This was the second week of our KTLO efforts — we upgraded dependencies, increased test coverage and improved alerting to continue raising the bar on how we continue iterating on Runway while being responsive to all of your feedback.
In conjunction with a litany of behind-the-scenes improvements that are making Runway more reliable, secure, and performant, here are some fixes you'll see in the app:
Adam added a new keyboard shortcut ⌘ or ctrl + / for toggling the state of the navigation sidebar!
Jonathan made an improvement to our page routing system that should make navigating to a Runway page via a link snappier.
We are shifting back into our regularly scheduled product work next week. We're excited for our investments in Keeping The Lights On to help our team continue moving quickly to keep improving Runway for you.
This week, the primary focus across the Engineering team is "Keep the Lights On" (KTLO) 💡
Although this work might not result in immediate visible product changes, it is crucial for maintaining top-notch customer service and product quality. The team is exploring various aspects, including upgrading the libraries we use, enhancing our system alerting and monitoring to detect emerging issues promptly, and improving our testing suite to reduce and prevent regressions, among others.
Simultaneously, Jonathan and Selasi have made enhancements to the performance of drivers' tables. These improvements are most noticeable when:
Scrolling through a lengthy drivers table on the same model or page.
Navigating between models or pages that contain drivers tables you've previously loaded.
That is for this week! Thanks for your continuous feedback 🙌
Hello! This week at Runway, we've been cooking up some exciting new updates. From streamlining Plans to boosting system performance, here’s what’s new and improved! 🤌
Default plans
We've simplified the Plans feature to make it more intuitive and user-friendly. Now, all edits will initially appear under a "Default Plans" group until you intentionally reassign them. This puts you in full control of organizing and naming your Plans, and makes it even easier to auto-group with AI!
Filter plans by name
You can now easily filter Plans by name on your pages. This allows you to showcase only the Plans you want to share, without including irrelevant ones that happen to impact the same model or database.
Merge screen enhancements
We've made the merge screen clearer and more comprehensive:
Database column changes are now consolidated into one section per database, making it easier to review all changes at once.
More changes to drivers (e.g., colors, references, names, precision) are now surfaced, providing a complete picture of what's been modified.
Database improvements
We've made numerous enhancements to databases to improve your workflow and experience. Expect a smoother ride while working with your data, especially with copy paste.
Performance boosts
Behind the scenes, we've deployed a number of optimizations and fixes to make Runway snappier and we're cooking up even more. Enjoy a more seamless planning experience.
Keyboard navigation in filters
Zip through formula filter menus using your keyboard's left and right arrow keys, even when the menu is open. It's like flipping through the 3 Body Problem!
And more!
Squashed pesky bugs to keep things running smoothly
Fine-tuned integrations for faster data syncing
Polished up parts of the app for even better contrast
Another week in the books, and the engineering team continues to keep digging into every nook and cranny of the product to ensure that working in Runway feels intuitive, with several quality of life fixes coming in hot this week.
Huge shoutout to Xavier and Shinjini for leading the charge on the following improvements!
Formula editing is safer
When you have focus on a formula pill in the editor, typing will not overwrite your formula value so you don't lose your work.
Better handling of trailing whitespace when writing formulas with numbers in them to not inadvertantly create drivers.
Made database columns easier to find in the formula search menu
Fixed a bug where users could enter a jumpy hover menu state when selecting drivers to add to a block near the bottom of a page.
Filtering is more usable
There's now auto-focus on the search input when opening a filter dropdown list: This lets you get right to searching for the values you want when filtering down your data.
More natural upranking of selected items in filter dropdowns: This lets you quickly keep an eye on what's currently selected in a filter, so nothing falls through the cracks.
Copy-paste works more reliably
Handle pasting in accounting-formatted values for "0" from Excel and other spreadsheet tools. Previously, these would mistakenly cause a type mismatch.
More reliable driver initialization in databases on copy-paste, as well as when opening the detail pane. This ensures that as soon as you want to interact with a driver, it's there for you.
Fixed a bug where copy-paste was not working when databases were "viewed as" a driver grid.
Fixed a bug where copy-paste in databases used to not paste values on both sides of "Last Close".
Nichole from the Engineering team started this week with the mindset of "a little goes a long way," and she's been busy making some quality of life improvements.
Firstly, you can now display a legend in line charts that compare multiple scenarios or snapshots. To do this, simply click on "Show legend" at the top of the chart. It’s been long overdue but we’re thrilled to say it’s here 🚀
Next, when you're examining a driver's detailed view, the horizontal scroll of the driver and its dependencies (inputs, used by, plans) are synchronized. This makes it much easier to tie data from the same time frame.
Lastly, similar to the previous point, when inspecting a plan, the horizontal scroll is now synchronized between the plan's block and the inspector.
We're back from a team offsite in Nashville and have some new updates coming your way!
Driver changes are now fully scoped to scenarios
We've made significant updates to how driver changes are handled within scenarios to boost your confidence and clarity in modeling. Experiment freely with driver updates scoped to scenarios and understand your updates with a clarified "Review and Merge" screen.
You can see a detailed list of actions now scoped to scenarios, and a full overview of the changes, in a fresh Help Center article here.
Improved comparison view
You can now configure how snapshots or scenario data is shown (as rows, or as columns) when conducting forecast comparisons or BvA!
Bug fixes and small improvements
There was an issue where integration syncs could leave extraneous drivers in your workspace, resulting in duplicated data. This has now now corrected.
