIN, which could be guessed, a Magic Link cannot be guessed ahead of time.Only one Magic Link can be valid at a time. If you resend a Client Request to a new email address the link in the initial request will immediately become unusable.Magic Links cannot be used to download sensitive documents. Documents uploaded by clients via client requests are not able to be downloaded via Magic Links. Documents uploaded by clients are only accessible inside the Karbon platform. Full Access via LoginIf your clients require access to all open and completed requests (including comments and documents), they can log in to the Client Portal, which is a password-protected web application. This differs from a magic link, which only provides access to the request details for a specific work item.The Client Portal requires that your client submit a username and password prior to gaining access to the portal. Submission of a username and password requires that the Client Portal validates the identity of the user prior to gaining access to all of the client requests sent to the client.Only your clients can access your Client Portal. To access your portal, the email address needs to be associated with a contact in your Karbon account. Once logged in, your client will only see the client requests sent to the email address they logged in with.  Security Best PracticeFirms using the Karbon platform to send magic links and request items from their clients are responsible for securing 1. their use of the Karbon platform, and 2. their associated email provider utilized to communicate via Karbon.The Karbon platform authenticates based on the credentials of the firm's email provider, selected during the Karbon account registration process; therefore, client requests and magic link communications are sent via an authenticated connection to the selected email provider.We suggest that you keep the security of emails ‘top of your mind’ when using the Karbon platform and its features. As the vulnerability of your emails lives in your email provider, it is your responsibility to implement appropriate security safeguards at this level. Please ensure there is a process in place for your firm's email security. We’ve outlined some best practices for securing your emails:Strong Complex Password Credentials - A strong password is one you can’t guess or crack using a brute force attack in a reasonable amount of time. They consist of a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special symbols, such as punctuation. Enforcing these for all personnel can increase your security. The most secure way to protect your password is by using a password manager. Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) - Adds an additional layer of security. This means that anyone trying to log in to your account requires two or more verification factors to gain access. Rather than just asking for a username and password, MFA requires one or more additional verification factors, such as an SMS code, which decreases the likelihood of a cyber attack. Security Awareness Training - Firms are vulnerable because of one key factor: human error. 98% of Cyber Attacks in 2021 involved some form of social engineering, so it’s important that all personnel within your firm understand the basics of information security and asset protection. We encourage you to deliver security awareness training on best practices for password protection, phishing attempts, and your firm’s practices for information security.Karbon Platform SecurityAll information stored within the Karbon platform, including Client Request data, is encrypted in transit and at-rest using enterprise-grade highly scalable cloud servers and databases.Karbon has implemented many additional security practices to safeguard data processed by the Karbon platform. These security practices are evaluated during periodic internal audit activities and external security audits, including the SOC 2 Type 2 examination. A copy of our general use SOC 3 report covering Security, Availability, Confidentiality, and Privacy service commitments for our Karbon web application can be requested here.Karbon customers wanting a copy of our more comprehensive SOC 2 Type 2 report should contact our customer support team. If you have any additional questions about the security of the Karbon Client Portal, please contact our customer support team at support@karbonhq.com

