New

Okay, we've been very busy. You've probably seen a few little updates over the summer, but this new update brings some pretty great new features to Simplebooklet. Today, we're rolling out:

• New cookieless analytics
• New essentials navbar layout
• Management tools for team accounts
• New Shopify integration
• New UX improvements
• Lots of performance improvements

Cookieless Analytics

This is a bit of a beta rollout, being available to Business accounts as we start, with a plan to roll out this new analytics service to all paid plans by December of this year. Our new analytics will give you significantly deeper insight into the engagement and activity your audience on your Simplebooklet.

Visitor ID Tracking: Get detailed insight into a specific visitor, including how long they spend on each page, how often they return and what they click on next. You'll even see their location, time of day and what devices they use to consume your content.

Live Reports: Get realtime tracking of activity in your Simplebooklet as it happens. You'll see how many people are currently viewing your content and what they are doing with it.

Map Views: See visitors on a map in realtime and over time. Change the map scale to see detailed engagement in a specific region. Know where people are reading your content from.

Engagement: Get insightful summaries of repeat visitors, what they click on, how many actions they take, and view it all over your desired time period with easy to understand graphs.

You'll collect document-level analytics tracking top performing pages, average location access, and version performance. Fine tune your content and achieve your goals faster.

Essentials Layout

After a lot of analysis of the engagement on Simplebooklet, we've created a new, optimized navigation layout. We call it Essential.

You can select the Essential layout from the DESIGN tab under the NAVBAR menu. Its also our new default landing page layout for all new Simplebooklets.

This new layout is designed to maximize engagement with your audience. Calls to action are more engaging, wayfinding elements are better positioned, and branded elements are a bit bolder. You can expect better feedback and more audience activation with the Essentials layout for presenting your Simplebooklet.

The essentials layout also comes with an improved mobile and tablet layout. Making the right menus available at the right time in your Simplebooklets. We've made a light and dark essentials based theme you can choose from, or simply apply the essentials layout to your existing custom landing pages with your own backgrounds and selected navigation elements.

Team Account Management

This has been a big request, and we're finally getting it out there. We're giving you much more granular control over any team accounts you manage under your administrator account.

You can now:

• Reset a team members account password
• Set a limit to the number of active Simplebooklets a team member can have in their account
• Make a team account read-only
• A simple check box to allow team accounts to collaborate with each other.

Setting Simplebooklet Limits As the administrator of the business plan, you can limit how many Simplebooklets a team member can have in their account. Its a great way to manage the pool of booklets you have across multiple accounts.

Read Only Team Accounts When you set a team account as read only, they cannot edit, change the design or narrate a Simplebooklet. You can copy or transfer a booklet into their account and they can share it and get analytics reporting from those booklets. They can also apply their brand kit to the booklets in their account. Its a great way to support people in sales or front line customer success where you don't want them to edit the content but want them to be able to share a personalized booklet.

Collaboration You can now set the collaboration between team accounts as the administrator. You can choose which team accounts have access to a specific team members account to collaborate on those booklets.

Shopify Integration

We've made some big improvements to our Shopify integration. You can now, from the EDIT tab, import all SKUs from your Shopify store, then place "see in store" buttons on any page of your Simplebooklet to direct your customer to the correct page in your estore right from your Simplebooklet page.

Its terrific if you have an existing catalog or product brochure that you want to display in your shopify website or share around on social media, then drive potential customers right to your product's page.

General Improvements

We've made a lot of updates to the backend pipes of Simplebooklet in the last couple of months. These should be visible in performance improvements you'll see with this new update.

Stick with us as you are going to see some game changing new features before the end of the year!

New

Slack just approved Simplebooklet in their app integrations market. What does this mean? If you use Slack, you can now connect your Simplebooklet account and get automatic notifications of booklet activity and very quickly select a booklet to share in any channel or DM.

Find the integration right here:

https://simplebooklet.slack.com/apps/A035XRZT65B-simplebooklet?tab=more_info

Add it to your slack account today!

[New] We're excited to release two new features to Simplebooklet, based on feedback from our users. Headshots for voice narration and the ability to crop an image on your page.

