WORK[etc] Web App Blog

Over the next few days Simon will be making available the new time tracking beta (I'll update this post and Twitter when we set it live).

Also attached to this release is an update to the look and feel of the calendar.  Cleaner design, bolder colors and no more wishy-washy pastels!

The big change to the timesheets is more choice in how you want to record your time.  Rather than forcing you to use a single way of entering timesheets, we now provide for three different styles.

Calendar Timesheet Entry

This is the legacy time sheet entry method whereby you drag and drop a time period on a calendar screen and enter in details to record your time.

Good for: When you need to record exact start and stop times and record a lot of detail against each entry.  For example, a management consultant often needs to provide a client with exact times and a detailed account of what they were working on.

Line Timesheet Entry

This new time entry screen allows you to create a row for each project you are working on and enter a simple  time value for a project on that day.  Unlike the Calendar Entry, Line Entry doesn't demand you enter a specific start / stop time - all it wants to know is the number of hours worked.

Good for: Quick entry of time, when the exact start and stop times are not required.  You can set up your projects at the start of the week and quickly tab through each day and record your hours worked.

Group Timesheet Entry

This new tool replaces the old "bulk entry" tool and is designed for organizations that assign an assistant or project team member to manage timesheets for others or when an entire team is working on the same project.  It allows a person to assign the same project to a number of employees and then enter work hours for that group.

Good for: Managing timesheets on behalf of other people and efficiently creating mass timesheet entries for groups of people.

New Interface Tools

Existing customers would have noticed the two new interface selection tools that are being introduced with this beta release.

The new Associated With menu item takes everything to do with a contact and breaks it down into categories such as Projects, Support Cases, To-Do's and more.  This makes selecting a target object more intuitive and faster to find what you are seeking.

The new Employee Selection tool makes it more efficient to select multiple applies when assigning employees to a task, project, timesheet etc.  Previously you needed to search for an employee, hit the "append" button and then repeat for each person you wanted to include.  This new system simply lists all available employees in a menu which allows for multiple selection.

New Product Import

We have just upgraded the product import tool.  It now works the same as importing your contacts file:

• Upload a file in CSV or Excel
  
• Match column headers to WORKetc fields
• Hit import

This is live and available to use right now.

Revised Roadmap

We received a lot of positive response to making our product roadmap publicly available.  As we are rapidly building out and improving WORKetc, I wanted to make an effort to publish updates to the Roadmap with every blog post and where possible start adding a bit more detail:

Timesheets & Calendar - available as a beta very shortly.

CRM, Leads and sales management - end of January for beta.

• This has been pushed out as we're now including some big changes such as saved custom views, sales templates (drip marketing) and expansion of custom fields.  It is a huge development round.
  

Outlook Addin - from February

Email marketing - Jan , Feb:

• We'll be hooking up a dedicated email server for this shortly which will remove any need for throttling.  The update in 2011 will mostly be tracking and interface with the addition of more custom designs.
  

Alerts & Permission - Feb

Billing - Feb, March, April

Price Increase

As mentioned in a previous post, the price increase is still planned for the end of the year:

• All existing customers will be grandfathered and can add or delete users and remain on the original pricing
• All trial customers, who have an active trial that crosses over the deadline can jump on with the original pricing
• Any customers or trial customers with cancelled accounts or expired trials will only be able to sign up with the new pricing.
  

Elsewhere on WORKetc

• Contribute your ideas on how the Outlook Addin would best work for you.
• Give feedback on the Project Management beta so that we can get it to public release.
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