This is a reminder that changes to the Karbon Client Portal will be live next week. An overview of the changes are:Changes The heading in tasks will be renamed from ‘client task’ to ‘client request’ to better align with terminology across the platform The PIN will be replaced by a magic link (a one-time use link). The magic link is secure, as it can't be accessed by anyone other than the users it’s sent to. But more importantly, it reduces friction and allows users immediate access to action their items in a list view Changes to settings - Your logo placement will move from Company Details (now renamed Account Settings) and will be under Client Portal tab (previously Client Tasks), where you can also pre-set auto sending options. A dedicated link to your Client Portal which can be added to your website and/or outgoing emails and is a great way to promote the feature and save you administration time. It allows your clients to quickly access their information. The URL will be in the Client Portal tab. Coming soon - you’ll be able to send the client request to multiple Karbon contacts What’s new? Your client will receive a magic link rather than the PIN, as outlined above. A log-in section, which provides your clients with greater flexibility to view everything including open and completed requests (history), as well as documents that have been uploaded. Clients can comment and ask questions. Please note this is for business plan and above only. What will happen when the new Client Portal is live? Existing client tasks already sent prior to us making the new functionality live, can only be accessed by your client through the PIN in the email If you resend a client task, it will be accessed via the magic link if your client accesses it from the email If a client task is set up to auto-send in the future, it will be accessed via the magic link if your client accesses it from the email Any new client task that is sent will be accessed via the magic link if your client accesses it from the email If your client logs in, they will see up to 100 open requests and the last 100 closed requests.  The FAQs can help you respond to the needs of your clients more quickly, but, if you have more unanswered questions, please reach out to your customer success manager.To make it easier for you to communicate these changes with your clients, we have included some suggested wording and a how to guide, that you can adapt to your branding if you haven't done so already.We will send you an email when the changes are live.

We are introducing changes to Karbon’s Client Portal to help you be more efficient with your clients. The information below was sent via email to all account owners last month.  Karbon’s existing Client Portal, previously known as Client Tasks, has undergone an upgrade. In light of the new functionality, there are some changes to existing processes that you need to be aware of. These changes are coming in early August, so please get your practice and staff ready by giving them advanced warning.Here are a few things, we think are important to note:Changes The heading in tasks will be renamed from ‘client task’ to ‘client request’ to better align with terminology across the platform The PIN will be replaced by a magic link (a one-time use link). The magic link is secure, as it can't be accessed by anyone other than the users it’s sent to. But more importantly, it reduces friction and allows users immediate access to action their items in a list view.  Changes to Settings — Your logo placement will move from Company Details (now renamed Account Settings) and will be under Client Portal tab (previously Client Tasks), where you can also pre-set auto-sending options. A dedicated link to your Client Portal which can be added to your website and/or outgoing emails and is a great way to promote the feature and save you administration time. It allows your clients to quickly access their information. The URL will be in the Client Portal tab. Coming soon - you’ll be able to send the client request to multiple Karbon contacts. What’s new for your clients? Your client will receive a magic link rather than the PIN, as outlined above. A log-in section, which provides your clients with greater flexibility to view everything including open and completed requests (history), as well as documents that have been uploaded. Clients can comment and ask questions. Please note this is for business plan and above only. What will happen when the new Client Portal is live? Existing client tasks already sent prior to us making the new functionality live, can only be accessed by your client through the PIN in the email If you resend a client task, it will be accessed via the magic link if your client accesses it from the email If a client task is set up to auto-send in the future, it will be accessed via the magic link if your client accesses it from the email Any new client task that is sent will be accessed via the magic link if your client accesses it from the email If your client logs in, they will see up to 100 open requests and the last 100 closed requests.  To make it easier for you to communicate these changes with your clients, we have included some suggested wording and a how to guide, that you can adapt to your branding.The FAQs can help you respond to the needs of your clients more quickly, but, if you have more unanswered questions, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager. 