Headshots for Voice Narration

You can now add a headshot to the voice narration you place on your page. It's a great way to put a face to the voice and build a stronger human connection.

Your voice narration player will now have the option of displaying a headshot, logo, or anything else you'd like to display as you narrate.

You can have more than one headshot depending on who's narrating or even if wanted to express different emotions with different facial expressions.

Adding a headshot is simple. In the your voice narration tool, before or after you record your narration, tap the upload button to add your headshot.

You can have multiple headshots as well saved in your headshot library. When you upload a headshot, it gets added to your library automatically.

Simply clicking on a headshot from your library will add it to your narration player.

Managing headshots

You can manage your headshots in your brand kit. There you'll find all the headshots you've uploaded and can remove any that you no longer want. You can also set a headshot to be your default. This will automatically apply it to your voice narrations.

We hope you take advantage of this new feature, we think it will add a lot of personality to your voice narrations.

Image Cropping

We've just updated our image management tool for any images and photos you add to your Simplebooklet in the EDIT tab. Image cropping is for when you are enhancing your page with additional images you upload from our Add Image Tool.

Image cropping lets you set the size of the image container, then move the image around and resize it to show only the image area you want.

To start, go to your page with the image you want to crop. A single click on the image will reveal the image container. You can resize the entire image by grabbing and dragging the bottom right corner of the image.

To crop the image inside the image container, you can tap the orange crop tool in the top left corner (or double click on the image). This will reveal the image cropping tools (four green dots in the corners).

If you grab and drag any of these corners, you'll see that the image will change shape but the image container will stay the same size. This way you can only show in your image container the part of the photo you want revealed.

When dragging the four green dots, your image will maintain its aspect ratio.

While in cropping mode, you can also change the size and ratio of the actual image container, so changing the "frame" dimensions of your image.

You can see how we've been able to change the frame of the image to be a different ratio, and we've been able to show only part of the original image we started with.

This should give all our users a lot more flexibility with the image tool when enhancing their pages.

General Updates

We've updated our homepage and over the next few weeks, you'll start to see more use cases and examples so you can get the most out of your Simplebooklet account.

New

We're rolling out a number of updates this week and for the end of May. This release see's the following new features and improvements to Simplebooklet.

New Dashboard

We've updated your dashboard with a new and improved interface and added some helpful tools and data.

You'll notice right off the bat we've improved how we display your existing Simplebooklets. We've cleaned up their presentation and made the buttons to trigger what you want to do clearer.

We've also added a new sort feature. You can now sort your Simplebooklets on your dashboard by newest, oldest, last edited, and most opens.

We've also added some new data reporting for each Simplebooklet. You can see the number of opens, how many pages are in your booklet, and when you last updated your booklet.

You'll notice that in the top right corner, we've updated the way you access your account settings and profile. We've made this clearer and easier to manage.

Integrations Menu

We've added a new Integrations menu on your dashboard so you can see all the different ways you can use Simplebooklet with other third party platforms. They are broken into multiple categories depending on how they work. They include reporting, content import, and content distribution. These integrations are all through our platform but its a great way to see everything that you can do and even implement them directly from their listing to your overall account

Slack Integration

We've added a new Slack integration to Simplebooklet. There are three ways you can use Slack and Simplebooklet together. From the share tab of your booklet, you can post to a specific channel or direct message. This will post your link and cover image to that Slack channel for easy access.

You can also use slash commands within Slack to access your list of simplebooklets and choose which one you want to appear in your channel.

And lastly, you can set up automatic notifications in a Slack channel. Basically, you'll be able to get notified automatically anytime someone accesses your Simplebooklet in the Slack channel of your choosing.

You can learn more about our Slack integration here:

https://simplebooklet.com/integration/slack-info.php

Analytics

We've made per page analytics an opt in feature now. So to collect analytics on your Simplebooklet, you'll need to go into the Analytics tab and toggle on per page tracking. Then we'll start tracking what's happening on each page of your Simplebooklet.

