Assignments Plus module for activeCollab lets you kill work overwhelm, get back in control, become super efficient and get things done quickly.

We won’t be surprised if it becomes one of our most popular modules…

Watch “Dave’s Day: how an overwhelmed, overloaded worker created family time” video and learn more about Assignments Plus here…

Two years ago Apps Magnet offered two modules and two hacks. Today, we have 9 modules, 5 hacks. A new module (assignments plus) is nearly complete and we’ll have another module for our desktop/mobile client for activeCollab.

We keep improving our products. New versions add features, solve bugs and reduce our support requests as well. And we’d love for our customers to use the latest versions of all our software.

So I felt if there was an automated system to check for latest versions of activeCollab and installed modules, it would come in handy for our customers.

At the same time, we’ve been running acGarage for almost two years as well. acGarage is our expert service where Apps Magnet staff upgrade your activeCollab installation to the latest versions as and when they are available. acGarage also included all our modules (except Planning, Reports and Communications). It’s a superb value for money, and acGarage customers are extremely happy with the service.

Not everyone has signed up for acGarage though! But everyone wants to keep their systems up to date – as much as possible!

So here’s a gift for you!

acGarage module

acGarage module will automatically check and notify you of available updates to activeCollab and other installed modules. And, it’s a free download for you!

acGarage System Status Screen - core updates, module updates and new modules available

Click here to learn more and download acGarage module…

We hope this helps you maintain your activeCollab setup better. Hope it saves you time and energy that you can spend on something important.

What happens to existing acGarage customers?

All existing customers will continue to receive managed updates from Apps Magnet team. We plan to migrate current acGarage services as “acGarage Pro”, and when we do that, you will be migrated to that as well. You won’t be at any loss – we will ensure that.

Liked our gift?

If you liked our gift, let us know by posting a comment here

We released an update to Quick Add Plus module today. It’s a minor update for customers using both Quick Add Plus and Confidential Items Module together.

Fixes:

Confidential items did not show in parent selection drop down while adding task / time record. Fixed.

As always, you can download the latest update from our members area.

The Problems

activeCollab shows all contact information users have entered to everyone who’s working with them on a project. But you do not always want contact information visible!

You have invested lot of money and time into activeCollab. You want your team and clients to use it. But they don’t use activeCollab and fall back on using email and instant messaging. Simply because they can see those contact details right within activeCollab.

You have people from multiple companies collaborating on a project. These could be your clients, suppliers, team members, sub contractors or other partners. These are your contacts. You do not want them to bypass you and contact each other directly. You do not even want them to know everyone’s email addresses – you don’t know who would start spamming them…

An employee is no longer working full time with you. She was on a project, and is still helping you with it. She may even work on future projects with you. She prefers using her personal email for communication now. But you don’t want to expose a “@gmail.com” address to your client – raising their suspicion.

The Solution

Our latest product – Hide People module solves these problems by hiding People icon in toolbar and People tab in a project from users without your explicit permission. Not just contact details, the complete people list will be hidden.

Learn more about Hide People module here.

Our popular Communications module for activeCollab now reaches version 1.3.

This is a minor release overall, but important one as well. Here’s what has changed.

Enhancements:

You can now set interval between two items in dashboard carousel from admin. Default is 2.5 seconds, but you can change that to anything that suits you. This was our top requested feature and we are glad we have it for you now!

Fixed:

• New Message notifications not working in some browsers. Fixed.
• Quickly pressing enter twice when sending new message duplicated it. Fixed.
• Some items visible to people who do not have access to them. Fixed.

We just released Reports Module 1.8.1. This fixes an issue with Recent Activity list not showing in People reports when you are using a non-English language with activeCollab.

Suggested upgrade for people you use multiple languages with activeCollab.

Planning Module is our most loved, most recommended, best selling product. 892 clients and getting stronger every day!

Top feature requests for Planning Module are better printing, editable Gantt charts, resource management and task dependencies. Now these are major items and while we are putting forces behind them, I wanted to get one release out that fixes some odd issues and adds subtle, but very useful enhancements.

So we released Planning Module 1.7 today. Here’s list of all changes.

Enhancements:

Friendly and Numeric Hour Formats

• Limit what sections users can see within Planning module – Outline, Cards or Timeline. Now you can give clients access only to Timeline.
• Estimates / Actual Hours can now be seen in numeric format within Planning module. Select this from the Settings menu at top right.
• Force update parent estimates even when their existing estimates are greater than the sum of estimates of children. Select this from the Settings menu at top right.
• Brought back maroon color highlight on overdue items
• Rescheduling a Milestone from activeCollab now correctly adjust start dates
• Adjustment to fonts for better Unicode support

Fixes:

• Error when saving a plan
• Expand All does not expand all on reload
• outline.png image missing from Quick Start page

Finely Crafted Permissions in Planning Module

Getting The Latest Version

You can download the latest version from our members area. If your annual support / upgrades plan has expired, you can renew from within the members area to get access to the latest version.

What Do You Think?

What do you think about the latest version of Planning Module? How have you been using it? What would you like to see in future? Post your comments here. We are listening!

Reports module was our first activeCollab module. It’s been hugely beneficial to 692 organizations that have adopted it so far. It’s a very solid product and helps clients stay on top of their projects.

