ONE-KEY™ 2022: A Year in Review

2022 was a tremendous year for One-Key!

As we head into the holidays and wrap on 2022, here’s a look back to some of what we accomplished this year.

What's Inside

• New Website!
• New Quarterly Launch Communication Emails
• Award-Winning One-Key Hardware 
• Most Read Articles of the Year 
• Articles in Third-Party Publications 
• New Content Types:
  • One-Key Team Spotlights
  • Quiz
• One-Key App Updates, Knowledge Base Consolidation, and Recent Support Articles
• Final Treat: One-Key Wrapped Playlist

New Website

We put a bow on this year and, this November, launched a new website (the news of this launch was also one of our most read articles of this year; read below!)

This project represents an exhaustive, multi-team collaborative effort between our One-Key product, brand marketing, construction technology, and development teams.

To quickly recap:

• We wanted to improve how we message the One-Key app.
• We worked alongside a UX strategist and real end users to better define needs and execute on a more streamlined homepage, a new “Why One-Key?” product overview landing page, and “pillar” pages that align with our One-Key product marketing objectives.

In addition to better aligning with our organization’s messaging and product priorities, this website is also high-performing, runs 25% more optimally just 30-days post-launch, and we are committed to continuously improve our website, both to address user needs and performance objectives.

• Read about the new One-Key website and rationale our detailed announcement blogpost.

New Quarterly Launch Communication Emails

As the leader in cordless innovation and also supporting the widest range of smart tools and equipment in the industry, there’s a LOT happening at Milwaukee® Tool, particularly from our One-Key compatible line of smart tools.

With this in mind, we recently devised a new way to keep subscribed users up to date with everything coming out of the One-Key platform: New One-Key compatible tools; new One-Key app features and related support; as well as other platform updates and useful links.

Pictured below is the first quarterly launch email:  

This new email communication will be sent quarterly to keep users informed on a rolling basis throughout the year.

If you’re not subscribed, we recommend subscribing for updates.

Award-Winning One-Key Hardware

In case you missed it, our One-Key Bluetooth tracking tag, launched last November, has earned some critical acclaim!

• One-Key Bluetooth Tracking Tag Wins Pro Tool Innovation Award
• One-Key Bluetooth Tracking Tag Wins Chicago Innovation Award

Most Read Articles of the Year

As with each year, we spent considerable time creating a lot of valuable, detailed, and well-researched content, determined to be a premier destination for industry-leading thought leadership.

The stats are in. Here are the stories this year our readers couldn’t get enough of!

Most Read Articles Written This Year

The following articles are the most read articles we wrote this year:

• The Future of AI: Construction-grade Artificial Intelligence
• The Top 5 Greenest Cities in the World
• Smart Cities Examples: The Smart, The Not-So-Smart, and the Ugly
• Joining Oracle Industry Lab, Milwaukee Tool Provides an Immersive One-Key Experience

Additionally, the following articles were the most-read articles from our guest contributors (this year):

• How Contractors Should Navigate Supply Chain Issues
• What Caused the Labor Shortage (and How Do We Bounce Back)?

Popular Articles of the Last Quarter

The following are articles that were popular this past quarter:

• The Future of AI: Construction-grade Artificial Intelligence
• The Top 5 Greenest Cities in the World
• Smart Cities Examples: The Smart, Not-So-Smart, and the Ugly
• Milwaukee® Tool Refreshes ONE-KEY™ Program Website
• Digital Twinning: What Is a Digital Twin & Why Is Adopting One Important in Construction?
• Construction Tool Inventory Ideas: Setting Up a Tool Crib in 2022

Most Read Articles of All Time

In addition to articles we wrote this year that were popular and heavily read, the following articles are those that are our most read articles of all time. These articles cover evergreen topics that are consistently important:  

• Careers in Construction: What Does a BIM Specialist Do?
• Cost Overruns in Construction: 7 Reasons Your Project is Over Budget and What to Do about Them
• Exploring Landscaping Job Titles: Designer to Architect to Manager
• Container Craze: Are Shipping container Houses Actually Cheaper?

Additionally, the following article was the most-read guest-contributed article (of all time):

• 5 Ways Construction Will Supplement Economic Recovery

Articles in Third-Party Publications

In addition to creating timely content and leading-edge industry thought leadership in our own One-Key connectivity blog, we also make it a point to expand our reach and credibility as thought leaders by contributing to first-rate industry publications.

Handle.com’s Blog:

• 6 Years Later: Revisiting McKinsey’s “Imagining construction’s digital future”
• Building Data Ecosystems in the Least Digitized Industry

IoT for All:

• Construction Management through Cloud and Mobile Apps
• Ultra-Wideband: Theorizing Pinpoint Construction Asset Tracking

Additionally, we worked alongside Oracle Construction and Engineering to syndicate our Industry Lab announcement article. We also syndicated a recent article in Construction Executive.

