WORKetc CRM BLOG

Xero & Quickbooks Desktop Updates

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:29:15 UTC

Our 2012 Roadmap has the public beta release for Quickbooks Desktop and Xero integrations slated as the last week in January. The bad news is that we're running a few weeks behind, the good news is that we've opted for a whole lot more integration fidelity than originally planned. And also the extra few weeks have given us more time to better test and de-bug than we'd normally spend. I know some people have been anxiously waiting for this release, but it is critical we get it right as getting it wrong is potentially catastrophic for a business (!). This is where it is at... Xero IntegrationThe Xero integration provides synchronisation of invoices, payments and contacts. The synchronisation process is configured within WORKetc and is optionally setup as either one or two way automated process. In other words, once configured WORKetc will communicate with Xero on a scheduled basis to: - Synchronise WORKetc items to Xero - Synchronise WORKetc items from Xero - Synchronise WORKetc items to and from Xero The configuration of the integration is straightforward and requires the completion of a streamlined authorisation process to enable WORKetc to communicate with your Xero account. Xero integration supports invoice mapping of: - An associated sales account - Shipping and discount items - Tax codes The integration maintains the high level of granularity provided by WORKetc’s invoicing structure. For example, a WORKetc invoice synchronised to Xero will have: - A separate line item for each WORKetc line item - An appropriate tax code if there are applicable taxes for each WORK line item - A separate line item for each discount item of each WORK line item - A separate line item for each shipping item of each WORK line item - Associated line item charges appear sequentially - A single line item for invoice level discounts The contact synchronisation process synchronises, name, address and contact details allowing users to be able to quickly...

New: Custom Field Groups Explained. Plus we're hiring.

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:46:35 UTC

An incredibly powerful inclusion in this mammoth release we're working up to is the new custom fields tool. WORKetc has had custom fields for a long time, but their heritage was hack-like; they just always felt like they've been tacked onto the main the product. So this new development brings custom fields right to the forefront; making them seamless within WORKetc from a user interface and functionality perspective. For those that are new to WORKetc, think of a custom field as a database entry that is specific to your business. It is a way of customizing WORKetc to capture what is specific to your business and display that information inside of WORKetc where it is of most use to yourself and your team. The big improvements include: - create a group of custom fields and assign that group to a module - pre-defined custom group types such as selection lists and labels - much improved (and centralized) setup of custom fields - ability to search on custom fieldsScenarioLets say your business sells and services office water coolers. To ensure your sales team has all the information at hand, you create a custom field group called Opportunity Profile. In this group you would then create the following custom field types: - Product List - display options for the type of water coolers that lead currently has - Date picker - create a date that the lead indicated they might be looking for a new supplier - Labels - to designate what industry the client may be in - Number Field - provide the number of people working at the leads locationSetting up these fields is a simple drag 'n drop to arrange the fields and then enter in the field name, options and descriptions: Each custom field then has its own set of options. For example, the new "labels" custom field lets your user create color coded labels to flag items: And then the custom field group is displayed on the activities selected. To enter data, just click on the fi...

2012 Roadmap - huge leaps forward

Daniel Barnett — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 09:59:48 UTC

This will the third product road map we've made public. The first two roadmaps (January 2011 and September 2011) give some interesting insight into just how far we've actually come these last 12 months. Our roadmap is public because we believe in transparency. It is, what it is. For the hundreds of customers that have come on board since the last road map in September we always call this a fluid roadmap. Fluid because it is guaranteed to change. Some projects run ahead of schedule. Some crash head first into unexpected road blocks. New opportunities open up and our priorities change. We really are all working constantly on improving WORKetc. We have to. WORKetc is WORKetc biggest user in terms of logged hours. With every incremental improvement our customers do better and we do better. And by publishing a regular roadmap, we get the word out on what the end game is for WORKetc and the steps we're taking to get there. It helps WORKetc customers understand our process, appreciate the complexity of the product and contribute to the development. Also, anyone new to WORKetc should keep in mind we never promise anything. Occasionally I'll get emails from people that start off with the line "back in September you promised ..." which is disheartening as I inevitbly feel guilty over breaking a promise that was never made to start with(!) Now that we've covered that, let's get onto the good stuff: ProjectWhere it's at today:Expect to see it around: Why it is important Roles and Permissions Internal Beta February (limited beta release) Long time customers will note this has been at the "internal beta" stage for months. It required a complete rethink on a lot of modules and a lot of the original code to be revised. And then just when we're getting happy with it, it got tied into the same code release as the new sales modules. Hence, it has spent the last 6 weeks just hanging around waiting for the others to catch up. Importantly, it is coming soon. View a s...

Sneak Preview: New Table Tools and Layout

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:30:34 UTC

A really cool part of this mammoth update we're prepping is the new data grid (table) tool. Currently WORKetc dictates how you see your data. Do a contact search and WORKetc forces you to view the results in a certain way with only the information it wants you to see. Look at your lead lists and there's no flexibility to view the info that is most important to you. This is about to change - power to the people, set the data free! The screen shot above is a preview of the new data table we're rolling out: - Drag and drop to reposition the order of columns - Select and drag to change the width of columns - Select from the drop menu what data you want on your table. But the real guts of this update is shown @ 3. By clicking on the settings icon (the cog shape) you'll be able to pick and choose what information you want to see on the table. At the moment we only have basic contact fields with future development making available all sorts of options. The real power of this new approach is found in combination with the contact list / data mining module. For example, set up a new data mine to search with these parameters: - All customers in the U.S.A - That have the custom tag "priority customer" - Who have not made a purchase in the last 6 months Once WORKetc has retrieved your data set, you'll be able to customize what information is available to view. For example: - Company name - Contact Person - Mobile Phone - Email Address - Employee Contact - Your custom fields The new table functionality, combined with updated custom fields and data mining is going to propel WORKetc's CRM to a whole new level. It really is powerful stuff and I feel like we're only just scratching the surface of how people are going to end up using this tool. We don't have an exact release date for this yet, other than aiming for the end of the year. The updated permissions, custom fields, contact lists, table functionality and hundreds of UX updates ...

Xero Beta - Coming Soon

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 05:01:40 UTC

Someone smart once told me that the first place business owners go to for advice is either their accountant or lawyer - ironically it was actually my accountant that told me this. It was this bit of advice ultimately behind the decision to draw a line in the sand as to how far we'd take WORKetc. This line we won't be crossing is rolling out a full blown accounting module into WORKetc. To do so would mean that before we could sell the product, we'd have to be educating accountants. That is a pretty expensive proposition to undertake; educating a market before you can actually sell into it is a heap of work, time and risk I couldn't afford to take on. And then if we had gone down this path not only would we have to be all over the nuances of accounting rules that apply in the 40 odd countries we have customers in, we would also have to stay up-to-date. Again more work and time. And lets not even take into account trying to compete with existing, established and excellent products like Quickbooks and Xero! Which of course presents a problem. Our goal of putting an end to double entry kind of gets blown out of orbit. Sure, you can export stuff out of WORKetc; downloading a file to your desktop. But then you have to upload and import into your accounting software and hope all the fields are going to match up. Easy at first but painful by the 20th time you run the process. So a few weeks back we finally got talent and resources in place to start building and rolling out live interactions with Quickbooks and Xero. Last week I announced the Quickbooks Desktop integration. Today I can announce the impending release of Xero. What this means is that we're at an internal testing stage for both integrations and expect to be able them more available very soon. Discovery: WORKetc Invoicing is more Powerful than we Realised One of the challenges we had with both integrations is the method of invoice creation we built into WORKetc. With transparency...

Quickbooks (Desktop) Beta

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:07:43 UTC

Early next week we'll be making available the WORKetc Add-in for Quickbooks Desktop (beta!). This will be a QuickBooks plug-in that installs itself under QuickBooks menu items with support for Windows Vista/Windows 7 and Quickbooks USA 2005 and above. The first release of the plugin will grab invoices, expenses and payments from WORKetc and make them available to Quickbooks, from inside Quickbooks. No more tedious CSV file export, download and import (I hate that whole process too!) The use-case we have followed for this beta is: - Your team uses WORKetc to create billable items (ie timesheets, project milestones, product sales) - A manager then creates invoices from billable items within WORKetc and sends out invoices from WORKetc - A book-keeper then uses Quickbooks, with the WORKetc add-in installed (of course!) to pull down invoices, expenses and payments directly into Quickbooks. This is a pretty straight forward use-case that would be relevant to a big chunk of WORKetc customers that are on board with Quickbooks. After we are fairly comfortable with the beta, we'll move to develop a Quickbooks Online integration, include contacts and products, and work toward 2-way synch. We need some beta testers...! Please throw your WORKetc account name (ie yourbusiness) in the comments below if you are interested in testing out the Add-in. Obviously remember that the add-in is a beta and things may go wrong for you, but we're hoping not. Good news for Xero users - we'll be making a similar beta announcement in around 10 working days. Here are a few screen snaps of the Quickbooks Addin, in action...

Sales & CRM: Saved Views Coming Soon

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:45:14 UTC

We have a lot of updates in development and as luck would have it, it seems they’ll all be out in the same week. So rather than breaking prolonged blog silence with a single, monstrous post outlining all the new features and enhancements, I thought it best to start leaking and tweaking as it all starts to come together. Anyone that has read my Road Map post knows that we are engaged in a huge overhaul of WORKetc Sales and CRM module, centred on the following: - Daniel Barnett [2012-02-07] Contact Lists. Saved Views (new name!) Essentially the ability to save an instantly refreshable, complex search of your contact list. Show me a list of all my contacts in San Francisco that have purchased my product in the last 12 months. - Universal Custom Fields. A central place to create and manage custom fields and more visible access to custom fields in contacts, sales, projects and support cases. - Sales Activity Templates. Create a series of steps and business rules to manage (and automate) your sales process; including drip email marketing. On day 1, send customer introduction email. If positive response, then assign to John Smith to make phone call. If no response, then wait 3 days and send follow up email. - Custom tables. Anywhere in WORKetc where we use a table, users will be able to decide what information they want to see on a table and in what order. View custom fields in your customer support list; choose what sales data to display on the leads screen.The reason why these have all been in development for a few months now is they are all closely related and all required some other pieces of the puzzle to be complete; most notably instant search (completed) and granular permissions (almost complete). Saved Views...As touched on above, saved views are groups of contacts defined by the variables you selected and then saved as a view. The view is then instantly available via the contacts page and is of course refreshed in real time; add a new contact...

New Web Forms - *UPDATE: Now Live

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 02:04:26 UTC

**Update - Now Live** We are close (as in this coming week) to making available the new web forms tool for WORKetc. Web forms are a critical part of WORKetc, enabling a link between your web site, getting information into WORKetc and then using that information to automatically create a sales lead, a support case, a new contact or capture information and view in a report. What's Changed?A lot of the changes we've implimented have come directly from the feature suggestion forum. In summary: - Forms now give you the option of disabling customer look up (requiring your customer to log into your form) and disabling auto-update of customer records - Re-arranging questions on your form is now a simple matter of dragging and dropping each individual element - Javascript can now be used to insert the form in your web site - Documents can now be uploaded via a web form - And a whole lot of other suggestions PreviewsHere are some previews - click the image to view full size image with notes. I'll update this post when we push it through to beta release; 90% likely before the end of the week. Where to now...In order to complete and roll out the new Sales & CRM modules, we needed to complete 3 core modules: - Lightning fast search - completed! - Web Forms - 99% completed! - Roles, Permissions & Groups - 50% completed So this means we can really push on with the new sales and CRM modules including customizable table display, sales workflows (including drip email marketing), new sales leads views and better management of sales leads. Were also a good way into the Outlook Plugin. This basically works the same way as our Gmail Plugin, but inside of Outlook. I'll post some screen shots shortly. And we're about to knock off the Xero integration and Quicken integration with development due to start October 10th and completed inside of 3 - 4 weeks. Customer Support / Product SpecialistsI'm hiring more customer support people, preferably in the...

