For the past couple of years CU*Answers has been working on a long-term strategic project that will introduce a new face and platform for our CU*BASE core processing software. With this new infrastructure, CU*BASE will be delivered to your credit union workstations via a browser window. And to go along with the snazzy new look and feel, we’re even planning a rebranding of the name (subject to trademark approval, of course)!
Watch this recipe for more news throughout 2024!
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NEW! CBX Sneak Peek Video from the 2024 Leadership Conference
Review hardware/software specifications for running CBX
CBX Status Update: October 2024
Speaking just for CU*Answers (CU*NorthWest and CU*South will be setting their own timetable), as of October 2024 here’s where we are. (Remember all of this is subject to change as we continue to refine and test the new interface.)
- Testing of the 20,000 panels has been underway in earnest for several months now. We are using not only our QC team but many subject-matter experts on our CU*Answers Management Services teams to work our way through the new screens, tool by tool.
- The week of October 28 we rolled out an alpha version of CBX to two of our board member credit unions. Employees are using CBX and CU*BASE GOLD side by side as they verify the new layout and give feedback to our developers.
- Additional board member credit unions will be added as beta testers later this year. Beta-testers will also use CBX side by side with CU*BASE GOLD.
- After the first of the year we will set a firm date for transitioning all credit unions to CBX, with the goal of having everyone actively using CBX prior to spring 2025 release.
- By spring 2025 we will also determine and announce a sunset date for CU*BASE GOLD, at which time the old GOLD interface will be taken offline. Don’t worry, everyone will be given plenty of notice!
Remember that our initial rollout is simply a transition to the new design. All the fields and buttons will be in roughly the same place and will work exactly the same as they do now. We expect the learning curve to be extremely short!
As a reminder about bandwidth, the requirements we published last summer were intended to allow the product to grow a bit. Websites today use a lot more bandwidth than they did 10 years ago, so just like anything else with technology, over time things will likely change. As always, we’ll work hand and hand with our clients to manage this growth and make sure everyone can take advantage of all the cool new things we’re planning for this interface.
You will have to keep your browser version up to date, of course. We’ve been talking about choosing one or two “preferred” browsers (such as Edge or Chrome), although others may work just as well as long as you are using the latest version. Stay tuned for more about that later.
We will soon begin our marketing for CBX, so watch your inboxes!
An Investment for Our Future
The investment to move CU*BASE to a new platform has been one of the largest we’ve made in many years, with the highest level of client impact. It’s akin to what we did back in 2000 when introducing the GOLD graphical user interface in the first place. We’re basically building a whole new user experience for CU*BASE, something that hasn’t changed substantially in 20+ years.
More importantly, our CUSO is investing in this for our collective future. Clients across the network will enjoy the benefits of the new platform and ongoing evolution for years to come…all with no change to their monthly invoice for core processing.
What’s Changing
- Data will be presented to users via a standard web browser, instead of client software loaded on individual workstations.
- Graphical design elements such as colors, buttons, fonts, and overall screen layout are being freshened up to use a more modern look and feel.
- Overall screen size of the browser window will be controlled by the end-user.
What’s Not Changing
- For the initial rollout, the layout of data on the screen will be pretty much identical to what users are familiar with now. The learning curve for your teams will be low.
- The underlying host screen, business logic, and architecture is exactly the same; only the UI presentation is changing.
- The underlying database and table structure is exactly the same. You’ll use the same analytics dashboards, reports, and Query tools to analyze and export data as you do now.
- A user must still be set up on our network to access CBX. We’re not building an web-based product that’s available via the Internet. We’re simply presenting the UI via a web browser.
- Although the user can resize their browser window and content will adapt, data will not necessarily expand to “fill up” a larger screen. (See “Dreams for the Future” for more on this.)
Dreams for the Future
Things that won’t change on day 1, but that we’re excited about for future phases:
- Screen layout innovations: Although the underlying host screen size isn’t changing, the new UI layer is much more flexible as to how much data can be displayed, even data that can’t fit on the host screen. For example, we can take advantage of the ability to scroll vertically and display far more accounts on the Inquiry, Phone, and Teller screens. We also use the larger screen real estate to eliminate the need to click on tabbed folders to display more content.
- Workflow innovations: Likewise, we can in some cases gather data from multiple screens, or even reach into the database and pull other related data to display on the larger display, without costly changes needed to the underlying host screen and business logic.
- Look and feel innovations: While we will no longer be offering separate user-defined color themes in the new design, the underlying architecture will allow us to get much more creative with colors and designs in the future, and we look forward to exploring those as things settle and we have time to experiment.
Finally, while we do have long-term plans to one day eliminate the need for print sessions and even Guapples, there are a many other moving parts that still need to be addressed. Solutions like Native Receipts and CU*Forms represent our first few steps along that journey, and CBX will take us even further down the road to eventually achieving that long-term dream.
What to Expect on Day 1
Most importantly, the learning curve will be very, very low! Remember that all we’re doing, essentially, is changing the look. The screens will work very similar to how they already look, just gussied up. Most fields will be in the exact same place and the buttons will all act the same way they do now.
From a user’s standpoint, this will be an extremely simple adjustment. However, it’s important that we are transparent about the realities of of a project of this magnitude:
- On day 1, things won’t be perfect, nor will we have all of our help and education materials converted to show the new look.
- While we will of course do basic QC testing, with 18,000 screens we will not catch every nuance. But your teams can help! Every screen will have a button you can click to report a problem or provide a suggestion.