In addition to contributing articles, several One-Key team members have contributed their thought leadership at premier conferences and events:

• Andy Lambert, Director of One-Key Product and Construction Technology for Milwaukee Tool, recently spoke at NECA on emerging construction technology.
• Brianne Stewart, a Senior Construction Technology Manager at Milwaukee Tool supporting the One-Key app, has spoken at the E&C tech adoption leaders forum conducted by Built Worlds, contributed to the Net Zero Construction Conference, and participated in panel talks at the Industrial Grade Innovation Conference and Expo, participated in Built World’s Women in ConTech luncheon, among others. She’s also recently been named #47 on Built World’s premier 2022 Adoption Leaders 50 List!
• Nick Monica, Assistant One-Key Product Manager, recently joined the Construction Progress Institute.

In the new year, we hope to prioritize our relationships with third-party publications and continue to publish content related to the industry as well as how our platform helps deliver productivity and strengthen our industry.

A Look Behind the Curtains: One-Key Team Spotlights

In the latter half of the year, we started a new content series highlighting our support and UX research teams.

These team spotlights were developed to humanize our team and showcase their efforts. Our goal was to give readers of this series a more behind-the-scenes look of the One-Key development team and showcase some of the amazing talent working here, as well as their relentless hard work and commitment to our end users.

We started this series with two of One-Key team members who truly exemplify our company’s core values: Corey, our lead One-Key support representative; and Tennyson, one of our Senior UX Design Researchers.

In the new year, we hope to further spotlight our One-Key team, including our construction technology, customer success, and product management teams.

• Read team spotlight about One-Key support rep
• Read team spotlight about One-Key UX design researcher

Interactive Content: How Well Do You Know One-Key (Quiz)?

We wanted to experiment with new content types, particularly interactive content that helps engage our readers. After making observations through app reviews, conversing with end users, and talking with our support team, we also realized there are some misconceptions about the app, especially with regard to how Bluetooth tracking works.

We settled on making a quiz to help users test their app knowledge and, critically, serving up helpful resources that educate on app functionality.

This July, we released the first official One-Key Quiz. This quiz represents a collaborative effort with our development team, visual design team, and content team. Together, they have designed and developed the quiz input and output responses, and curated resources from our knowledge base and connectivity blog to offer references where misconceptions can be corrected as well as to contextualize responses with information from app updates.

This quiz has been shared with multiple teams within the organization, and we’re keen to use our learnings through creating it to attack additional interactive content types in the new year!

• Read about the quiz.
• Take the quiz to test your One-Key knowledge.

One-Key App Updates, Knowledge Base Consolidation, and Recent Support Articles

One-Key App Updates

Our One-Key product and development teams have been working together behind-the-scenes all year and bringing a lot of small, incremental improvements to make One-Key work smoother.

Outside of large feature updates like Job Costing (which we’ll discuss below), many of the changes have been performance improvements.

For example, back in April, we added the ability for deep linking.

Knowledge Base Consolidation

At the start of the year, we consolidated our support content.

We did this because we noticed that our old approach to creating support articles was not sustainable.

We did this because we noticed that our old approach to creating support articles was not sustainable.

• Problem: As we continue to support 3 platforms (Android, iOS, and Web), creating support articles for every new feature, as well as auditing and managing existing support content, the knowledge base was getting cumbersome, hard to navigate to the correct platform-specific resource.
• Solution: We consolidated our knowledge base articles to be cross-platform inclusive; that is, rather than creating a new article for every feature on every platform (i.e., 3 articles for every feature), we implemented a new process whereby each article includes documentation for ALL platforms. Utilizing anchor links, users can easily navigate from the introduction of each article to the platform-specific documentation they need.

This process was extensive and involved redirecting 78 articles but, once completed, we were able to cut down the total amount of knowledge base articles by about a third, and offer a more streamlined way to find the support you need.

• Read about how we consolidated our knowledge base in this blogpost.

Recent Support Articles

We wrapped on the end of November and early December by delivering on a HUGE new feature that affects multiple sections of the app: Job Costing.

However, we also delivered several recent support articles this year:

• Job Costing: How to Apply Rental Rates to Your Inventory & Generate Reports
• Web: Generate Hydraulics Reports
• Which Mobile Devices Are Supported or Not Supported by One-Key?
• Troubleshooting: Common Support Problems
• Mobile Device Management: What Is Possible When Pulling One-Key into an MDM?
• 4 Ways to Contact ONE-KEY™ Support
• Using Deep Links to Contextualize Your Reports
• Why & How to Replace Coin Cell Batteries on One-Key Compatible Tools
• How to Clear App Cache and Cookies and Why

Final Treat: ONE-KEY™ Wrapped Playlist

It’s been a momentous year for One-Key!

What’s more, as we head into the holidays, Spotify’s Wrapped has been abuzz within the departmental Slack channels.

While we still feel our ONE-KEY™ Team Holiday Favorites Spotify playlist is an evergreen playlist, chockfull of holiday bangers worth listening to every holiday season, we’ve created our own ONE-KEY™ 2022 Wrapped Spotify playlist you can stream!

In the new year, we look forward delivering more productivity-boosting One-Key features; additional solutions, smart tools, and connected devices to our growing product lineup, offering widest range in the industry; and thought leadership to help you build a more connected jobsite!