The formula filter selection menu is now sorted alphabetically, and selected items are pulled to the top of the list for scannability.
We’ve shipped an improved view for raw integration output so you can see your query results in raw form - it’s much faster for viewing large data and confirming it’s as you expect.
We’ve reduced visual clutter in comparison views and BvAs by representing zero variance as a - .
This week, we've introduced the long-awaited ability to use the same driver across all your submodels and pages with ease! Say goodbye to creating separate drivers for P&L Revenue, Balance Sheet Revenue, and Sales Revenue just to reference the same variable.
Format drivers in databases
The same format menu you know and love, now available in your dimensional databases!
Monopoly man retires
It's with a mix of emotions we bid farewell to our beloved Monopoly Man, marking the end of an era. As he retires, we honor his invaluable contributions and welcome a new era of more understandable and less intrusive error messages
Bug squash & quality of life updates
Navigate directly to the dimension management menu from a database column's property menu - quite handy for those with several similar dimensions.
Actuals formula columns now stay empty until explicitly defined, preventing confusion with forecast formulas.
Formulas can now reliably be set when creating a new dimensional driver in a database.
Dimensional drivers can now be used as a time offset when building formulas. Previously, using dimensional values as a time reference returned a null value.
Dimensional drivers in databases can now be renamed.
Create Workspaces in Runway to group assets together: model, database, or page. This is great for collaboration and organization, allowing your teammates to find what they need quickly. Additionally, you can nest and collapse resources to slim down your navigation panel.
Permissions for Workspaces coming this summer!
Database lookup columns
Think v-lookups, but for 2024. Use plain English to link multiple databases together, and clearly specify the column you'd like to fill in values by. This functionality is currently available on dimensional databases - if you have questions or would like to enable them for your organization, please let your CX rep know.
Scenario emojis and descriptions
From the world of fan-favorite requests, you can now add descriptions and emojis to your scenarios - happy planning!
Bulk provisioning
Inviting the whole team just got faster! You can enter comma-separated lists to Share sheets, allowing you to share that investor report with your board in seconds.
No need to navigate back to the source model - build out new drivers right as you plan in Pages.
User presence in Pages
See your teammates in Runway pages! This feature unlocks new levels of collaboration, ensuring stakeholders are following along with live presentations and understanding when your team might be making updates async.
We've moved scenario navigation and other settings to the top navigation bar to make it more clear when you're in a draft state. It's also now much faster for admins to review and merge work back to Main using the ⌘/ctrl + shift + M shortcut. If the shortcut is used when the merge comparison window is open (or if you use the shortcut twice in succession), the layer will be committed to its parent. Lots more changes are coming soon in the world of scenarios - stay tuned!
Sharing resources with invited users
In our last release note, we shared that you can now invite users from the Settings menu. We've expanded work here to include provisioning resources to invited users. Now, you can invite users via email and then set up access rights for Members and Managers so the workspace is fully provisioned when they land in Runway for the first time. More details on Roles & Permissions in Runway here!
Different drivers, same name
Drivers can be created with the same name in multiple places! This was a perennial thorn in the side of...well, everyone. Now, you can create things like Income for your P&L, Balance Sheet, and growth model without naming conflicts.
Formula editor
Our formula editor got a lot of love this week! Enjoy lots of quality-of-life updates in one of the most heavily trafficked features of Runway including:
Auto-save formulas in databases - no more lost WIPs!
All formula filters now use the same filter menu
Better navigate the formula editor via keyboard with smoother arrow handling
Dimensional attribute colors are now present in the formula editor
Selected attributes in dimensional driver menus stay at the top of the list
Netsuite and Quickbooks custom query integrations are now much more self-serve in our new form-based integration! You can now slice and dice your accounting data by things like department, vendor, or class without touching SQL or having to ping your CX rep.
Value charts
A fan-favorite chart here at Runway, value charts are now much more powerful. In addition to the current month, you can now configure these value charts to show values as of Last Close, current or previous periods (months, quarters, years), and custom months.
User invites
You can now invite your own team members into Runway without needing assistance from a crew member or requiring new users to log in before setting proper roles! Head to Settings → Users to invite new folks and change roles.
Authenticate from anywhere
We've expanded our authentication options to include Microsoft and Xero, in addition to Google and Rippling. Now, you can onboard your team or share with investors regardless of their email platform.
Bugs + quick hits
Count() function now supports non-numeric drivers, meaning you can more easily count things like employees.
When adding driver tables to pages, we now preserve indenting and ordering from the original models.
Creating a new driver from the formula editor no longer closes out the formula modal
Last Sync timestamps in your integrations page now show in your local timezone, so you have a clearer picture of when your data was last updated.
Support for wide models is now supported via Google Sheets! What is a wide model, you might ask? Well, probably your existing spreadsheet. If you have a time series with the months across the header row, we’ve now got you covered ✅
For custom query integrations via Fivetran, you can know reliably see the last time your data has been synced. Hitting “resync” will now also refresh to the source system, so planning across multiple systems is more streamlined 🏊♂️
Our integration power users noted a bug where many query tabs make it impossible to access the latter queries in an integration. This has been resolved - SQL to your hearts content! 🧑💻
Database Usability
Dimensional databases can now be sorted by dimensional and driver columns! If you’re using advanced mapping workflows or pulling together a database from multiple sources, this one’s for you. 🤝
Users on smaller screens can now more reliably edit formula filters, even if you’re at the very edges of a database. 🧗
For those of you following our migration to backend calculations, we’re now entering early beta.