Fluid Roadmap (Rest of 2011)

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 06:30:24 UTC

January's Roadmap Back in January we released our first public and fluid roadmap. For the majority it was really well received however we did have some (now ex) customers who tried to turn the post into ammunition to push their development agenda or demand free product. WORKetc has rapidly grown and we've, unfortunately and inevitably, attracted the odd outcast. The kind of people that your gut instinct tells you that no matter how much money they are going to pay you, it just isn't worth the pain. One such lady, upon reading the roadmap emailed to say I had broken all my promises, even though in the post I had gone to great lengths to explain the concept of a Fluid Roadmap (besides which I never make promises around product development). Her e-mail was stylized in shouting CAPITAL LETTERS WITH EXCESSIVE USE OF EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!! This in itself should be sufficient insight into the type of operator she was, but it still left me cautious of publishing updates to the roadmap. I guess it is kind of like putting it all out there - there's always a risk it is going to come back to bite. So just to reiterate - this is a fluid road map. Fluid because WORKetc is incredibly complex and everything connects to everything else. And regardless of how defined our architecture is and how well we plan there will be unforseen problems and unexpected opportunities. Timelines will change, features evolve and priorities shift focus. Looking back over the original road map, I have to say we have done pretty well. All the new projects, contacts, timesheets, calendars, recurring tasks and document tools were delivered on, as too were unexpected projects such as Gmail Gadget and Evernote integration. And the entire iPhone & Android piece was delivered way ahead of expectations. Some projects, like the Outlook Plugin have stalled until very recently. And other more complex projects such as Granular permissions and the new Sales & CRM continue as active work i...

Search and ye will find... in real time.

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 06:39:16 UTC

Faster search, across all of WORKetc.Until yesterday, search in WORKetc used to be horrible. So much so that people (including myself) just stopped using it and eventually completely forgot it was there. Part of the problem was speed - with so many interdependent records everyday SQL search just didn't cut it. The other problem was relevancy and context. So whilst it would eventually show me all results for my search on the term "proposal", there was no way for it to show me which search result was relevant to the project I might be working on or the client I might be reviewing. With an all-encompassing business tool like WORKetc, if you can't show a search result within context, then your forcing users to spend an ungodly amount of time looking through the results list. It sucked. But this is no more.All accounts now have access to the new, super-powerful, super-fast, super-search, with built in smart filters. Find exactly what you are looking for, in real time. This is how it looks (although we have some small user experience updates to roll out this week): So here's what is changed: - Search results show in real time, often as you are still typing - We now search all activities, all items, including knowledge base articles (which has been a long-standing request) - We now search the full contents of uploaded documents, including word, excel and PDFs. But currently does not search Google Docs (coming soon!) - Search results can be filtered by type (ie projects, emails, events) and limited to contacts selected and time period chosen - Search results can be opened in the existing window or a new window. Choosing a new window is especially useful if you're looking for some information to include in something you are already working on with WORKetc. - Where relevant, each search result shows the context in which it was found and who the context involves. For example a search for the term "SEO Proposal" might be found in a project calle...

Mobile Updates & Inc. Magazine (online) Article

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 02:11:43 UTC

Just a quick update... - Android users would have already noticed a few updates over the weekend. These were all related to performance, speed. The iPhone version with similar updates is currently being reviewed by iTunes and should be available toward the end of the week (although we'd likely have more updates on this by then!) - We're currently coding the "Groups, Roles and Granular Permissions" which is massive, along with new web forms and new search (related to both search and Sales/CRM revision). Is anyone interested in specific details on the above? Let me know and I'll post our mockups and the interesting parts of the scope. Inc. MagazineSo one of the comments I hear all the time goes something like this: WORKetc is [amazing] [changed our business] [get's-me-home-at-night] [made-my-team-more-productive] [etc etc], but how come we've never heard of you before? The answer is that we've been so focused on improving the product and helping customers that PR has always taken a bit of a back seat. But it is exciting to see that maybe, just maybe, the quality of our product is starting to push through and generate its own PR. For example, we just received a fantastic, concise review of our Gmail for Google Apps gadget in Inc. Magazine Online. What would be truly awesome is if some "WORKetc-ers" could re-tweet the article and write a short comment on the article. Let Inc. Magazine know that when they write about WORKetc, they get traffic! Here is the link: http://technology.inc.com/2011/08/23/worketc-makes-gmail-work-harder/

iPhone App & Recurring Tasks Now Available

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 05:29:12 UTC

It seems like just yesterday (it was) that I was complaining about Apple taking its time to approve our App and because of this the WORKetc blog wasn't updated for a few weeks. Steve Jobs (obviously ...) keeps an eye on our blog and literally an hour after posting, the app was approved and soon after available on the iTunes store. To get the WORKetc iPhone App, visit the iTunes store or search for "WORKetc" in the App Store on your iPhone. Our Android App has been powering along these last few weeks with a 4.5 star rating and 825 installs! If you're an Android owner, you'll find it here. Remember both apps are the first release. We'll be updating shortly to speed up the experience as well completing modules for sales leads and expenses. Please Rate Us... Once you have installed the iPhone or Android App, please take the time to rate WORKetc (5 stars of course!). It is the best way of helping us get more exposure and ergo more customers. Which we can then turn into more developers to release better updates, faster. Awesome little ecosystem. Recurring Tasks/ToDo's The other big announcement today is that Recurring Items are now live. This means any ToDo, Event or other calendar item can be set to repeat, following a variety of patterns such as: - repeat the last Thursday of every month for the next 4 months; or - repeat every week until I say stop Where we make this even better is that any instance of a recurring group can be isolated and either cancelled or reassigned for that instance only - so the implementation ends up being crazy flexible. Oh and it all syncs up nicely with Google Calendar. Whats' next? Still so much to go on the road map. Granular Permissions, Outlook Plugin, New Search Engine, Custom Views, Drip Marketing/Sales Workflows, Xero/Quickbooks Integration and this almighty User Experience update which includes about 200 or so tiny improvements. So hit the Google Plusone above, stay subscribed and tell everyone ab...

Heads Down, Grinding Away

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 05:02:42 UTC

I've been hearing a bit of chatter the last 2 days; concerns that we've suddenly gone very quiet on the blog front leading to rumors of some big announcement. Apologies for that. The reality is I've held off writing anything thinking that our next big announcement would be the iPhone app launch. Unfortunately Apple is slow to review and approve its release into the wild. But that doesn't mean we've been lazing around drinking margaritas and cashing in our Groupon coupons for a week of day-long, day spas. Quite the contrary; all heads are down, grinding away, staying out of trouble. Deadlines and Reminders on Support Cases Last week we rolled out some new features to support cases which included the ability to set a deadline on a case and to create future reminders to review a support case. Recurring Tasks Sometime this week we'll turn on the new recurring task features. This really has taken much longer than anticipated. On the surface it seems really simple. Create a task then set it to repeat every week. But once you dig into the various scenarios it becomes exponentially more complex very quickly (and all the while we need to keep it easy!). So not only will the new recurring task have a multitude of repeat scenarios, you can also simply address operational issues such as one week you might be on holiday (!) and need to delegate those tasks off to someone else without having to create separate new, tasks. Oh and recurring tasks will sync back and forth with Google Apps Calendar. I'll make a more detailed announcement when it is live... Google Contact Synchronization We are also ruthlessly testing Google contacts Sync. As with all automated two-way sync scenarios there is always the risk of total disaster and in fact if you look at a few Google Apps reviews where a vendor has a feature, you'll read the odd screaming review that the app has shredded the users contacts. We'd like to obviously avoid that... An outcome of this work is ...

Get the Android App Here. More jobs on offer.

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:25:29 UTC

Android App - get it now Continuing our mobile device roll-out, the WORKetc Native Android App (beta) can now be downloaded from the Android Marketplace. Simply search for WORKetc from the Marketplace App on your Android device, or see it here – WORKetc Android App. This release includes Contacts, Calendars, Timesheets, ToDos, Projects and Support Cases. Once we’ve finished the iOS App, we’ll loop back and complete Leads, Expenses and Settings. We’re actually only a few full days from completing the iPhone/iOS app, but I fear getting it approved by the Apple App Store could take weeks. Oh – and if you download and install the Android App, please take 30 seconds to rate it in the store. Higher ratings mean more sales for us which means more resources to improve WORKetc. Everyone wins. Please remember that the app is still in beta - please post any issues to the Mobile App forum so we can keep track. Customer Support JobsGeoff and I are working toward replicating core fundamentals of the Zappos Customer Service ethos within WORKetc: - Hire only the best customer support people we can find. I don’t want average, WORKetc isn’t an average product. - Customer support as core business rather than an after-thought. I’m convinced a lot of cloud/software vendors only view support as a hassle. People that get the most from our software stay subscribed each month and crucially talk about us to their partners and customers. - No call times, no sales goals, no scripts. For us that means answering the phone directly (we recently started answering own number), working with the customer until the issue is resolved, regardless of how long it might take us to do so.So we're looking for more WORKetc evangelists. We like working with people already using WORKetc – you already know the product and are already passionate about it. Get in contact. You might have missed… - View all employee activities for a particular company - New advanced project dependenc...

Mobile WORKetc - Beta 1 - Now Available

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 12:16:17 UTC

Big news, mobile WORKetc beta 1 is now ready. From today a fully optimized mobile version of WORKetc is available for access on all web-enabled mobile phones. Firstly, just to recap on our mobile strategy: - Today: Make available the most important modules through mobile web interface. Compatible with all mobile handsets - Later this month: Release the native Google Android app - Early next month: Release the native Apple iOS app. Timing on this could be pushed out depending on how long Apple takes to authorize the app - Loop back to the start, complete the remaining 3 modules and release on all platforms - Address any bugs on all platforms and release - Consider developing for Blackberry and Microsoft Phones Secondly, some notes on being beta: - Although it is still a beta, we're making this available to everyone. - I'm confident it is stable, but Beta means there will be bugs and issues. - Some screen are slow, some are lightning fast. We're working on making everything lightning fast. How we're supporting the mobile beta We won't be able to do any support for the mobile version (yet). Its a beta, it is going to have bugs and we'll be doing almost daily releases. So, any questions or bug issues related to mobile editions need to be voiced through the community forums here: http://admin.worketc.com/Community/Forums?Forum=14 - please remember to tag your post with Android, iOS or Mobile Web. Included FeaturesThe mobile version is essentially a stripped back version of the core web application, built on top of the existing WORKetc API. We've stripped back features because to be honest trying to do some of the more complex tasks WORKetc can manage, on a smaller screen size, is just going to be painful. And of course we have to make it all work within the confines of significantly less processing power and slower bandwidth than the average PC has. Real tricky. Mobile WORKetc is designed to access data and do brief updates whe...

Google Docs Integration - now in Beta for all!

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:33:41 UTC

That's right, we've (finally) pushed Google Docs integration through to public beta as well as improvements to the File Attachment tool. Here's the low-down on everything Docs. What is Google Docs, Why Use It? Google Docs is a free, online word processor, spreadsheet, slide show and data storage service from Google. With Google Docs you can create and edit these documents online, collaborate with your other team members and share with users outside your organization. The WORKetc integration takes advantage of this by allowing you to reference and link Google Docs directly inside of WORKetc. For example, you could write a report in Google Docs and then within WORKetc, attach that report directly to a project. WORKetc creates a link between the two, so that the WORKetc project will always link to the latest version of the report. So in summary, Google Docs handles the creation of documents and WORKetc links documents to context such as customers, projects, sales leads and more. Setting it Up If you're already using the awesome WORKetc Gadget for Google Apps Email then you are already set up. Otherwise, make sure you have a Google Apps Domain set up, then inside of WORKetc simply enter the domain in at Settings -> Manage My Account -> Apps Integration What it Looks Like Once you've connected your Google Apps Domain to WORKetc, you'll see the Google Docs folder structure show up inside the WORKetc files folder. As you can see, everything is fairly straightforward, with the main association being Google Collections = WORKetc Folders: Note: When using Google Docs inside of WORKetc, WORKetc will always respect the permission settings you have set inside of Google Docs. So, if it looks like a Google Docs file is not showing up inside of WORKetc, remember to check permissions first: Using It The WORKetc project management tool is likely the main place in WORKetc where most people will be looking to attach Google Docs files. Again, really stra...

Evernote + WORKetc = Less Errggghhh ... plus looking for a technical writer

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 10:33:09 UTC

Debugging our iPhone App with Evernote At WORKetc we have an informal policy of always using images to describe bugs and user interface issues. Obviously a picture is worth a thousand words but more importantly with a few simple tools a picture can be quickly marked up with notes further describing the problem and proposed solution. This ensures everyone is talking about the same issue and there can be no confusion (if you have worked with our customer support guys, you would have likely received a request to provide a screen grab or join in on a screen-sharing session). Except debugging the WORKetc Mobile CSS (soon to be Android & iOS) quickly became a major chore: - Find a bug on the iPhone. Normally you'll identify several bugs in a single screen. - Screen snap each issue on iPhone (hold down on/off and main button for a few seconds) - Email those images to my laptop - Open up each image inside of email and import into Snagit - Try and remember what issue each image related to. - Write notes for each image - Create To-Do's under the "Debug Mobile App" project in WORKetc Obviously a really slow and convoluted process resulting in frequent eeerrrghhhhhhh* moments. Complaining about this to the team resulted in a reminder about how I'm always telling everyone that we always try to use WORKetc to manage WORKetc ... and why wasn't I using our new Evernote integration to improve the process. Uhm, good question. So my seven step process (above) is now: - Find a bug on the iPhone. - Screen snap an issue - Note the issue and attach the image on the Evernote iPhone app (using #ToDo tag to auto create WORKetc To Do's inside of Evernote) - Sync Evernote to WORKetc I now have fewer steps in the process and less work in each step. Plus we're now using WORKetc in a better way to manage our own systems and process. Read our original Evernote + WORKetc announcement for ideas on how you might use this integration in your own workflows....