OneDrive added to document managementDocument management now integrates with Microsoft OneDrive as well as Dropbox Business. This gives you more flexibility to connect your account to Karbon and manage client work files from a single source of truth. Register for one of our upcoming global webinars, where we’ll demonstrate how to: Connect your own DMS Automate your file organization and backups straight from Karbon Copy work data from Karbon, including email, notes, and client tasks, to keep everything in sync with your DMS Session 1: Wednesday July 20, 9.00am PDT | 12.00pm EDTSession 2: Wednesday July 20, 11.30am AESTSession 3: Wednesday July 20, 4.00pm GMTAnd if you’re not a Karbon customer yet, register below to find out how document management can work for your firm. Start a free 14-day trial and put it to the test.Session 1: Friday July 22, 9.00 am PDT Session 2: Friday July 22, 12.00pm AEST  Enhancements to My WeekStarting the timer on a piece of work from within My Week will automatically move it into 'Working on Now' to make it easier for your team to see what you're working on, so they can plan effectively. We have also increased pagination to 100 items, so you can see more information on your screen at one time.  Updates based on feedback directly from Karbon CommunityWe’ve added additional functionality from feedback received by our customers via Karbon Community, specifically to contacts, work, and Time & Budgets that will make the smallest things just that much easier.Contacts UK customers can now choose Unincorporated Charity and Housing Association as entity types in Organisations > Details > Accounting Details When creating a new contact, we’ve added a field for ‘client identifier’ for those accounting firms requiring that rigor. To enable this, simply speak to your Customer Success Manager or our Support team (support@karbonhq.com). Once the field is enabled in Settings, every time a new contact is created, the field will need to be populated before the contact can be saved.  Phone numbers on contacts are now clickable directly from the contact card, saving you an extra click to access the information you need. Work When exporting data, ‘work type’ was previously only available in the ‘All work in this view’ option in the export menu. Thanks to customer feedback, it’s available in the ‘Repeating work schedules’ option too. You were already able to ‘copy a conversation link’ in email and tasks, but now we have taken it one step further and added that functionality to notes. You’ll notice that the task overflow action menu has been reordered in-line with how our customers work, with the goal to improve workflow. Time & Budget The character limit for time entry notes has increased from 300 to 600. Plus, a snippet of your note will now display, rather than the entire entry, saving space on your screen. To read the rest of the snippet, you can click the ellipsis (...). Karbon now remembers the previous task type selected in the time entry modal and timer regardless of where you are in Karbon. The work item ID is now a downloadable field and has been added to timesheets. When you export the data, the column will be identified as ‘Work ID’.    Coming next week: CalendarMy Week’s two-way calendar integration with Google, Outlook, or Exchange calendarsMy Week just got more powerful. Stay focused and plan your today, tomorrow and beyond with oversight into your work with a calendar integration right in Karbon.  Recent API enhancementsWork item: Type and StatusNew search filters for work type and status allow you to focus on exactly the data you want to see in large sets of work items by retrieving matches to your criteria, so there is no need to re-filter.Improved searchPreviously, search included only exact matches, but now it’s faster to search in contacts: Start typing three letters and Karbon will return a list of partial matches for full name, email address or phone number, making it easier to find the information in a hurry.For other API releases see the Karbon Developer Center To the comments! What are you most excited for here? And don’t say Calendar because there’s plenty of time to talk about that next week ;) 

Updates to multi selectYou can now bulk select multiple items that are listed together in Triage or My Week with fewer clicks.Select the top item, hold Shift and select the bottom item, and all items in between will be selected too. In Triage, this means greater control with bulk-clearing, and in My Week, you now have more flexibility over how you plan and manage your work.Check out Karbon's other keyboard shortcuts here. Drag and dropLast week, we released Document Management and in this release, we’ve given you the ability to drag and drop files directly into Karbon. Simply drag and drop your attachments directly into comments, emails and the Documents tab within your work items, without the need to select the paperclip icon and browse your computer.We will continue to make enhancements to this functionality, including integrations with more Document Management Systems, including OneDrive coming soon. Karbon AcademyWe have recently launched a new and improved Karbon Academy, home to our in-depth Karbon Certification learning program.Now, you will also find our Right For Me learning program. This option offers core education content for Karbon users as an alternative to the full Certification program. When beginning the Right For Me program, you will be guided through qualifying questions to help build a customized learning track for your specific needs.To access Karbon Academy, select ‘Academy’ from the main left navigation menu in Karbon. Recent API enhancementsTo learn more about our recent API enhancements, refer to our API release notes.

The new Karbon Academy site is now open for everyone! Get inspired with an understanding of how Karbon helps you do more.  Just click “Academy” from Karbon’s left hand nav bar and login via SSO with your Karbon credentials using the “Log in with any other email” option. Academy is the home of our Certification program (if you were previously certified, your status will be reflected there soon). Certification is great for any user who needs a broad understanding of the app to solidify their knowledge.  You will also find our Right For Me learning program, which offers more focused curriculum for folks who don’t need the full Certification experience. We have a lot more in store throughout 2022 and beyond, so stay tuned to how Karbon Academy can guide you and your team to awesome outcomes. 

