2020 was quite the year and we here at Simply Made Apps are looking forward to a new year. People around the globe changed the way they worked because of the pandemic. It’s never been more important to understand the status of your people. It’s never been a more important time to use Simple In/Out.

We’re proud to deliver a product that has helped so many around the world. The stories we’ve heard this year from our customers are inspiring. We’re energized and look forward to the new year and new ways to put Simple In/Out to work.

Here are just a few of the big things we delivered in 2020.

Web Hook Improvements

We started 2020 by shipping big improvements to our Web Hooks. We didn’t realize at the time how many of our customers would discover and put Web Hooks to use in the new year. You can now choose which events to send to your Web Hook destinations and Web Hooks can now be deactivated without deleting. We also overhauled the user interface to make things easier to manage.

French Localization

Being located only a few hours from Canada, we were always aware of the requests for French language support from our neighbors to the north. We delivered in 2020, and French joined both English and Spanish for language options within Simple In/Out’s website and apps.

New Desktop Apps for Windows and Mac

We pulled back the curtain on our plans for new Desktop apps for Windows and Mac, rewritten from scratch. In fact, we’ll be formally announcing the Public Beta any day now, and will continue towards completion in the new year. We’re excited to show everyone what we’ve been hard at work on this past year.

Microsoft Teams Integration Upgrade

Given remote workers are oftentimes using Microsoft Teams, we upgraded our integration. We’ve long allowed our customers to send Simple In/Out notifications to a Teams channel of choice, but now we’ve created a Simple In/Out tab inside Teams itself. The Simple In/Out tab is complete with your board and a place to update your Simple In/Out status without ever leaving Teams.

Slack Integration Upgrade

We upgraded our Slack integration as well. For many years, customers could send Simple In/Out notifications to a Slack channel of choice. Now, we support Slash Commands. Users can type “/inout out to lunch” and update their Simple In/Out status without ever leaving Slack.

It is also worth noting a few non-feature things that happened in 2020.

Server Performance Improvements

Behind the scenes, we made many substantial upgrades to our server infrastructure. The fact that you may not have noticed is a good thing, and we have added lots of resources to handle our growth.

Privacy Shield Was Struck Down

This past Summer, a European court struck down the Privacy Shield framework that we remain a part of to this day. Our commitments towards privacy remain as strong as ever, as we switched our legal agreements over to Standard Contractual Clauses for our international customers.

We Hired Another iOS Developer

We again this year expanded our team with a new iOS developer. We wish to remain a small company, but these added developer resources go right to our product and our customers’ happiness.

From everyone at Simply Made Apps, we wish you all a safe and prosperous year to come.

We’re happy to announce that Sahil Reddy is joining Simply Made Apps as an iOS developer.

Sahil has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and an affinity for mobile development. His previous experience includes working for a startup and helping other companies improve their apps. His passion for building software with the latest tools really sets him apart.

As a member of our iOS team, Sahil will help usher in the next wave of features in our Simple In/Out iOS apps.

We’re thrilled to welcome Sahil to the growing Simply Made Apps family.

This July, the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework. This framework, which Simply Made Apps remains a certified member, established protections for transferring personal data across international borders. While this ruling was unfortunate, it did not invalidate another mechanism called Standard Contractual Clauses as a transfer mechanism.

While we still uphold each principle of Privacy Shield, we can no longer rely on it as a legal mechanism when it relates to transferring personal data to and from the United States.

We’ve worked with all our partners (subprocessors) throughout our technology chain to replace Privacy Shield with Standard Contractual Clauses. As a part of this process, we have also severed ties with several third-party partners to narrow the list of vendors we share data with to provide the Simple In/Out service.

If you require a DPA to do business, you can view the new Data Processing Addendum on our website and execute it there as well right inside your Simple In/Out account.

If you have an questions, don’t hesitate to email us. We’re proud of our privacy efforts here at Simply Made Apps and would love to discuss them further.

Simple In/Out has supported automatically updating statuses via Beacons since Apple introduced “iBeacons” all the way back in 2013. Last year, we improved our Beacon system dramatically with more control over in/out statuses, comments, and performance. We’re believers that automatic updates via Beacons have many amazing use cases.

