What's new

Bulk-add cards

Add several cards to a journey map in one go. The add-card picker now lets you select multiple items, like metrics and portfolio items, and add them all at once instead of one at a time. See how to add and edit cards.

Improvements

1. Cleaner Word paste: pasting from Word no longer carries unwanted formatting into your text cards.

2. Reliable Power BI refresh: Power BI metric cards now update correctly when you refresh them.

3. Full descriptions in PDF export: journey map descriptions now render in full and export cleanly to a single-page PDF. See how to export a journey map as PDF.

4. Tags stay deleted: a card tag you delete no longer reappears on the map.

5. Clearer AI settings label: the AI feature once shown as "Evidence lab" is now Research hub in Account Settings, matching its name across the app.

6. Research investigation fixes: smoother renaming, analysis viewing, and file handling in research investigations.

Flow lanes

Show how one step leads to the next. A flow lane lets you draw connector arrows between cards to map a process, service blueprint, or decision flow, with swimlanes and lines of interaction to structure it. Add it from the lane picker like any other lane. See how to use flow lanes. (Repository plan and above)

Import journey maps from Excel

Bring a journey map you already keep in a spreadsheet straight into Smaply. The new Excel source on the import screen reads an Excel or CSV file and turns your rows and columns into stages, lanes, and cards, with options to control how the layout maps across. See how to import from Excel. (Repository plan and above)

Import from JSON

Move a journey map between workspaces or accounts, or bring back a saved copy, by re-importing a map you exported from Smaply as JSON. Export it from the map's title menu, then pick the JSON source on the import screen. See how to import from JSON.

Public persona sharing

Share a persona with anyone using a read-only public link that opens in the browser, no Smaply account required, and switch on password protection when it's sensitive (available on the Framework plan and above). See how to share or export a persona.

Improvements

1. Cleaner journey map PDF exports: exported PDFs now leave out collaborator cursors and trim empty space, so the file looks like your map, not the editing session.

2. Clearer Add Portfolio Item picker: the picker shows full item titles and descriptions, and fuzzy search is back, so you can find and add the right item faster.

3. Refined dashboard tables: tidied table styling across the dashboard for easier scanning.

Research hub

Turn raw interview research into portfolio insights without the manual slog: upload transcripts, let AI surface quotes and sentiment, and push the findings you choose straight into your portfolio with a traceable link back to the source. (Governance plan)

Improvements

1. Seat management consistency: seat counts, invitation rules, and upgrade prompts now line up across the app, so it is clearer when you are near a limit and what to do about it.

Google Sheets and Qualtrics integrations

Pull live data into your metrics from two more sources, so your journey maps stay current without manual updates. Google Sheets is available on all plans; Qualtrics is on the Governance plan.

Advanced journey map filtering

Narrow a map to exactly what you need by filtering on portfolio item attributes or tags, so large maps stay readable. See how to filter a journey map.

Improvements

1. Faster loading, especially for large journey maps.

2. Improved portfolio table performance now supports 10,000+ portfolio items.

3. New metric display option shows labels and values in metric charts.

Journey map version history

Your maps auto-save every 10 minutes, so you can compare or restore an earlier version without redoing lost work. (Governance plan)

Quick filters

Find the right portfolio item or metric faster: the add and create modal now has quick filters, so you are not scrolling a long list.

Improvements

1. Faster loading, especially for large journey maps.

2. Improved portfolio table performance now supports 10,000+ portfolio items.

3. New metric display option shows labels and values in metric charts.

Custom colors and branding

Add your company colors and logo so journey maps look consistent and trusted when you share them with your team and stakeholders. See custom branding.

Custom cards

Go beyond pain points, opportunities, and solutions by creating your own custom card types and linking them in your portfolio, so your framework fits how your team actually works. (Governance plan)

Portfolio summary

See your whole portfolio at a glance with the portfolio summary, then drill into the details, so you can see where things stand without opening every item.

