WORK[etc] Web App Blog

What the new "Discussion" tool does is allow you to discuss any project, sales lead, support task or any other WORK[etc] activity right inside of WORK[etc].

We then store that discussion against that activity, making it searchable and a critical part of your business intelligence.

We also introduce a concept called "Request Response". What this does is allow one user to specifically call out to another user and ask that they respond to their question or request. This Request Response is highlighted in the discussion thread and treated as an alert.

Read more and view screen grabs on the Discussion Tool feature suggestion.

The major enhancements include:

• more precise WYSIWYG editing
• drag and drop images from your desktop (rather than browsing and uploading)
• Insert any WORK[etc] object (ie a project) directly into the RTE area. Previously you had to open another window and copy and paste a link.
• Insert a WORK[etc] contact directly into the RTE area
• RTE now works in Safari for iPad - this is actually a big deal given most RTE's are blocked Safari Ipad.

Read more and preview screen grabs for the new Rich Text Editor.

The fundamental issue I have with all dashboards is the sole focus on the display of data and reports. Over time people become blind to that information and the dashboard usefulness erodes.

So what we are building with the new widgets is a focus on encouraging action so that the WORK[etc] dashboard becomes part of your team's daily habit:

• Show me what work I need to do today
• Show me what my team has just finished
• What are the new items in WORK[etc] that I need to be aware of?

And then of course each dashboard can be filtered to show only certain activities, or priority items and more.

The demand for integration into Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook & Google Plusone has been growing steadily over the last 24 months. It is only really now that it has hit a tipping point with clever ideas for implementation coming from businesses that don't fit the typical "early adopter" profile.

So, working with a third party provider, the social media integration will include:

• allowing your customers to complete web forms via a social media account
• grabbing pictures and profile information where your customer has opted in and storing that content against their contact profile in WORK[etc]
• addition of a tab inside of the contact profile that will upload with that contacts latest updates

We are still in the scoping stage right now (and until late January) so if you have some ideas around this, please post to > Feature Suggestions > Social Media Thread

Marketing Automation& (drip-marketing)

The first stage is custom workflows for sales, marketing and email and will include tools for:

• Triggers (ie attaching a particular tag to a contact)
• Actions (ie create and assign a new sales lead)
• Time Delays (ie after this action, then wait for 48 hours)
• Splits and Joins (ie if the email is opened, then create a new sales lead, if the email is unopened then send this follow-up email

We have basically completed the scope and planning for this, but if you have a last minute idea, feel free to post here.

This is an "enterprise-strength" addition to the project management software that will facilitate an organization-wide view of "who is working on what, and how busy they are" as well as providing evidence-based planning.

So instead of guesstimating how long a particular project type may take, you'll be able to quickly view metrics for similar projects your team has completed in the past.

The second part of this project is to produce in real-time a utilization heat map that shows how busy your co-workers or work group is.

We need some help scoping this out to make sure we get all the key functionality included in this first release. Add your ideas into the resource planning thread.  Want it sooner?

This is a complete overhaul of the WORK[etc] end-customer portal. This project includes more control over design and branding, better collaboration with your customers and an option to host the portal on your own web site.

We are about to start coding this in partnership with one of our customer, so this is literally your last chance to have input into the customer portal.

You do work at your desk, you capture data or make updates when you are on the road.

Have your say on our next generation mobile apps (before we lock down the scope on February 1st)

Online purchase order creation, tracking and fulfilment tool with tight integration into projects and billing modules.

Unfortunately demand for this seems to ebb and flow and as such the project keeps slipping. Want it sooner?

Ability to create fully-automatic subscription invoice to your customers, including automatic emailing, automatic credit card charges and an approval and reporting mechanism.

This is probably one of the oldest requests we have on file and we are finally comfortable with the security issues around this project (ie where something to go wrong with this tool, it would go really wrong)
Want it sooner?

This is another project that keeps getting pushed out because again customer demand for it comes and goes.

Essentially this creates a new "employee" type in WORK[etc] called a "contractor" who has full use of all WORK[etc] features, but however is only charged on actual useage, rather than a monthly fee. Want it sooner?