Since Yocova was launched in Beta in February 2020, we’ve set a roadmap for how we can develop and enhance the platform to benefit our Members and the aviation community. The Yocova community has been steadily growing and now has over 1,500 Members from across 198 airlines and 430 aviation enterprise and digital vendors globally. As the platform continues to expand, we want to drive forward the message that our Members – individuals, enterprises, buyers and sellers – are all part of the Yocova community.
For that reason we’ve welcomed Members’ feedback as the platform evolves. Our aim at this next stage in the Yocova roadmap is to optimise the platform’s usability and enhance our Members’ experience. Therefore, we’ve introduced some fundamental changes. We’re not taking away any of the great features, but we’ve made some enhancements.
Read on to find out more about the important changes we’ve made for you, whether you use the platform as a Member of the collaborative community, or a buyer or a seller.
A different way to navigate Yocova
Our objective at this stage was to make the navigation process more intuitive, faster for Members to explore new features, and to provide a more expandable navigation structure that grows with the platform and its membership. A key difference Members will notice is that the Menu bar has changed. We’ve simplified it so that the following options now appear on the homepage:
- Home
- Explore
- Marketplace
- Notifications
- Me
- Workspace
This means that the Community and Data Room options are no longer present on the main menu – these have been wrapped into Explore and Workspace.
The platform is about community, so having the ability to engage numerous airlines and collaborate, discuss and challenge peers at all levels gives a more natural, supportive feel. Don’t miss our NEW ‘How to’ video series featuring short clips that show you how to get the most value from the Yocova platform.
Updated homepage
You may notice a slightly different homepage. We’ve condensed the menu options here for better navigation. On your profile, we’ve added a company profile too, so the company you’re affiliated with will now be shown within your profile. You’ll also find that the Manage Options tool has been removed – this has been rolled into the Workspace Manageoption. The options available to you in this space will depend on the admin permissions you have within the platform. Here you can find all the subscriptions and services you have access to and see their status. You also get a quick and easy snapshot of what or who you’re following, who’s following you, your open applications and orders to validate.
It looks a little different from how it did previously. We hope you like it!
Further upgrades include:
Upgraded design
We’ve changed the look and feel in line with the latest social networking trends. The design of the mobile, tablet and desktop experience has been upgraded to provide Members with a more attractive layout and new ways to navigate. And for the mobile app, we’ve added a modern design with a bottom navigation bar for ease of single-handed access. On the app, the Profile and Workspace areas are combined into a single menu, which is scrollable and expandable, and from here, Members can access all areas of Yocova.
Changes to the Profile menu
The Profile menu enables Members to view their personal and company profiles. Currently this is restricted to one company, however, we will be developing this further to enable Members to associate with more than one company in future.
This is to reflect the nature of the industry, whereby an individual Member may be providing services to multiple companies (e.g. maintenance engineers), and may also be a member of a Trade Body or Industry Association.
Members will therefore benefit from linking to multiple enterprises / trade bodies/ industry associations) on Yocova, receiving content from each of them.
Introducing Workspace
We’ve added a Workspace area that provides quick access to all features within Yocova. We’ll be adding icons to this in future and aligning these consistently across the platform.
Marketplace upgrades
The Yocova Marketplace is expanding, so we’ve upgraded the interface to ensure buyers can access the solutions and services they need in a way that suits them; and that sellers can best market their solutions and services in flexible ways to meet the needs of buyers. The Marketplace shows Trending solutions, but also has a search function, meaning buyers are only a quick tap away from what they need, and sellers can easily market their solutions or services. The Marketplace tab is conveniently positioned in the top menu, so it’s just a click away to find what you need, keep track of what’s trending, and more easily see what’s on offer.
The new tile presentation of solutions and services offers a more pleasing visual experience. It also provides a snapshot of the status of any of the items you have engaged with. For example, if you’ve purchased a solution, service or subscription, this will automatically show up as “active”.
We’ve also made it possible to block suppliers to uphold privacy and integrity within the platform and ensure no spamming.
Easier buying and selling
We’ve made payment for solutions and services easier and more convenient, with additional options for buying and selling in the Marketplace. We’ve integrated the online payments platform Stripe, so you can easily procure the plans you need via credit card. If you choose to make a purchase via credit card, Yocova now seamlessly links with Stripe to make the purchase easy.
There’s still the option to make payments via bank transfer. As a buyer, your designated administrator will need to approve the purchase. If you’re selling solutions or services and receive payment via bank transfer, you’ll need to validate payment once you’ve received it. Keep an eye on the notifications section on the top menu, as any actions required will be flagged up here, but you’ll automatically receive an email too.
Events listings
We’ve introduced events listings on the platform to help Members stay up-to-date and join events taking place on Yocova and across the wider aviation community. This gives Members one single place to find out about aviation events, helping them to stay informed on the latest news and insights.
Greater flexibility to buy, sell and subscribe
As the Marketplace has diversified, we’ve understood the increasing need to be able to offer solutions and services in different ways. This is why we’ve introduced more flexible functionality. The Yocova platform was previously limited to applications at a solution level, but we’ve extended this to a plan level. What does this mean? It means that solutions and services can now be offered either on a fixed price or bespoke basis, or on a time limited or renewable subscription basis.
For buyers, we’ve added a feature enabling users to manage their subscriptions. This lists out all orders that have been placed by the user’s company or assigned by a distributor. We’ve even introduced an option to be able to accommodate technical variations (TVs). But if you’re just looking to have an initial chat, the contactform can be used to connect the buyer and seller.
Top tip! If you’re offering multiple solutions and services, consider the structure of the applications you set up for what you are offering.
Improvements to order and payment alignment
The payment flow has been updated so that an order summary will always be generated, and the user interface has been updated for this. This avoids confusion with invoices that can be separately uploaded by vendors on the platform. And to enable us to introduce different paid products and services into Yocova in future, we’ve also tweaked the payment flow to correct some inconsistencies and ensure the payment process is always initiated from the Order page.
Further enhancements as part of Release 26
We recently launched Release 26 to bring some great new enhancements to the platform, and we’ve made some further tweaks as part of that. Following our Members’ feedback we’ve increased the maximum length and callback URLs on software solutions. We’ve also increased the maximum size of the field label on application forms. The file upload and download user interface has also been aligned in various places on the platform, and we’ve made some small updates to the home page and corrected the display of event images.
Amendments to Pool Applications
Following feedback from our Enterprise members, we’ve adjusted the application flow for solutions. Now any user in an organisation can start the application process for a solution and also update an existing application. This enables different SMEs to provide the various information required by the vendor. However, where an organisation has a designated buyer in place, they remain the only user able to place an order after an application has been approved.
Solution and Plan pages polish
We’ve also updated the Solution and Plan pages to create a more clear and simple look, and have reduced the technical complexity here.
Do you have feedback?
We’re constantly working to develop the Yocova platform to enhance the user experience and integrate feedback from our Members, so if you have any ideas don’t hesitate to let us know. And we’ve many more updates and enhancements to come, so stay tuned!
Need help?
If you’re unsure about any of the changes, we’re here to help. Contact a member of our support team and we can guide you through the changes.
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Author: Julie Blake
Published: 11th January 2022
Read more about the latest updates to the Yocova platform
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