Get Stuff into WORKetc Faster with Evernote

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:55:02 UTC

I have a lot of ideas ... all the time. The more coffee I drink, the more ideas I have. And they come at the most inopportune times; In the shower, trying to get off to sleep, waiting for the next wave and again in the shower (that seems to happen a lot). I also come across a lot of seemingly important information. And again mostly at the most inopportune times; when I’m trying to focus on getting a task done and I stumble across something that could be the magic bullet I've been looking for, but completely irrelevant to right now. In fact in the back of my mind I always have a feeling I’ve missed something really important. I might be about to start a task and there was a crucial piece of information I know I’ve seen somewhere, but where? I know I’m not alone in this. Business owners, entrepreneurs, project leaders, sales people and really anyone involved in running a business face this challenge every day, all the time: How to capture the important stuff, anywhere, anytime whilst not losing focus. This is where Evernote comes in. Evernote is a tool that is available on every major smart phone, every current web browser and for your Mac or PC. It is now even shipping as standard in many scanners and digital cameras. The guys at Evernote say it best: Chances are, if you can see it or think of it, Evernote can help you remember it. Type a text note. Clip a web page. Snap a photo. Grab a screenshot. Evernote will keep it all safe. And of course no matter where you captured something, it all syncs back to the single account. Evernote now also syncs with WORKetc (and vice versa). That’s right. You can now use your Evernote account to capture “stuff” on the go and sync up to WORKetc. What's even better is that you can use the Evernote Android and iPhone apps, right now, to push "stuff" into your WORKetc account. Here’s a few scenarios describing how Evernote + WORKetc combo is so incredibly useful: - Select copy from a web site,...

Mobile Update & Other Stuff We're Working On

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 06:18:24 UTC

Mobile Update Possibly by the end of next week we'll be making available the first mobile beta - it will be generic mobile web interface and include contacts, calendar, timesheets and ToDo's. As a reminder, this is our build strategy: - Release the first 4 modules in beta as mobile optimized CSS. This means that whatever flavor phone you have, be it iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows 7 mobile you will be able to efficiently use WORKetc on your mobile. - Whilst the first 4 modules are in beta, we'll be developing the remaining 4 modules plus settings. - Once the entire mobile CSS version is in beta, we'll be building native iOS and native Android apps through to beta release - As android/iOS is in beta, we'll then double back and build the mobile CSS version through to release - And then finish by pushing the native apps through to release. We may then start work on a Blackberry native app - just not sure yet - depends on demand. Here are some developing screen shots: Over the next 2 weeks: - The first WORKetc mobile beta will be available to anyone game enough to try it out - Recurring Tasks and Support Case Reminders will both be released - Integration with Evernote will be launched into beta - We'll be starting work on Google Docs integration - I'll be writing Part II of our planned update to Sales & CRM Sunrise over Bondi Beach @ 6:48am, 7:15am, 7:43am WORKetc is very much a Micro Multinational - our customers, partners and staff all work remotely, all over the world. And although we do have a North American focus with Geoff and Kevin residing in LA and Chicago respectively and maybe 80% of our customers in the States, I do spend most of my year in Sydney and specifically next to Bondi Beach. This is how Bondi woke up today: Lots to do...

Sales & CRM - Work in Progress - Part 1

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 30 May 2011 04:27:19 UTC

From 10,000 feet WORKetc has a very simple workflow which is useful to every single business on the planet: - Get the customer - Deliver to the customer - Bill the customer - Keep the customer - Repeat (and repeat and repeat) At the heart of this workflow are all the tools we loosely throw together under the CRM banner; contact management, activity history, customer support, email marketing and lead management. Now after 12 or so months of collecting feedback, both on the forums and meeting people face-to-face, as well as using our tools to manage our own sales, we’re about to start work on a major CRM revision that will include the following core features: - Custom Fields. Extend custom fields across the entire application. - Custom Views. Create a complex search and save as a view. - Sales templates. Step-by-step and semi-automated, user-created sales process. - Tags. Extend tags across the entire application. Tag anything and everything, synch with Evernote (!) - Watches & Alerts. Watch the activity on any object and receive on-screen alerts when something changes. - Social Media Integration. Suck in data from a number of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. - Quick notes. Quickly take phone notes (or any note) and attach to a client. And although this is a huge project, I’ve added a new development team so as to not impact on the current mobile and 3rd party integration projects. Let’s get down to the details… Custom FieldsCustom fields already exist in some parts of WORKetc, namely projects. However being brutally honest it was a last minute hack and never truly integrated into the core of WORKetc. This is about to change big time. Custom fields are containers for data that a business needs to capture, that might be specific for that business. For example, your business might manage IT for other small businesses. By creating a custom field called equipment, you’ll be able to instantl...

5 Brand New Things

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 10 May 2011 04:02:37 UTC

We've got a lot of cool stuff going on... introducing 5 shiny brand new things. - New datacenter, new infrastructure - New mobile screen grabs - New people - New partner program - 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. Please Note: We will be migrating your account at approximately midnight of your business timezone (as configured under Settings > Logo, Language & Location.) If your timezone is not configured yet, we recommend that you set it as soon as possible to avoid disruption during your work day. Transfer durations will vary depending on the size of your database. We expect 90% of accounts to be waiting for no more than 5 minutes, while some larger accounts may take up to an hour to transfer. 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 th...

Anyone for a WORKetc mobile app?

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:37:26 UTC

Ok, well it isn't finished yet (not even at beta!) but I thought I'd share some screen grabs from both Android and iOS. We're making rapid progress... We're obviously stripping the functionality right back for the mobile app; focussing on simple, every day tasks: Contacts: - Search - View details - Create and edit - Phase 2: Synch with mobile addressbook Calendar: - View Calendars - Create and edit Events Timesheets: - View Timesheets - Create and edit To-Dos: - View To-Do list - View To-Do detail - Create and Edit Projects: - View Projects list - Search Projects - View Project detail - Add Comment, ToDo to a project - Edit Project details Help Desk: - View support list - Search Customer Support - Create new case - Add comment, Reply Email to Case - Edit Case details Sales Leads: - View leads list - Search leads - View lead detail - Create new lead - Edit and update existing lead Expenses: - Capture expenses Beta, Releases & TimingWe have no firm dates for release... yet! But by the end of May we should be in the position to make mobile Contacts and Calendars available as an unsupported public beta; by June I would like to see Timesheets and To-Dos added to the beta. We'll be initially running a "at your own risk", unsupported public beta; requiring any issues to be posted to a forum. This is because we'll be rapidly developing, simultaneously as we release-to-beta so we're likely to catch and fix any bugs by the time we address individual support issues. It would be a horrible waste of development time to be addressing issues individually, after they have already been solved (even to update). So - unsupported public beta it is. Mobile CSS, then Android & iPhone natives Our development path on this project is to quickly deliver something that works on all mobiles and then to double back, package up and release native/hybrid Android and iPhone apps. The mobile CSS version would...

London, Paris, Berlin, Zurich Meetups

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:31:13 UTC

I'll be in London all next week (May 2nd ->) if any customers, potential customers, partners, developers or really anyone else wants to meet up for a flat white - now serving @ Flat White in SoHo A flat white is a coffee beverage from Australia and New Zealand. It is prepared by pouring microfoam (steamed milk from the bottom of a pitcher) over a single (30ml) or double shot (60ml) of espresso. It is similar to the latte and the café au lait and like other espresso based beverages it can be interpreted various ways. In around a fortnight I should be in Paris for a week, then Berlin and Zurich. Let's meet... Edit:I got my months wrong, it is the week starting May 2.

How We Know When WORKetc Sucks

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:33:48 UTC

It is pretty simple really. I know when WORKetc sucks when I suddenly find myself no longer using it and instead reverting to the old ways of doing things - which for me means a lot of email. Not many people realize the extent to which we use WORKetc to actually run WORKetc. Google infamously calls this eating their own dog food. I call it sanity. Without WORKetc running WORKetc we wouldn't have a viable business. Product development wouldn't progress as fast as it does, customer support would be a daily losing battle and we wouldn't be sending out invoices and collecting money. We rely on WORKetc so much that I doubt whether any other startup uses their own product as much as we do. With WORKetc working for us 24/7, there is a lot of "dog food" to be eaten. Not surprisingly, WORKetc is the top user account of WORKetc (1266 active days), followed by iDonny (1083), Hall (891) and Web1SEO (739). So as you can imagine, when WORKetc sucks at something, we really feel it. We subconsciously fall back into old, inefficient habits. Personally I get this dulling sensation as my workflow starts to breakdown and my brain needs to start thinking about how to do something in WORKetc, rather than just getting work done. This in itself is an interesting insight. When WORKetc is working well, you don't notice it. But when something doesn't work as expected, the jarring feels twice as bad. Luckily for the most part, we don't notice it :-) Recently we started testing the waters with real-time phone support, whereby select customers could book themselves into a same day phone support session. WORKetc sucked when Geoff @support implemented a third party scheduling solution - our tool wasn't up to doing what we wanted it to do. I hated that. WORKetc sucked. So now we're rapidly developing an appointment scheduling tool so as to keep using WORKetc to run every part of the WORKetc business; again moving one step closer to the seamless, total business managem...

Now Available: Google Apps Email Gadget

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:39:50 UTC

The Google Apps Email Gadget is now available for public testing. Read about the Gadget here. How to set up the Gadget and link your Gmail account.

Gmail Apps Email Gadget Announcement

Daniel Barnett — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 09:35:21 UTC

Following our launch on the Google Marketplace, we'll be rolling out a number of tighter integration projects between WORKetc and Google Apps. The first of these is a Google Email Contextual Gadget. Essentially an Email Gadget lives inside of Google Apps Email and allows you to interact directly with your WORKetc account. Why this is coolThis means you can now attach any email within Google Apps Email, to a project, contact, sales lead or support case. No need to leave Google Apps Email, no need to remember project codes. Just click, point and select and that email is then sent across to your WORKetc account and displayed as part of your contact's activity history. Similarly you can also create a new project, contact, sales lead, support case or ToDo from within Google Apps Email. But it gets even better. The gadget will also pre-load the last 10 or so activities with that contact as well as that contacts' full contact details. ScenariosScenario 1 Let's say that you've exchanged business cards with a potential customer at a trade fair. The following week, they have emailed yourself directly requesting more information. Without leaving Google Apps Email and without logging into WORKetc, you can take that email and create a new contact, then create a new sales lead and finally send a ToDo for a colleague to mail out your information kit. Scenario 2 If you are an account manager and one of your clients has emailed you with a support request, you can effortlessly turn that email into a WORKetc support case, from within Google Apps Email. Scenario 3 You've have received an email from a contact requesting an urgent update on their project. Since that project was one of the more recent interactions with that contact, a direct link is showing right their in Google Apps Email. Simply click on the link to launch a new tabbed browser window, right into that project on WORKetc. What it looks like, how it works... So we still have maybe a week of ...

New Promo Video

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:09:58 UTC

We just released our new promo video that better explains the WORKetc concept. I wrote the script, Geoff did the voice-over and a great animator (outsourced via eLance) put it all together. Please let us know your thoughts and if anyone is looking for something similar, leave a request in comments for a referal.

Marketing Stats, Help Glyphs and more.

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:35:03 UTC

Over the last fortnight we've rolled out a bunch of small, but kinda cool improvements. Here's a brief run down. Help GlyphsThroughout the WORKetc interface, you'll start to see little question mark icons next to input fields and other parts of the interface. Click on a help icon to display help information: Marketing StatsThe new email engine we released (read about it here) also allows us to track statistics around email marketing campaigns. This is now live across all accounts, but remember it will only show for new campaigns. People <-> Company LinksWe have improved the link between People and the Company that they are associated with, so that now you can choose to view a company's activity and also include the activity of all of its associated people. This may sound confusing at first, but some WORKetc users will only refer to a company name for any work or they may refer specifically to a person at the company. This method allows WORKetc users to make use of the work style they are most familiar with: More cool stuff coming soon...