Connect your Document Management System (DMS) to Karbon and manage client work files from a single source of truth. Today, we’re kicking off with Dropbox (OneDrive and more coming soon).With document management in Karbon, you can: Seamlessly integrate with your DMS Automate file organization and backups Save your files where you need them Collaborate on files Learn more about document management in Karbon. Introductory webinarsRegister for an introductory webinar specifically for Karbon customers. We’ll use Dropbox as an example and demonstrate how to: Connect your own DMS Automate your file organization and backups straight from Karbon Copy work data from Karbon, including email, notes, and client tasks, to keep everything in sync with your DMS Session 1: Tuesday May 24, 8.30am PDT | Tuesday May 24, 4.30pm GMTSession 2: Thursday May 26, 4.30pm PDT | Friday May 27, 9.30am AEST(note: both sessions will cover the same material)

A fast tracked way to add and update your contacts in bulk You now have the ability to fast track updates to your contacts in bulk and add contacts in bulk for free with a two-step process.To do so, navigate to Contacts via the main left menu. On the top right, select ‘Export/Import’ and select ‘Download Bulk Contact Update File’.This will download an Excel spreadsheet containing your contacts’ information, ready for you to make your updates (includes detailed instructions about how to use the spreadsheet).Once your updates are complete, navigate back to ‘Export/Import’ in Karbon and select ‘Upload Bulk Contact Update File’. A chatbot will instruct you to hand over your updated Excel file, and a Karbon team member will import your updated client data.  A reminder about features in beta The growing Karbon product team is a hive of activity, working to provide you with strong and  innovative features and updates to Karbon. To participate in the current and upcoming beta programs, you can register here: Calendar integration Client app Document management Billing Learn more about each of these exciting features on our recent roadmap webinar.

Earlier, I was joined by my fellow Product Managers and our Chief Product Officer, for an exclusive preview of the headline features that are in development right now and launching in the coming months.Watch to learn about (and see):Calendar integration New Client App & magic link Dropbox & One Drive integrations Billing We’d love to hear what you think, and any questions or feedback you have. You can add your thoughts in the comments below.  

More Work Insights enhancements A new look for Work InsightsAs part of ongoing enhancements that have been released to Insights recently, Work Insights has been given a fresh coat of paint. All charts and sections have been redesigned to make it easier to navigate and see the data that matters to you. This refresh also paves the way for some other upcoming improvements.Updates to Client Leaderboard in Work InsightsYou can now navigate deeper into your Client Leaderboard and see how work associated with each client is progressing.To find the Client Leaderboard sub-chart, navigate to Insights from your main side menu. By default, it will list all your clients.When you click a client’s name, you can view open work, completed work and overdue work over your specified time.The filters you apply in the main Work Insights dashboard will carry over into the Client Leaderboard sub-chart, and you can also adjust these filters from the sub-chart page.Drill down into Client Leaderboard sub-chartYou can also drill down deeper into this information by clicking on a plot-point, which represents a date, in a client’s sub-chart.Drill down into Colleague Leaderboard sub-chartYou can now also take a deeper look into your Colleague Leaderboard. To drill down into a colleague’s sub-chart, navigate to Insights from your main side menu, and in the Colleague Leaderboard, click a colleague’s name. From there, you can drill down deeper into this information by clicking on a plot-point, which represents a date, in a colleague’s sub-chart.More information on navigating Work Insights.  Reorder your saved work dashboard viewsYou can now reorder your saved work views when viewing work in the Kanban board or list view.Scroll down to the bottom of your saved views list and click ‘Edit Saved Views’. From there, you can reorder, rename and delete your saved views.This was a feature request from customers, raised in the recently-released Feature Ideas section in Karbon Community.  More-easily add emails to My WeekTo add an email to My Week without expanding the email, select the options menu (...) and click ‘Plan For This Week’.  Add emails to a TimelineWe've made a small but important change to better-reflect how Karbon works. As you know, you can add an email to a work item and/ or a contact. So, under the email’s subject line, the option now says ‘Add to Timeline’, rather than ‘Add to Work’.This was a feature request from customers, raised in the recently-released Feature Ideas section in Karbon Community.  Xama HUB integration for firms with UK-based clientsKarbon now integrates with Xama HUB, a tool designed to help UK firms collect client identity documents and perform AML checks instantly.With this integration, you can create and maintain a client list within Xama HUB where you can manage due diligence required by UK law.Learn more and get startedOther updates: We’re making Karbon available in multiple languages, and as a result, you might notice temporary spelling variations until the work is completed. We have made performance improvements that increase accuracy when searching for a colleague to @mention in a comment.    I’m guessing we’ll hear a lot of hoorays on reordering your saved Work Views, but I’d really love to hear how the new Insights deep dives help you discover trends you weren’t expecting. To the comments section!  