- CU*BASE GOLD will continue to be developed in parallel and will be supported for a period of time during the transition. Once we’ve worked through any showstoppers we will set a sunset date for the old UI.
As with other foundation projects, CBX is a “base camp” for the next decade of evolution and innovation, and we’re chomping at the bit to get started on the journey!
Chefs for this recipe: Brian Maurer and Dawn Moore
Several members of our team were there last week and are very excited out the release of CBX. They did mention that there are internet bandwidth requirements for this new service but did not remember what those were. Would you be able to share those. We are looking to upgrade our services next year and want to make sure we provision plenty with the new product.
We have posted some new requirements on our hardware/software specifications page: https://www.cuanswers.com/resources/best-practices/cubase-network-and-hardware-specifications/. But keep in mind that as the project progresses these may be refined and adjusted. Before you make any large investments you might want to consult with our Network Services team about your particular situation.
Is there an anticipated “launch” date for the new interface? Are CUs required to move to the new interface right away? As the UI grows and develops, do you anticipate it will need more internet bandwidth?
Thanks for asking! We’re making great progress on this (very massive) project. Speaking just for CU*Answers (CU*NorthWest and CU*South will be setting their own timetable), as of March 2024 here’s what we’re shooting for. (Remember all of this is subject to change as we continue to refine and test the new interface.)
— CU*Answers will start rolling out an alpha version of CBX to our board member credit unions late this summer. Employees will use CBX and CU*BASE GOLD side by side as they verify the new layout and give feedback to our developers.
— Official beta-testing will begin with the 24.10 release. Beta-testers will also use CBX side by side with CU*BASE GOLD.
— Once we have some beta-testing under our belts, we will set a firm date for transitioning all credit unions to CBX, probably with or around the spring 2025 release.
— By spring 2025 we will also determine and announce a sunset date for CU*BASE GOLD, at which time the old GOLD interface will be taken offline. Don’t worry, everyone will be given plenty of notice!
Remember that our initial rollout is simply a transition to the new design. All the fields and buttons will be in roughly the same place and will work exactly the same as they do now. We expect the learning curve to be extremely short!
As to your question on bandwidth, the requirements we published last summer were intended to allow the product to grow a bit. Websites today use a lot more bandwidth than they did 10 years ago, so just like anything else with technology, over time things will likely change. As always, we’ll work hand and hand with our clients to manage this growth and make sure everyone can take advantage of all the cool new things we’re planning for this interface.
You will have to keep your browser version up to date, of course. We’ve been talking about choosing one or two “preferred” browsers (such as Edge or Chrome), although others may work just as well as long as you are using the latest version. Stay tuned for more about that later.
Self processing credit unions will need to purchase Microsoft Windows web servers to serve up the web pages that power CBX – one for their production system and one for their HA system. Our Sales and Network Services teams will be working directly with our self processing CU partners on the requirements and necessary configurations.
Dawn,
Can I sign up to be a BETA tester for CBX?
Although we’re still fine-tuning our beta-test plans, I will make a note of your interest and keep you posted. Appreciate your willingness to help, Matthew!
As we approach the testing and potential LIVE date for CBX, is there a way for CUA to “test” our bandwidth? We understand under the requirements listed, we are in the “range” however that just show we currently have the bandwidth, we do not know how much we are utilizing and if we would potentially need to add more due to other programs, processes, and branches when CBX goes live. Is there a way CUA can test how much bandwidth we are currently using so we have a better idea?
Thanks for asking, Abigail! We’ll bring this up with the team at our next internal meeting. Watch this Kitchen page for future updates!
In chatting with our network team, they wondered if maybe what you’re asking is how much available bandwidth you have. We can’t really answer this question for you or provide a “test” because we’re not your ISP. Based on our experience, the requirements we published should be adequate for how our client networks are typically used. If you want to have a sense of how much bandwidth you are already using, we suggest you ask your ISP to run a capacity report on your line, which should show available bandwidth over time.
We are also interested in BETA Testing CBX.
Thanks, Courtney! We’ll put you on the list!
Dawn I would like to make sure to stay in the loop of CU*Forms. What happens to the forms we have built-in to ProDoc?
Forms that are built into ProDOC and programmed into CU*BASE will need to be reprogrammed into CU*Forms. Sign up to start learning the process and get started today!
https://store.cuanswers.com/product/cuforms/
NOTE: Just to be clear, CU*Forms has nothing to do with the CBX project or its deployment, other than as an adjunct to allow us to meet our long-term goal of eliminating the need for print sessions and ProDOC. While we believe every CU should get started with CU*Forms sooner rather than later, your existing forms will continue to work just fine when CBX rolls out, until such time as we can migrate all forms for all clients over to the CU*Forms platform.
Good afternoon. Has there been discussion on how CBX will interact with the Dynacash/Dynacore teller machine applications?
We will work with Dynacash/Dynacore to “relearn” the screens for CBX, just like we did with GOLD. In fact we contacted them a few weeks ago letting them know something new was coming. We will work with them so they can build their new screen-scrape mappings. (Same thing for Diebold, too, by the way.)
kstate Credit Union would be interested in BETA testing the CBX platform.
Thanks, James!
We would like to be beta testers for the new system.
Has there been any progress on integration with TCRs?
I assume you are referring to the DynaCash “screen-scrape” feature that reads our teller screens to work with TCD/TCR machines. Yes, we have been in contact with DynaCash and they will be given access to CBX soon in order update their software to match the CBX layout. That will be part of our alpha test with Element and FOCUS, which started last week. We do not anticipate any problems with their being ready for when we start our more formal beta-tests with our other Board credit unions later this year.