New version released

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 05:54:40 UTC

If you haven’t been keeping up with our numerous blog and twitter posts announcing this major update or if you’ve missed the announcement inside of your WORKetc account, or if you haven’t tried out the beta before today, then logging into your WORKetc account might have been a bit of a surprise. Over this weekend we promoted a number of revised WORKetc tools from beta to public release; meaning that all WORKetc accounts have now been upgraded to the new version. The following key areas of WORKetc have all been updated: - Projects - ToDo List - Help Desk - Time sheets - Calendar Missing Projects? Missing ToDos? Before I go into the details, the biggest issue some people may see in their accounts is going to be seemingly missing Projects or ToDos’. Do not worry. They aren’t missing. It is just that some people with custom filters may have settings applied that will hide some items from view in the new version. This is very easily fixed. Simply go into the projects and to-do screen and turn the filters to: - Period: Anytime - Active/Inactive: All items - Employee: Everyone - Customers: Leave unselected This will of course show everything under your account. It is then just a matter of adjusting these filters to show the information that you want to see. Whilst this new set up may be annoying to set up, the benefit is that allows you much more control over the information you see. Particularly useful for some of our clients that are running hundreds of projects at any one time. New in Project Management Project management online should not just be a dumping ground for everything to do with a project. Most tools feel like this; you log into an account, find a project and then throw everything to do with your project at it. Maybe label some of the items and maybe tick off a few milestones. I don't see how this is really different to email. We wanted a system whereby you actually worked on a project in that space. We also w...

Picking up Momentum: Major release, We're Hiring, New Offers, New Training

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:15:00 UTC

As we pick up momentum with our development schedule, the public release of the new calendar, timesheet, project management and help desk components is almost upon us. So if you haven’t done so already, I definitely recommend switching the beta view for your account to "on" and having a look around. You can easily switch the beta on or off from the link at the bottom of the right hand panel: As a reminder take a look at the new wizardry here: - Project Management - Time tracking - CalendarsThe beta we pushed out last Thursday also covers the help desk tool and already we're close to pushing out an updated beta based on the feedback received already (!). Let's take a look at some of the new interface changes that are ready for testing now: Above: You can now quickly select multiple participants in a project. Previously you needed to select, then save, each participant, one at a time. Above: This is one of those features that aren't critical unless you have big, busy, complex projects, at which point it is a life-saver. Advanced filtering options allow you create very specific views of your project. Above: This new work screen for Customer Support allows you to do manage a case without having to click through to the full case detail. You can also save more time by being able to record a timesheet from within any help desk screen. Lots of people have been asking for this one! We're Hiring. Whenever possible, I look to our customers to hire in for positions and project work. This works well for us as we don't have to spend so much effort training up someone from scratch, plus in a way it is kind of like giving back to our community. Anyways, we have work right now for the following: - Customer Support Person. Part time initially, moving to full time mid year and ideally located in Ireland or elsewhere in Europe so that we can take advantage of time zones. Must be comfortable using screen-sharing software to help solve problems and ...

Email Update: improved deliverability, tracking & more

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 12:04:17 UTC

Late last week we successfully rolled out a fundamental change to the e-mail system that powers WORKetc. This is big news as it allows us to not only improve end-recipient deliverability, but also include a bunch of cool tracking features. For example you can now see if an invoice was received by a client and then also if they opened that email. The same goes for any type of email WORKetc sends. Awesome. Previously we managed our own mail servers, sending both transactional (ie customer invoices, alerts) and mass email (ie email newsletters) through the same system. The problem was that occasionally, email from WORKetc would get blocked by a recipient's ISP. It wasn't so much that our customers were sending spam (they weren't) but rather we just weren't sending enough volume to build any sort of credibility with the major networks. Some ISP's would edge on the side of caution and block WORKetc email simply because we had zero profile, good or bad. I need to stress that this was a very minor issue, applying to only a handful of emails out of the 10,000+ flowing through the system each week. The entire solution took a few months to research and implement, mainly due to the vagrancies between the "popular" SMTP mail server providers. We needed a provider that would allow both transactional email and mass email, that wouldn't throw their own code into sent emails, supported at least a 5MB attachment, was quick to send and who provided basic SMTP server access (as opposed ot an API) so we could instantly switch servers if they ever went down. We worked with and went right through the full list of providers and feel like we know their services inside and out now. If anyone is interested in a detailed review of Jango, Critsend, MessageGears, Postmark and others then let me know and I'll post. In the end we went with Socketlabs and so far all email continues to pump out smoothly. We can't recommend their team enough in terms of rapid support. On to...

New Pricing Announced... and explained in detail

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 06:49:00 UTC

I’ve made a number of references in this blog, on the community forums and privately to many about a planned price increase for WORKetc. Universally it has been met with encouragement which surprises; I’d been bracing for a whole lot of resistance, but that just isn't coming through. To be absolutely clear, this will not affect current, paying customers. All the people that supported us from launch until the day we actually set live the price increase will be Grandfathered at their current pricing. I’d like to be able to say Grandfathered forever, but we just don’t know what might happen in the future. I can personally guarantee a minimum of two years and state that I have no intention to ever increase prices for these users. This is your reward for helping us build WORKetc to date. Payback time. Why the price increase? Firstly ... WORKetc has evolved far beyond the glorified notice board, with contacts and simple billing that it once was. It is now a full blown small business management platform – most of our customers manage and automate their entire business from WORKetc and others that require specialist industry software are successfully integrating WORKetc. BUT – I still have a long way to go in terms of where I want the product to be. This requires a few more developers on the team. Additionally we have a very real commitment to very real customer support – so much so that it is fast becoming a competitive advantage. Now, so far I’ve largely funded WORKetc from my own pocket, from consulting gigs and with cashflow from our early adopters. Now is the time to really accelerate product development and beef up customer support. This is roughly where we spent money in December 2010: So – if you had an active WORKetc subscription in December, 50% of your subscription fee went on building a better product. Kinda cool. Then another 20% on customer support and another 12% on servers, bandwidth and back up. Essentially everything gets ...

The WORKetc Liquid Road Map

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 04:48:56 UTC

Late last year I tentatively started announcing roadmaps for WORKetc. I say tentatively for a few reasons: - We keep a mostly fluid development plan as WORKetc is wide and deep; a full range of business management tools each covering wide spectrum of functionality. When we update one tool, it will inevitably impact on other areas. This means timelines will change and priorities shift focus. I wanted to avoid disappointing people by saying we were working on one feature, only to see that feature delayed because of changing priorities and unexpected roadblocks. - We actively encourage everyone to participate on the suggesting new feature ideas, discussing and voting for those features. As we are updating one area of WORKetc, we’ll also identify a bunch of other ideas from this forum that make sense to implement at the same time. Obviously it is more efficient to implement one big update project, rather than many little ones. - Openness and Competition. Being totally transparent in terms of product development and direction opens us up to a whole lot of scrutiny, even before we have written a single line of code. Additionally an open road map gives “competitors” clear insight into where we are heading. I use the word competitors cautiously as I'm really am more focussed on product improvement rather than watching over my back. However, it would pain me to announce some cool new idea and then only to see someone else get it out the door sooner! So - with these three concerns at top of mind, late last year I started publishing a brief over view of where our product development focus lays. What has surprised me is that so far there has only been encouragement and excitement around open road-mapping. People I guess really do want to know what is going on behind the scenese. They are excited by the possiblities and comforted to know that progress is being made on the features that they want to see. With this in mind, I've included the liquid roadma...

Time Tracking Beta, Product Import Beta, Revised Roadmap...

Daniel Barnett — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 01:11:58 UTC

Over the next few days Simon will be making available the new time tracking beta (I'll update this post and Twitter when we set it live). Also attached to this release is an update to the look and feel of the calendar. Cleaner design, bolder colors and no more wishy-washy pastels! The big change to the timesheets is more choice in how you want to record your time. Rather than forcing you to use a single way of entering timesheets, we now provide for three different styles. Calendar Timesheet EntryThis is the legacy time sheet entry method whereby you drag and drop a time period on a calendar screen and enter in details to record your time. Good for: When you need to record exact start and stop times and record a lot of detail against each entry. For example, a management consultant often needs to provide a client with exact times and a detailed account of what they were working on. Line Timesheet EntryThis new time entry screen allows you to create a row for each project you are working on and enter a simple time value for a project on that day. Unlike the Calendar Entry, Line Entry doesn't demand you enter a specific start / stop time - all it wants to know is the number of hours worked. Good for: Quick entry of time, when the exact start and stop times are not required. You can set up your projects at the start of the week and quickly tab through each day and record your hours worked. Group Timesheet EntryThis new tool replaces the old "bulk entry" tool and is designed for organizations that assign an assistant or project team member to manage timesheets for others or when an entire team is working on the same project. It allows a person to assign the same project to a number of employees and then enter work hours for that group. Good for: Managing timesheets on behalf of other people and efficiently creating mass timesheet entries for groups of people. New Interface ToolsExisting customers would have noticed the two new interface selec...

Sneak Preview, Brief Roadmap and more...

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 06:17:22 UTC

What we're working on.... right now. Moving straight along with our development schedule is the new Calendar and Timesheet tools. Here's a sneak preview of how the new Calendar design is looking: And a Balsamiq Mockup of the new Timesheet "line entry" option: And this is the new bulk entry, which we are now calling "group" entry: Aside from look and feel, the main changes are: - Tabled line entry option available for employees who don't need to track exact stop and start times. - The Calendar entry option remains for employees who need exact times - The new Group entry option makes it easier to attach the same timesheet to a group of employees. - Calendar entry (and in fact most calendar items) will let you duplicate an entry (think cut and paste for entries)We're working on this right now and will likely have the beta out early next week. Pricing Increase.I'm also working on a new pricing structure in line with the rollout of the current round of product development. But, don't worry, all 311 existing customers will be grandfathered with the current pricing. I'd love to make a bold statement like Grandfathered Forever but I just can't see that far into the future. I can personally guarantee at least 2 years and make a statement that it isn't my intention to ever raise prices for the 311 early adopters who put in their own time and effort to help build WORKetc thus far. Why we are doing this: - The WORKetc product is now light years from when we launched it in properly in June 2008. Hell, it is actually useful now and not nearly as frustrating as it was in the early days. - It does Projects Management, CRM, billing and a whole lot more, in the single web application. But it is priced the same and in many chases cheaper, than web applications that perform only one function. - We've repeatedly heard from customers that they initially ignored WORKetc, considering it too cheap to be a viable, quality solution. - We have a very rea...

Updated: Project Management Beta - NOW AVAILABLE

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 08:00:25 UTC

Updated - Sun 7 Nov 2010: All accounts can now turn on the project management beta by selecting the option from the side bar: Please use this forum to discuss the new beta.... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The big news is that we're now really close to a public beta of the new projects tool (for real this time). I’ll update this post once we have made the beta link available in all accounts. In the meantime all we need to do is migrate accounts across to a new, more powerful and dedicated database server and turn on the beta This will likely mean between 1min and 5min downtime for all accounts, randomly, from Friday evening through to Sunday as we copy each database over to the new server. More importantly, it will mean noticeably improved performance on all accounts and access to the new project management beta. The best way of illustrating how massive this change is to show the same screen, from the same project, side by side. You'll also notice that projects will upgrade and degrade seamlessly between the old project style and the new project style. Unfortunately a few planned improvements have not made it into the beta release, but will be progressively built during the beta phase. The reason we've excluded these items is they weren't finished and we didn't want to hold up releasing the guts of this update any longer. The most notable exceptions are: - Resource utilisation. This is a calendar heat map showing how much each employee has assigned for a particular day (or stretch of time). Useful to quickly understand how busy everyone is going to be and what they are going to be busy on. - Budget planner. The existing budget tool is available in the new projects beta, but the plan is to develop a more visual approach to understanding whether your project is on target. - Move around. This is the ability to simply move an object such as a sub-project or to-do from one parent project to another. I’m still to de...

