Release Notes

October 29, 2024: Change Your Password

This release delivers two authentication improvements:

• New passwords will require 12 characters at minimum. Your current password will continue to work. However, the next time you reset your password in hc1, either because the current one has expired or because you have forgotten it, it will need to be at least 12 characters long and include an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, a number, and a special character. Before, passwords only had to be 8 characters long. The on-screen instructions have been updated with this new requirement.

Note: This password requirements change does not affect users who access hc1 through single sign-on. With single sign-on, password requirements are set by the authentication provider, such as Active Directory.

• You can keep hc1 user groups synchronized with your OAuth single sign-on authentication provider user groups. Before, if you changed group information in the authentication provider, you would also have to change it in hc1. Now, you can check the Sync User Groups box on the Authentication Providers detail screen and fill in the Token Group field to make hc1 update its user groups when your authentication provider user groups change. For more information about setting up single sign-on with hc1, contact your hc1 Client Success Manager.

Resources

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October 22, 2024: View Activity Subtabs

This release delivers a fix to activity subtabs:

• Activity subtabs display as expected. Before, clients reported that the subtabs (Activities, Attachments, and Messages) on a case layout’s General Information tab would disappear if you navigated away from the tab and then returned to it. The cause was related to a conditional display set up for the Status field. Now, the subtabs remain visible even when conditional displays are in force on other parts of the activity layout.

Resources

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October 1, 2024: Filter Custom Lists

This release delivers a fix to custom list filters:

• Custom list Filter drop-down lists display as expected. Before, the Filter box would sometimes disappear. We’ve resolved the underlying filter display conflicts that caused this issue. Now, your filter options will always be clearly marked.

Resources

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August 15, 2024: Set hc1 Workforce Optimization Alert Days

In response to client feedback, we have made several improvements to hc1 Workforce Optimization alerts. Alerts are email messages sent when thresholds are met or exceeded on the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) analytics or when hc1 Workforce Optimization detects specific under- or overstaffing levels. System administrators can access the Alerts feature by clicking Configuration in the top right corner of the hc1 Workforce Optimization homepage.

• We added a picklist to the Frequency controls so that you can choose a day of the week or month for the alert to run. Before, all weekly alerts ran on Sunday, and all monthly alerts ran on the first of the month.

Note: The Alert Time is in the time zone of the department you choose.

• The Alert Type now lists the unit of measurement to clarify the value being set. The unit of measurement is also listed on the email that the selected user receives.

This release also includes these improvements:

• You can display more rows per page on the Configuration pages and in the Recommendations section on the homepage. Your choices are now 10, 25, 50, or 100 rows. Before, you could only display up to 25 rows.
• When you navigate back to the homepage after optimizing a recommendation, the Recommendations section displays the page you were on before the change. Before, this section would revert to the first page.
• The new “Staffing optimized. No recommended staffing changes detected” message in the Recommendations section lets you know that all recommendations have been addressed.

Resources

For more information related to this release, check out these links:

• Predicting Your Lab’s Future Staffing Needs Now With AI: An hc1 Workforce Optimization Demonstration (hc1 webinar recording)

July 30, 2024: Apply Saved Filters

This release delivers fixes to saved filters and user-defined lists:

• You can apply saved filters as expected. Before, some users were seeing an “Access Denied” error message when they would apply a saved filter. We have resolved the underlying issue, so this error will no longer occur.
• You and your coworkers can use the same names for your saved filters on the same dashboard. Before, users would get a “Filter name already exists” error message if they tried to use a saved filter name that somebody else had already used for that dashboard. Now, instead of preventing duplicate names by dashboard only, we restrict names by user and by dashboard. This means that you can use the same saved filter name as someone else for the same dashboard or reuse a saved filter name on another dashboard.

Note: Keep in mind that you are the only one who can see your saved filters.

