It’s holiday time and to add to your delight we have these amazing features added to Comments Plus Module.

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!!!

Our team has been working hard on revising its modules. And  Communication Module has been on the top of our list. As mentioned in our previous blog we already have  re added the most loved feature that is the “Project Level Communication”  and  this week we thought of enhancing it further.

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….

Wanted to let everyone know that all our products are now compatible with activeCollab 2.3.6.

We updated Confidential Items Module for compatibility, and even added some bug fixes and new features to Tickets Plus. All other modules will work without a change.

Products we’ve updated:

• Tickets Plus Module (version 1.5.8 – this also adds useful new features and fixes bugs)
• Confidential Items Module (version 1.3.3)

Latest versions of all other products are already compatible with activeCollab 2.3.6

Tickets Plus 1.5.8 Changelog

Enhancements:

• activeCollab v2.3.6 compatibility version.
• Option to include descriptions while printing tickets list

Fixes:

• Call to undefined method “time_to_float” error. Fixed.

Customers can download these updates from our members area.

Enjoy!

Today, we released minor updates to Planning, Reports and Time Reports Plus modules.

Here’s what has changed:

Planning Module

Fixed the unrecognized tag item_priority issue in printing the plan.

Reports Module

Will install even if Tickets Master Categories don’t exist.

Time Reports Plus Module

• Fixed Mass update required page reload to come back to Time Reports Plus
• Fix for incorrect user / project URL in time records

As usual, you can download these updates from our members area.

Guido Jansen of Realvine blogged about how they use activeCollab for managing their Magento development projects. The post is in Dutch. (English translation here – thanks to Google!)

Guido mentions that since activeCollab is web based, it is much easier to get all parties involved together. Communication is smoother and customers can participate in the development process.

They also use our Planning and Reports modules for activeCollab and said:

Reports we use internally for all projects and looking around to see how many hours the various components in a project cost and whether it matches the data in the planning module.

With this understanding we can better estimate for new projects, see where any bottlenecks, thus increasing our efficiency.

I am glad our products help increase efficiency and better track your projects Guido!

Thanks for sharing your story.

How are you using activeCollab / our products?

Apps Magnet has partnered with activeCollab in their Giveaway. You can now win Apps Magnet products just by tweeting a simple message.

Win activeCollab and much more.
Find out how: http://bit.ly/acgiveaway

We are giving away

• One of five Planning Module licenses
• One of five Reports Module licenses
• One of twenty Housekeeping Module licenses
• One of fifty 20% off on acGarage subscriptions

Apart from our products, you can also win:

• One of five activeCollab Corporate licenses
• One of five activeCollab Small Biz licenses
• One of fifty 20% discount coupons for any of the activeCollab editions or for an additional service (Upgrade and Support plan, Upgrade and Support Credit, 30 day Hosted Demo)

We felt the activeCollab giveaway was more for people who are not yet using it. We wanted to celebrate activeCollab and current users – so we decided to pitch in with our products. Apps Magnet products add missing features to activeCollab and make your life easier. So if you are an existing activeCollab user, this is your chance to try your luck and win!

It’s easy to participate

All you have to do is tweet a simple message. Only one tweet per account will be counted and the giveaway ends 8th December.

Tweet now for your chance to win

All the best!

Read more about the giveaway on activeCollab’s website.

(Image courtesy mysza)

We have been talking about our Planning module. It’s taking shape well, and we will release it in the next few days (unless we hit some road blocks). So what can you expect from it? What will be included?

1. We will have an Outline view to create project plan. With assignees, due dates and estimates. Similar to PlannerX.
2. We are adding a “card view” to add ticket description, category and other details. Also pushing in a simple ticket workflow (new -> assigned -> resolved etc)
3. A weekly iteration planner, that allows you to select from a list of incomplete tasks (backlog) and schedule them (via drag and drop) for immediate 3 weeks. (Update: We are skipping on iteration planner for now)
4. And a Gantt view that shows your project plan

What will be the most valuable features for you? How much time do you think something like this can save you?

Update:

The Card View took much longer than we expected. We added many things to make the workflow easier. And some eye candy 😉 Checkout Nirav’s blog post about Intelligent Time Estimation and Card Deck animation. There is more in the actual product! But we had to keep Iteration planner for later because of this.

Gantt Charts are great to visualize project plan, link dependencies and show reports to top management!

Should we include Gantt Charts in PlannerX?

This has been a big question! We know there are many people out there (in most web based collaboration / project management communities – including Basecamp and activeCollab) who really want it. And then there is this idea of focusing on collaboration to make a project success – rather than charts!

We don’t have Gantt Charts in the current version of PlannerX.

But, we are working on adding some level of Gantt chart support in an upcoming version. It’s difficult to create Gantt charts with Basecamp because Basecamp does not have due dates for to-do lists or tasks. Nor does it have estimates and dependencies. activeCollab does make it easier to add / manage these.

Bottomline: Our activeCollab version may have Gantt Charts sooner than Basecamp version. But we are surely thinking about this.

If you want Gantt Charts, please vote for it over on our GetSatisfaction support system!

We just released the latest, 1.2 version of Reports Module.

Icons in v1.2 main bar

• Works with activeCollab 1.1+ as well as activeCollab 2.0+
• You can now print Reports!
• Added localization support – you can now translate Reports interface in your own language
• UI and performance enhancements – icons, negative value support, date format etc!

You can now print your reports

This upgrade addresses most of the feature requests we received and bugs discovered. If you are an existing customer, you should have got your free upgrade by now.

If you are not a customer yet, buy it now. It’s only $39!

Got a question from a customer:
I am setting up a cron using a third party service. Do I have to set cron to execute the tasks both frequently, hourly and daily (or is it sufficient once a week?)

Our Answer:

If you set up frequently, hourly and daily it will make activeCollab happy! (The new Incoming Mail module uses frequently job to pull emails).

For Reports, once a week is sufficient, but you will need to ensure it gets called on the day your week starts (as per aC configuration you have). Webcron.org may be in some other timezone than your server. So you will need to ensure it gets fired at correct time. When cron gets executed, it checks if this is the start of the week, if so, it will take reporting snapshots.

Every week, on start of week (e.g. Monday) we take snapshot of previous week.