New Feature Suggestion Tool

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 10:19:51 UTC

WORKetc gets better because of user suggestions and feature request. We know that first hand - a lot of recent improvements to the product have come about specifically from suggestions and requests. We read every email, we capture every suggestion, collate, debate and implement. Yet, I find it astonishing some companies not only disregard or even ignore customer input, they wear it as some sort of badge to be proud of. With software innovation moving at breakneck speed, it must surely be a perilous strategy to gloss over what your users are thinking (and feeling). Being Stubborn Won’t Get You Anywhere One of the main perpetrators is 37Signals - and much has already been written about their product management strategies. They have specifically set out to appeal to the concept of simplicity in their software. That’s their angle; intuitive and easy to use applications. They hammer this in time after time through marketing, communications and PR. I’m happy to see they’ve been successful with their angle, but will surely come at some cost. Because of the fact that they want to continue working from this angle, they have cut their products short when it comes to features. If you look at Basecamp or Highrise for example, these products fall short in terms of what many people consider basic (necessary) CRM or project management features. Because of this, users are always making new feature requests, which are promptly ignored. But it gets worse. If 37Signals is to be believed, they just hit the delete button on requests! "Yup, read them and throw them away. The ones that are really important will keep bubbling up." http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/getting_real_forget_feature_requests.php What’s painful about reading this is the obvious inference to ignoring a huge amount of the customers and letting only the ‘’important’’ ones pile up. Why bother even suggesting an idea if you already know it is going to be discarded... And what annoys me even mor...

New Projects… bigger than we thought.

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 06:42:36 UTC

I know a lot of people are hanging out to test the new project tool and we are getting closer. The reality is that it is a far greater project (!) than we thought. Projects are a massive part of WORKetc and as such provide core information through to contacts, billing, timesheets, reports and just about every part of WORKetc. Change projects and the effects ripple through the entire application. The good news is that every day we get closer. The “temporarily” bad news was that we hit some performance issues over the last few weeks. Temporary as we seem to have overcome most of them now. The thing about improving performance is that it is not universally tangible as adding a cool new feature and it is only a handful of people who have hit the performance ceiling that notice any improvement. So, whilst it might look like we haven’t achieved a lot over the last 6 weeks, rest assured we have. And on top of performance, we’ve also further refined the new project and Gantt charts. Here is a bit more of a preview… The big improvement in the image above from last time, is the ability to quickly create a "sub project" and ToDo's under that project. We've now included a check box so that you can tick off completed ToDo's just as quickly as they were completed. The image below shows the first draft of the new "triggers" or dependant project implementation. Now, MS Project and a few other Project Management Software products call this functionality "Predeccesors", but we feel that is such an ugly and cumbersome term. I realise were probably breaking a bunch of user experience rules here, but we're going with the name "Trigger", as in "create a trigger to start Project B, once Project A is complete". Some notes on the above example: - Dotted lines on the gantt indicate a "starts after" relationship. Sooo as illustrated above; - TODO #4 has dotted lines going to TODOs 1, 3 and 6 on the gantt. - TODO #5 begins after 4. - and TODO #2 beg...

New Feature: Enable logins for all customers.

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:34:20 UTC

Last week had to solve a long standing UX problem in WORKetc regarding access for your customers, to your customer portal. If you've enabled customer access for your WORKetc account then you already know that each account needs to be configured manually, which is pretty lame from a usability perspective. And having to keep saying "oh you need to go in and edit your thousands of records manually" was starting to weigh on our conscious! So - as of last Friday you can now simply enable customer access, to your customer portal, for all your customers in one fell swoop. Here's how it works: 1. When customer logins are enabled, customers can now sign in even if they don't have a password/account yet. If you try login, and your contact profile is not explicitly disabled but you have no password yet, you'll will now get this: ... instead of the old message telling you to contact the business owner to have them set you up with a password. If you have no contact info on file at all you, you can now make an account with the business by clicking the " or register" link next to the sign in button. Rego form looks like this: 2. Businesses can now bulk-overwrite permissions across all customers under Settings > Contact Settings: ...note the new "default customer permissions" field here. You can basically set this once and forget about it. Any new contacts that are imported or created will be done so with these settings pre-applied. There is also the option to bulk-overwrite existing customer credentials based on what you've got ticked just now. There is also the option to bulk flag customer login access to "enabled" (previously always "disabled" by default, so we needed this to allow folks to fix the old contact data.) When "allow customers to sign in,.." is enabled, the default login capability is now set to "enabled" on any new contacts. This should keep everything seamless for the business owner. 3. This also means you can invite any arbitrary contact...

Contacts and New Interface Tools: Now Available

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:44:03 UTC

Today we’ve moved the new Contacts and Interface tools out of beta and into the main WORKetc release. I believe that most of our customers have already made the switch to using the beta link, so this shouldn’t be too much of a shock. To recap on the main Contact changes please read the original post - not a lot has changed since then. Mostly we have been tightening up the interface and adding a few more time savers. Here are some additional updates (and cool stuff) explained... Sending Email from within WORKetc Depending on your work style, you can either send email to your contacts through your desktop email application or through WORKetc itself. Sending email through WORKetc will also store that email against your contact's activity history. Throughout this latest release, we've updated a lot of screens to now float above the screen you are currently on. Previously, WORKetc would take you to a new page to complete an action. Now it will simply load that next page into a floating window. No longer having to navigate to another page will mean a big time saving in using WORKetc and also improve usability. Contacts Directory The contacts directory has undergone a massive overhaul. Contact Details: The contact details pages for employees, companies and people have all been redesigned to show more meaningful information without having to scroll or open a new page. Additionally, most fields are now instantly editable by simply clicking on the field and then clicking the green pencil to edit. Adding a new person, employee or company. We now have a new floating window that lets you quickly add a new contact with only basic details, with the option of adding more detailed contact information at a later stage. Bookmarks & Expand / Collapse Side Panel The side panel help menu now lets you expand and collapse - providing you with more screen space to work. Simply click the grey column to expand or collapse. Also - the side panel includes a...

Projects Update... Getting Closer...

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:07:47 UTC

We've made some big leaps with the new project module. Conceptually, the biggest change is the ability to work with a project, inside of a timeline view. So, with the old project management and indeed every PM tools I've played around with, there are basically two types of views: - An agenda view which lists all the activities and assets in a long list down the page. This is Basecamp style. - A timeline view which lists all activities along a project schedule, otherwise known as a Gantt chart. Think Microsoft Project.The existing WORKetc allows you to switch between the two methods, but they never felt particularly integrated. It was basically a timeline view with an agenda view stuck in below it. Now, with this next release we use lot of Ajax trickery to bring agenda-type functionality directly into the timeline view. But we also still allow you to minimise (hide) this view if you are more of an agenda/flow type of project person. The other key changes in this release include: - Sub project dependency. Create a sub project and lock the start date until another (parent) project is completed. Automatically send an alert to members once a dependant sub project is ready to start. - Single project page. Every element of a project can now be viewed on the single page. Previously you had to click through to the next page to view a sub-project or task. - Better Gantt chart. The new timeline/schedule view is slick and clean. - Rapid project creation. Soon you will be able to create a sub project or task by simply clicking on a free line in the Gantt chart. Previously you had to click through to a new screen. This change means you can rapidly click -> create ->click -> create your way to create your project structure. - Progress, People and Budget views. The current project management software just displays the activities. The next release has activities as the default view, but lets you switch that view to clearly show progress across the pro...

Weighing in on the ... Why Distributed Teams Are Less Effective Debate.

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:39:24 UTC

This is a bit of a deviation from my usual product updates, but bear with me … It is a subject very close to the hearts of most of our customers and indeed ourselves. Are distributed teams functional? Can you build a successful business with your key people in different parts of the world? Debate around this question is quickly growing out of comments V.C. Mark Suster made in a recent post entitled “The Power of ‘In Person’ – Why Distributed Teams are Less Effective”. Mark essentially argues that if you want to become a big business, if you want to attract VC investment (at least from Mark’s firm) then you better make sure that the key players in your team work from the same location. Distributed teams are out. As are offshoring and outsourcing. In a very short response, Simon Mackie @ WebWorkerDaily, supports some of Marks’s statements, but ends with the a (state-the-obvious) comment that, thanks to the Internet and technology, “working in a distributed team is now easier than it ever was before”. Initially, Mark’s article and the responses that are popping up everywhere annoyed me. I can see where he is coming from, but I also know that 99% of our customers who run distributed teams are successful. I know this because the customers increasing the number of users on their account each month far, far outweigh customers decreasing their seat count. Now, the fundamental issue that many people have missed is that Mark is talking about well-funded start-ups that aim to become very big businesses. The next Facebook or the next Google. But, for most business owners and most feet-on-the-ground start-ups, “big” sits on a very different scale. A million dollar turnover inside of 12 months is big. A ten million dollar turnover inside of 5 years absolutely huge. Hell, just being in business and paying the bills next month can be a big deal. Most, if not all WORKetc customers operate distributed teams, this is part of the appeal of WORKetc - manage you...

Sneak Preview: New Project Management

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 06:13:59 UTC

A huge part of the current release we're working on is a new and enhanced project management module. The tricky thing about developing project management software is that everyone wants practical usability within a business. Every feature request, every great idea propels the product forward, but also ads layers of complexity and what may work for one customer, may not work or even hinder another. So, a few months ago I started this process we use of downloading our store of project management requests, weeding out duplicates, sorting by priority and relevance to the greatest number of customers and finally arriving at a semi-final plan. I use the phrase semi-final as what looks good in print doesn't always work as planned in code. Simon has since been belting out some demon code and together we're getting close to a public beta - something we're really pumped about. The project component of WORKetc is just so important to so many of our customers now and so important to our business - we have always used WORKetc to manage the WORKetc business. This is a screenshot of the new streamlined interface: This screeshot doesn't do justice to the nuts and bolts sitting behind and doesn't show the level of interaction now possible. For example, you can drag and drop tasks, click and create dependant tasks and click and enter detailed settings. There is a lot going on, but from the design I think we've managed to keep it looking simple and intuitive. In a later post I'll include a list of all changes (there's a lot!) but for now here is a brief overview of the top four enhancements coming: - Rapid project structures. Quickly set up a new sub project or task by just typing in a new column. Previously you would need to work through a detailed set up screen, but with this version you can tab through lines creating a project structure and then if you need to, view the detailed setting screens later. - Dependent sub projects and tasks. This is probably th...

New Beta - Google Calendar Sync 2.0

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 19 May 2010 10:33:35 UTC

We quietly released a new beta last week - this is an update to Google Calendar sync using the newish G. Calendar API. To access this, go to Settings -> Event Calendar Settings, select the calendar you want to sync and then enter your details: and then... Again, this is a beta so please take some care. I would hate for anyone to miss an important meeting because something didn't work (although I'm assured this just can't happen!) Subscribe here for more product updates.... or follow us on twitter...

Exclusive PR Opportunity for WORKetc Customers

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:29:26 UTC

Based on the popularity of our Micro Mulit-national discussion late last month, we've secured a series of articles to be published on a top 10 small business blog. The general direction of the series is an ongoing discussion and exploration around Micro Multinationals as an emerging business class. Just to recap, a micro multinational is a small business that is not hindered by geography. They have employees, suppliers and customers working from all corners of the globe and use technology in some capacity to bring it all together. The opportunity So - the opportunity is for a select few WORKetc customers to be profiled for inclusion in the series. You get to talk about your business for publication in a top 10 small business blog! If you’re not a WORKetc customer but have a great story to tell, let us know anyway (and then sign up for a free trial ...) How to be considered… We’re looking for business owners with great Micro Multi-national stories to tell. Think you don’t have a story to tell? We want to hear what you love about running a business that isn’t anchored to the one location - what makes you and your business special: - Are you running your business from an unusual location? Remote from key markets or customers? - Does your business setup promote a better -work life balance? What does this mean to you and your family? - Do you work with the best-value or best qualified contractors, regardless of where they are located? - Do you take advantage from operating across multiple time zones If you’re interested in some free PR, please pitch your story in 1 or 2 paragraphs and send to support [@] worketc.com with the subject “PR Opportunity”. Don't miss out on the next great opportunity - subscribe to the WORKetc CRM blog here... Here's a preview of our new promo video (note - it is a draft...!) :

Contacts now available for Public Beta

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:43:11 UTC

From today, all accounts will be able to access the new contacts module, bookmarks tool and streamlined interface. To switch between the old and the new, simply click the new link in the top right hand corner of your screen: Once we've worked through any bugs (hopefully none!) we'll create a walk-through video highlighting all the new cool stuff. But for now bullet points.... Interface: - Any pages on which you do something can now be bookmarked. This means that the page is always accessible from the right hand panel. - This right hand panel can now be collapsed to make more horizontal space for your work. - The top menu bar is slimmer and the WORKetc branding less intrusive - The top menu bar is always clickable, reducing the number of clicks needed to get around. - Most pages have breadcrumb navigation to help get a feel of where you are in the application and to easily let you bounce around pages. - A lot of functionality is now available in a floating window, rather than loading a new page.Contacts: - Contact directory is now presented in a table format for better presentation and sorting ability. - Any contact row can be expanded to quickly access frequent contact details - Contact detail screen now requires much less scrolling, making better use of the screen space available - We bring to the forefront the contact history tool. This is actually one of the most powerful features of WORKetc, but until now we've kind of hidden away ....Contact History Tool: The contact history tool lets you view your businesses entire interaction with a customer. More on this shortly....

