For the second time in as many days, Backboard has major new features! We’ve been really busy doing lots of great stuff, and the whole team is excited to share them with you today.

A new look

The first change is the most obvious: Backboard has a fresh new look:

Time zones

The Backboard team lives and works in California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, and having Pacific Standard Time on the server works great for us. But we realize that some of you live in other time zones, so we’ve added support for multiple time zones.

If you don’t change anything, Backboard will make its best guess as to what the correct time zone for you is, but you can always set it by visiting your account settings:

Deadlines

Want all of your feedback by a certain time? Backboard can’t force your colleagues to be any less lazy, but it can tell them by when you want their feedback.

Backboard will email your colleagues when the deadline is approaching and tell them if they’ve missed it. Castigating them for being deadbeats, though, is still up to you.

Built-in printing, with markup!

One feature requested more than any others is printing your documents with feedback. Even though we love extolling the virtues of a paperless office, there still are times when you’d love to have a hard copy. Wait no longer: right below your document, you’ll find a print button that will give you the option to print the document, the feedback, or both:

Downloading your documents

Usually, when you create a Backboard, the process goes something like this:

1. Upload your document
2. Get feedback
3. Upload a new version
4. Get more feedback

What if you lose your original before step 3? What if you’re using somebody else’s computer, since Backboard is a web application and doesn’t require you to install anything?

Starting today, you can download your original document from Backboard. If you turn it on under “advanced options” when creating your Backboard, all of your reviewers can download it, too. The button is next to the aforementioned print button.

Speed, and lots more of it

Thanks to our new hosting partner Slicehost, Backboard is now between two and five times faster than it was last week. You’ll notice the increase in speed everywhere you click on the site. Sign up for Slicehost through this link and we’ll give you a free month of Backboard!

Whitepapers, features, and solutions for you

Want to deploy Backboard across your organization, but can’t get approval from the higher-ups without those product materials they love so much? Backboard’s new features and solutions pages have links to all the materials you’ll need, including this whitepaper:

Always looking for your feedback

We’re really thrilled with all of the new features that Backboard has, and we think you’ll love them too. Let us know what you think!