To date, we’ve also sold Beacon hardware directly from simpleinout.com. But, this approach had three downsides.

First, customers weren’t aware of how to change Beacon configurations if they wanted to make adjustments. We’d do the initial programming, but we’d have to walk customers through programming changes after they’ve taken delivery. In rare cases, the customer would ship the Beacons back to us so we could reprogram them.

Second, international shipping took a long time with decreased visibility. We always offered free shipping, and that worked fine for our US customers. Internationally, our free shipping option led to lost orders, orders that would take 30 or more days to arrive, etc.

Third, improved shipping was cost-prohibitive. For customers in Europe, Australia, and the Middle East, improved shipping was often $200 USD or more. That’s a bitter pill to swallow when our average Beacon order was $70 USD. In fact, we’ve been counseling some of our international customers on sourcing Beacon hardware resellers closer to home for a while.

That brings us to today and the news that we’re ceasing Beacon hardware reselling and shifting to third-party resellers. As I mentioned at the top, we still believe in Beacons and will continue to innovate in the automatic update space with Beacons. We are shifting to helping customers find local vendors to purchase the hardware that will work with Simple In/Out.

Our effort begins with our Beacon Hardware Purchasing Guide. This document discusses the requirements for Beacon hardware and lists places to purchase them directly. We’ll be expanding the list of countries and vendors as our customers source them in the future.

The easiest place to purchase is right from Amazon.com.

Second, we’ve ramped up our documentation around programming Beacon hardware. It’s not a difficult process, so we want our Beacon customers to know the process inside and out. We even have a new help video for the visual learners out there.

We love Beacons and our Beacon customers do too. We look forward to supporting and improving Beacon-based automatic updates for years to come.

We’ve made a lot of updates recently to our integration between Simple In/Out and Microsoft Teams. All the while, we haven’t forgotten about our other favorite messaging and group chat app Slack. We’ve had our Slack app available for years that allows customers to designate a Slack channel. Inside that channel, we’ll send Simple In/Out status updates to keep everyone up to date.

Today, we’re announcing the next version of our Slack app with support for our new Slash Command. Using our Slash Command, you can update your Simple In/Out status right from inside Slack, without ever needing to reach for a Simple In/Out app or website.

Here’s how it works. In Slack, you can simply type:

/inout in

…and we’ll check you in with Simple In/Out.

/inout out

…checks you out with Simple In/Out. It’s that easy! We even support optional comments for the valuable additional context, like:

/inout in at the office

We’re thrilled to have this communication between Simple In/Out and Slack for all our Slack users. If you have ideas for more commands you’d like us to implement, don’t hesitate to fire us an email.

Simple In/Out will be offline for database maintenance on Sunday, September 6th, for approximately 3 hours. We anticipate beginning at 12:00am Central (US) time. During this period, the website will be inaccessible. All of the apps in the Simple In/Out ecosystem will also report errors as they will be unable to connect to Simple In/Out.

Our database provider has informed us of an unplanned database update this weekend. As such, we’re using this forced downtime to perform another major database changeover to reduce any downtime in the future.

We don’t take the idea of downtime lightly, which is why we’re conducting this operation in the middle of the night during a three day holiday weekend here in the US.

If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to let us know.

Last month, we launched the 2.0 version of our Simple In/Out integration with Microsoft Teams. This big update added your user board right inside a tab within Microsoft Teams, no longer requiring our Teams customers to revert to a web browser to see their users. At the time, I wrote that “if demand continues, we’ll consider more features for Microsoft Teams”.

And boy did demand continue! Almost immediately, users wanted to update their Simple In/Out status from inside Teams as well. After all, if you can view the board and make status updates, then you don’t need a web browser to keep your colleagues up to date.

Today, we’re launching our Status tab within Microsoft Teams! Now, users can make status updates easily without leaving Teams. We’ve added a text box for those valuable status update comments, as well as all your Quick Picks for one-click convenience.

If you haven’t yet, You can install our Microsoft Teams Add-on today.