Up To The Minute Reports

Because it is so useful, people want to use it more and more. So when people realize that Reports module updates its data every day, they sometimes get disappointed. Reports module gathers data for every week in one slot, much like an iteration, and takes a snapshot via the daily scheduled task within activeCollab.

Now there are two reasons to update reports daily:

1. Taking this snapshot can be resource intensive – especially with very active systems.
2. A working day is dynamic. A lot changes in projects every day. Some people log their hours at the end of the day. All this can be best captured at the end of the day / start of next day.
3. And well, only the Burn Down, Hours Chart and Work Summary charts are updated daily. All People / Company reports and Most Active / Longest Open reports are always latest!

But many clients told us that they would like to get up to the minute reports. The latest 1.8 release of Reports module will please them! We have added a “force update on access” option in admin. Turn it on and Reports data will be updated every time someone accesses Reports. This may take a while if you have lot of updates but will get you latest burn down, hour logs and work summaries.

Update Reporting Data On Every Access

Changelog for version 1.8

Here’s a list of all changes in this version.

Enhancements:

• 

  All Dates in Smart Date Selector

  Added “All Dates” to the smart date selector.

• Added an option to force update reporting data every time someone access reports.
• Better localization support.
• Added support for Confidential Items module. Confidential Items won’t be shown in Reports – except for their inclusion in summarized totals.

Bug Fixes:

• Trashed milestones and time records were included in some calculations.

Now there is something else that deserves some mention here.

Feature Requests We Did Not Include

We got a few feature requests that we did not include. Here are those requests and why we have not included them.

Skipping Items Under Unknown Milestone

The argument was that it is items under milestones that contribute to project’s current plan. The project as it stands today is defined with milestones. So completing these items, and tracking their burn down is most important. Client also suggested keeping this as a per project option.

We did not do this because we believer items without a milestone are equally important for a project. We are interested in completing the whole project, not just a few milestones. Most projects slack in the last 10%. Items lingering without a milestone slow the project down. They are the items nobody wants to do. They are the items that are merely “wishes” and not “requirements”. They are the items that need to be dealt with – processed, deleted or deferred.

Unless they are visible, they will not be dealt with. So we decided to keep them around.

Not including Pages / Discussions in Burn Down

Client mentioned that Reports module includes Pages / Discussions in the burn down chart and that should not be the case. Pages or Discussions can’t be completed, so they should not be included in Burn Down.

And that’s right. Pages or Discussions can’t be completed (OK, Pages can be archived and Discussions can be Locked). And the Burn Down should only include anything that’s completable.

Fact is Reports module already works like that. Burn Down will only include items that can be completed. So it does not include Pages / Discussions. But it does include Tasks attached with Pages. Because they are work items too. activeCollab too works in the same way.

Hiding the Hour Chart if not using Time Tracking Module

One client mentioned that they don’t use time tracking, hence would like to remove the Hours Chart from Reports module.

This is a good reason actually. We believe in reducing clutter and if one is not using time tracking or estimates, removing the Hours Chart makes sense.

But hours are used in a lot of places. Certainly on the project reports, but also on the people reports, in people’s activity scores, and also in company reports. Removing hours chart wouldn’t be sufficient. We will have to remove everything that is depended on time records. This is a big change, so we have deferred it. If there is enough demand for it, we will build it!

Showing Project Specific Categories in Work Summary

Many clients have asked to show project specific categories in Work Summary chart.

This is useful, but easier said than done. Work Summary chart shows a trend of open / completed items in different categories over a period of time. Project categories can change any time. So we need a consistent reference point to show the trend. Which is why we use Master Categories to plot the Work Summary chart. Everything that does not fall under any Master Categories, goes to Others.

Removing “Other” Category from Work Summary

Similarly, a client said they don’t use the “Others” category so it should be removed.

Unfortunately, it can’t be removed since it’s the “catchall” category.

Getting The Latest Version

You can download the latest version from our members area. If your annual support / upgrades plan has expired, you can renew from within the members area to get access to the latest version.

What Do You Think?

What do you think about the latest version of Reports Module? How have you been using it? What would you like to see in future? Post your comments here. We are listening!

Confidential Items module for activeCollab v1.3 is now available.

This is a compatibility update. Confidential Items now show up correctly in File Attachments, Recent Activity, Assignments and Time Reports. We also fixed an issue with file uploads.

Our customers have been asking for these features for a while. We were waiting to see if activeCollab 3.0 was coming soon. Because then we could update according to the new structure. But since activeCollab 3.0 is taking longer than anticipated, we thought of pushing an update that provides these often requested features.

And if you haven’t yet read the post about creating confidential global documents, you can read it here.

We recommend you upgrade and look forward to hear your feedback!

As usual, customers can download the latest release from our members area.

We just released an update to Time Reports Plus. It packs even more power and I believe everyone should take advantage of it

Enhancements in 1.3:

• Added run time filtering for client companies
• Export to CSV and Create Invoice work across the board now
• Export to HTML option added
• Adjust time records to % option added. This is very flexible.
• Summarize by Milestone, Ticket / Page / Checklist, Task
• Summarize by Category of Ticket / Page / Checklist
• Revamped core logic
• The module is localization enabled now

All customers can download the latest version from our member’s area.