Reset automatorsIf you accidentally execute an automator in a work item, you can now reset it. To do so, undo the action that activated the automator, click on the relevant automator and select ‘Reset’.An example of undoing an action that activated an automator is unchecking a task in a section that is set to trigger an automator when all tasks in that section are completed. Or, if the automator will activate based on the status of the work, make sure the work status is set to anything other than the activating status before resetting the automator.Note: If the automator caused an action, like updating the work item’s status, that action will need to be manually reverted.This was a feature request from customers, raised in the recently-released Feature Ideas section in Karbon Community. Updates to Colleague Leaderboard in Work InsightsYou can now navigate deeper into your Colleague Leaderboard and see how each colleague’s individual workload is progressing.To find the Colleague Leaderboard sub-chart, navigate to Insights from your main side menu. By default, it will list all your colleagues.When you click a colleague's name, you can view their open work, completed work and overdue work over your specified time.The filters you apply in the main Work Insights dashboard will carry over into the Colleague Leaderboard sub-chart, and you can also adjust these filters from the sub-chart page. Time & Budget overview updateWhen viewing the Budget Overview graph on a work item, you can toggle between ‘Hours’ and ‘Amount’.This was a feature request from customers, raised in the recently-released Feature Ideas section in Karbon Community.  An easier way to add work to a timelineWhen you add an item to a timeline, you can now toggle between Work and Contact, and whatever you’ve typed in the search bar will remain. Update to email smart suggestionsWhen sending emails from an organization timeline, Karbon will suggest and display the primary email address of contacts associated with that organization.More information on the smart suggestion rules Toggle between time periods in timesheetsWhen viewing a colleague’s timesheets, you can change the week you are looking at by clicking on the arrows either side of the time period.This was a feature request from customers, raised in the recently-released Feature Ideas section in Karbon Community.  Update to exportsExports of organizations now include columns for website and social media links, and exports of people now include a column for their role. More visibility across other contacts involved in work itemsYou can now see more information about other contacts involved in work items, including their Name, Role, Organization and Email.This was a feature request from customers, raised in the recently-released Feature Ideas section in Karbon Community.  Some really cool additions in here that I know will make my life easier. Also exciting to see some items from the new feature request board being implemented - keep those ideas coming! Don’t be dissuaded if your idea isn’t implemented right away; many times great ideas lay in waiting because they’re planned along with other changes, or because there are prerequisites behind the scenes.I’m really interested to hear who is putting these new Insights reports to use - any stories or examples so far? To the comments section!   

