ConcourseConnect 3.0 marked a major change in Concursive's development strategy. For the first time we have taken the development source code repository internal to our operations and worked directly with customers to produce the latest version. All of these features were delivered in 2011.

Some of our favorite new features are Gamification/Challenges (see an example here), Real-time audio and video collaboration, streamlining the signup process, and opening up the social backend for mobile applications.

ConcourseConnect Registration

• A Signup 'teaser' portlet has been added to the Home Page and other pages
• The invitation process for registering new users has been revamped and simplified. In addition to getting users in easier and quicker, users are now signed up for notifications
• Registration allows users to input a password instead of being assigned a temporary one and having to change it later
• Users invited to a profile other than the main-profile now see 'What to do next'
• A RegisterService (SSO) allows a remote website to log users into ConcourseConnect with a click of a button… these new users are added on-the-fly... if a system requires acceptance of Terms and Conditions, then that is shown first
• Sites can register with Facebook.com and enable User Logins using a Facebook Id; the user's Facebook photo is shown for their profile photo
• The site can be configured so that users can register but must wait for an Administrator to approve the registration

ConcourseConnect Gamification

Challenges is a brand new module in ConcourseConnect. Challenges are administered by a community manager and can be configured to end based on time or a goal.

• A Challenges module has been added so that sites can host various challenges and users can participate
• Each Challenge has its own profile and can be configured for participation or monetary contributions
• Users can suggest new Challenges and vote on them, then administrators can activate them
• Users can 'like' and share Challenges to Facebook
• Users can share to Twitter

ConcourseConnect Deals

Deals is a brand new module in ConcourseConnect. Take a look at a live example.

• A Deals module has been added so that sites can host Groupon-like promotions
• An eWallet has been added to Deals so that users can contribute to the wallet and use smaller denominations when purchasing Deals
• Users can 'like' and share Deals to Facebook
• Users can share to Twitter

ConcourseConnect User Profiles

• User home pages are now optimized for introducing the user to the site, actions that they can take to start participating, and improvements to editing their profile bio
• Added My Page activity stream filters for Friends and Profiles

ConcourseConnect Activity Stream

• Photos in the activity stream now show thumbnails of the uploaded photos
• Videos in the activity stream now show thumbnails of the shared video
• Added activity stream updates for when multiple photos are uploaded

ConcourseConnect Real-time Collaboration

• Concursive has installed OpenMeetings-as-a-Service
• When OpenMeetings has been installed and configured, Group-based and Project-based meeting rooms can be launched directly from a Group or Project without having a separate login

ConcourseConnect Wiki

• Added a Suggested Pages portlet to the Wiki page so that an index or TOC can be constructed and the entries in the index will highlight as the user visits those related pages
• Improved the PDF export quality of wikis
• Embedded wiki videos now use modern iframe embeds for YouTube, Vimeo, Ustream

ConcourseConnect Photo Gallery

• Every user now has their own Photo Gallery
• Every profile can be configured with a Photo Gallery
• A system-wide photo gallery has been added which shows Albums and Photos from all users
• Photo captions are indexed and can be searched from the Gallery
• Multiple photos can be uploaded at the same time
• Photos are integrated with the Activity Stream

ConcourseConnect Videos

This is a new module for displaying a library of videos from popular Video services.

• Every profile can be configured for Videos
• Videos show in a panel over the site's content
• Videos can be added by pasting URLs from Vimeo, YouTube and Ustream
• Specify a USTREAM.KEY for ustream video metadata

ConcourseConnect Document Management

• OpenOffice document conversion has been added as an option
• An online viewer has been added for documents of type PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoints, OpenOffice

ConcourseConnect Project Management

• A new look for task planning
• Task planning is now very fun to use with drag-and-drop assignments, estimating, and progress tracking
• Tasks now have single click access to user assignments and milestones
• Added feature to link a Plan Activity to a List of Tasks

