It's been a very busy past couple week's here at Scout Systems. This is already our 3rd release note since Thanksgiving, and there's still more to come as we finish out 2025 strong!
PIP (Picture-in-Picture) - Always Available
One of the best features of our Step Designer is the ability to add multiple images/videos over the main background step instruction image. We call these PIPs. You could always load a picture-in-picture anywhere over the background image as an additive element for your operators - great for close-ups, or video instructions they could play if need be.
We've now made it so that the Add PIP button is available to your designers at any point in the step instruction development. You don't have to add a background image first. In fact, if you wish to only add say text instructions and a PIP, you now can!
Download the Material Library
We have added a button to the top left corner of the Material Library (found within the Admin application) that allows you to download a CSV file of your entire Material Library. It will give you two columns - the Material Name and the Part Number.
This is a simple, but powerful tool for those wishing to verify all materials immediately available for use throughout your work instruction design. You can cross-reference this list against your material ordering, or current inventory, and quickly identify materials needing adjustment in the library.
Other Minor Adjustments:
- We added a minor gate-check to the adding of materials to any step instruction. Previously there was no requirement that a material have a part number prior to saving, but we found that if one was left blank the entire step failed to save (rather than just skipping the addition of the material)...so it's now a required element prior to saving. Thanks to one of our newer customers - shoutout to Alex - for helping us uncover this bug and squash it.
