Elly Yates-Roberts |
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated adoption of mixed reality technology around the globe. The product development teams at Microsoft have responded by releasing a steady stream of new features and hardware to address the growing needs of the global mixed reality community.
As a Mixed Reality Gold partner, CraneMorley has been on the leading edge of this effort. Whether testing the latest features in pre-release stage, developing mixed reality proofs of concept for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides, or developing custom workshops for our clients, the CraneMorley team is consistently focused on making sure our clients are maximising their mixed reality efforts.
In the last year alone, Microsoft has released a new version of the HoloLens hardware – HoloLens 2 Industrial Edition – as well as a variety of new features that enable Guides to manage complex situations. The rapid cadence of new feature and hardware releases enables partners like CraneMorley to create award-winning mixed reality content.
At its launch, the Guides application was ideal to walk a user through a linear instruction set. This experience is enhanced by images, videos and 3D models in the user’s workspace to walk them through even complex procedures. However, Guides was lacking the ability to add critical thinking or decision-making into a given procedure.
Branching and spatial triggers were added to the Guides platform in October 2020 and have unlocked many new use cases. The key is the addition of the ability to ‘navigate’ within a Guide. Users can set up a question or virtual trigger in their space which moves them to a different task or step based on their selections. These features have made it possible for trainees to learn to make decisions in real time, respond to error messages, diagnose potential issues or even explore training content at their own pace.
At CraneMorley we have embraced branching and spatial triggers in all Guides that we develop. This is best highlighted by a recent medical simulation Guide that requires doctors or nurses to make the correct decisions to address a post-partum haemorrhage.
Guides has always provided organisations with a detailed data report which tracks time and motion for a Guide. A new update has unlocked additional capabilities for what organisations can do with this data. The information is stored on the Microsoft Dataverse and can be used to monitor completion status and trigger workflows based on that status. This data can also be used to analyse step times and optimise workflows, as well as providing comparisons with the latest industry standards to improve processes and workflows.
Nicholas Berger is senior instructional designer at CraneMorley
This article was originally published in the Summer 2021 issue of The Record. To get future issues delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for a free subscription.