Forums » bCisive Support Forum

Just as Rationale, bCisive has the Collaboration option in some versions: working together on a map by sharing a map with others. (All the people you share a map with by using the option Collaboration can change the latest version of the map. Version history is available).

At the moment we are not able to develop a new Help file for bCisive. A good solution though is the Rationale Help as much functions in bCisive work the same as in Rationale.

So, for e.g. for support on how to use the Collaboration function in bCisive, look here.

In this blog post you will find tips on how you can use Collaboration in different settings.

It would be nice if this feature was a little more intuitive (which I think can be done without much additional investment).

Specifically, It's helpful for a collaboration feature to:

1) Enable users to contact anyone you add as a collaborator (even if they don't currently have an account). This actually helps your adoption rates and reduces steps for users (me).

2) Allow a user to share a link to the map even when they choose to collaborate. This makes it easy to invite people to collaborate via their communication mode of choice (e.g., work email). Also, since I can't add a collaborator who doesn't have an account, not having a link to share makes it even more difficult to invite them to collaborate. I essentially have to copy/paste the bcisive link, give them instructions, and the return to the portal to add them, as opposed to, sharing the link and you send them everything they need in the invitation.

3) Provide more user feedback when managing the collaboration list. When I added a user, the system gave me no indication whether it added the user, an error because it couldn't add the user, or any other status about what happened.

4) Clean up how collaborators are managed. To start, I don't think you need a separate list for different permissions AND groups. Just allow users to add people to a group and assign permissions to groups and individuals in the same location. If you need to keep them separate, then I recommend removing users from the groups. I have no idea what "add users by group" does. I typed in a group name and it still said "empty list."

5) Provide a link to the my maps portal (or collaboration management) from within the product. Why do I need to remember the link to another location to add a collaborator. Even a button a button in the ribbon would make this task much easier.

In general, I like the product. I paid for the version that allows collaboration, but don't feel I'm getting the value out of that subscription. I feel I have to play with the collaboration feature before I ask anyone to join because I don't want to ask them and then they/we spend unnecessary time figuring out how to make it work.

I add free bCisiv user for collaboration with read/write access. But he see map as readonly.

We have to pay for each user?

Hi @jtottonb and @edw,

@jtottonb, thanks for your input, about point 2, you can share the map by using the link as long as they are added to the collaboration list.

@edw, yes, if you add a user which has only a free account it will only be able to access the shared map in readonly mode.