Email smart suggestions When sending emails from a work timeline, Karbon will suggest and display relevant email addresses in the ‘To’ field, based on the details of that work item. This includes emails associated with the contact assigned to the work, emails already on the timeline, and the email address the Client Tasks are being sent to.Similarly, when sending emails from a contact timeline, Karbon will suggest the emails associated with the contact, including secondary email addresses.More information on the smart suggestion rules  Create a new contact when sending Client Tasks You can now create a new contact while setting up Client Tasks to send. This saves you time and clicks, versus needing to create a contact separately. Share emails with a direct URL You can now share an exact email conversation from your Triage with a URL. Navigate to the options menu (...) of a specific email, and select Copy Conversation Link.To be able to view this, your colleagues must be Karbon users in your organization with pre-existing access to the email. Contact exports update Contact exports now include an export of Client Groups. This includes a Client Members tab that lists all the members associated with Client Groups.On top of that, exports of all contacts now include a column for Client Group. Connect4 integration Karbon now integrates with Connect4, a meeting management tool designed to turn every meeting into an actionable client experience.With this integration, you can: Turn Connect4 client meeting actions into Karbon tasks. Easily reference assigned tasks across your team to ensure no client work is missed for delivery or upsell before the next meeting. Create a consistent meeting workflow of template agendas, meeting minutes and actions for every client meeting with your team. Start meetings quickly with your clients in Connect4 using your Karbon contact database. Learn more and get started  Other updates You can now click and open URLs within task titles. Your sent folder in Triage now displays who you sent the email to, rather than ‘Me’. You can now access the options menu (...) for Notes when they are in the collapsed view in Triage.  To the comments! Let’s hear what you’re excited about. Lots of time savers in this update, but I think many of you will be gravitating toward that export of client group members - any ideas how that will change your workflow?

Updates to Work Insights You can now navigate deeper into your Work Insights with the work status sub-chart. You can drill down beyond primary work statuses to better-understand how long your work stays in each sub-status, helping you to identify bottlenecks and opportunities within your workflows.This is the first of several updates coming to Insights over the coming months!To find the work status sub-chart, navigate to Insights from your main side menu. Your Work Insights dashboard will display the average number of days work is spent in each primary status.When you select ‘View Report’, this data is broken down to expose the average number of days work has spent in each sub-status.From here, you can select the chart’s title and the filters above to adjust your search parameters.  Update to work export Exports of work data now include a column for Planned Week. This information shows the week each item is planned in your My Week.  To the comments! How do you plan to use this visibility into sub-statuses to coach your team or assess throughput?

My Week enhancements More clarity and flexibility within Working on NowYou now have the ability to drag and drop to reorder items within the Working on Now section of My Week. This will provide you with an additional level of prioritization and control.And you can now also bulk-select items from multiple sections of My Week, and move them into Working on Now at one time using the options menu (...).Plus, a more obvious border surrounding Working on Now will help you to more-easily visualize your work.Complete tasks from the My Week overlayTasks can now be marked complete from within the My Week overlay. This means you don’t have to navigate away from My Week when checking off your tasks.     Attachment reminderHow often have you sent an email that referred to an attached file, only to be told later that the attachment is missing? That doesn’t need to happen anymore! Now, if you refer to an attachment in an email and press send without anything attached, you’ll be prompted with a reminder.   New Insights filterIn Insights, you can filter by Client Owner and Client Manager, providing you with more powerful data around your team’s performance.   Undo in Triage (EDIT Dec 21 - this undo option has been removed and will be reintroduced in the near future)You can now quickly retrieve an item you accidentally cleared in Triage. After clearing a single item, a small option to undo your action will display in the bottom of your main menu.  Karbon Practice IntelligenceYou will notice a new tab in your main menu: Intelligence. When it launches next year, Karbon Intelligence will provide you with the data you need to guide your most critical firm decisions. It will help you analyze your practice data, get faster business insights, and make important decisions with confidence.This page is where you can register your interest in Karbon Intelligence and join the waitlist to be the first to receive any news and developments.  How cool are those My Week updates? To the comments! Which will you use more? Ordering items in the “Working on Now” area, or completing tasks from the work overlay without visiting the work item itself? 

 Earlier today we held a webinar recapping all of the new features and functionality that we released to Karbon over the last 6 months, and a sneak peek of what we are working on what right now. Check our the recording for a an exclusive look at some of the powerful updates and new features coming to Karbon in 2022. We'd love to hear what you think, so please share your comments, feedback and questions in the discussion below.