If you noticed, activeCollab recently changed their website – and the whole product!!

If you are a long time user of activeCollab, the new activeCollab (code named “Feather”) looks extremely slick. It’s got flat and clean design. It feels “new age”.

“Feather” is quite snappy too. Pages load fast. Everything feels nice.

You’d want to upgrade to it immediately.

But wait… Is Feather ready for prime time? Are you ready for it?

activeCollab Feather is a project and task management solution built afresh. A lot of core concepts are same (just like any other project management system).. But a lot has changed – both under the hood and in the app.

So if you depend on activeCollab for your day to day work, and have many people using it, I suggest you take a step back before upgrading. Especially if you are hosting activeCollab on your own servers.

Here are somethings self hosted activeCollab customers must grasp fully before considering Feather.

Some features have changed (or don’t exist anymore)…

• To make things simpler, activeCollab team dropped many features from Feather. And they are not coming back. So if you relied on these features from previous versions, you’d face difficulties.
• For example: There is no way to manage user roles or create new roles and access control. There are only three roles – Owner, Member, Customer.
• There are small terminology changes too – Milestones are now called Task Lists. But that shouldn’t be too difficult to get used to.
• Still, all the core features are intact – and polished further. So for basic “getting things done” you shouldn’t have a problem.
• But one must test and evaluate their own needs before switching…

Third Party modules won’t work

• Third Party Modules don’t work with Feather. There is no way to install additional modules within activeCollab anymore.. Even if you use Self Hosted version of Feather.
• The only “integration” and “extension” possibility is via HTTP REST API. Which means extensions have to be “external” apps. Much like any other SaaS web site. They can not integrate with activeCollab UI.
• So if you rely on any functionality provided by a third party module (or if you have developed your own customizations) – you will have to let go of that before you can move to Feather. OR you stay with activeCollab 4 (or 3 or 2 – whatever you may be using).
• Even the API has changed. So if you use any apps that integrate with activeCollab via API, they’d need to update as well.

You’re sharing a lot more data with activeCollab now…

Everything related to emails (incoming and outgoing) and search is now handled via a service called “Heartbeat”. This is a service activeCollab hosts themselves. So even if you use the self hosted version your data is going to activeCollab servers.

Yes, there is an “enterprise” option – where you can host the “Heartbeat” service on your own servers. But it’s still “coming soon”…

Try it first

• Overall, activeCollab Feather is still a work in progress. A lot of things work, but try it first before upgrading.
• We recommend you try out the online 30 days demo first. Familiarize yourself with the changes. Then evaluate if you want to upgrade.
• If you want to upgrade, setup a staging environment, migrate your data, and fully test everything beforehand.
• Your data is critical. So make sure you have backups. And that you get everything you need.

Also, make sure you read and understand activeCollab’s own “Upgrading to new activeCollab” guide…

What will happen to Apps Magnet activeCollab modules?

We understand a lot of you rely on our activeCollab modules for your businesses. And while we want to bring all the features we added to activeCollab with our extensions, it’s simply not going to be possible because of the new architecture.

We are considering building web based services that talk to activeCollab via its API and add features.

But we need to know what you’d like us to do! So leave a comment and tell us if:

1. Would you like us to help you migrate to Feather?
2. Would you like us to continue supporting activeCollab 3 and 4 installations?
3. What modules / features would you like us to build for activeCollab Feather?

Awaiting your feedback!

Thanks!

The first feature is the Highlighted Customer Comment feature.

(Note: This feature was added into Mizen a few days back and looking at the customer response we received….we thought of extending it to Comments Plus Module as well )

Previously, customer comments looked the same as any other comments in the system. One had to literally dig into the details of the comments so as to distinguish between a customer reply and a employee reply. This not only was a total time waste but also increased frustrations incase the project to be scanned was huge and had multiple participants involved.

Customer Comments – Previous Look

With this new feature, the customer comments get highlighted in a different color. This makes it standout and recognizing customer comments gets much quicker and easier.

Customer Comments- New Look

The second feature is the Predefined Templates.

It is seen that we often have to draft fixed replies to customers. It could be as simple as a Thank you mail for testimonial that the customer sent you or it could be a pre-sales question inquiring about some product and its details.

What we originally did was :

1) Create a master text document having such predefined replies and then copy paste the reply as and when we received a corresponding customer mail

or

2)The hardworking guys simply sat and drafted the whole reply every single time… Whereas now, stop spending those extra minutes drafting such mails each time a customer sends a testimonial or asks for product details…or hunting the master text document.

