SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- 15Five, a software company that helps businesses maximize communication with an application that allows them to monitor their company's pulse and enable the free flow of information, today announced the release of 15Five 2.0. The redesigned, beta-tested app gives 15Five customers an intuitive user interface and new features that streamline setup and onboarding while adding more flexibility to key functions to better support larger companies and matrix-style teams.

"At 15Five, we're all about feedback – helping companies harness the power of employee input to continuously improve," said founder and CEO David Hassell. "So naturally we're all ears when customers share their feedback with us. We used their input to develop and improve functionality, and we completely re-architected the platform to improve 15Five across the board. With 2.0, we deliver more ways to help companies and individuals realize their full potential."

There is a solid WHY behind everything the 15Five team does. It was not just the act of making changes and improving an already indispensable product that drove the team to create 15Five 2.0, but rather listening to adamant users and taking knowledge learned over the course of the first year to create an enhanced product.

One thing the team did when creating 15Five 2.0 was invest heavily in a new interface that allowed them to carefully craft each and every experience. "We design software for human beings, people not 'users', and believe that every pixel counts in our quest for elegant simplicity. This creates a delightful and easy experience for our customers, delivering a service they say they truly love," says Hassell.

To better facilitate communication and innovation in matrix-style organizations, 15Five 2.0 has a more flexible paradigm for how managers and employees relate and communicate. The new release separates users and groups, with reviewers now assigned to individuals and users now able to be assigned to more than one group. The more flexible nature of the 2.0 release allows 15Five to support many more types of organizations, beyond standard hierarchies, including more matrix-style organizations.

A new "Follow-Ups" section allows people to flag conversations they don't want to lose track of, ensuring that nothing important falls through the cracks.  Once a conversation has concluded satisfactorily, it can easily be marked "Resolved" to be removed from this section.

Another addition to the 2.0 release is a social-media inspired feature. A "Like" function adds an option for public, nonverbal recognition and an enhanced commenting ability now allows for both public and private comments to be made.

In addition, someone who's not a person's direct reviewer may now request permission to view and interact with their reports. This allows individuals and teams to widen the circle of communication (and problem-solving) beyond their immediate reviewer.

The new release also includes an inbox-style report view that allows users to see reports for anyone they're authorized to view, or filter by individual or group for a more focused look. This lets users see everything in one place, regardless of whether they're a reviewer, a viewer, or in a shared group.

"We've been using 15five at Hitachi Data Systems for nearly a year, and we've gained a new level of transparency and alignment within our group as a result. The improvements in version 2.0 increase that transparency and make the tool much more suited to complex matrix reporting situations, so much so that we've recently expanded the use to five countries in Asia," says Nick Howe of Hitachi Data Systems.

15Five recognizes that not all questions need to be asked all the time. The release allows users to change the frequency of 15Five questions, enabling companies to send queries on a weekly, biweekly, monthly or quarterly basis. With greater flexibility built into the app, now companies can send time-specific questions to ask employees how things are going in a particular week or learn the best idea they've heard all month.

15Five 2.0 is rebuilt on a brand new backend that is seamless to customers but enables the 15Five team to be more responsive to feedback and more agile in product development. Moving forward, the updated test and build suite will allow the 15Five development team to rapidly iterate based on the needs of customers as well as give them the ability to push out more frequent updates.

About 15Five15Five is a software company focused on producing transparency and alignment in organizations through structured, efficient and effective communication practices. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company officially unveiled its product in March 2012, and launched out of beta phase in August 2012. 15Five is based on a simple idea: Have each employee spend 15 minutes a week writing a report that takes their manager no more than five minutes to read. Business leaders can know the pulse of their company by surfacing problems, celebrating wins, discovering great ideas and staying tuned-in to morale. For more information, visit www.15Five.com.

SOURCE 15Five

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