Version 5.0

ThoughtFarmer 5.0: An Intranet In Your Pants

ThoughtFarmer 5.0 is here! With a host of functional improvements plus the launch of the ThoughtFarmer mobile web app, ThoughtFarmer 5.0 continues to set the bar for social intranets — and now, it fits in your pocket.

ThoughtFarmer Mobile: An intranet in your pants

The biggest change in ThoughtFarmer 5.0 is the addition of a mobile-optimized version of ThoughtFarmer. Access your intranet content from modern Android, iOS or Blackberry devices: navigate or search pages, browse the people directory, update your status, comment on pages, view attachments.

Rather than a simple port of the browser version, ThoughtFarmer Mobile was designed from scratch to support the mobile context: hurried usage, screen glare from the sun, one-handed operation and touch screens. Unique mobile-specific features include:

  1. Plain-text comment entry at the bottom of every page
  2. Photo albums that support touch gestures
  3. Search-as-you-type employee directory
  4. User profiles integrated with device’s phone and maps
  5. Home screen that focuses on key tasks
  6. Full support for the iPad

We also snuck in a beta feature: full content creation and editing support for iOS 5 when you use the full version (not the mobile version). For most uses, you’ll want to stay in the mobile version, but if you want to create or edit full pages, click “Full version” in the footer and edit away.

ThoughtFarmer Integration Kit (TIK)

In ThoughtFarmer 5.0, we’ve improved our API and built even more ways you can extend the functionality of ThoughtFarmer.  We’ve packaged it up into a new system called the ThoughtFarmer Integration Kit (TIK). With the TIK, you can:

  • Move information into and out of ThoughtFarmer, using our simple REST API. Create pages, export content, sync customer profile information with external HR systems.
  • Enhance ThoughtFarmer with new functionality by embedding your code into page templates. Create dashboards showing content from external systems, like Zendesk or JIRA
  • Provide single-sign on to services that provide a remote authentication API. For example, integrate ThoughtFarmer with Zendesk to allow your users one-click single sign on to your help desk.

The REST API is accessible by any language that supports HTTP and XML or JSON content. Embedding code in ThoughtFarmer is done with C#. We recommend Platinum support for customers building solutions using the TIK. Our Professional Services team is also available for consulting on your ideas.

More Enhancements in ThoughtFarmer 5.0

  • Don’t Rate It, Like It. Star ratings are gone in ThoughtFarmer 5.0, replaced by the more intuitive “Like”.
  • Sharing Bar. A new “sharing bar” appears underneath the page title on every page. It includes all the features you might use to share or indicate your interest in a page: Like, Favorite, Export to Word, Export to PDF, and Email.
  • Page Info box. Metadata about a page — owner, created date, updated date, version history, and tags — is now consolidated in a single “page info” box in the right hand margin.
  • Feeds improvement. External RSS feeds can now be added to the home page and to group pages and will appear just like news items and other internal feeds.
  • New machine translation. The Google Translate API is being discontinued by Google at the end of 2011, so we’ve replaced our machine translation with the Microsoft Translator API.
  • Multilingual labels for custom profile fields. The labels for custom profile fields, used to add extra information to employee profiles, are now multilingual.
  • Change comment sort order. Opt to sort all comments in reverse chronological order (newest first) instead of chronological (oldest first).
  • New attachment and image uploader. No Flash required; supports drag and drop.
  • Bulk export users, bulk import users. Bulk export users and bulk update users are both now supported.

Request a demo of ThoughtFarmer 5.0

Are you already a ThoughtFarmer client? Visit the ThoughtFarmer Helpdesk to schedule an upgrade.