Projonnect

Version 1.2.4

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:17:55 CST

Some small changes this time around. One of which has been a goal for quite some time.

Archiving Projects

If you use Projonnect as much as I do, you have tons of clients and projects in the lists and they can be quite cluttered - especially when you filter projects by Complete. Of course, this will show all completed projects since you have begun your Projonnect journey.

So what do we do when there are too many? One day there will be paging installed for lists, but not at the moment. And still, paging keeps our lists loaded and just shortens the pages. We don't want to delete projects. We need them for future reporting and invoice recording. However, we do want them out of site until they are requested some time later.

The solution is to Archive those that you are tired of seeing in your lists or those that are completed and not need anymore. So, when a project is completed and the invoice is paid, just set it to Archive and it will be hidden until actually searched (or accessed from the Archive filter).

Project Filters Reordered

While on the topic of the project list filters, I made a small change to the way they are sorted. Before it was in alphabetical order. Now, it is according to the process of a project's progression. So, when projects are created, they are New, unless they are begun. Once the work on the project begins, it is Pending (or currently being worked on). After that, a project is Complete. After these three filters are two more that are softer in the filter tabs, since hese they are not used that often: Hold and Archive.

Links in Client List

There has been some request for the email and web sites to be dynamic links inside the Client listing. So I added them. You can now click on an email address and it will pull up your defaulted computer mail program. And you can click on the web address for the client, and it will open a new window with their web site.

Cleaned Lists

You may remember the ID's in all of the Projonnect lists. They have been removed. They are of no use to Projonnect users (that I know of) and were there for programming purposes. They are not necessary any longer so I removed them giving you more space in your lists so things are not so cluttered. I also changed some width settings and a few other small things that help the lists look cleaner.

Version 1.2.3

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:12:33 CST

I'm working on improving the invoicing system. I have been consulting with an accountant and project manager for a large Houston based company and it has been very helpful. Here are a list of items changed to projects and invoices.

Projects can have more than one invoice associated with it.
Invoices can be edited from Project list.
Invoices now reflect General Contractor and Payments toward.
Payments toward and Discounts are hidden in printable invoice if they are not used.
Invoices can be created from a project that is not yet complete but has completed services.
Invoices have a better graphical/color combination in Project list in order to be easier to identify.

Invoice Payment Terms

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:25:52 CST

The drop down menu for setting the payment terms was not updating or appearing in the actual invoice.

Temporary Solution

Patience. (I know, not really a solution, but I'll fix this quick.)

[RESOLVED on August 27, 2008 at 11:24 PM CST]

The payment terms field updates successfully and appears correctly in the print invoice.

Version 1.2.0

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:55:36 CST

I just published a significant upgrade to the Projonnect application. I think that you will all be excited about the new things.

Login System

First and most important is the login system. This has been an often asked question from Projonnect users ever since its release last month. Your projects and client base were never really open to the public but they were available to those who might have stumbled upon your Projonnect url. Not any more. Attempting to access your Projonnect system and the user will see a login screen (captured on the right).

The login system is complete with a password retrieval (or at least reset) feature. Those who have access are found under the STAFF tab and are not "Disabled" in their Access status. Be sure to double check your settings there.

The password reset feature works with a confirmation code. When users forgets their password and clicks on the "Forgot your password?" link, they will prompted to give their email address and an email will be sent to them with a confirmation code created exclusively for their account. In the email, there will be a link to click on that will redirect them to a page to login with their confirmation code and change their password.

Note, that while Projonnect is now user sensitive it still lacks any user assigning and internal permissions. That is to say that you still cannot assign projects and tasks to users, the users still don't have a dashboard (or to-do list) and access level and permissions are not distinguished once you login. So a "Guest" account is treated just like an "Admin" account.

New List Buttons

Also, I made a little head-way on styling the lists. I am preparing for a large over-haul for the invoicing system. Since projects will have multiple invoices, I wanted to have invoice buttons for each project that were clickable. Of course, this means I have to get rid of the "row clickable space" (for lack of better terms). So when you hover over a row in any list and it turns a shade of orange, you will be tempted to click it in order to edit, but that is no longer possible. Rather, you now have an EDIT button to the left and possibly a few invoice buttons to the right (if you are PROJECTS).

More buttons will be added to the interface to be consistent like the EDIT project option while looking at the project details and the option to view all projects when looking at a client. If you have some ideas on any shortcuts like this, please let me know and I'll take them into account.

Enjoy.

Version 1.1.2

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:31:00 CST

I just published some good upgrades. No real bugs to fix (to my knowledge), but plenty of things to add in to Projonnect.

Subcontracted for Clients

Many freelancers like myself have subcontracted projects. That is to say, sometimes another freelancer (or organization) will be contracted for a project and then subcontract the project (or some of the project services) to you. Thus, you are the subcontractor. Your are not actually paid by the client but by the clients contractor (or the General Contractor).

For me, this was causing some confusion in my project list. Here is a real life example. General Contractor hired me to do three projects. All three projects were called "Web Site Redesign." However, one was for General Contractor, one was for Client1 and the last for Client2. Since General Contractor is paying me for all three projects, I tended to put General Contractor as the client. However, three projects named the same for the same client is a bit strange and puzzling. Thus, I changed the clients by adding in the actual client names. Now, I have three projects with the same name and each one has a different client associated with it.

New problem, right? Yes. Now I have two clients listed that are not really my clients. (And, if you are a wise freelancer like myself, you never contact your contractor's clients for safety - and respect.) Well, in the client management area, you can set a General Contactor to each client. Now, you will know if a client is really a subclient. That solves that!

Manage Roles

Oh yes, no more questions about how you manage the roles for your staff. You now have a way to do it. Notice the ROLES button in the navigation. You can take it from there.

