Yesterday, we held our Q4 Roadmap Review, and I wanted to share a quick summary of what we accomplished in Q3, where we're focusing our efforts in Q4, and what's planned for Microvellum and the Foundation Product Library.
A Look Back at Q3
Q3 was all about stability. We made 400 changes to Microvellum, including 280 fixes and 120 improvements, across three updates.
We also completed 4 of the 17 roadmap items we committed to, or 24% of our goal. Yes, we missed our target, but that was an intentional decision. We felt that keeping our momentum going and focusing on testing, fixing issues, and clearing our backlog of items pending testing, was more important than pushing to deliver more features... especially considering the work we have planned for Q4.
Here are the four roadmap items we delivered:
- Projects & Drawings Management: A new grid-style interface that makes creating and managing projects and drawings up to 70% faster, with better visibility and control over project details.
- Name Entry for Analyzed Products: Enter product names while analyzing 3D solids, rather than renaming them afterward.
- Smart Layer Grain Control: Set grain direction in Smart Layers and have those settings carried through when analyzing 3D solids.
- Formula Syntax Repair Utility: Find and repair formula syntax issues in your product library before the Spreadsheet Gear upgrade.
All four are available in Build 26.1.1012, released October 12.
Q4 Focus: Stability & Maintenance First
We're continuing our focus on stability in Q4, with 70% of our development effort going toward stability and maintenance, and 30% toward new features and improvements.
A big part of this effort is modernizing Microvellum's code. We've already removed outdated code and replaced our internally developed database handler. We're now working on migrating from VB.NET to C#, which will make Microvellum easier to maintain and support going forward.
And, of course, we'll continue working through bug fixes and performance improvements.
Q4 Microvellum Roadmap Commitments
We've reduced our feature commitments to five items this quarter, giving our teams more time to focus on stability, code modernization, and testing.
- Library Updates – Global/Wizard Properties: Allow library updates to change Global and Wizard properties without overwriting your existing values.
- Spreadsheet Gear Upgrade: Upgrade the spreadsheet engine used to manage your product library data. The Formula Syntax Repair Utility we released last quarter was the first step toward making this possible.
- Cathedral Graining: Improve nesting so parts stay aligned with the material's flame direction while being optimized.
- Workbook Designer Column Headers: Add the missing column headers to make it easier to identify and work with spreadsheet data.
- MicroManager/Production Replacement: Assemble a new standalone application using components already available in Microvellum for project management, order entry, work order creation and editing, and processing.
These are the five items we're committing to, but they're not the only things we're working on this quarter.
Additional Improvements from Our Kaizen Event
Last month, our team spent four days onsite with a customer in Illinois, working alongside them to find ways to improve their workflows.
We came back with 16 changes, including 7 new features, 5 improvements, and 4 fixes. All of these changes are currently being tested, and we're planning to release them this quarter.
Here are some of the highlights:
- 3D Part Collision Detection: Detect actual 3D collisions across an entire drawing or selected parts, while ignoring valid joints and intentional contact between parts.
- Bulk Prompt Editing: Update shared prompt values across multiple selected products at once, with improved value handling, validation, and support for both light and dark modes.
- Bulk Product Renumbering: Renumber all products in a drawing using a single command, with improved support and validation for alphanumeric product numbers.
- 3D Hardware Visualization: Preview hardware images, inspect hardware models in 3D, and generate or customize thumbnails for easier identification in the product library.
- 3D Product Library Images: Generate 3D models and product images individually or in bulk, with options to preview products in 3D and create thumbnails for the Microvellum palette.
- Improved Drawing Synchronization: Keep the active drawing, current room, Product Viewer, and redraw operations synchronized when navigating between drawings and projects.
- Faster Processing & Parts List Review: Improve Parts List Review, processing, and post-processing performance by loading shared data once and reusing it, especially on larger work orders.
- Library Designer Navigation: Improved search product libraries, navigate directly to matching items, and export dependency information to Excel for easier review and management.
- Employee & Permissions Management: Manage employee logins and permissions in a single grid, with bulk changes across all employees and unused personal data removed.
We're currently targeting early November for our next Microvellum release, which is expected to include these Kaizen improvements, along with additional fixes and enhancements.
Q4 Foundation Library Commitments
Our Product Library team also had a busy Q3, delivering 58 changes, including 43 fixes and 15 additions, across three updates. They also completed all seven of their roadmap commitments.
Here’s what we’re committing to in Q4 for the Product Library:
- Foundation Library Documentation: Continue improving documentation to make the library easier to work with.
- New Base Island Box End with Curved Ends Product: Add a new product to the Foundation Library.
- Advanced Countertop Product: Develop a new countertop product.
- Scribe Filler Improvements: Make improvements to existing scribe products and subassemblies.
- INNERGY Engineering Material Warehouse Hardware: Add more hardware items to the INNERGY Engineering product library.