User and seat management

See total and occupied seats plus a seat allocation summary, so you can check your seat usage before you invite more people.

Improvements

1. "No priority" option for portfolio items, now the default, so items are not forced into a priority before you have decided.

2. New demo assets on onboarding: new accounts and workspaces now come with demo assets, so there is something to explore from the first login.

3. More metric chart display options.

Faster loading

Especially for large journey maps and portfolios.

Improvements

1. Quicker way back to your workspace: the workspace name now shows in a tooltip from inside a journey map, so you always know where you are.

2. Partial data in series metrics: uploaded data can now include empty cells, so you no longer have to fill every gap before a metric will work.

AI journey map creation on the Free plan

Build a first-draft journey map from a prompt without upgrading: AI map creation is now on the Free plan, with three uses per person each month.

Portfolio table configuration

Show or hide columns in the portfolio table so you see only the data you care about and keep large tables readable.

Bulk actions for personas

Apply changes to several personas at once instead of editing them one by one, so tidying up your persona library is much quicker.

Copy and paste grid lanes

Move entire grid lanes between maps to reuse your work and iterate faster, rather than rebuilding the same lane from scratch.

Improvements

1. Faster loading, especially for large journey maps and portfolios.

Account Library

Manage and reuse your key content, including journey maps, personas, opportunities, pain points, solutions, and metrics, across every workspace in your account, so teams build on shared assets instead of starting over. See how to use the Account Library.

Import your Classic maps

Bring your existing maps into Smaply automatically with the import tool, so you can pick up where you left off without rebuilding them by hand.

Customizable portfolio items

Tailor how opportunities, pain points, and solutions look and behave to match how your team works, with custom portfolio item types.

Copy and paste lanes between maps

Reuse a lane you have already built by copying it from one map to another, so you spend less time recreating structure.

Improvements

1. Demo content for new accounts: new accounts now start with demo personas, portfolio items, and metrics, so there is something to explore from the first login.

2. Portfolio summaries in PDF export: you can now add portfolio item summaries from the journey map export modal.

3. Better portfolio tracking: an updated-date filter and a "Last updated" column in portfolio tables make recent changes easy to spot, with a performance boost and PDF downloads for library portfolio items.

AI support for journey maps

Turn a short prompt into a first-draft journey map and skip the blank canvas, so you can start from something concrete and refine from there. See creating a journey map with AI.

Lane duplication

Duplicate a lane in a single step to build maps faster, instead of recreating its setup by hand.

Collapsible journey info panel

A restyled journey info panel lets you collapse it for more canvas room and take actions like cloning, archiving, sharing, and exporting right from inside the map, so you stay in your flow.

Monthly subscriptions and a free trial

You can now choose a monthly plan, and new sign-ups get a free 14-day trial, so it is easier to start and to pick the billing that suits you.

Improvements

1. Color for more card types: icon, image, and slider cards now support color, for clearer, more consistent visuals.

2. Cleaner pasting: pasting into the text editor now clears formatting, so unwanted or unsafe content does not come along with it.

3. New loading experience in the journey map.

4. More bulk actions for portfolio, image, slider, and icon cards, so you can edit them several at a time. See bulk editing cards.

Bulk actions for cards

Edit many cards in one go by selecting a whole lane, a whole column, or hand-picking with Shift+click, so large maps are much faster to update. See how to bulk edit cards.

Guest dashboard

If you are not yet a member of any account, you now land on a dedicated guest dashboard for a clearer first experience, with no account created for you automatically.

Full-screen portfolio editing

Edit a portfolio item in a full-screen view that gives you much more room to write descriptions of your opportunities, pain points, and solutions. See creating a portfolio item.

Improvements

1. Easier card headers: turn a card header on straight from the toolbar menu, with more consistent header styling across cards.

Image card shapes

Change the shape and aspect ratio of an image card so visuals fit your layout the way you want.

