In response to user feedback and demand, eTool now offers TWO dynamic seat sharing functionalities to help improve the seat sharing experience.

Our recently released ‘Specialist Hotseat’ is built on user demand for more flexibility and freedom to share their seats in eTool. With this new hotseat feature, users now have an upgrade option to let the software automate the seat sharing functionality in real-time. This functionality makes seat allocation seamless and enhances the user experience. It also makes the use of purchased seats a lot more efficiently when simultaneous use of the software is not at its limit which is beneficial for multi-discipline design teams. When an organisation has purchased Specialist Hotseats, the org Admin is able to allocate these seats to their users in the ‘Manage Users’ tab. There is no limit to the number of users they could allocate these seats to as the Organisation Admin.

Specialist Hotseat

The ‘Specialist Hotseat’ is an upgraded version of the standard Specialist seat. The upgraded seat means that the software automatically manages the seat sharing function among multiple users that have been assigned the hotseat within the same organisation.

• Seats are automatically allocated by the software in real-time at login, depending on the number of seats available;
• Once the Org Admin has allocated the seats, admin users can still control user access to specific projects (Lead, Collaborator, Read Only, Not Involved) while the software will automatically manage seat allocations within the organisation. Please refer to this support post for more detail on managing Organisation members;
• In-app communication process when all seats are allocated to verify if active users would like to retain access or revert to read-only;
• only 25% additional cost compared to the standard Specialist seat which has no hotseat functionality (manual management of seat sharing);
• For more info on how the seat works, please refer to this post.

In addition to new ‘Specialist Hotseat’, we are also introducing the ‘Specialist External Seat’ functionality. The ‘Specialist External Seat’ function allows organisations with this functionality to have external contractors/consultants that ‘bring-your-own’ seat when collaborating within their organisation on eTool. This feature can only configured by eTool application administrators, so please get in touch if you’re interested in activating this feature. 

Specialist External Seat

• Available only for organisations with a minimum of five (5) Specialist Hot-seats;
• External consultants with an existing eTool standard Specialist or Specialist Hotseat seat will not require an additional seat allocation within the organisation and will be able to utilise their existing seats when collaborating on projects (note that for Specialist Hotseat users, their access will be dependant on their Hotseat availablility. Otherwise their access will be ‘Read Only’ until a Hotseat is available to them);
• The external user needs to be invited to join the Organisation in eTool first to be assigned the Specialist External Seat. Please refer to this support post for more information on how to invite users to your organisation;
• Organisations with this feature activated can assign unlimited ‘External Specialist Seats’ to members of their organisation;
• For more info on how the seat works, please refer to this post.

Please read the following related articles for more information:

Subscription Pricing Details

Specialist Hotseat: How Does It Work?

Specialist External Seat: How Does It Work?

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