Pivot New UI - Admin FAQ
This fall, the Pivot team will release a new user interface. This page provides you with an overview of this change, the key benefits, how it will affect you, and the timeline for these changes.
Why are we changing the Pivot User Interface?
Over the past few years, the Pivot team has delivered many new features and functionality to improve funding discovery, and various new communication and collaboration tools. With the increase of these new enhancements, we recognized a refresh of our UI was equally important to continue to provide a superior user experience and allow for future innovation and feature expansion.
What are the main benefits of this new User Interface?
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Modern design – easy and intuitive for research admins, while more engaging for users at their institution.
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Customizable – highly customizable to match institutional branding and provides more opportunities to highlight other internal resources and links.
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Responsive – designed to be viewed on any device; displays fully on; desktop, mobile, etc.
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User friendly – ensures intuitive access to the most important and most used features.
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Accessibility – provides a database that is accessible for all users
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Expansion – flexible for future innovation and expansion
What is the timeline for these changes?
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August 4, 2020 – a preview of the customization features for the new user interface will be available to Admins
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September 9, 2020 – the new user interface will go live for all users
What do I need to do to access the new UI and begin using it?
Nothing! The new UI will automatically go live for all customers on September 9th. There is no activation or opt-in required.
To see the new UI after September 9th, you may need to refresh your browser and/or log out and log back on to Pivot.
As an Admin, is there anything I need to do or prepare before the new UI goes live?
Yes and No. The new UI is highly customizable and allows you to add your own institutional branding, colors and more. The purpose of the preview release on August 4th is to provide Pivot admins with an opportunity to add their own branding and customizations and preview what the new Pivot UI will look like for your users once the interface goes live on September 9th. We highly recommend that during the preview period after Aug 4th and before Sep 9th to customize Pivot to your liking. Coming soon - View our “Pivot Branding Guide” for more details.
However, customizing Pivot is entirely optional. If you choose to do nothing, Pivot will still look great! Your users will just see the default Pivot logo, branding, and colors.
Before September 9th, you may also want to inform your users directly about the new Pivot UI so that they are not surprised by the changes.
What changes should I be aware of?
Below is a high-level description of the changes that will be rolled out in the September 9th release. All of these will be communicated in detail within the September release notes.
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New Login Page – Fresh look and feel providing more direct access for users to login and get started. (Users will still access from the same URL https://pivot.proquest.com)
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New Home Dashboard page – This new landing page for users when they first log in to Pivot is more inviting and intuitive for ease of use and discovery including: a personalized welcome, links to saved and curated funding opportunities, easy access to one’s profile and groups, a large search bar and new menus to jump to saved items and other key information.
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New intuitive placement of tabs – All features from the current UI will be brought over in this new release, however the placement and navigation menus to get to these features has been updated to be more intuitive for ease of use.
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New customized branding – Admins will have the option of using the branding tools in the Admin Dashboard, much like they do today, to customize Pivot to match their institutional branding which carries through to newsletters and more. With the new UI, Admins will have more opportunity to include links and internal information.
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Research Professional News – Admins will have the option to turn on this feature through the Admin tab for users to see. This new Optional News Tab integrates global funding news and policy content from Research Professional news. To learn more and preview this content, visit https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/.
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Active and Tracked opportunities combination – To reduce confusion of these two features we are combining them. Tracked Opportunities will remain. For anyone with Active opps they will be migrated to their “tracked list” with a special notation so that no information is lost for the user.
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Expanded number of results per page – Users will be able to choose to view an increased number of opportunities per page; from 25 to 50, 100 and up to 200. The current Pivot default of 25 results per page will stay the same.
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Expandable facets on funding pages – This provide users the ability to view more facet and filtering options per category, making it easier to zoom in on the most relevant results.
When and how should l inform my users of these upcoming changes?
It is up to you when you should let your users know about the upcoming changes. For the most part all familiar searches and results pages will not be affected. The biggest change they will see is the new Login page, Home Dashboard page and the more intuitive navigation and placement of features.
Once you have customized the new UI, after the preview release, you may want to take a screenshot of what your new Home Dashboard will look like and share it with your users. We have prepared this document to help showcase your new branding. Just replace our screenshot with yours and share.
Will there be any changes to the Pivot URL?
No, the URL for Pivot remains the same https://pivot.proquest.com.
Will training materials be updated to reflect these changes?