Simply use the Comments Plus Module. Create a template of ready made replies and use them as and when required.

Comments Plus Module now allows you to save ready made replies in the form of templates. You can simply create a template and then use it multiple times whenever required. Kindly check out the screen shots below for better visual understanding.

comment-template

add-edit-delete-template

What Next?

Download Comments Plus Module to test drive this feature now!!!

Next, we thought of adding some color to the dashboard. So here we are introducing graphs (bar charts)

Time Reports Plus KPI

With this new release, 4 main KPI’s i.e. paid, unpaid, billable, non billable will be shown as a bar chart.

Also the current week is shown as a graph . This feature will give you a quick view about your current week progress.

Now, Time Reports Plus loads current month time records by default. So, most required KPI’s will be at your finger tips. You can always set filters according to your need and get required reports.

This month we thought of introducing a something clients have asked us before – the ability to add more than one subscriber to a support ticket.

Earlier, you could create a new support ticket in Tasks Plus (on behalf of the customer) – but with one email address only. Now, you can separate multiple email addresses (and names) with a comma; and Tasks Plus will subscribe all those people to the newly created support ticket.

Along with this, we also added some fixes.

The first bug we fixed was related to comment status. Consider a task containing Confidential / Private comments. If you merged it with another task, the confidential / private comments became “normal” – hence visible to others.

We’ve fixed this bug. So comments will retain their privacy status in the merged task.

The next fix was regarding ‘Localization of Email Template’. It was noticed that even when a non-English language was selected, email templates were still in English.

We’ve fixed this too – so that email templates are localized.

Hope this addition and fixes help you!

You can learn more about Tasks Plus here…

Earlier Time Reports Plus screen

What we realized was that the older TRP (Time Reports Plus) module had all sought after information related to time reporting, but  it did not have was a seamless, one screen, experience in a typical time reporting workflow.

To get different perspectives on the time tracked, you’d have to change summarization parameters to look at key performance indicators – for example, hours billable, pending, non billable etc. We felt this was a little tedious.

This time, we placed the most important KPI’s and right on the time reports page. So you can easily evaluate them, and do not have to run filters again and again.

Here’s the new look of Time Reports Plus:

The New Time Reports Plus with KPIs at a glance

Here are the KPIs we’ve included.

Comparison KPIs: This Week vs Previous Week & This Month vs Previous Month’s time tracked.

Time by Billable Status Billable, Pending, Non Billable, Paid time tracked.

Summary KPIs for Projects, Users, Job types, Project Category, Task Category and Company.

• Project – see time tracked on all projects
• Users – time logged by different people in your team
• Job Type – gives clarity regarding time spent on each type of work
• Task Category – summarized view of time logged in different categories
• Project Category – figure out what type of projects are consuming time
• Company – time spent for each client

I believe you’ll find these KPI’s useful.

Try out Reports Plus today!

Post a comment and give us feedback!

After a couple of discussions with team we got to a conclusion and decided to work on the security feature of the module.

The result….. is our latest edition to the Communication module  that will surely have you delighted!!!

Now, Admin is able to set permissions within  the Communication Module.

Basically there are two types of permissions i.e

1) Who can participate in communication – i.e deciding which member can view and participate in a particular communication.

2) Who can create communications – i.e which member can create communications.

You can set permissions through Administrator -> Communications

Interesting???

Well we feel this would make your communications more controlled, more flexible and more secure…

What do you feel??? Drop a comment we are listening….

• Each “communication” is now called a “channel”
• When you click on “Communications” icon in bottom bar of activeCollab, you now directly get to the latest channel. We got rid of the intermediate dialog box.
• The design is modern and clutter free. Less clicks, more talk!
• You can continue to control exactly who can participate in a channel, upload files, get sound notifications and more…

What do you think of the redesign? Post a comment and let us know!

We are making improvements iteratively. Adding small features and enhancements with each release. And I think some of the recent changes we made are solid steps towards our vision…

Quick Jump, Cleaner UI and Workflow Label indicators

We updated Mizen’s design to be cleaner and more understandable – colors, fonts, lines, borders, spacing… It feels a lot more stable now and to my eyes a lot more usable as well.

At the top, we added quick jump selectors. If you have a long list of tasks, the grouping parameters will be available as “jump to” choices helping you navigate faster.

You’ll also see a colored strip in front of task entry indicating its workflow label. This will make it easier to identify and work with items that need your attention.