New Contacts Management Software - Beta available soon

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:59:53 UTC

We're just putting the final finishing touches on the new contact management tools and are aiming to make these available as an opt-in beta later this week. This opt-in beta will be a simple link in the existing WORKetc interface that will let you switch between the existing and new versions (obviously without any data loss!). As you can see below, most of the changes are around making the interface more compact, intuitive and faster to find what you are looking for. Contacts Directory: The above screen snap is the new main Contacts directory. It allows you to instantly access most common contact fields: - Clicking on the star will bookmark this contact. - Clicking on the [+] will expand for more detail - Clicking on the contact name will open a detailed view page.Expanded Contact Detail View: In the view above, we've simply clicked the [+] icon to get a more detailed view of the contact. The expanded view includes: - mulitple telephone numbers - multiple street addresses. These show up as extra tabs on the address box. - a hotlink for each address to launch location in Google Maps - any tags assigned to this contact - the ability to quickly create a new item such as an invoice, timesheet, or directly send an email to the contact, via the "Create New" drop down menu.Detailed Contact View The detailed contact view now includes a much tighter layout and about a 100 fold reduction in the time taken to view that contacts activity history (tested up to 10,000 events). A whole lot of changes on this screen: - You can now quickly change a contact's WORKetc Tags, Permissions and Preferences on this screen. - Most fields can be edited inline - If you are using FireFox or Safari, fields that you are editing now have a blue glow to help focus (Internet Explorer doesn't support this code yet) - We now make a feature of the Activity Search function. Previously "history" search was hidden down the bottom of the screen and you could...

Bookmarks and Breadcrumbs

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:42:26 UTC

Coming soon is a great new feature that a few customers have suggested - bookmarks! What this means is that you can bookmark any page on WORKetc and that bookmark sits on the right hand panel. So - if you always find that you are going back to the same project, or the same contact (or whatever) it will now always be a single click away. Also, in the new user interface are breadcrumbs that now display under the menu bar. Breadcrumbs are a simple system to help users instantly understand where they are, inside of the WORKetc menu structure. Again, this came about from customer feedback...!

We're for the micro-multinationals!

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:36:43 UTC

We recently started working with Bernard Lunn, a technology entrepreneur with 20yrs in the industry, to help us define and progress our marketing efforts. We got to talking aboout a new breed of entrepreneurs and small businesses that are not confined by geography (and ultimately how most WORKetc' customers fit this mould) Bernard: This is the era of tiny networked companies that operate globally. These micro versions of multinationals outsource almost everything to specialists all over the world and sell to people all over the world through the Internet. This is "multinational 2.0". For a long time we have had the concept of virtual companies, which has tended to mean that there is no physical office that everybody commutes to. The problem for those of us who have actually worked with these fine companies is that the term "virtual company" sounds negative. It sounds unreal, or insubstantial. These companies are very real, with real products/services that their customers rely upon, real revenues and profits and the people who work there rely on getting paid by these companies to pay their bills. Daniel: You’re 100% right here. So, my first business, Virtual Impact, was a web design and marketing business when the word “virtual” was in vogue – circa 1999. A constantly displeased (think high maintenance) customer yelled down the phone line one day, “Is that why you call it Virtual Impact – because you deliver virtually nothing for virtually no-one?” Ouch. So yes, the word Virtual definitely has negative connotations.But like many of our customers, Worketc is definitely one of the new micro-nationals. Our "head office" (myself) is in Sydney, Australia, and we have dedicated staff in Phoenix (USA), Manilla (Philippines) and Halifax (Canada) and customers across 28 countries. I would never say that we’re virtual, yet somehow saying we are a small business just makes me think of tupperware parties and diet supplements. We are so much more than a small...

Recent updates & streamlining the WORKetc Interface

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:48:10 UTC

So, we are working on a progressive upgrade of all the WORKetc tools, something we've loosely been calling version 2.6 (although given the enormity of the changes, we should probably be calling it version 3.0!). Some of these changes are creeping into the current release, particularly improvements to the user interface. Last week I explained the new on-page create function that we needed to push through to the current version. This week we have a new "expand advanced options" button. WORKetc has already made a lot of options available, allowing our users maximum flexibility when it comes to creating things like projects and timesheets. However, if you’re not using these options, they still display on set up screens, taking up valuable screen real estate and distracting you from the work at hand. We now hide these “advanced options” by default. If you need to use them, simply click to show and hide. And the really cool thing is that WORKetc will remember your last, saved default. So if you always use Advanced Options, they will always show until you decide to collapse the screen. We have a bunch of other interface changes coming shortly, notably a re-designed sidebar that includes an awesome bookmark function. More on this over the next week. Other WORKetc Updates We’ve also released the following minor changes over the last month: - Address Types "Personal", and "Street" have been re-labeled back to their original/internal naming convention of "Home" and "Work". Thus we have 3 address types called Home/Work/Billing which is once again consistent with other addressbook software. - Projects, ToDos, Events and Support Cases now have an ability to be archived, even when Progress % is not complete. This is useful if you have a project which is stalled and you might want to disable it for a while, but you don't necessarily want to lose your Progress data on all of the sub-projects. - Businesses can also disable the default automatic archiving...

Click Fatigue … and feature announcement

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:22:28 UTC

WORKetc is a big application, there’s no denying it. Right out of the box it does maybe 80% of everything a small business needs to operate. That means a lot of code and a lot of tools. But, no matter how comprehensive an app is, how robust the code is or fast the infrastructure, it is meaningless if it isn’t easy to use. And this is compounded within WORKetc as most users are logging more than 5 sessions per day and doing everything from creating sales leads, to managing projects and logging time. If software isn’t simple to use, fast to use, then within a few weeks users inevitably suffer from click fatigue. From click fatigue comes mounting frustration and from frustration is borne a general contempt toward the product (particularly if you're already stressed or just having a bad day - we all know that hurl-the-laptop-across-the-room feeling). Awareness of the click fatigue pandemic is fast spreading – Microsoft recently changed default settings of a critical Windows 7 security feature because users balked at clicking more than two prompts per day. Amazon has been ahead of the curve for years with its 1-Click patent. So far ahead of the curve that Apple was forced to license this technology(!) for use in the iTunes store. And unfortunately, some of our users started reporting click fatigue within WORKetc Soooooooooo – late last week we quietly introduced an interface change that massively streamlines entering data. This one simple change took less than 8 hours to code yet the impact on usability is profound. It took one of our customers, iDonny, to point this out to us. And I'll admit I'm a little dumbfounded that we've been using WORKetc internally now for 2 years and it never occured to any of us. In fact, I'm pretty sure it had never been suggested before. 37Signals (Basecamp) famously pulls out the "forget feature requests" - but if we had followed that advice, we would never have got here in the first place. So yes, we read, capture...

WORKetc Crushes That...

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:27:13 UTC

Just a bit of fun as we play around with our marketing message. My goal is to own the "one web app for all" debate, that is use WORKetc to run your entire business, rather than signing up for different web apps for different parts of your business. Video and animation seems a more compelling medium for getting the WORKetc message across. The issue I've always struggled with is WORKetc does so many things and appeals to so many businesses. It's difficult to distil that down into an engaging message without focussing on a single feature or single industry. This animation took at most 90 minutes from concept to upload, using Xtranormal. This web and desktop app does "text to animation". Really simple: - Select a stage and characters - Drag and drop to position - Type in dialogue for each characters - Insert camera angles and actions into the dialoge - Publish and uploadOh - and Xtranormal is responsible for the Social Media Guru video that is doing the rounds. Doubly amusing as I'd received a quote from such a guru last year - north of $20k!

Public Beta: Email Drop Box

Daniel Barnett — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 02:46:15 UTC

Earlier in the week we opened up the email drop box concept for public beta. What this means is that you can now interact with your WORKetc account, simply by sending an email. For example, if you are out and about and think of an important task, simply fire up your smartphone and send WORKetc an email. WORKetc will receive that email, understand your request and go ahead and create the To-Do. Some scenarios available in this pre-release: - Create a To-Do for yourself and others - Create a new event or meeting in the calendar, for multiple people - Record an expense - Create and invite people to participate in a new project After we have a few weeks feedback on the drop box, we’ll be adding in the following scenarios: - Create a new contact via email - Create and update a sales lead via email - Attach emails and documents to contacts via email - Any other cool concept that are suggested. Read more on how to get using the drop box. And as usual – please post any feedback on that forum This is going to be a massive productivity improvement for everyone (me included!)

Timesheet Widget - Beta Now Available

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:03:19 UTC

UPDATE: The Timer Widget (beta) is now available. Just go to http://.worketc.com/tools.aspx to install the app. Please post any feedback over on this forum. We're maybe 2 or 3 days away from making the WORKetc timesheet widget available for public beta. The widget is built in Silverlight and should work flawlessly on both Apple and Windows desktops. Why Silverlight? It's fast, it looks good, it is cross platform and in theory will work seamlessly on Windows Mobile and on Apple iPhone sometime in 2010. Here are some sneak previews: Silverlight Widgets as a Platform Depending on how the Timer Widget is received (and how well it works on mobile devices) we may look to bring additional functionality to the widget: - Addressbook lookup - Quick Contact creation - Calendars - To-Do List - Sales ActionsI'll update this post when the timer is available for public beta and how to access it from your account.

New Year, New Servers, Network

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:28:01 UTC

Starting this Thursday (January 7) we'll be progressively migrating all accounts to new and improved hardware and a faster network. Its not that we've had any issues with the current setup, its that we're planning for 2010 and beyond. For those that are interested, we're moving to higher spec'd dedicated servers at Peer1, who run what they call Supernetwork(tm) with 16 Data Centres and 21 Points of Presence across the USA, Canada and into Europe. For our Australian customers the datacentre is just a skip across the pacific in California - and from my tests (in Sydney) so far, it is indistinguishable from any locally hosted service. We also move from a 3 - 5 day backup routine to a daily backup of all customer accounts meaning that your business data is safer than ever. At the same time, we're upgrading the WORKetc core from Windows 2003 server to the latest 2008 server and SQL server to the latest 2008 release. This will give us the performance and security overhead to continue to grow. Bottom line is that this move will result in a faster experience for all customers, better overall security and data back up. Once the move is complete, we'll also be announcing more storage space for all customers. What to expect other the next few days... Simon has written a cool application that will automate the transfer of customer databases from the existing server to the new server and then perform a number of checks to ensure there are no issues. This process takes about 10 minutes for each account and wherever possible, we'll be scheduling these for after midnight. However, for us to know when your midnight is, you need to ensure you have the correct timezone set in your WORKetc Settings. Just go to Settings -> Logo, Language & Location and make sure have your local timezone set. If by chance you do try to log into WORKetc whilst the transfer is active, you'll see a simple explanation screen and a suggestion to go for a coffee :-) The only problem w...

WORKetc in Spanish & iPhone Calendar Sync

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:00:00 UTC

We're lucky enough to have some fantastic ("legends" in Australia-speak) WORKetc customers who have given up some of their time to help us build out some features of WORKetc. iPhone Calendar Sync. Firstly, John from Solany Document Management in Colorado, USA, has successfully sync'd WORKetc calendars to iPhone v.3.0 software and provided us with a quick how-to. Check out the iPhone Calendar synchronization for details. Spanish Translation Xavier, an Architect based in Barcelona, Spain, has painstakingly translated the WORKetc interface and help manual into Spanish Español! If you want to try out the Español version, simply go to Settings -> Logo, Language & Locations and then change the user interface menu to Spanish. Welsh Translation Andrew, from multimedia/web developer Tantrwm in Aberdare, South Wales, United Kingdom has also finished a translation into Welsh Cymraeg! See above on how to switch your interface into Cymraeg. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - We are still looking for a WORKetc customer who has iPhone app development skills and would be interested in a project to work with us on our app... More soon...

Quick Update - We've been busy in the background...