Guest Narrations

Narrated Simplebooklets are turning out to be really effective in driving engagement with your readers. We're seeing 5X improvement in on page and click actions when a booklet is narrated, even with voice only.

We've improved our narration tool significantly for inviting a subject matter expert to contribute to the narration of your Simplebooklet. You can now invite a guest narrator to narrate the entire booklet, or any page you want. Once they complete the narration, you'll receive an email notification that they've submitted a narration for review, and you will also see a notification tag on the invite tool for that page. You can review the multiple submitted narrations, then add the one you think works the best.

Bug Fixes and Performance Enhancements

We've made some improvements to our conversion engine to keep enhancing the ability to convert multiple file formats. We've also made some improvements to some of our flip transitions for mobile devices and a few general database performance enhancements.

Stay tuned for another update at the end of May. Some big new features that are really close to being ready for release.

New

We've been busy on a number of new upgrades to the Simplebooklet platform. This week, we're introducing the ability to invite anyone to narrate your entire document, even if they do not have a Simplebooklet account. We're also introducing the ability to blur your video background for video narrations, and we're improving your options to import content to your Simplebooklet account through Dropbox and Google Drive integrations.

Entire Booklet Narration Invite

You can now share an invite link with someone that will let them narrate your entire Simplebooklet. Instead of restricting them to only narrate one page, they can now narrate the entire Simplebooklet. They do not need an account on Simplebooklet to narrate your booklet either, making it incredibly easy to get the right subject matter expert narrating your content. You can use the Invite tool in the Narrate tab of Simplebooklet to get your invite link.

Video Narration Blur

If you use video narration on your pages, you can now blur your background of your video. Just like you do in your favorite video conference app, now obscure the background of the room your in to keep the focus on your face and what you're communicating. It's a simple button to click in the video narration tool.

Cloud Drive File Pickers

We've introduced a few new integrations to Simplebooklet. Now, from the dashboard, you can choose Dropbox or Google Drive to access your files (PDFs, Docs, Presentations) and upload them direct to Simplebooklet. We'll grab your file right from your cloud drive folder and start the upload process.

We've also added the Dropbox extension. This makes it really easy to send a file from your dropbox account to your Simplebooklet account. With the Dropbox extension installed, you upload your file directly within your dropbox file folder. You don't even need to start from the Simplebooklet dashboard.

New

It may not always be obvious, but we actually roll new updates to Simplebooklet every 2 weeks. However, we don't always notify our users of the updates and changes. Many of these are to do with improving performance and UI/UX tweaks to make using Simplebooklet easier and simpler. But when we roll some bigger features, we do like to provide a bit more detail. In our recent roll, we've added the following: Invite someone to narrate a booklet page, and, use notes to collaborate on shared booklets in the Edit tab.

Invite a Guest Narrator

This new feature makes it incredibly easy to invite a subject matter expert, a customer, a coworker, or really, just about anyone, to narrate a specific page on your booklet. They don't need an account. You just send them a link, they open it, make their recording, and submit it. You can review it (they can add more than one) and you choose the one you want to add to the page.

We're finding that narrations increase engagement with a booklet by over 500%, so it's a very powerful feature to make your content much more persuasive to your reader. Even using just the audio only version of page narration has an amazing effect on your readers.

Collaboration Notes and To Dos

You can now write down notes and to dos on a booklet you are working on with others in your Simplebooklet account. Each note you create will be labelled with your account name, the date and time you created it. When another user opens the notes, they can see what you wrote, and add their own notes.

It's a useful way when creating a booklet to share input on what needs to be done in working on or enhancing pages of your document.

New

We're working on a lot of new features and capabilities here at Simplebooklet. We're excited to roll out a few new ones today.

New Simplebooklet Narration

Because of the engagement metrics we've seen with video and voice narrated booklets, we've made an extra effort to make narrating your Simplebooklet, well, simple. Narration has turned out to increase engagement by an order of magnatude compare to just text.

We've created a completely new tab dedicated to adding narration to your Simplebooklet. This new narration studio makes it easy to record video or audio only clips per page. You can set the narration to auto play the moment the page opens, and turn pages the moment the narration finishes. Even cooler, you can add notations to your page and time them to your narration, holding onto your customer's attention even stronger.