Update a task while leaving a comment

We’ve brought task actions into commenting – so you can change the status, label, assignee or category of the task as you post a comment. Much like how you can do it on the activeCollab task page.

Update using Auto Updater and Give us feedback

All this and more is available with Mizen. And Mizen is currently available as part of Planning module.

If you have purchased Planning module already, you can get the latest update from our My Accounts area, or better still, use Apps Magnet Auto Updater to check for and install updates automatically.

And we’d love to hear your feedback on these changes! Do post your comments here.

Five years ago we started with our reporting module for activeCollab – the first premium extension for activeCollab. Then came planning module and a whole many others!

And we are celebrating!

From Feb 12 to Feb 28, we will have a new offer or giveaway everyday. Each offer will be valid for two days.

Visit our homepage every day for a new offer!

Thank you!

Five years is a big achievement in today’s fast paced technology world! We’ve had a lot of ups and downs in the journey so far, and we are experiencing a deep sense of gratitude for you today…

• Thanks to our awesome customers for supporting us… Buying our products, sending feedback and appreciations, recommending them, talking about them on activeCollab forums, sharing your ideas for new products, sponsoring development of new modules, standing by while we solve issues and most importantly, for your faith!
• Thanks to activeCollab for creating a kickass collaboration system that’s an amazing platform to extend… For letting us poke around and create modules, for listing them on the site, for handling support questions from our customers, for validating our ideas and tolerating with us
• Thanks to Nathan Sudds, Guy Cortesi, Stas Kuzma, Fei Yan, Leon Poole and all other third party developers for solving customer problems, innovating, supporting community members and for their untiring passion to improve.
• Thanks to Malay for your absolute leadership and commitment towards Apps Magnet and our customers, to Sandhya, Ravi and Nishit, and everyone else on the team who’s made it their own company and worked day and night, have accepted my critic, surpassed all challenges and always given their best.
• Thanks to Nikita, my wife, Sanya, my daughter and my parents for supporting me throughout, for letting me work on this dream, even when I was supposed to be with them. You are truly my source!
• Thanks to everyone who’s met along the way, emailed us, talked to us, inspired us, criticised us, asked for a refund, spread the word…. You have all contributed to our lives immensely.

Thank you!

The result of that thinking and a few iterations is available to all. Here’s a summary of what we have changed and why…

BEFORE: Project Reports – Velocity, Burn Down, Hours and more

AFTER: Revamped Project Reports

1. Key Performance Indicators

We moved Key Performance Indicators to left and highlighted velocity and hours. We felt those are the two most important numbers to track. The project progress indicator was switched to a simpler bar and we added a clear label for the forecasted completion date. Next milestone is played down, but available for anyone who wants to see what’s coming next (this is especially useful in individual projects)

2. Burn Down Chart

The most important thing about a burn down chart is the slope at which it is going down – indicating the velocity at which the project is moving and giving you an estimate of when the project is likely to complete. Earlier it took the full width of the screen. It is now smaller, but still conveys all important information.

3. Hours Chart

Hours chart shows weekly tracked hours, total estimated hours and total tracked hours till date. We trimmed this chart too – and even made the columns slimmer! Hovering your mouse over any circle reveals more information.

4. Tasks Progress

This is a new block we added to project reports. In activeCollab 2 days, we showed tasks in different categories, but workflow labels provide a more accurate representation of task status. Custom workflow labels and their colors will be the same across the system.

5. Most Active & Open

The list of most actively worked upon tasks was not given priority earlier. It is now right in front center. This list tells you which work is keeping your team occupied currently.

6. Longest Overdue

The other important list is tasks that are overdue for a long time. These are items that either need some love to complete them, or an edit that removes the due date on them!

7. Project Status Overview

The project status overview block comes only for collections of projects – for instance when you’re viewing report for “All Projects” or projects for a particular company. This was earlier a new tab in its own but we’ve merged it with project reports. The list is easy to read – shows overall progress, project name, leader name, percentage completion, number of tasks done and total tasks, total hours tracked – and optionally the next milestone in this project.

System Stats

Not visible in this screenshot are quick stats about the system – total projects, users, files, their size etc. This block was only in companies tab earlier, and is now moved to project reports, below the tasks progress block.

Do you think these changes make reports more usable?

Do you like these changes? Do they make it easier to get a sense of how well your projects are doing? What would you like us to improve further?

Post a comment and let us know!