Monday.com planning integration

Connect Smaply to Monday.com to bring project planning and task management into your journey maps.

Card color options

Give cards a background style, including white, light, solid, and transparent, for more flexibility in how your maps look. See adding and editing cards.

Improvements

1. Drag card edges to span cards across the journey map, so a card can stretch over several columns.

2. New card toolbars: a single universal toolbar makes editing text, stage, and image cards simpler.

3. Smoother invitations: invitation links no longer expire after 30 days, pending invitations are accepted automatically when you open a direct link, a banner flags outstanding invitations, and "Shared with me" and "Membership" are now one redesigned page.

Custom portfolio statuses and icons

Define your own portfolio statuses and icons in account settings so your portfolio reflects your team's workflow. (Paid plans)

Linked portfolio items

Connect pain points, opportunities, and solutions to each other with linked items, turning a flat list into a meaningful network of insights and actions.

Display options for portfolio cards

Choose how opportunity, pain point, and solution cards appear in a journey map, so each map shows the right level of detail.

Improvements

1. Descriptions in link-view embed cards: add context right where it matters by writing a description in the link-only embed card view.

2. Filters and saved views in the journey editor: the editor now matches the dashboard filter style and lets you save your default view.

3. More ways to add images: upload, drag and drop, or pick from Giphy and Unsplash to enrich your image cards.

Reimagined personas

A refreshed look and new building blocks make your personas more flexible, so you can capture exactly the detail you need.

Smart portfolio create

When you add an opportunity, pain point, or solution, you can now search for an existing portfolio item or create a new one on the spot, so you avoid duplicates and work faster.

Improvements

1. More bulk actions: select and manage several templates or archived journeys at once.

2. Video in embed cards: embed videos from multiple sources.

3. Better view-only mode for journeys and templates, with improved viewer-role permissions.

4. Portfolio CSV export now respects filters, so you export exactly the items you are looking at.

Self-service upgrades

Move from a free trial to a paid plan right in the app, with no need to contact support, so you can upgrade the moment you are ready.

Link view for embed cards

A new link view for the embed card makes external content easier to display and open.

Card headers

Give each card a clear, meaningful title with the new card header.

Improvements

1. See your highest plan right in your personal account settings.

2. Sign-in lands on your first account instead of your favorites, for a more predictable start.

3. Clearer pricing page: it now shows the Free plan if you are on it, so it is easier to compare and decide whether to upgrade.

New dashboard sidebar

A redesigned sidebar makes navigating Smaply easier, and you can switch between accounts from the menu using the arrow in the lower-left corner of the screen.

Notification improvements

See where you were mentioned, invited, or asked for help, all in one place, so nothing slips through the cracks.

Embedded cards for Monday.com, Power BI, and Tableau

Embed live content from Monday.com, Power BI, and Tableau straight into your journey map with embed cards.

Streamlined modal for planning and embed cards

A refreshed modal makes creating planning and embed cards quicker and clearer.

Improvements

1. Live metric card updates: the side panel now supports real-time metric updates.

2. Updated card and lane menus for better usability.

3. Membership visibility: view your memberships on the invitations page and leave accounts, workspaces, or maps as needed.

4. Cleaner memberships page: personal account memberships are no longer listed, keeping things relevant.

5. Priority filter in portfolios: focus on high-priority items with a new priority filter.

6. More notification touches: see pending invitations at a glance, with auto-scroll to selected cards for smoother navigation.

7. A new invite component in organizations and workspaces, plus advanced-filtering fixes and updated tag styling in settings.

Paste content from anywhere

Drop Miro post-its, Excel tables, images, and more straight into your journey maps with enhanced paste, so moving existing work into Smaply is effortless.

Portfolio summary in the journey info

See a summary of portfolio items in the journey info section and jump to a filtered portfolio view in one click.

Power BI and Excel 365 integrations

Connect your metric cards to live data from Power BI and Excel 365 to keep your insights up to date.