• You can edit and clone all user-defined lists. Some users were seeing a blank screen when they would try to edit or clone a user-defined list from Administration Settings or from an embedded list on a record or tab layout. This behavior occurred when the selected user-defined list used a filter value that had been removed after the list was created. Now you can access these user-defined lists to edit them to contain valid values.

Resources

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July 3, 2024: Use Organization-Level Dashboards

This release delivers this fix:

• Organization-level dashboards show data as expected. Some users were seeing an error message saying, “That page doesn’t exist, or you don’t have permission to view it,” when they tried to access their Volume dashboards from organization records. The reason was that the Organization ID filter value that allows organization-level dashboards to work was no longer being filled in. We restored this functionality, and now these dashboards work the way they are supposed to.

Resources

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July 2, 2024: Save Dashboard Filter Settings

Saved dashboard filters, one of our most requested features, is now available! Instead of resetting filter values every time you open a dashboard or making multiple copies of a dashboard with different default filter values, you can save time by saving the filter value set you want once and applying it whenever you need it.

Note: This feature is only available on hc1’s current dashboard platform. If your company started using hc1 prior to 2019 and still uses our legacy dashboards, please contact hc1 Client Success at clientsuccess@hc1.com for assistance with upgrading to our current platform.

The new Saved Filter Options menu gives you three choices:

• Save new filter: After you have selected filter values you want to save, choose this option, type the filter name in the text box, and click the Save button.

• Manage existing filter: This option lets you rename or delete a filter you have saved. Choose the filter you want to manage from the list of saved filters under the search box. If you are renaming it, type the new name in the box and click Rename. To delete the selected saved filter, click Delete. For both renaming and deleting, you will see a confirmation box asking if you are sure. Click Yes.

• Apply saved filter: This option lets you run or update a filter you have saved. Choose the filter you want to apply from the list of saved filters under the search box. Click Run to load the dashboard with the values in your chosen filter. If after working with the saved filter you want to change its filter values, make your changes to the dashboard filters and click Update. You will see a confirmation box asking whether you are sure. Click Yes.

Note: Saved filters are designed to be available only to the user who created them and only on the dashboard where they were created.

If you are a system administrator, you can control access to the saved filters feature from the HI Report Component Display Options. We have already turned on the Saved Filters option for all existing dashboards that are displayed in your environment.

Resources

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June 20, 2024: Review Employee Details in hc1 Workforce Optimization

In response to client feedback, we have changed hc1 Workforce Optimization to display the employee’s name and exclude status on the Employees Configuration page so that you don’t have to open the edit window to see these details.

Note: You must have the Administrator role to see employee names.

This release also delivers these Configuration changes:

• Alerts are now sending email messages as expected.
• On the Departments Configuration page, the Copy Values From feature displays the selected department’s values as expected. Before, a blank page would appear, and you would have to refresh the browser page to see the values.
• The Time Unit value displays on the Analyzer Info page. Before, when you would open the Analyzer Info page, it didn’t display the value for Time Unit, making you wonder if a value had been saved.

On the homepage, we have improved the Recommendations section.

• Recommendations subtabs are now color-coded. The new formatting makes it easier to differentiate between New, Deferred, and Completed recommendations and to see which subtab is selected.
• The Completed tab’s link to the recommendation’s details page is now marked View instead of Optimize to reflect that these recommendations have already been resolved and don’t require further action.

We also improved the Staffing Levels chart:

• Week 6 predictions are now populated in the Staffing Levels chart and Business Impact graph. Before, this week would be blank because the prediction service generates predictions beginning the Sunday before the current date, but the prediction metrics show predictions beginning the Sunday after the current date. To close this gap, we extended the time the prediction service runs to seven weeks.
• The full-time equivalent numbers in the Staffing Levels Chart now display double minus signs for very understaffed departments and double plus signs for very overstaffed departments.