The Pivot team is reviewing all current materials and making updates as needed. These can be found on the Pivot Knowledge Center. For the most part all familiar searches and results pages do not require new training or help guides.
What changes are happening on August 4, 2020, and how will they impact my users?
On August 4th – Pivot administrators with custom branding privileges, will see a “*New* Custom Branding” link in the Admin Dashboard, which will appear alongside the current custom branding tab. Only Pivot admins will see this option. No other changes will be visible to other users.
Over the month of August, we encourage you to become familiar with the New Pivot interface by using the *new* custom branding admin tool. With the customizer tool, you can start branding the UI with your Institution’s logos, colors, images, and more, and then use the “Preview” functionality to see what the new UI will look like for your users when it goes live on September 9th.
During the preview period, no changes will be visible in your current Pivot UI. Changes made in the *new* custom branding tool will be stored in advance of the September 9th release and will automatically go live for your users on that day.
When you open the “new Custom Branding” you will see the branding you currently have on your Pivot site. If you are happy with its appearance, you will need to select Save to keep the changes. Otherwise, you can change the look and feel and/or add additional customizations.
If you decided not to make any changes during the preview time, no worries! When the new user interface goes live in September, it will default to the Pivot branded look and feel. Updating it to your institutional branding only takes a few minutes. Branding changes can be made at any time and can be made as often as you like if you change your mind or want to try something new.
What branding changes can be made between August 4th and September 9th?
You can use the “new Custom Branding” tool preview release to perform the following:
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Add Logo and Colors (optional)
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Upload a background image (optional)
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Add custom links (optional)
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Customize text in right panel (optional)
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Preview how the new UI will look with your choices (optional)
We have put together a Custom Branding Guide with some additional details.
You may want to let your users know about the upcoming changes. If you choose to do nothing to customize the new UI, your users will automatically get the new default branding of Pivot as soon as the release goes live. (No worries – this is still an awesome new look and feel!).
What changes will occur on September 9, 2020, and how do we prepare for them?
The New Pivot UI automatically goes Live on September 9th!
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Any changes you saved using the “new Custom Branding” tool will automatically go live for your users on September 9th.
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If you do nothing during the August preview period, your users will automatically get the new default branding (Pivot logos and colors).
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Feel free to make customizations any time after September 9th. (No pressure –any changes or updates you make after September 9th will instantly be live for your users!)
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There are no changes to any URLs, users’ accounts, logins, saved searches, alert emails, etc. to worry about.
What if we already branded Pivot with our colors and logos, do we need to do this again?
If you have already used the current custom branding tools to add a logo and primary and secondary colors, these assets will be transferred to the new Custom Branding tool for the new UI. However, they will not automatically go live for your users on September 9 unless you visit the new Custom Branding tool and "save changes." Since there are additional customizations that you can make for the new UI and it is not a given that your old logo or colors will look like you want them to, we did not want to make your old branding automatically go live for your users.
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Please visit the new Custom Branding tool anytime before September 9 to preview what it will look like for your users. You will need to hit "save changes" before any branding goes live for your users. Otherwise on September 9, you users will see the default branding.
Is there anything our users might need to know about this change, such as changes to user accounts?
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To see the new UI, it is possible users may need to log out and then log back into Pivot, or if they are not seeing the new UI once it goes live, they may need to clear their browser cache to view the changes. Clearing one’s browser cache may then necessitate the user having to re-enter their username and password if they had previously saved this in their browser.
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In the event that a user's password has been forgotten, the user can select the forgot password option on the login page to reset it. The username is typically the user's institutional email address.
What is Pivot-RP? Why does the logo show Pivot-RP?
Over the last two years, the Pivot development team has been busy integrating features and content from our sister product Research Professional (aka RP) with Pivot. The new Pivot UI marks the first integration with www.researchprofessionalnews.com content with Pivot. Our new logo Pivot-RP reflects the benefits of bringing the best of Pivot and Research Professional together. In addition, over the next few months, we will be launching a new unified editorial tool merging funding opportunities of Pivot and Research Professional. This new tool will bring great benefits such as expanded coverage of funding opportunities and real time funding opportunity updates. While we expect you will still refer to the product as "Pivot", we wanted the logo for our global customer community to reflect the addition of RP content and functionality.
How can I Stay Informed?
The Pivot team has planned a series of communications throughout July – September to keep you informed. Below find links to past webinar recordings and opportunities to join future webinar sessions.