Embed content into journeys

Add interactive elements from Miro, Figma, YouTube, Google Sheets, Docs, Slides, Mural, and Microsoft Office with embed cards.

Improvements

1. Password-protected HTML sharing: secure your shared journey maps with a password.

2. Share filtered views: share a specific filtered view of a map instead of the whole thing.

3. New persona card types: expand your persona documentation with more card options.

4. Advanced filtering for dashboard lists: combine selections with AND and OR operators to refine list views.

5. Duplicate and bulk-delete metrics: copy a metric or remove several at once.

6. Bulk-edit coordinator and performance indicator: update these across many journey maps in one go.

Planning cards for Asana, Azure DevOps, and Linear

Bring your planning tools into your maps by adding planning cards from Jira, Trello, Asana, Azure DevOps, and Linear, so delivery work sits alongside the experience it supports.

Save filters as a view for lists

Organize your journey map lists with saved views, shared with your team or kept private to you.

Bulk edit for journey maps and personas

Work efficiently with bulk editing: archive, copy, or tag journey maps, and archive or copy personas.

Tag and filter personas, portfolio items, and metrics

Tagging and tag filtering now reach beyond journey maps and cards to every item, so you can organize your whole workspace the same way.

HTML sharing of a journey map

Share a read-only version of a journey map with anyone via a public link.

Improvements

1. Custom emotion-chart labels: set your own labels on the emotion chart scale, no longer limited to the default range.

2. Choose workspaces for Google Analytics: pick which workspaces have the Google Analytics integration enabled, for more control.

3. Better icon card layout for longer text, with a new "quotes" template. See icon cards.

4. Saved sort order: your list sort order in the dashboard is now remembered.

Slider cards

Add customizable slider cards to your personas or journey maps to show a value on a scale, making data easy to visualize and compare.

Improvements

1. Cleaner "Shared from outside": maps from deleted accounts no longer appear there.

2. Clearer account details: the applied subscription plan now shows for every account.

3. Alphabetical workspaces in the main menu.

4. Add-card menu in lane order: cards in the add-card menu now match your lane order.

Divider lanes

Add a divider lane to group and separate content in a map, so larger journeys stay organized and easy to read.

Card tagging

Tag individual cards to make them easier to find and categorize across your projects.

Improvements

1. Logo goes home: clicking the Smaply logo always takes you to your personal dashboard.

2. Smoother tag selection for a more intuitive process.

3. Users sorted by name in your organization list, for easier navigation.

4. Portfolio enhancements: a new interactive bubble chart and table, cleaner styling, a dropdown to pick opportunity, pain point, or solution, an improved create/edit modal, and CSV export that includes score names and values.

Personal dashboard

See all your accounts and workspaces at a glance, along with recent activity and shared journey maps, so you can pick up where you left off from one home.

Account home page

A dedicated dashboard for shared accounts makes it easier to manage and reach your team's collective work. See your account overview.

Redesigned settings

Your account settings are now organized into tabs for more intuitive navigation.

Improvements

1. Better tag management: a refreshed color palette and visual design, and duplicate tags within a category are now blocked for cleaner categorization. See creating and editing tags.

2. Free-plan access: free-plan users can now assign tags to journey maps (tag management stays on paid plans), and a free-plan user can be assigned to one journey map per account.

Tags for journey maps

Organize and filter your journey maps with tags, so projects stay easy to manage as your library grows.

Google Analytics integration

Connect Google Analytics to bring real usage data into your journey insights.

Filtering across menus

A consistent condition bar brings the same filtering experience to every menu.

Main menu drawer

A new drawer component gives the main menu a cleaner, less cluttered interface.

Refreshed logo

We have updated the Smaply logo to match our evolving brand.

Improvements

1. Safer account deletion: extra confirmation steps in the deletion flow help prevent mistakes.

2. Higher rate limit for better performance under load.

3. Richer metrics: more options for how metrics are displayed and compared.