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:00:00 UTC

It just dawned on me that whilst we've been so focused on working on WORKetc, I've completely neglected the WORKetc blog! It has been 2 months since I last posted an update and to stop the reek of ghost town advancing any further, here is a brief update on what we've been up to: - Support has been consolidated and revamped. We now have an expanding library of training videos and a lot more buzz around the support forums. Anyone can view our support area, but you must be logged into your account to participate: http://admin.worketc.com/Community/Videos - We have a new, cleaner web site coming soon. The new site will include a bunch of demonstration videos as well as taking the WORKetc blog in a completely new direction. - We have completed a rewrite of the document management tool that will allow all our customers a better upload/download experience. - We have set a time-line for migrating WORKetc to a private cloud-computing environment which will give us total hardware, network and geographic redundancy. Our uptime has been 100% for the last few months, but we are building for the future here. - Simon and I have been compiling a huge list of enhancements and new features for a version 2.6 release of WORKetc around December this year. We'll be publishing this list over at the forums for comments shortly, but if you want to get involved before then, please post your ideas at http://admin.worketc.com/Community/Forums?Forum=2 - iPhone App. We are working toward an early 2010 release of a native WORKetc application for the iPhone, to be followed by a Windows Mobile and Blackberry release. We like to use the services of our customers, so if you are a WORKetc customer with iPhone application development experience, please get in contact.Also, we are working on translating WORKetc into a number of different languages. A Spanish version is almost complete, with French and Italian on the way. If you would like a free, unlimited copy of WORKetc f...

5 Critical Business Insights That Save Your Business

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:00:00 UTC

A lot of CRM information gets shuttled around your business on a daily basis. New project information, timesheets, invoices, contracts . . . with all of the information, you would think you’d know what the smart steps are to take next to solidify your company’s position. The problem is, none of this information is organized to help you draw conclusions. You don’t know which clients are the most profitable, or whether certain kinds of project management are more effective than others. Heck, you don’t even know exactly how much revenue you’re going to pull in this month. WORKetc can help with that problem. The WORKetc software keeps track of all of your business information and lets you generate real-time reports using whatever parameters you need to investigate. If you have a question about employee productivity, for example, WORKetc can create a report that shows you how much each employee has accomplished over the last month. That’s information you can use to make smart decisions for your business’ growth. Use WORKetc real time, company wide reporting to find out: - How much money you’re expecting to invoice this month – or next month, or over the next six months. You pick the time frame, WORKetc will find the information. - Whether your customers are profitable. If you have a low margin profit, just a few customer support inquiries could wipe out a year’s profit. Use WORKetc to identify those problem customers before they damage your profit. - Whether your projects are getting done on time. If you don’t know how much time is being spent on each project, then you don’t know if that project is profitable. Track progress daily and take steps to eliminate problem projects. - Which employees are pulling their weight. You can use WORKetc to find out which employees are the most productive, the most innovative, and the most capable by studying their productivity and project management. - About problems with your product or service. Tracking customer...

7 More Hidden WORKetc Tools

Daniel Barnett — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:00:00 UTC

We just told you about six great tools you may not have been aware WORKetc was capable of. Surprise, surprise – we’ve got seven more, and they’re time and effort savers on par with their highly impressive predecessors. As we’ve said before, WORKetc is a pretty complex machine, and the more you know about what’s under the hood, the more spectacularly it can perform for you. Here are seven more fantastic tricks this system can do. - Search Your Company, Not Just Your Website. Your current website may have a search engine, but we’re talking about one for your business. Every contact, project, document, customer note, sales lead and support enquiry is instantly searchable inside WORKetc. It’s the secretary with a photographic memory you never had. - Go Local with Regionalization. WORKetc comes pre-regionalized for your location no matter where you are – the UK, the USA, Australia , Europe or Asia. You’ll be able to set local tax rules, timezones, date formats, currency symbols, and even business literacy differences. Those customizations will go on all of your data automatically. - Get Real Time Reports. As soon as you enter data into the WORKetc system, you can use it to generate reports on the fly. See how this last project has affecting employee productivity, find out the real-time status of accounts and WIP, compare one project’s management with another’s. WORKetc has the answers. - Keep Your Data Safe and Portable. At any time, you can download the entirety of your WORKetc data for your peace of mind onto a backup. You also don’t need to worry if you decide WORKetc isn’t for you – your data is always ready to go wherever you need it. With flexibility like that, though, we can’t imagine why you’d want to leave us. - Create Document Folder Templates. Different clients need their information presented in different ways. With this tool, you can create a template structure for your documents and assign that template to all new folders. You’ll never have...

Revealed: 6 WORKetc Tools

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 17 May 2009 12:00:00 UTC

WORKetc is a simple and intuitive application for users, but under the hood is a massively complex engine. It does a lot of things, from web based CRM through to time sheets, billing, reporting, contacts, etc etc etc! This is what makes selling WORKetc a tricky proposition. It does a *lot*, but if we try to sell new customers on all the features, they quickly become overwhelmed. So - what happens is some of the really cool stuff that WORKetc does, gets quickly overshadowed by the glamor tools. Here are six really cool features that are already built into WORKetc - it is their time to shine... - Live Chat – Customers like immediate gratification, and you can give it to them with live chat. WORKetc includes a live chat tool that you can use for sales or customer support, giving them the answers they need to decide to make that purchase. - Tagging – You’re probably already using our address book, but it’s more than an index of names. You can set custom tags to divide up your contacts any way you choose. Late payers, future customers, interested in XYZ – whatever category you need, you can create easily to find the people you’re looking for. - Embedded Forms – Gathering information is hard enough, but sorting it can be hellish. WORKetc lets you create forms on your website that connect directly back to the WORKetc database. They’ll get sorted so you can easily manage leads or customer support. - RSS Feeds – Almost anything on WORKetc can be made into a secure RSS feed. Keep your employees and clients up to date on project notifications, calendar events, time management, and tons more. It’s an easy way to keep everyone up to date that won’t get lost on their desk or in their email. - Permissions – With all the information WORKetc is helping you gather, there’s bound to be a few things you’d rather keep to a few select employees to prevent office drama. Any of the WORKetc tools can be turned off or on for specific employees, so no one has to know th...

Customer Review: Version 2.5

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:00:00 UTC

We just had to share this! Below is an unsolicited review from Chris Meidell from Modevation. Chris tried out Version 2 of WORKetc for a few weeks and decided it wasn't quite ready for his business to use full time. Version 2.5 changed everything: Hi Daniel, I wanted to let you know that we have decided to go with WorkEtc We have been looking for months to find an affordable solution that would really work with our video production business workflow and we think WorkEtc is going to be a great solution for our company needs. We have been evaluating ZohoCRM, SalesForce.com and SalesBoom.com but decided to use your system Here are some of the reasons why we picked WorkEtc.FAIR PRICING to be honest you probably could get away charging more per user... Some of the solutions we looked at charged over $140/user per month, but you guys have a great rate for a smaller company like ours with 4 people. Being able to add additional people at a lower rate gives us confidence that we can grow with the system without destroying our cashflow. AWESOME INTERFACE Web 2.0 style features - Tagging and a clean interface mean a lot -- the solutions above I mentioned are pretty Web 1.0 looking. The system is really easy to use.EASY TO CUSTOMIZE INVOICES AND QUOTES I was able to start making modifications to the Invoices using standard HTML within the first two hours of using the system -- AWESOME! Creating Quotes and Invoices is really well designed! COMPLETE FUNCTIONALITY So many solutions on the market have just "parts" -- For example Freshbooks great invoice system-- timetracking + invoicing but no sales or project management Pipeline Deals -- Great CRM system -- but no projects or invoices Sales Boom / ZohoCRM / Salseforce (Do it all) - but the interface isn't as nice or flexibleFLEXIBILITY In my opinion, it blew me away that I could mix projects of different billing types and have the system manage that just fine -- Some of my projects are fixed billing, some are timesheet, I c...

WORKetc 2.5 is Live

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:00:00 UTC

I'm pretty chuffed, relieved yet exhausted, to announce that we went live with WORKetc 2.5 last week. Chuffed because it represents a pretty major update to the usability of the application as a whole. Relieved because our current users are loving it and exhausted because it was a lot of work (but definitely worth it). Here are some real life comments from WORKetc 2.0 users who were upgraded to version 2.5: "WORKetc 2.5 looks great and I very much appricate the free upgrade." "The new system is GREAT! Thank you for ALL of these changes. It is like light-years of improvements." "We are loving the update. The interface is snappier and importantly for us we can simply create a project from a sales lead!" WORKetc 2.5 is now available to all new customers and all existing customers have been upgraded. All up we documented 193 changes, the most significant being subtle usability changes and a massive overhaul to sales automation, projects and billing. We don't plan on stopping at v2.5 either. Over the next few months we have a number of additional UI changes to roll out; these are really subtle changes that by themselves will hardly be noticed, but in combination result in a universally intuitive interface. A more detailed list of changes can be found here.

Are your customers paying on time?

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:00:00 UTC

Slow payers (and even no-payers) are some of the worst customers a business can have. Until the client's invoice is paid, your business needs to pay costs and expenses for the project out of pocket. Spending time chasing down those slow payers also hurts a business's bottom line. When your business is a small one, those out-of-pocket expenses can hurt. And you know what, you're not a bank! When a customer is late to pay, you are effectively extending them credit - giving them an unsecured, interest free loan! Side note: Norm Brodsky writes a great chapter on this in his book, The Knack - How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up. Definitely recommended reading. When we developed WORKetc, we wanted to make sure business owners were saving time, not spending more of it doing routine tasks. Realising the obvious that time is money, we intentionally devoted part of our efforts to helping businesses bring in that money. Here are tips to use WORKetc's system to turn those slow-payers into pay-sooners: - WORKetc offers one-click reports that let you keep track of overdue payments. You won't forget about an unpaid invoice, it won't get lost in the shuffle and you can monitor the account so that the situation doesn't get out of hand. - Making it easy to pay means more clients pay faster. Offering more ways to pay means your customers are happier, too. So we made sure to integrate easy payment options like Authorize.net, PayPal, Google Checkout and 2Checkout right into WORKetc's system to make sure you get paid. - Reminders work. There are plenty of clients who don't have bad intentions; they're just busy, and they forget to pay you. WORKetc takes care of that. The system automatically generates reminder notifications for clients on the day payment becomes overdue. You don't have to worry about forgetting to follow up, and you won't have to feel like a nag, either. - WORKetc generates a monthly list of late payers so you can call ...

Version 2.5 is on its way.

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:00:00 UTC

Just a quick note to let all our customers (and all future customers!) know that version 2.5 is only a few weeks away. As always, every WORKetc account will be automatically upgraded (so there's no reason to delay getting on board with WORKetc ...). Most of these changes have been suggested by our customers,and in fact most of the functionality already existed in WORKetc. It was just buried deep within detail pages and menus. What we have done is to bring some Of this functionality to the surface; making it more readily accessible within the interface. Why I am excited about version 2.5: - We have completely rebuilt the settings and preferences area. In version 2, we had settings sitting in a number of long pages and the odd preference could be found in well, odd places. All settings are now consolidated and extended and are logically categories by toolset. This will make setting up WORKetc even more hassle free. - We have actioned a major overhaul of the sales tools, including streamlining workflow. In the new version a single click will progress a contact from a lead to a quote through to an invoice, project and more. Previously this required a number of clicks and was something that annoyed a few of our customers. We listened and bought this ease of use right to the top of the interface. The lead management toolset has been extended to allow better visualisation on the progress of a lead. In the revised system you can see exactly what sales actions were actioned against a sales lead, by whom and when. This improves accountability and provides an instant understanding at where a lead is at. We've also built in an option to allow a simple lead status (ie cold, warm or hot) and a detailed lead status that can be matched to the way your business's workflow (ie propsal submitted, contract prepared, contract returned etc). We also made the quote functionality more tangible. Creating a quote or an estimate is more like creating a draft invoice. Y...

Top 5 Recession Busting Tips for Small Business.

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:00:00 UTC

Pay close attention to accurate billing, pursue leads relentless and make every cost accountable if you want to come out of the recession alive. A tough economy often means tough times for small businesses and freelancers who may already be struggling. Even if there is no struggle, there's always concern about encouraging income, cutting back on expenses and surviving until the situation is more favorable for business. Having run a number of small businesses before building WORKetc, I understand this all to well. But it is always more than just weathering the storm. You want to come out of this recession flying! Staying ahead of the game (or at least, staying in the game!) means working harder, but it also means thinking smarter. With a calm, cool attitude and a mindset of seeing what you can do to make sure your business survives without giving into panicked worry, you'll be there to greet new customers when the situation picks up. Here are six ways to shore the supports of your small business so that it can weather the tough times - and make it through the storms - and I'll be straight up here, it all loops back to using WORKetc. Fundamentally you need to put in place systems and work toward automating those systems. - Pay close attention to accurate billing. When times are good, business owners often wave off small charges, round down when billing to be nice with clients, or let slip a few forgotten minutes that didn't make the first invoice. WORKetc helps you easily tighten up loose operations so you can make sure that detailed timesheets are carefully filled in to capture every bit of revenue you can. - Stay on top of your accounts payable. Don't wait to bill clients, as they may not always be able to pay if you are lenient with payment terms. Try to implement deposit or retainer policies to avoid spending time (and wasting money) chasing late payers. Even better, with WORKetc, you can monitor accounts payable in real time and auto generate remi...

