We’ve had another busy month behind the scenes and have a whole host of product improvements being released to help you keep your manager-employee conversations productive, focused and impactful.
The changes will be live from the 19th August 2025.
Overview
Here's a quick roundup:
- Brand new: You can now give Kudos/share recognition to multiple people by sending High Fives to more than one person at a time
- Improved: We've rewritten all of our system notifications to bring a more consistent tone. We've also updated any links to ensure that they take users directly to the right area of the tool
- Personalised: Set an alias for the email address that system notifications are sent from
- Refined: New and improved admin functionality in Evaluate to help manage any live review cycles
- Evolved: Add Team Members as a 1:1 focus topic, reporting and lots more (all explored below!)
✨ NEW! High Fives just got even better!
It’s one of the most-loved features in OpenBlend, and with almost 6,500 sent already this year, it’s clear you're making great use of it.
Last month, we introduced the ability to add Tags to High Fives, so you can start tracking which values show up most in your recognition data.
This month, we’ve made it easier to recognise brilliant work; you can now send a High Five to more than one person at once.
Whether you’re celebrating a cross-team project, marking a big team effort, or just spreading positivity and appreciation more widely, it's now possible to do so in a single step.
✨ NEW! Improved System Notifications
Over the past 8-9 years, our platform has evolved. New features have been added, existing ones refined, and at times, entire approaches (or ways of doing things) have been completely reimagined. Amongst all this and along the way, our system notifications began to lose some consistency in tone and style.
We’ve now overhauled our entire library of notifications to bring them back into alignment with where we're at in 2025. The updated messages reflect a more consistent voice, with softer language, a more encouraging tone and helpful links to guide users to relevant areas of the platform.
This first update covers all existing notifications. But there’s more to come; in the coming months, we’ll be introducing smart notifications tailored to user behaviour and engagement within the platform. Stay tuned.
✨ NEW! Sending System Notifications from a more recognisable address
By default, OpenBlend system notifications have always come from noreply@openblend.com, but we know that can sometimes look a bit... impersonal. Worse still, it can occasionally land in spam or junk folders.
That’s why we’ve introduced a new feature: you can now set a custom 'sender' alias for these emails. Something your people will instantly recognise and trust.
What this means for you:
Admins can now work with their Customer Success Manager to:
- Update the display name to something more relevant to your business
- Replace the sender alias with something clearer than “noreply”
This change is quick and simple. It requires just a few toggles to be flipped by your Customer Success Manager and you're good to go.
Want a fully personalised sender email?
If you’d prefer to use an email address linked to your own domain (e.g. notifications@yourcompany.com), that’s also possible. You’ll just need to provide your Customer Success Manager with a contact from your IT team, and we’ll handle the domain setup from there.
The whole process typically takes less than a week, and once it’s done, your system emails will have a more professional, trustworthy presence in everyone’s inbox.
✨ NEW! Add 'Direct Reports' as a suggested Agenda Item topic in a Custom 1:1 Focus Type
We recently improved the preparation stage for 1:1s with the introduction of 1:1 Focus Types. These allow organisations to create templates of suggested discussion topics for different types of 1:1s, with many choosing to opt for a time-based cadence (e.g. weekly, monthly, or quarterly 1:1 conversations).
Last month, we added the ability to include ‘Direct Reports’ as an agenda item in a 1:1, but this had to be added manually by each Manager or Talent user. That’s now changed.
Admins can now set ‘Direct Reports’ as a suggested agenda item within a Focus Type, making it easier to guide consistent, structured conversations across your organisation, without relying on individuals to set it up themselves.
Note: ‘Direct Reports’ as an agenda item is only available to users who manage others and are preparing for a 1:1 with their own manager.
When selected, managers will see a list of their direct reports and can choose who to focus on in that conversation, with a quick-view snapshot to support reflection and discussion.
We've also added the ability to take action in the moment: When a direct report is selected for discussion, managers can now access the ‘Way Forward’ section during the 1:1, making it easy to create Actions or Objectives directly linked to that team member.
✨ NEW! Everything else we've done this month!
Our Tech Team have had another super busy month. Below is a list of everything else that will be included in our August release:
General Updates
✅ Click on an Employee's name and/or avatar in the 'My 1:1s' section to immediately navigate to their profile.
✅ The Admin Reporting User Export now includes columns to show when Motivators and Wellbeing were last updated.
Updates to Evaluate
✅ Improvement to how Admins can apply changes to a live cycle:
- Apply filter to view manager changes and/or user deletions
- Update all Manager Updates with one click
- Notifications sent to Admins to alert them of changes to be applied
✅ Resolved an issue that was preventing 'Calibration' aliases from applying in all areas of the tool
✅ Resolved an issue that was affecting the user export if custom groupings were being used
✅ Updated the Calibration Summary table to include the Self-Evaluation rating (as well as manager and Calibrated ratings)
✅ Improved wording on some pop-up messaging and for Bulk Action descriptions