Our approach to narration differs greatly from most tools that do this. Often, most are just screen recorders, forcing you to record from start to finish all in one go and stick you with a large video file at the end to share. Sorry, that really just doesn't cut it. Our approach is to add your narration as small clips to each page, so you still share your simplebooklet from a single URL and your reader can interact with it just as they normally would (zoom in, search, tap buttons). Since it's clips, you don't have to try and nail your narration from start to finish. You can even update specific pages at anytime and keep your other narrations. Not only that, you can upload a video file (even from someone else) to add narration from specific locations or from coworkers with specific expertise to the page on hand.

We think you'll find narration a very powerful new feature for your communications.

Instagram Posting

You can now post to Instagram right from your publish tab. You'll be able to post a cover image or a video of your booklet flipping it's pages to your Instagram feed. You'll also be able to add and update the comments for your post. It does come with some caveats from Facebook. You will need a facebook business page and your Instagram account needs to be connected to this business page. But after you set it up the first time, its simple to post your next Simplebooklet.

New Image Library

We've added a new image library feature to adding images. You can now upload multiple images at once to a library. From your library, you can drag these images onto your pages. You can also replace an existing image on your page using the replace function.

Chat Support

We've also upgraded our chat support capabilities. We can now support you with realtime screensharing, debugging, and voice and video chat. We think our chat will be more responsive and we'll be able to solve issues faster that come up for you, our user. With this is also a completely revamped help center, but it's not quite done so a few holes to keep filling in there.

New

We've just rolled a new feature for Business plans. You can access analytics for all admin and team account booklets from one report. This will help you see all Simplebooklets in one report and their open rates.

With the Account Analytics, you can:

• Query all admin and team account booklet stats in a single report.
• Set the date range for this report.
• Download the report as an XLS file for use in other tools and platforms.

To access the Account Analytics, go to your Business Account Dashboard and in the left hand column, tap the ACCOUNT ANALYTICS menu.

This will reveal the account analytics tool.

New

We continue to work hard in improving the features and capabilities with Simplebooklet. This week, we're introducing a new Simplebooklet feature and some user interface updates to improve your experience.

Video Simplebooklets

You can now create a Simplebooklet from a Video. This is great if you want to present a video on it's own Simplebooklet microsite, then add it to your collection. Basically, it takes your video url, creates a single page Simplebooklet of that video, then allows you to customize the microsite page the video is displayed on.

It's great for sharing videos outside of youtube, google drive and vimeo, so you can put your own logo and URL on the video you share, while also customizing the actual display of the video. Since it's also a Simplebooklet, you can layer additional content on top of the video (such as hotspot links, text, buttons) to make your video have clickable actions.

It's also a really useful tool for adding a video as a standalone piece of content on your collections page.

To try using this new tool, go to your Simplebooklet dashboard, and select UPLOAD VIDEO to get started.

User Interface Updates

We're always working on improving the placement and presentation of our tools to make it easier to make and share your Simplebooklets. In doing so, we've cleaned up the toolbars in the EDIT and DESIGN tab, plus made some updates to various popups and modals around the platform.

Speed Improvements

The bulk of our effort over the summer was working on improving the load times of your Simplebooklet. In doing so, a lot of this takes place in the background so your readers will see the benefits in improved loading and responsiveness of your Simplebooklet.

We have also made it possible for you to activate or deactivate some of these improvements. To turn on or off these new features: Lazy Image Load, Loading Indicator, and Deferred Page loading, go to the DESIGN TAB and select PAGE ACTIONS. You can toggle each one on or off depending on if you want to use it or not.

As well, stay tuned as we plan on a big release at the end of September.

New

A quick update to let everyone know we've made a significant improvement in the load speed of larger booklets on our platform. We are now using a faster process to display content, revealing the current on screen content of a booklet before the entire booklet is loaded. This allows your reader to start reading and flipping pages even if the entire booklet has not loaded into their account.

This is applied to all new and existing booklets in your account, so there is nothing to adjust on your part.