ConcourseConnect Discussion Forums

• Added WYSIWYG forum posts with images
• Added Signature in forums
• Added Forum moderators
• Added Sticky forum topics
• Added Locked forum topics

ConcourseConnect Content Management

• Announcements have been added to many pages which can be used to call out important information
• A dynamic slideshow can be placed on many pages and the content, images, and links can be modified online very easily
• Administrators can add new content pages and decide if they should be linked to a tab or not
• When a content page does not exist, a default template is now used; tabs are highlighted in the form of "tab_name_page_name.shtml" or even "tab-name-page-name.shtml" and standalone pages do not use the tab name
• Template pages have been added for Newsletter, Blog and Calendar
• Template pages have been added for about.shtml, disclaimer.shtml, privacy-policy.shtml and site-guidelines.shtml
• Smart content caching has been added to page content
• Image caching has been added
• An Excel file can control all redirects for the site, so for example, if ConcourseConnect is replacing an existing site, then redirects can be defined to the new content pages
• An Excel based sitemap allows for a javascript website menu, submenu configuration, and metadata

ConcourseSuite Community Management

• Emailed newsletters can now be automatically stored publicly in ConcourseConnect so that users can view them online
• Admin links from ConcourseConnect members to the community management console have been added

ConcourseConnect Participants

• Contacts can now be imported from a CSV file when inviting users

ConcourseConnect Profiles

• Optimized the default permissions for intranet groups, events, ideas and projects
• Per-profile creation now triggers workflow components for setting profile item lists, tabs, lists and dashboards
• Additional states have been added for profiles: suggested, adopted, discarded, used by Ideas
• Members only Groups have been added; these are Groups that are visible and searchable but in which an administrator must grant access to
• Administrators can clone profiles

ConcourseConnect Ideas

• Added a 'like' and 'rate' widget for Ideas
• Ideas can now be Adopted, Discarded and Closed

ConcourseConnect e-Commerce

• Added a 'View Cart' feature right into the layout of the site and can be enabled in the site's properties
• An 'Add to Cart' feature was introduced so that any profile can be added to the cart
• Added shipping and taxes calculator to checkout
• Added recurring billing
• Products can require a user to be logged in before adding to the cart
• Products that are linked to a profile can use the profile's picture for display
• Added inventory for products
• Added sub-products
• Added Standalone products for immediate checkout
• Additional product catalog functionality was added to the database
• Upgraded Authorize.net to API 3.1
• Added Authorize.net CIM
• Added Authorize.net ARB
• Added Excel export of customer order data in Fort 205 format

ConcourseConnect Decision Support System

• A Decision engine and portlet have been added to the library to carryout complex interactions with a user; the workflow is completely customizable to perform interactions like user training sessions, surveys and more

ConcourseConnect Themes

• A new Bookman theme was added giving sites a fixed-width look and structure

ConcourseConnect Framework

• Installation is now based on and optimized for the selected purpose: like social intranet, social network, social community, etc.
• A User-Mode API has been added for restful services; the API operates using UTF-8 and can format output in JSON or XML; the API used by mobile apps and clients and there are many services that have been added; review core_services.xml for a current list
• Geolocation improvements for searching and storing latitude/longitude; for example the ProfileListService will calculate the distance to a profile if lat/long are submitted and perform radius searches if requested
• A Search Form portlet has been added to the library and can be used on any page to introduce a search form
• User badges can now trigger workflow, whether these are user obtained badges, administrator assigned badges or system assigned badges
• Content can now be determined based on the assignment of user badges
• Developers can now customize each profile's layout with different portlets
• Improved the kinds of images that are supported, including JPEG CMYK, JPEG sRGB, rotated JPEGs and TIFFs
• Browser compatibility has been improved for IE9
• PostgreSQL 9 is now supported
• Switched over to new version of Google Analytics tracking code script
• Added services to connect to eTouches via its api
• Java 6 is now required