The start of September is my favorite time of the year.  It's not exactly "cool" yet here in the Pittsburgh area, but the mornings are decidedly cooler than they were just a few weeks ago.  I'm putting away my sandals and breaking out my loafers.

And while I'm breaking out my winter wardrobe, the policyIQ team is preparing to break out our latest release of the policyIQ application.  Version 6.7 is on its way in the coming weeks.

We've been talking about version 6.7 for awhile.  Why? 

We're excited!  It's not often that we get to launch new features that not only improve your policyIQ experience, but truly open up entirely new ways to use our application.  With version 6.7's Custom Alerts feature, we want you to re-evaluate the way you look at policyIQ.

So what's the big deal with Custom Alerts?

I'm not going to spend too much time dwelling on the details of Custom Alerts.  If you want details, you can check out this blog post that provided a sneak peek into the feature, or this recent blog post where we summed up our latest training session that illustrated this new feature.

Instead, let me just tell you about some of the things that policyIQ can do for you when you set up Custom Alerts:

• Send an email message to your Process Owners when a Test has failed in their business area during your SOX testing efforts. Include the next steps - such as instructing those Process Owners to create and submit an Action Plan.
  
  
• Escalate (via email or Dashboard alert) to a supervisor or Department Director when an Action Plan Due Date is reached. Include the most recent copy of the Action Plan from policyIQ, so that they can review and confirm if all of the tasks have been completed and the documentation has been updated by the Action Plan Owner. And they can do it all without logging into policyIQ!
  
  
• Send email alerts to Contract Owners when contracts are within 90, 60, or 30 days of their Expiration or Renewal Date. Include instructions for the best steps to take to follow-up. Create other alerts to go out to the Legal Department, Procurement Director or Managers to keep them updated on contracts coming up for renewal.
  
  
• Send an email to your Board of Directors - who may not even be users of policyIQ - to notify them when critical documentation is updated or posted. Include the information as attachments to the email message and provide them with the details without requiring them to be policyIQ users.

I'm sure I would be exaggerating to say that the possibilities are endless - but I have yet to find the "end" of the ideas that I have for implementing this great new feature.  In fact, all month we are going to focus on how Custom Alerts can be used in various areas - Compliance, Contract Management, Project Management and more.

What else is in store?

While we're excited about Custom Alerts, there are also some great improvements you can look for in version 6.7.  Such as:

• Report Categories - now available both as user-specific and site-wide options.
  
  
• Check Out to Others - Check a page out to another user more easily and automatically add him/her as an Editor in a single step.
  
  
• Expired and Expiring Items on your policyIQ Dashboard are now more manageable, with better filter and toolbar options when viewing the complete list.
  
  
• Search for Forms in the Home module using the simple Search functions. Results in Search will now include Forms.
  
  
• Send email notifications (today or on a future date) to those users added via the Import function.

We continue to strive to solve your business problems - with solutions in policyIQ and enhancements to make our product (and YOU) more efficient in your daily work.  Stay tuned to the blog this month as we explore the new features.

Don't hesitate to contact us at support@policyIQ.com with any questions about this release - or suggestions for the next one!