EASE Fall 2022 Release

Increases User Engagement and Accountability and Improves Corrective Action Management

What's New in the EASE Fall 2022 Release

The Fall 2022 Release of EASE is here! Check out the new features and enhancements below.

New User Achievements and Leaderboard

For many customers, the built-in Achievements system in EASE is a highlight of the application. Today, the system tracks user progress towards the completion of audits and mitigations, as well as special achievement badges for completing specific numbers of audits on time within a six-month period. With the Fall 2022 release, Achievements will also track the number of non-audit findings created and the amount of mitigations identified by every user. Additionally, a new special achievement will be attainable for every user that identifies more than 50 issues within a six-month time frame. If a user has already reached these new milestones, then they will receive the achievement badge that corresponds with their completed activities automatically.

Beyond adding new unlockable achievements, the Fall 2022 release introduces an all-new Achievements Leaderboard for users to see where they rank among their peers in completed activities and how close they are to their next milestones. The leaderboard will also give audit program administrators an easy way to see who the top performers at a plant are, providing the opportunity to recognize individuals and teams for a job well done.

Auditor-Focused Reports

EASE delivers best-in-class audit program reporting capabilities, with instant insights into metrics such as audit completion, question compliance, failures, issues, and more at the click of a button. As any audit program administrator knows, however, knowing that audits are being done does not necessarily mean that audits are being completed accurately, and pen-and-paper audit programs in particular commonly fall victim to pencil whipping. Any leading indicators that audits are being pencil whipped are essential to ensuring that processes and plant floor conditions are actually being audited and non-conformances aren’t slipping through the cracks.

Beginning with the Fall 2022 Release, managers and administrators will start to have access to a full suite of new auditor-focused panels within the Reports module. The new panels in this release are Time Spent Completing Audits and Audits Completed with Findings, and upcoming releases will include additional panels such as Audits Completed without Findings.

Corrective Action Management Enhancements

For customers using EASE to manage their formal corrective action workflows, i.e. 5 Whys or 8D, the Fall 2022 release contains a number of enhancements to that module geared towards making that process more user-friendly and improving the quality of corrective action reports. These enhancements include:

Within Reports, a new Corrective Action Tasks view has been added to easily track progress toward individual tasks within a corrective action workflow
When creating or editing a corrective action template, it is now possible to add custom fields to individual tasks rather than the template as a whole
Custom fields can now be created at the same time as tasks are created, and additional validation has been added to ensure duplicate fields are not created
All fields except for system fields can now be added to or removed from templates at document setup
Corrective action tasks are no longer required to be assigned to a responsible party at the time a corrective action is created. If no one is assigned a task or set as an approver at creation, the corrective action owner is assigned instead and can delegate as needed
Exported corrective action reports have been reformatted to provide a cleaner user experience

Digital Signatures and Other Document Enhancements

For compliance purposes, some industries require that auditors sign off on their audits before submitting them. The EASE Fall 2022 release introduces Signature as a new response option available in all audit types. When adding the Signature option to an audit, administrators can now choose to require either a typed name, a “wet” signature, or both, in order to verify the identity of the user that completed an audit.

Additionally, the Fall 2022 release continues to address user feedback on the new Document Library first introduced this past spring. Enhancements in this release include:

When creating or modifying audit documents, all questions can now be collapsed or expanded with the click of a button
When editing a question within a document where questions are collapsed, all questions not being edited stay collapsed if one is edited
When using Advanced Question Logic, conditional questions can now be reordered
When conducting an audit with conditional questions, they are now numbered based on the question they are conditional to (i.e. 2.1, 2.2, etc.)
The bulk question import template has been updated to allow users to indicated whether a question is critical or not at the time of import

Availability

EASE Fall 2022 Release features will be released during the upcoming quarter. EASE releases most new features and enhancements to customers quarterly, in addition to monthly service packs containing additional enhancements and bug fixes. In the case of major updates, EASE conducts a beta program with a subset of customers at specific sites to collect feedback prior to full release. Please contact your customer success manager or the EASE support team for further details and with any questions.