Resources

For more information related to this release, check out these links:

• Predicting Your Lab’s Future Staffing Needs Now With AI: An hc1 Workforce Optimization Demonstration (hc1 webinar recording)

June 6, 2024: Request hc1 Service Select™ Services via a New Portal

hc1 Service Select™ is the name for the premium services subscription that enables you to order a certain number of hours of professional services from hc1 each month. In response to client feedback, we have launched a streamlined hc1 Service Select portal to replace the application we retired in May.

With this portal, you can:

• Upload attachments and provide details in your initial request. No more back-and-forth emails!
• Submit hc1 Service Select requests in the same portal you use to open hc1 Support tickets.
• Track the progress of your requests outside of your regular Service Select meetings.

To access this portal from your hc1 environment, open the Administration Settings menu and select the new Submit a Service Select Request option.

A new tab opens with the portal log in page. Use the same credentials you use to access your hc1 Support Service Desk account to log in. If you have not yet created an hc1 Support account, now is the time to do it.

From the hc1 Support and Service Select homepage, click the Service Select button.

You can either click New Service request to request a new service or click the Requests button in the top right corner to view previous requests.

Note: If you are interested in adding hc1 Service Select to your hc1 subscription, contact your hc1 Client Success Manager directly or email clientsuccess@hc1.com.

Resources

For more information related to this release, check out these links:

June 3, 2024: Use Activity Picklists

This release delivers a fix for activity picklists:

• Activity picklists display options as expected. Before, Status, Root Cause, Category, Subcategory, and other picklists that had been set up with dependencies were not displaying values. We have improved the way the code retrieves picklist values to ensure that no picklist is left empty.

Resources

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May 21, 2024: Exclude Employees from hc1 Workforce Optimization Recommendations

With the latest hc1 Workforce Optimization release, you can make sure that lab staffing recommendations leave out department employees who don’t usually process specimens, such as managers or quality control personnel.

To access this feature from the hc1 Workforce Optimization homepage, click Configuration and choose Employees. Click the pencil icon for the employee record that you want to edit and check the new Exclude Employee box.

This release also delivers this fix:

• The Business Impact chart shows data for today. Before, this chart was omitting this data. Note that if today is a day when the selected department is closed, there will be no projections, so there won’t be data to show.

Resources

For more information related to this release, check out this link:

• Predicting Your Lab’s Future Staffing Needs Now With AI: An hc1 Workforce Optimization Demonstration (hc1 webinar recording)

May 16, 2024: Hours of Operation Included in hc1 Workforce Optimization Calculations

In response to client feedback, the latest hc1 Workforce Optimization release delivers improvements throughout the solution to make it easier to use.

We have changed how a department’s hours of operation figure into calculations in multiple reports:

• When calculating averages for the key performance indicators, we now exclude days that departments are closed.
• To prevent sharp dips in the Service Level Impact report trendlines, department service levels are now defaulted to 100% on the days that the departments are closed.

We have redesigned the Staffing Levels report and Recommendation Optimize window to be clearer.

• Since Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) is the standard measure for staffing, we removed the FTE unit of measurement in the Staffing Levels chart so that the numbers are easier to read.
• The new staffing color scheme uses shades of blue to show levels of understaffing, shades of orange to show overstaffing, and bright green to show balanced staffing. Before, unbalanced staffing was shown in shades of gray. The improved legend format also makes the meaning of each color easier to understand.

We improved how data is displayed on the Business Impact report:

• To better reflect staffing cost averages on the Business Impact report, we now omit data from days that departments are closed from those calculations, although gray placeholders for those dates are still shown on the trendline.
• The Threshold line has been renamed to Average to clarify what it shows.
• The Today bar displays projection data as expected.
• The recommendation bubble chart displays all dates, even those that don’t have recommendations, to align with the trending bar chart.

On the administration side, we fixed the sorting and filtering options in the Configuration pages to work as expected.

Resources

For more information related to this release, check out this link:

• Predicting Your Lab’s Future Staffing Needs Now With AI: An hc1 Workforce Optimization Demonstration (hc1 webinar recording)