Task Notes

You might have found it a bit troublesome to not be able to take a few notes about the completion of certain tasks. I added an additional field for that. When completing (or during some other time) feel free to add some notes to a particular task so that you can read them later.

Delete Associated

Funny empty invoices hanging around? Not any more (at least no new ones being made). Now, when you delete a project, it will prompt you of the dangers ahead - it will delete all of the tasks and invoices associated with the project itself. This will keep the system clean. If you want to keep your invoices, then don't delete your project. I will be adding an archive function later so just be patient.

Add Payment

Let's face it. Not all of our clients are willing to pay invoices in full. Now, it's easier to keep track of those payments. Rather than setting an invoice to paid, you can apply a payment against the total. It will deduct from the total giving you a second (or remaining) total.

This has not been added to the invoice printing file and it still needs some design to it. In fact, if any of you designers want to take a stab at it, go ahead and send me some screen shots or ideas in an email. If I end up using your ideas, I'll apply a discount toward the January version of Projonnect if you decide to stick around.

Manage You Company Information

Last but certainly not least, you can now manage your own company information like your name, company name, address for billing, and so on. You'll find this under the SETTINGS tab.

Killer Apostrophes

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:16:27 CST

I was informed that there is a bug when adding a service to a project. I was able to find out what exactly is causing it and so it may not be effecting many of you all. When a service has an apostrophe in the description or title, it is buggy. I know what the problem is and have several way to resolve it. So I should get to it soon.

Temporary Solution

This may be a no brainer, but I'll suggest a temporary work-around for you all. Just don't use apostrophes in your title and desctriptions of services until this bug is resolved. Don't hate me for my simplicity!

Version 1.1.1

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:58:43 CST

One of the things that matters most about applications is that they look as good as they work. Sometimes it is not always easy to have both. Still, my plan is to never have one dominate the other. That being said, I decided to give the template look and feel and small kick. With the release of the Projonnect.com web site, I decided to mirror the two in some sense. The outcome was a good adjustment.

The front-end web site was designed based on the back-end application. So the two strips in the header carried over. I bumped up the contrast quite a bit so that the black and navy are not so boring. They now drive more attention to the navigation. When giving the application a kick, I used the site as my inspiration. So, you will notice the black and navy saturations as well as the buttons instead of links.

The new navigation design for Projonnect should increase the ease-of-use as well as the ease-of-view.

The redesign of the content area (like lists and forms) is where my eye is gazing now.

Delete Related Records

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:55:31 CST

When deleting a project, Projonnect does not also delete that project's milestones and invoices. This is what we call orphaning. The milestones and invoices that once relied on the project's data are now disconnected. Thus they are without parent records and sometimes cause problems.

Orphan milestones are usually just lost and there is no known issues. However, orphan invoices are known to be quite quarellsome. If you notice in your invoice list that there is an invoice with an ID but nothing else, then you have found an orphan invoice. It is likely stopping the page from finishing its parse. So you may have more invoices to be listed after the orphan but will not see them because it is tripping an error in the application.

No worries, you invoices are there. But what good are they if you cannot access them?

Temporary Solution

There is really no good solution for this. Please just send me an email because I'll have to go in an manually remove the orphan invoice for you. I plan to have a script to help with this soon as well as have triggers that alert you when you are about to delete a project that will cause an orphan and possible delete the orphans as well.

[RESOLVED on August 2, 2008 at 5:22 PM CST]

When deleting a project, an alert is thrown to confirm that you really want to do it and tells you that it will also delete all of the associated tasks and invoices for the project. If confirmed, deletion is done.

Error When Project Created

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:17:52 CST

When creating a new project, the idea is to land on the new project once it is submitted. So, by going to PROJECTS > ADD and then submitting the project information, Projonnect creates the new project then redirects you to that newly created project. At least, that is the plan.

If your new project looks like the screen shot to the right, then don't worry. Your new project was indeed created. However, there is a bug in the application here. It does not pull the new project's information so that you can begin setting up tasks.

Temporary Solution

To work on the newly created project, simply click on LIST or SEARCH and find it manually. Your project was not lost, it was just not requested correctly. Not your fault, so don't blame yourself!

[RESOLVED on July 25, 2008 at 9:17 PM CST]

Application requeries for new project. It is possible that if two projects are created simultaneously then one person will get the other person's new project. However, the chances are very slim since the query is so fast. If this happens, please let me know.

100% Discount

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:31:14 CST

The discounting system has been working properly with the exception of one thing. When you discount the full project (do it for free) by setting it to 100% (so that you don't have to keep changing the dollar amount as you work), the discount was not applied and the project was billed full price. In other words, anything between 0.00% and 100% would work fine. But as soon as you discount the full total, the discount is not applied.

Temporary Solution

Instead of setting the project to 100%, set it to an actual dollar amount. You will need to wait until you have completed the project before knowing what the exact total dollar discount will be. So you may have to keep updating the discount. This is the same thing as doing a 100% discount (except that you have to know the subtotal before invoicing).

[RESOLVED on July 24, 2008 at 8:00 AM CST]

100% Discounts working properly.

Projonnect is Now Available!

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:31:14 CST

It was an overnight decision to make Projonnect availble to the public. Pardon the bare site here, but I had to start somewhere. For you have not yet registered for an account with Projonnect, click here to get the process going.

Getting Started Video Tutorial

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:31:14 CST

Why not start here? Projonnect has just been made available to some and here is my first video to get you started. Hopefully I cover it all, if not, just shoot me a message!

It's time to get back to work!

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:31:14 CST

It's time to get back to work.

Let's face it, you really wanted to.
You just didn't have the time.

Now you do. Now there's Projonnect.

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