March 29, 2019 New Topcoder Platform Updates
New updates to Topcoder’s platform are available starting March 2019. The update includes two essential features that customers have been clamoring for. So, to create a more user-friendly experience, we’ve made some changes. After all, our customers’ pain points are our pain points. So, we have listened, analyzed, and attacked these issues by creating features designed to heighten the quality of your experience.
Feature One: Selective File and Link Sharing
Data sensitivity is significant to our customers as they are often dealing with sensitive material in documents they share within their company. We take data sensitivity seriously, and we worked to further develop our platform by incorporating a new feature that deals with sharing to only a select few if needed.
As customers have requested, we have now added selective file and link sharing so that the Topcoder customer platform could be used as a centralized data source. This process gives selected users within a project the capability to share specific files. To make that happen, they needed the capability to only share certain documents with sensitive data to the selected or approved users on each project.
“As a Financial Services institution, we have to operate under numerous regulations regarding data sensitivity. We want to leverage the customer platform as our primary communication channel with Topcoder, but we need the capability to only share some documents with sensitive data to selected/approved users on the project.” – Topcoder Customer
How we settled this issue:
Topcoder has worked hard to accommodate those needs by incorporating the enhancement feature. Now, choose whether a document/link is shared with all project members or only with select individuals. To get started using this new feature, upload the file or link as usual and then you will be prompted to choose who you wish to share the document/link with. This process is simple and user-friendly, fixing the issue many customers have noticed.
Feature Two: Enhanced Project Team Management Capabilities
In the past, many of our customers didn’t have the capability to control adding or removing members to their projects. Obviously, this issue impacts many companies… Nobody wants a third-party micro-managing who should or shouldn’t have access to a project. We have addressed this issue by coming up with a vital solution.
How we settled this issue:
Now customers can invite or remove members from their company to a project via email address. The new feature makes project engagement timely and oversight for the customer easy and efficient. Additionally, we’ve streamlined the internal Topcoder management of team members as well. Copilots will have the capability to invite other Copilots to a project. This should alleviate the slow or cumbersome process of collaborating on a project between peers.
First, locate the feature on the left sidebar of the project dashboard. Add new project members with the ‘Manage’ button. This button lives next to the Project Team (for customers) or Topcoder (for internal Topcoder) buttons. Here, you can add and remove people from a project as needed. The customer-members receive alerts via email invitation.
“Now I can easily and efficiently manage my project team, making sure I have the right people available to consult on requirements and delivery at the right time.” — Current Topcoder Customer
Answers to important questions:
For Selective File and Link Sharing,
What happens if a user joins the project after a file or link has already been shared?
If a user is added to the project after the document is shared, they will not see the document by default unless the uploader originally-specified that “All Project Members” should see the document. If the document is only shared with certain users and the new user should have viewing rights to the document, the original uploader will need to modify the viewing rights for the file by adding the new user to the list of those able to see the file.
For Enhanced Project Team Management Capabilities,
What if I have other third parties working with my company on a project?
Customer groups on project teams can be diverse including representatives from the company as well as members from other third-party groups, such as consultancies (not Topcoder). If you have people that you need to join your project from a third party the process of adding them is the same as above. Simply send the invitation to their email. Once they join the project, they will only have visibility to the project you added them to.
Answers to important questions:
For Selective File and Link Sharing,
What happens if a user joins the project after a file or link has already been shared?
If a user is added to the project after the document is shared, they will not see the document unless the uploader specified that “All Project Members” may view the document. If the document is only shared with certain users and the new user should have viewing rights to the document, the original uploader will need to modify the viewing rights for the file by adding the new user to the list of those able to see the file.
For Enhanced Project Team Management Capabilities,
What if I have other third parties working with my company on a project?
Customer groups on project teams can be diverse including representatives from the company as well as members from other third-party groups, such as consultancies (not Topcoder). If you have people that need to join your project from a third party, adding them is the same process. Simply send the invitation to their email. Once they accept the invitation, they will have visibility to the project.
Kick off your projects right
Take advantage of our new features to Topcoder’s platform by enhancing communication within your team. The new team management options will make a difference in assigning projects as well as completing them. We hope you enjoy theses Topcoder platform updates! Let’s make project management easy and pain-free.
Ariel Shields
Product Manager
