WORK[etc] Web App Blog

We've got a lot of cool stuff going on... introducing 5 shiny brand new things.

1. New datacenter, new infrastructure
2. New mobile screen grabs
3. New people
   
4. New partner program
5. New tweaks and updates

And we're asking who would like to be considered for a Google Apps Gmail Gadget customer success story.

New thing #1:  Datacenter, infrastructure

Later this week we’ll be progressively migrating all accounts to a brand new datacenter with a hardware upgrade that is seriously hard-core.  For the tech-minded we’re moving to fully redundant firewalls, web servers, applications servers, SQL Clusters and SAN storage.  This is a long way from the single, budget machine we started with 3 years ago.

 

We’re also moving across to a datacenter that is less than 2 years old with more bandwidth providers meaning greater redundancy and reduced international latency.

 

Oh and this also addresses a recent customer concern – we will no longer be anywhere near the Californian San Andreas Fault line!

 

Check out a video of our new home here (look how shiny and new it all is):

WORKetc customers who have set their timezone will have their accounts moved at midnight their local time.  95% of accounts will be offline for less than 5 minutes as their individual database is moved across.  Larger accounts with huge file storage may take up to an hour.

New Thing #2: Mobile WORKetc

We recently announced our impending mobile beta release.  Here's a selection of responses and I admit that we're just as excited about this as everyone one else.

“This is great! Can't wait to use this. If you need testers, let us know!”  Clifton

 

“Very excited to see this coming soon. Love the system, keep up the good work.” Iain

 

“This would be incredibly useful! Excited to beta test!” – Mike Scott

 

“… Very excited about this!!! “ David

 

“...the excitement brings a tear to my eye. Can't wait for the Android native.” - Sam

 

“… this is by far the best all-in-one application and that would completely blow competition out of the water (whatever water is left)!”  Mike

 

“Having a mobile app would be awesome! By far this is a superb business management tool…” Allen

 

But what is even more exciting is how cool it is looking:

New thing #3: Partner Program

Last week we launched our new and improved partner program.  This is semi-exclusive in that all partners must now be WORKetc customers and users themselves.  I believe that in order to (ethically) sell something, you need to be a believer in the product. 

I don't want people out there selling WORKetc when they don't actually use it to run their own business; it isn't exactly a good endorsement!

The new program pays up to 35% commission, month after month.  Take a read and see if it is for you.

New thing #4:  Faces

We have three new people starting up at WORKetc.  Kevin, a long time WORKetc customer has joined Geoff in customer support.  Alie is joining Simon in development and is responsible for the mobile app progress you've just read about above.  And Giles is splitting his time between myself in product management and Simon in development.

Just as an aside, both Simon and Giles worked with me in a software development business I started when I was fresh out of university... almost 10 years ago now!  Kinda cool that we're all back and working together again.

New thing #5:  Whole lot of tweaks and updates

The tweaks below are only going to mean something if they have given you an erggghhhhh* moment in the past:

• Each user under your account can now select their own language.  Previously language setting was account-wide
• Contact phone search now includes Mobile/Cell phone
  
•  Image insert no longer grows to unwieldy dimensions even when inserting large image
• A whole lot of new help glyphs (the question mark icon on pages) with updated explanations
• We now include transactions in activity views. So now finance staff can see all Deposit payments and Refunds from within a contact profile, or beneath an invoice within a project tree or activity stream.
• Hundreds of minor user interface and consistency tweaks
  

Google Apps Gmail Gadget - customer success story

We have the opportunity to submit a customer success story for use in the Google Apps marketplace.  The good thing about this is that it really is a story about your business, rather than a gushing testimonial.  Great PR for any type of business.

If you are interested and have a good story or scenario about how you use the combination of WORKetc Gmail Gadget and Google Apps (inc. Android) please let me know.

Dan
founder - WORKetc

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* erggghhhhh:

If you’re a business owner, entrepreneur, road warrior or terminal over-achiever like myself then you already know the “errrghhhh” feeling.  That feeling you get when you’re trying to do great work and something just isn’t flowing with your systems or processes.
 
This frustration gets in the way of the important stuff as you find yourself needlessly clicking around, double entering data or fumbling about looking for that all important email.
 
I know this all too well and creating WORKetc is an ongoing experiment into eliminating the errgghhhh.
 
But it goes beyond this.  We actually use WORKetc to manage WORKetc.  You can read how we uncover then solve errrgghhhh moments daily in our own product.  More Work, Less Errgghhh for everyone.

Dan
founder - WORKetc