This is a long one, so let’s get right to it.

Signing in to Blissbook has been a pain in the butt for our non-SSO (Single Sign-On) users for a long time. It’s been a pain because Blissbook is password-based and… get ready… we never ask users to create a password. Users get a link in their invitation email that signs them in to their Blissbook automatically. However, if they ever sign out or use a different browser, they can’t access their Blissbook without a password. The workaround is to tell Blissbook you forgot your password and the system emails you a link to set up a new one.

We want to make it easy to access Blissbook. If your company’s policies are hard to access, they aren’t protecting your company. That’s bad!

There are 3 basic options for a computer system to confirm a user’s identity:

1. The user and computer system know the same secret, such as a password, PIN, etc. Ideally, this secret is impossible for others to guess.
2. The user has a physical object in their possession that verifies their identity to the system, such as a key, a bank card, a phone/computer/key fob with a secret token, etc.
3. The system knows a physical characteristic of the user, such as a fingerprint, eye iris, voice, etc. This is known as biometrics.

Blissbook has traditionally used option #1. We’re switching to #2.

When a user tries to sign in to Blissbook, they’ll enter their email address. If that email address is in Blissbook, we’ll know who they are and what organization they belong to.

They’ll then get an email with a special link that they’ll click to sign in to Blissbook. Users will remain signed in for 60 days unless they explicitly sign out or switch web browsers.

This means your employees never have to create or remember a password to access their employee handbook. They just need access to their email account!

Happy Spring, faithful Blissbook reader! It’s already in the 70s here in Atlanta as we celebrate our latest release of goodies. This update touches both parts of our tagline: protect your company and show employees you care.

Search and a Table of Contents

Published handbooks got a big upgrade a few weeks ago with a new table of contents that includes links to all of your policies, not just the major chapters. We also added search, so handbook readers can easily find anything they’re looking for, whether it’s in a hidden section (the Nitty Gritty) or not. Just one more thing to help make sure you never hear “I couldn’t find the policy” ever again.

Better Branding

Part of showing employees you care is presenting information to them with the same amount of effort and attention that your company puts in to presenting information to customers. We’ve got 2 updates to help you do that.

You can now upload a custom favicon (the little icons in your browser tabs) so everything about your Blissbook can be “on-brand”.

A lot of our customers like the ability to add images to their “guiding principles” section (or whatever they’ve turned that section into). Since the core values section is basically the same format, we thought our users might like to add images there as well. Now you can! Check out the Rocket Whale Blissbook to see it in action.

Easy Sign In

This one is a doozie. We changed the way signing in to Blissbook works, so that our users’ employees don’t have to create or remember a password. This one deserves a longer explanation – read that here.