Written by
The XWiki Team
From being thrown into the middle of a pandemic to everyone's - personal and professional lives - suddenly being turned upside down, 2020 was anything but a normal year. Despite that, we learned to adjust and found ways to keep working under the new circumstances, while also trying to help others do the same. Here is a look back on 2020 at XWiki and everything we managed to accomplish.
Company Achievements
Seamlessly switched to the new normal: remote work
Like most others, our teams bid goodbye to the office at the beginning of March and each of us began working from the comfort of our own homes. However, here at XWiki, we're spread across multiple countries, with remote workdays already part of our flexible work culture and colleagues who have been doing it full-time for years. Because of this, online collaboration is a norm by now and we had plenty of resources available to make the transition feel smooth and help us settle into it.
We shared plenty of those in the hope that it would help others as well and make it feel less like suddenly being plunged unprepared in the deep ends of unfamiliarity (even if just a little bit):
- Our special offers for remote work
- Curated tips, free tools, and resources for remote work - a comprehensive list we've been constantly updating through the year
- How to adjust to working from home - general tips and how to's
- How to reconfigure HR activities for remote work - tips and tricks from our HR team on finding creative ways to keep employee morale and engagement high
As some of us found out, remote work can work and become the new normal without too much struggle. However, that's not to say it's for everyone. Working from the same place where you usually come to relax and unwind can blur the lines between work and personal life, meaning it's harder to unplug at the end of the day and separate the two. And when that happens, burnout can slowly start creeping in and make both productivity and morale plunge. We talked more in-depth about this topic, along with how to combat it here.
Maintained great clients and founded new partnerships
- EasyVista - The EasyVista team was looking for a tool that could be implemented internally in order to avoid numerous email exchanges and reduce silos within the company. XWiki helped them meet this goal with a bi-lingual Knowledge Base solution comprised of 3 wikis: two for internal use and one shared with the public.
- XWiki and the Social Emergency Center - Back in April, XWiki partnered with a Romanian NGO to aid their progress in making lives easier during the pandemic for elderly people. Here's a look at what we've accomplished together.
Joined the OVHCloud marketplace
In May, XWiki joined the newly launched marketplace, bringing us one step closer to new users.
Attended and held great online events
- FOSDEM - with over 20 of our colleagues attending, we organized the "Collaborative Information and Content Management Applications" devroom, participated with presentations in three different tracks, tackling different hot subjects from new features, compatibility, and integration with other tools and services, and alternatives to existing solutions.
- September events (RemoteCon, Big Tour by Bpifrance, Digital Workplace, Activitypub Conference) - a series of online/on-site events our colleagues joined as speakers, presenting our latest features and answering questions about our tools.
- Our "How to build a knowledge base" webinar - in our first webinar, we tackled the subject of "How to build your Knowledge Base" and shared tips, tricks, and a quick demo on how you can do it in XWiki. While a slightly nerve-wracking experience, we look forward to doing more!
Continued to advocate for Open Source
At XWiki, Open Source is a vital part of our company culture - It's the tools we use, the practices we adopt, and the way we conduct business. We've continued showcasing its importance by talking about the wiki culture and what it means, as well as sharing some of our colleague's impressions on what's it like to work in an Open Source company without any previous knowledge of or experience with it. We've also put together an extensive A to Z guide of Open Source tools we use, love, and wholeheartedly recommend - to which we also encourage anyone to participate by sending us any suggestions here!
XWiki and CryptPad are not only our software, but they also belong to the community and you. You are welcomed to participate by developing, reporting bugs or features, and also sponsor the development of these projects: XWiki & CryptPad.
Shared tips for better organizations
We always strive to improve ourselves as an organization and find ways to do things better, while also sharing them with others. Here are a few highlights:
- Steps to building a learning organization
- Tips on handling miscommunication while working remotely
- How to keep your customers happy
- What remote teams can do for better customer support
Product
12.x Cycle
The 12.x cycle brought about various highly-requested and much-awaited features, such as in-place editing, user mentions, page likes, notifications, along with numerous performance updates. We managed to have over 1578 issues closed: 763 bugs, 288 improvements, 79 new features, and more.
XWiki Cloud updates
XWiki Cloud is the most convenient and cost-effective way to run XWiki. We take care of the setup, hosting, upgrades, maintenance, and backups, so you can focus on getting things done. In 2020, our cloud demo platform was updated to XWiki 11.10.3 which brought new features and bug fixes for an overall smoother and better experience.
CryptPad
In 2020 CryptPad saw a significant jump in usage and popularity as more and more people searched for tools to ease remote collaboration. The team worked hard throughout the year to adjust, first by contributing with 1GB of free storage, then focusing on bringing new features and improvements. Thanks to the grants received, progress was made on several of the proposed projects such as CryptPad teams, CryptPad communities, Secure Mobile Collaboration, MOSS, and more. If you'd like a more in-depth look at all of these, you can read more here.
Spread the word
Our team is continuously working to improve and make XWiki better by implementing new features, improvements, or sharing useful tips. Whether it's via chats, emails, our help center, or articles, we want to make sure everyone gets the best out of their instance. Below is a shortlist of the pieces we've put together in 2020:
Knowledge sharing for better experiences
- How to install XWiki using Docker
- How to edit Office attachments in XWiki
- How to connect an existing user base to XWiki
- The best macros to create a custom dashboard
- Step by step wiki skin customization
- Essential extensions for XWiki
- Highlights from XWiki Apps improvements
- Three tasks our support team can solve during a remote intervention
Guides for easier usage
- Confluence to XWiki migration guide: from export to customization
- SharePoint to XWiki: structured documents migration
- How to choose the best Office apps for XWiki
- How to install XWiki Pro Apps offline
- How to move your content between XWiki On-Premise and Cloud
- How to create your own PDF Template
- A step-by-step guide for building an intranet in one hour
- Key criteria for choosing a collaborative CMS
Consolidated the team
2020, in spite of itself, helped us consolidate our team and bring new people on-board. We had Stefan who joined us as an intern, then a full-time employee, in the Cloud & Paid Apps squad. We welcomed back Gabriel (about who you can read more here), as well as Clement D. as part of the Client Squad.
We also celebrated a new milestone - our first virtual seminar! Since we couldn't get together as we usually did around that time of the year, we switched to an online version of it. While it couldn't replace the face-to-face interactions, it was an all-in-all enjoyable experience that allowed teams to catch up, work together on new features, and participate in fun activities at the end of the day.
Last, but not least, we started a "get to know the team" series of articles where we explore our colleagues' journeys to and at XWiki. If you have missed them, you can check them out here and learn a bit more about the people working behind the scenes to make it all happen.
