Cocoon release notes: what’s new in October 2024

Q4 is in full swing, and Team Cocoon is busy building new functionality to take even more off your team’s plate. Keep reading to learn more about how you can leverage two top-requested features, email visibility and employee SSO, as well as several smaller but impactful updates. Because managing leave should not be the spookiest thing you encounter this October.

Full context in a couple clicks: introducing email visibility in Cocoon

You can now see all notices and emails we send to each employee right in your Cocoon Dashboard. Your Leave Log will include the details (time stamp, attachments, subject line, anyone cc’d) and full text of any compliance notice or email employees receive throughout their leave. We already took this communication work off your plate, and now we’re showing our work to make sure you’re always in the loop. This level of real-time visibility is one of the many benefits of a tech-powered leave solution, and we’re excited to see this top-requested feature out in the wild. Check out the experience below.

SO long email and password, welcome SSO for employees

Why should Admins have all the fun? Our new SSO login option for employees gives your team an even more seamless experience the moment they interact with Cocoon. This new functionality also means employees don’t need a work email to use Cocoon—critical to expanding access to employees a wider range of job functions. Our SSO feature leverages OpenID Connect (OIDC), a secure protocol that verifies user identities, and works for most companies regardless of SSO provider.

Small wins, big impact

Some launches are flashier than others, but smaller improvements stack up over time to make a real impact to the overall experience for both People teams and employees. Our team is always hard at work to make incremental changes based on our community’s needs. Here are a few recent small but mighty updates that are now live:

Dayforce HRIS integration: Dayforce users can instantly sync their census data with Cocoon and leave manual uploads behind. Implementation takes about 15 minutes—get started on your Settings page.
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Contact screen updates: Based on feedback, we updated the “Contact us” design to make it crystal clear to employees how to get the support they need at any time. Check it out below, and remember that employees can always request a call if they’d prefer to speak with one of our CLMS-certified leave specialists.

Guidance for CA EDD Certification for Continued Benefits: Things with the EDD aren’t always super straightforward, so we’re stepping in to help employees in California who may need to complete a Certification for Continued Benefits form. If applicable, CA employees will now see a specific task in their Dashboard, along with detailed Help Center articles on how to complete the required forms to ensure they get their benefits without hassle or delay.

Stay tuned: big things are coming to expand leave access to employees who need it 

First up: we’re hard at work on building a brand new experience for intermittent medical and caregiver leaves in Cocoon. This functionality will help expand access to critically-needed leave time for many employees, all while making a complex process less confusing, less time consuming, and less prone to human error.  Keep your eyes peeled for a launch announcement in the coming weeks.

And last but in no way least….support for hourly employees is coming! Our mission to empower every working person to take care of what matters most is certainly not limited to those with standard Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm schedules. Our team is busy building to expand Cocoon’s product support to those with fixed (i.e. doesn’t change week over week) hourly schedules by the end of the year. Building the future of leave is a long road, and we’re excited to approach this milestone of expanding access to a reliable, seamless leave experience for this employee population.

We’ve said it once (or many times) and will say it again: here at Cocoon, we’re committed to keeping you fully in the loop along the journey toward transforming leave. Have feedback or thoughts on anything above? Feel free to share them directly with our Product Marketer, Libby Buttenwieser, at product-feedback@cocoon.com.