A Recap of 2024 and What’s Ahead
As we close out 2024, we take a moment to reflect on the milestones our team has achieved. From new product innovations to deepening customer relationships, this past quarter has been full of growth and exciting changes. Looking ahead to 2025, we’re gearing up for an even more thrilling year, and we can’t wait to share what’s next with you!
2024 Highlights
The end of July marked the point where we had our initial public release of the platform. With the help of our early testers we managed to provide a viable service to the 3D printing businesses around the world.
Precise and fast quoting
After our release we quickly continued working on improving the widget experience.
A major milestone was implementing our “Fast” estimation algorithm which provides an estimate in just a few seconds, which is the followed by our proprietary optimization process which may take longer. This update improved customer retention since the wait time was reduced, and the customer has the option to continue without waiting for the optimization process.
The estimation processes are constantly optimized using machine learning and new and improved algorithms to continue providing an industry leading quoting experience and accuracy.
New processes
SLS and MJF were the first to get included after the release. Currently we support one pricing strategy which is based on the bounding box of the item with a “precise” one incoming which estimates prices based on the model’s actual volume.
Quote statuses
Quotes received a major overhaul in terms of workflow. Each quote is created as soon as a user enters his models and details in a Pending status. If the user decides to not finish the quote it automatically updates to a Abandoned status. This way we provide insights to you so you can better understand your audiences and their needs.
In the case where a client requests the quote, it gets assigned a Requested status and the user receives an automatic email to confirm his quote. After that you have 2 options – either Cancel the quote and send another automatic email to notify the client, or create an order from the quote which updates it to a Processed status.
Orders
Yes, orders are finally here. A much requested feature which ties together Quotes and Jobs and lays down the base for upgrading the widgets and implementing the Checkout widget.
As mentioned above, you can create an Order from a Quote, which automatically links the clients and models from the Quote providing a fast and convenient way to process quotes. The Quote is also linked to the order so you keep track of where this order originated from.
A Order allows you to track discounts, tax, customer pricing, lead time and the priority costs associated with it.
You can also add Services to an order. A flexible way to charge your customers for any additional work required like 3D modelling, scanning, post processing, etc.
Upcoming goals
There are a number of small but useful features planned like:
- Generating PDF offers from orders and automatically sending them to the client
- Creating jobs from orders
- Precise pricing model for MJF and SLS
- Adding more processes like Binder jetting, SLM, etc.
- Enabling clients to add shipping details to a regular quote
- Improved customization options for widgets
- New roles for users to better manage access to the system
Besides these smaller updates, we’re also working on some more complex features.
The Checkout widget is one of them – it’s been in development for some time now and the goal is to have a widget that doesn’t create quotes, but goes straight to an order. It will allow you to configure bulk pricing, different lead time pricing options and most importantly handle payments automatically!
The checkout widget ties together with another exciting module that’s in planning – Customer portal
It will be a place where your clients can enter and view all quotes and orders they have created. This will allow them to keep track of progress and also request/approve changes.
For example it will allow your customers to view an order you created for them and approve and pay for it within the portal, avoiding the need for communications via email/phone.
Guided by your feedback
As always we keep listening to our community and remain flexible in prioritizing updates that improve your daily workflows.