The 2019 Editorial Manager User Group (EMUG) meeting was a big hit! Emily Babcock, Tasha Wilhelmsen, and Lindsey Struckmeyer attended the meeting, which is held in Boston each year. EMUG is an excellent opportunity to meet Aries staff, network with other professionals within the industry, and learn about upcoming or underused EM features.
Upcoming EM versions 16.0, 16.1, and 17.1 will include many long-wished for new features, including custom people registration questions and a re-invite reviewer link. Some of our favorite new features include the editor decision form and batch article type configuration. Even minor updates, like being able to search for a manuscript number including “R1” or “R2,” will be extremely useful for editorial offices. Looking beyond version 17.0, we are excited to see the advances coming for the LiXuid Manuscript functionality.
Favorite Sessions
Our favorite session year after year is the Feature Workshop and this year was no different. After an introduction to upcoming features, EMUG kicks off with an opportunity to give Aries direction as to what to develop next. All attendees are divided into groups lead by an Aries staff member. Attendees are then given an opportunity to list off any and all suggestions for improving existing features or suggestions for new features. Each group then votes on the 3 best suggestions, which are then brought back and displayed to the entire attendee group as a whole. As an exciting suggestion is displayed, there are often bursts of applause for the most popular ideas. All ideas are then taken back to the Aries developers to work on future updates.
Lindsey Struckmeyer’s personal favorite sessions were on EM’s Enterprise Analytics Reporting (EAR). All EM users know that while EAR is extremely powerful, it is equally complex and can be difficult to use. Aries’ reports experts, Michael Hambloch and Melanie Cotterell, gave helpful tips and tricks for navigating EAR and building complex reports. Their presentation has already helped her build 3 EAR reports just this week!
As always, EMUG is also a wonderful opportunity to meet some of our clients for the first time or continue to develop relationships with those we know. One of the highlights of EMUG is the personal conversations with clients and Aries staff between sessions, at lunch, or during cocktail hour. We are lucky enough to have truly lovely clients, and we always enjoy learning more about their workflows and getting to know them on a more personal level.
To learn more about Editorial Manager and how it can power your peer review process, contact us today!
Lindsey Struckmeyer is an Editorial Client Manager and Systems Support Expert at J&J Editorial.