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Enfocus Crossroads community benefits from newly added functionality to the www.crossroads-world.com website

Wednesday 17. November 2010 - The online community for Enfocus Switch automation users and Crossroads partners gains from more features, a name change and a dedicated account manager

Enfocus enriches the Enfocus Crossroads community by launching a redesigned www.crossroads-world.com website. Along with a range of new functionalities, the website brings a new level of interaction for all members.
First launched in 2007, Enfocus Crossroads is an online community around Enfocus Switch. It brings together Enfocus Switch users, Crossroads partners and Crossroads integrator partners. The original community name ‘Crossroads’ received a subtle change to Enfocus Crossroads, to emphasize that it’s fully endorsed by Enfocus and in close relationship with the Crossroads partners.
“We wanted to bring Enfocus and Crossroads closer together and emphasize that Crossroads is backed up by Enfocus. Of course the aim is still to provide a neutral platform around the Enfocus Switch automation solution,” explains Fabian Prudhomme, Vice President of Enfocus. “The new functionalities of the website have been carried out to help us to extend the scope of Crossroads and to react to the needs of our user community.”
Enfocus also recently appointed Angelo Manno into the new role of Account Manager of the Crossroads program. “I’m very excited to be working closely with all the different Enfocus Crossroads partners and help extend the Enfocus Crossroads community by introducing new partners to our growing Enfocus Switch user base. The new additions to the Enfocus Crossroads website are a valuable asset for all members”, he says.
New features
Important new features include a new content management system for greater flexibility and future expansion, a new user forum and provision for blogs from partner organizations. Both users and partners are now able to upload their created Switch flows directly to Enfocus Crossroads so they can be shared with all other members.
With Enfocus Crossroads as an online meeting point for Enfocus Switch users and partners, the new user forum and partner blogs will encourage the interaction between all members. Switch users can learn from other users and partners, and apply best practices to their own organization. Manno explains: “Enfocus Crossroads is a neutral platform bringing together different types of partners. We feel it’s important to give our partners a separate discussion platform, away from the Enfocus website.”
The partners’ blogs will also give them the opportunity to talk directly to the community. “Automation is a hot topic nowadays and there is much to say and learn about it. People want to hear different opinions. Through a blog, we give our Crossroads partners the opportunity to talk directly to the community,” Manno adds.
The Enfocus Switch product family consists out of LightSwitch, FullSwitch and PowerSwitch. Progressively they offer more features to help users build flows that automate sequences of events and processes. Once created, flows can be easily exchanged with other users. Any member can upload its own flow to the new Enfocus Crossroads website. Once uploaded, they become available to all other members for download and import in their own Enfocus Switch product.
“The new facility for uploading flows make it a real interactive platform,” Manno stresses. “Everyone that is registered will be able to post, rate and review flows on the site. This applies also to potential customers who are trying out any of the Crossroads applications they don’t know yet. We are convinced that users will appreciate to see a whole community is supporting their automation solution. In addition, they can look on the Enfocus Crossroads site to solve another user’s problems, get a resolution to their own problems and find new ideas.”
Reinforcing the Crossroads community
The Switch product family supports a growing number of configurators. The configurators are used to give direct access and control to third party applications from within Switch, and assist in the automation of the entire workflow. All partners that develop a Switch configurator automatically become Crossroads partner.
The latest Switch 09 version integrates well with the Enfocus Crossroads website. From within Switch, users can right-click on a configurator to find more information about a Crossroads partner’s application. They are then automatically directed to the Enfocus Crossroads website where they can find more information on the partner, the application and available flows. From now on, they will be able to download a trial version of the partner’s application as well. “We made it very easy for the user to discover new applications that easily integrate with Switch,” Manno concludes.