A Closer Look At The New Radian6 Engagement Console Features
Earlier this week I posted a review of some new features Radian6 has incorporated into its online dashboard. Today we’ll take a look at some additions rolled-out to their Engagement Console tool.
The changes to functionality are four-fold:
- Extensibility
- User roles and permissions
- Improved search functionality
- Shared macros
Extensibility
The latest version of the console allows developers to build new extensions into the console through the Engagement Console API. This might take the form of additional commands, built-in searches, or web pages pulled into new windows.
User roles and permissions
One of the new changes I touched on in the last post was the addition of “Super User” roles. Super users have an additional screen in Radian6’s online dashboard where they can see users and profiles, and edit each.
The inclusion of Super User functionality in the Engagement Console brings with it the ability to define “workspaces” and “permissions” for other users.
Workspaces
Workspaces are the areas where the stacks (columns) in the consoles are displayed. Super Users can set the base Workspaces for sets of users so, for example, certain users would always see certain topic profiles in their console.
Permissions
Permissions let you control how the console is configured for other users. As Ryan Strynatka, Director of Product Management, put it to me:
“You can turn various components and capabilities on and off. For example, want to remove the ability to launch a personal FB stack and restrict the ability to respond on Twitter stacks – you can now do that. In fact, you can completely pare down the EC you so that it looks and feels more like a desktop widget – just content flowing in without workflow capabilities and so forth. In the Agency world, this might be interesting for routing content to customers.”
Improved search functionality
The new console incorporates three new elements into the existing search functionality:
- Creation of topic stacks by keyword group: allowing more targeted search results to be displayed (you could, for example, focus in on company and brand mentions rather than broader industry conversation).
- Filtering of search results by custom date: a very useful feature, especially for people working on social media audits and reports after the fact – in the past the lack of this feature rendered the console largely unusable for this purpose.
- Twitter profile search: Improved integration with Twitter allows you to quickly search for Twitter user names and have user profiles pop up within the console. Useful for folks engaged in real-time monitoring.
Macro sharing
Right from the beta version of the Engagement Console, the inclusion of easy-to-create macros has been a winning feature, allowing users to easily recreate previously time-consuming tasks, and apply them to multiple posts, with the click of a button.
With the new version of the console, you can now share your macros with other members of your team, or with members of specific projects – bringing a new element of consistency to macros which might otherwise be intimidating for less-advanced users.
Summary
When I first reviewed the Engagement Console earlier this year, it provided an excellent tool for engagement from an end-user perspective. These recent changes add additional benefits from the user side, but also from an enterprise viewpoint.
All-in-all, this is a very useful set of changes. Combined with the enhancements to the Radian6 dashboard, this represents a useful step forward for Radian6 which benefits both end users and enterprise administrators alike.
What would you like to see?
The Radian6 team will undoubtedly keep rolling-out adjustments over time. So, what other changes would you like to see?