We’ve always been proponents of placing your in/out board everywhere. This is why we offer apps for phones, tablets, desktop computers, and even televisions. Your Simple In/Out board is only useful if it comes with you.

We’ve supported seeing your Simple In/Out status updates within Teams for years. This is a great way to see updates without having to pull up Simple In/Out on your computer or phone. We’ve had requests to add more features to our Teams integration, but it hadn’t been a burning priority. With the COVID-19 pandemic gripping the world, priorities in the workplace have shifted and with that shift comes more features for Microsoft Teams.

Today, we’re announcing version 2.0 of our Microsoft Teams add-on which now supports viewing your Simple In/Out board right inside of Microsoft Teams. With a few clicks, you can have a Simple In/Out tab with access to your list of users and their current statuses. This board updates automatically (just like our web board), so you’re never more than a click away. You can search, sort, and view groups right from inside Teams.

You can install our Microsoft Teams Add-on Today.

If demand continues, we’ll consider more features for Microsoft Teams. If you’re a Microsoft Teams user, shoot us an email and let us know what would be valuable for you.

TLDR: It’s Bright!

This week we announced French support for Simple In/Out. In doing so, we added French to every app with the notable exception of Simple In/Out Desktop. While some may infer that we are abandoning desktop apps, the exact opposite is true. We’re doubling-down on desktop.

Rewind to 2013, a time when Simple In/Out is just 2 years old. Microsoft has just shipped Windows 8 with its polarizing user interface. We were called to a meeting at Microsoft’s offices to discuss building a desktop version of our Simple In/Out client. The timing for us wasn’t great, but we could see the potential. We set out to ship a first-class Windows 8 app with the help of Microsoft and a third-party design firm.

When we launched Simple In/Out for Windows, it was everything Microsoft wanted a Windows app to be. We built atop their latest APIs, their carousel interface, their look and feel, and their ideas for how to manage windows/preferences/etc.

The trouble began the moment Microsoft starting walking away from their Windows 8 decisions. Suddenly, the platform we built upon was deprecated, support waned, and things started breaking with no fixes in sight. The most famous example is a simple field picker that we had to build ourselves, from scratch, to avoid crashes on Windows Mobile. It was clear we were living on borrowed time and that a full rewrite was unavoidable.

While the legacy of Windows 8 was bearing down on us, we launched Simple In/Out Desktop for Mac. As Mac users ourselves, we were excited to ship an app that lived in our docks. While we had the best intentions, we started to fall behind the state of the art. We had too much code servicing workarounds within our desktop apps.

Throughout this time, the rise of App Stores on desktop computers added new wrinkles. In workplaces using device management, authenticating store accounts individually per computer for App Stores is a real pain. Worse yet, Apple’s draconian policies prevent free trials unless we both fork over 30% of our revenue and use their third-rate subscription management system.

With the need to rewrite the Windows app, dramatically update the Mac app, and leave the desktop App Stores, our direction was clear. We needed to start over. We set to work last year on a new desktop app.

Our aim is a modern desktop app for both Windows and Mac, built on a platform we can efficiently maintain in the future. We’ll support the latest OS features like Dark Mode. The new Simple In/Out Desktop will feature the best in/out board we’ve built to date, with an interface that’s more consistent and powerful. And, of course, we’ll support French immediately.

We will ship a Public Beta of Simple In/Out Desktop, for both Windows and Mac, via a free download from our website. We’ll gather feedback and suggestions as we add more features throughout the beta process. Our existing desktop apps will remain available until the new Simple In/Out Desktop reaches 1.0.

If you wish to give the new Simple In/Out Desktop a try, watch our Public Beta page. You can also subscribe to our mailing list. We can’t wait to share with everyone what we’ve been working on these past few months.

Bonjour!

We’re thrilled to announce Simple In/Out supports localization in French. You can use simpleinout.com as well as our apps for phones, FrontDesk, TimeClock, and Simple In/Out TV.

Our desktop apps for Windows and Mac do not support French as of now. We have something new in mind for those apps.

French was the most popular language request we’ve ever had in our history. This is almost certainly a direct result of our popularity in Canada and Europe.

Au revoir.