Will WORKetc replace our accounting software?

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:00:00 UTC

This is a question we get asked often - I thought I would provide a detailed answer below. WORKetc will take care of all of your customer-related finances. What this means is you can generate your invoice. Once a payment has been received by the client you actually get to record the transaction date, # and amount, and WORKetc will record it into your Accounts Receivable and adjust the invoice balance etc. Any invoice which a balance of $0 is automatically marked off as paid. You might also look into offering PayPal, GoogleCheckout or Credit Card payments through your WORKetc system. As with manually recorded payments, these online payments automatically get tracked under your Finances area. The benefit here is that it gives you an instant, real-time view of the progress of your business without having to refer to an outsourced book keeper or accountant. With our Disbursements/Expenses tools you can select a supplier, and choose whether or not that expense ends up on your customer's invoice or not. For basic accounting in a simple, small business, service-type business, you might almost get away without even needing to use a separate package unless you have an accountant that demands a certain format or if you need to manage payroll. For most businesses though, we recommend you work with your accountant and book-keeper - remember that WORKetc exports to Quicken and a number of file formats to allow easy integration.

Enhancements to Billing Tools

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:00:00 UTC

We've changed a few things to help you get those invoices paid a bit faster. Hot off the press are a few changes to the Invoice E-Mailing feature... We've made it a little quicker/easier to change the default invoice recipient. Contacts which look to be somewhat related to the company you've billed will be displayed for immediate access. A new comment tracking option lets you store a note against the client. This way you have a record of when a bill was actually sent, who it was sent to, and which employee actually sent it.

PayPal Payments Pro and Express Checkout added

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:00:00 UTC

Like the title says, you can now configure your WORKetc system to accept payment through PayPal Payments Pro, or Express Checkout. Head on over to Settings > Merchant Integration to configure your Express/Pro PayPal Integration mode. Naturally, Website Payments Standard is still available. Express Checkout is available to any PayPal business, all you have to do is create some API credentials as in the example below: Once this is all configured, your clients can pay you through your secure customer area.

Lead system enhancements

Daniel Barnett — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:00:00 UTC

We've received a lot of great feedback from numerous customers with regards to the Lead editor over the past few months, and today we've deployed a number of improvements to the Lead Profiles tool based on your comments. Notable changes include; - Ability to edit the prospective client's full contact details, right inside the lead editor. - Record a referring contact. - Record an unlimited number of "other" related contacts. - Define a persisted Lead description/summary, in addition to the standard comments/discussion tools. - A more streamlined layout for better readability.

Improved Entry Selector

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:00:00 UTC

The ability to quickly filter and select a specific object from an infinitely large pool of many different types of things presents a big design challenge. Today we've released an update to the Entry editor. Remember, an Entry is inherited by Tasks, Support Cases, Events, Timesheets, Projects, Disbursements and even Subscription purchases. This is what gives WORKetc fantastic scalability and provides you the option to "attach anything to anything". Below is a screen shot of your new Entry Selector: As you can see, you have a number of features at your disposal to make isolating that particular parent item quick and easy. - "Find as you type" with keywords that filter by Entry and/or Contact name or even Entry # if you know it. - Filter by a specific Entry type. - Sort by Type, Item Name, Customer or Entry #. Newest stuff is always listed first by default. We hope this will be a good productivity improvement over the previous more cumbersome "Tree View" approach.

New Contact Editor Enhancements

Daniel Barnett — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:00:00 UTC

Today we've deployed a big update the main contact/address book editor. We hope you'll find the new layout and features a pleasure to work with. Feedback so far has been great, so please keep it coming. Among better readability than the previous version you should find we've also grouped together information in a much more meaningful way. Numbers and Addresses are always related, but it's quick and easy to see which number is for which location etc.

Easily Duplicate (template) Projects and Tasks

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:00:00 UTC

A number of users have requested the ability to quickly duplicate a set of Projects and/or sub-tasks for reuse against different clients. This feature was released earlier today. If you navigate to the project you want to make a copy of, you'll find a new link to perform the duplication. As illustrated above, you have a couple of options for how you perform the copy; - Just the project - The project and all of it's sub projects - The project and all of it's sub-projects as well as Tasks

Customer Project Collaboration

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 UTC

We're happy to announce that WORKetc users can now share projects with customers. If you're already taking advantage of the other Customer Area features such as invoice payments, support ticketing and knowledge base, all you have to enable this feature is open the Project you want shared, and turn on the new Client Access option. This feature will allow the client to view descriptions, dates, progress and comments. They can also post comments and upload files and pictures within their comments for quick and easy collaboration.

Make Smart Software Choices (and not cheap choices)

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:00:00 UTC

I was just reading a blog post over at Internet Redux. Titled Basecamp not for you? Check out Wrike, the author extols the virtues of a project management software because of its price, $3.99 per user per month. For $12/month,this author can get his 3 employees all using the same project management tool. I don't know about you, but the thought of trusting the very guts of my business to an operator who wants to charge $3.99 a month scares me. I've worked hard at running the numbers on WORKetc. With our program of constant development, redundant hosting infrastructure and A1 support, we would be bankrupted pretty quickly. So, if you are a small business owner looking for the cheapest solution on the market, please be weary. Going cheap and the risks of doing so would easily out weigh the cost saving. More importantly, we believe we have a far superior product offering - look at the whole offering and not just the charge on your credit card. This is what one of our very real customers had to say about support: ...add to this a friendly and responsive support team and you have a solution you can trust. Small Business Blogs - Blog Catalog Blog Directory

WORKetc Reviewed on Web Worker Daily

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 12:00:00 UTC

Scott Blitstein over at Web Worker Daily has just posted a great review of WORKetc. What is great about this is Scott was a user on Veetro, which was essentially WORKetc version 1, so he knows first hand how far we have come: I recall evaluating Veetro in the past and finding the interface lacking, but this new version 2.0 brightens things up considerably and adds improved navigation and lots of obligatory AJAX to make things easier to use. Interestingly, Scott also touches on one of our key challenges building WORKetc, that is, how to integrate a range of tools, without letting any one tool not get the full WORKetc treatment. The total value of WORKetc is only as much as the weakest tool. If a single tool isn't up to the mark, then the whole application falls short. The fear with this sort of approach [all in one solution] is that the individual apps might not stand up to their standalone counterparts but I certainly didn’t feel that I was using a “lite” version of anything. Features vary even in standalones and in most instances I found that the individual WORKetc apps are really quite feature rich. You can read the full review at Web Worker Daily.

Single Purpose Web Apps Are Dead!

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:00:00 UTC

That's right. We don't believe single purpose web applications have much of a future. It doesn't make sense. Why would a business owner use one application for billing, another application for CRM, another app for uploading documents and who knows how many other applications, just to run their business day-to-day? Multiple web apps quickly lead to lost productivity and probably a migraine from having to remember all those password combinations! Oh and lets not even mention the cost of training staff on each system and all the licensing fees. One of our good customers, Peggy Murrah (www.peggymurrah.com/), summed this up recently: WORKetc has allowed me to consolidate 4 of the separate services I was using and tech support is phenomenal. That's what we are on about. One system to manage your small business. One interface to learn, one place for data entry, one place where you can run reports and keep on top of managing your business. We believe that small business owners want to integrate a range of tools into the single, easy to use platform. That's what we've built. And although our tools are incredibly simple to use, they are also incredibly powerful when used together. So, if you're sick of using numerous tools to run your business, or if you are still using Excel and Email to manage, it is time to sign up to WORKetc and start benefiting from efficiency of having just one system.

New Sales History, Authorize.Net integration and Reporting

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:00:00 UTC

We’ve been incredibly lucky the last few months to have received a ton of great feedback from many of our customers. Much has improved since WORKetc soft-launched a few months ago so I thought I’d post a little news. Simple Sales History Management You can now review every billable Entry (now remember, an Entry is *anything* - a support case, project, product sale, timesheet or even a meeting) under a new Sales -> Purchase History screen. Simply follow the Entry edit links which take you right to the detail page. Keeping with our “you can attach anything to anything” design mantra, you can append comments, tasks or whatever you like. Authorize.Net integration If you have an Authorize.Net merchant account, you can now let you customers pay you by credit card through your SSL secured WORKetc customer extranet (in addition to PayPal/Google Checkout.) To set up your payment gateway settings, check out Settings -> Merchant Integration. Reporting This is something we’ve purposefully left for last. We wanted to hear from our end users exactly which report data would be most meaningful. A new reporting credential is now in place and a couple of preview reports are already available. We will be continually adding more reports as the requests come through, so please keep them coming!

Now integrates with Quickbooks

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:00:00 UTC

Just released into every WORKetc account is the ability to export your invoices directly to Quickbooks. Your book-keeper is going to love this. Just go to: Finances -> Export to Accounting Software and you're away.

WORKetc reviewed on KillerStartups

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:00:00 UTC

We just got a positive review on KillerStartups: This is a very complete solution for small and medium business that allows increased efficiency through improved organization. Look for Worketc to become a popular solution for those looking to streamline their business. If you're interested in reviewing WORKetc for your blog, newsletter or publication, please let us know. We'd be happy to set you up with a review account. Check out KillerStartups for the complete review. And while we're at it, also mentioned at Emily Changs eHub review.

Private Beta is Go.

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:00:00 UTC

We've finally finished up our internal beta / debugging process and are sending out invites to the private beta early next week. If you have contacted me about participating in the private beta, you're already on the list. We are running a private beta only to control the volume of feedback we expect to receive. If you would like to participate, we'll be opening another few slots the following fortnight. Just fill out our contact form.

Introducing WORKetc. Veetro R.I.P.

Daniel Barnett — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:00:00 UTC

With the release of version 2 of our software, we've decided to change our product name, company name and brand. The new name is WORKetc. The new logo looks like this: Why the new name? Two reasons. Firstly, we received a copyright challenge over the name Veetro. It seems there is a company making business software for mobile phones with a phonetically similar name. Rather than spend our limited cash reserves challenging it, we thought it safer to change the name. Secondly, the timing was perfect, the challenge even a blessing in disguise. Veetro 2.0 has turned out to be so much more advanced than Veetro 1, that it seems fitting to give it a new name and a new brand. The term WORKetc refers to the products ability to help manage everything you do in your small business. To learn more about WORKetc, take the 1 page tour.

Document Management Preview

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:00:00 UTC

We have had the new document management module completed for a while now, but haven't had the time to blog about it. The system includes a number of cool features: - Full text search of all documents. - Apply a template structure to a folder. Say, for example, you have a number of clients. Under each client folder you might have sub-folders called Contracts, Correspondence, Projects, Design and Proofs. The template tool lets you automatically create this folder structure every time you add a new customer. - All folders are viewable as a directory tree. Directory tree remembers your last view. - All recently uploaded or accessed documents are listed in a "Recent Files" list. If you are frequently accessing the same few documents, this makes finding them each time that much faster. - A catalog of files lists all documents, images and files used in other parts of Veetro such as the project management or blog tools. (Click on the image above for a full view)

Draft Pricing - What's it worth?

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:00:00 UTC

As we get closer and closer to launch, there have been daily emails asking us, "when?" and "how much?", in precisely that order. With version 1, we followed all the current web 2.0 buzz surrounding the freemium business model and took a punt that this model would work for small business software. Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc, then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base. We discovered pretty quickly it wasn't going to work for us. Sure, it works for social networks such as Facebook and consumer tools such as Flickr, but didn't work for us. We couldn't get the initial scale to drive enough advertising revenue to fund more marketing which in turn drives more scale. And we were doing it the hard way to boot. No angel investment, no VC investment. [Note: Existing users never need worry about Veetro closing down and losing your online business data because a) it costs us maybe $200/month to host Veetro v1, the software is so robust we haven't had to fix a bug in version 1 since its release 18 months ago and at any time you can download all your data.] So, even with 1733 active Veetro accounts, we made barely $100/month in Google adwords revenue. The positive side of this is that we accumulated an enormous amount of feedback and invaluable insight into how our (future) customer use the current Veetro and how to make it better in version 2. With the positivity of hindsight, we couldn't have afforded to pay expert UI groups or even a handful of focus groups to give us such detailed and varied feedback. All of this was boiled down and planned into into version 2. To be profitable, to better support the product, to pay ourselves some wages and keep all the servers humming, we're going to be charging a monthly subscription for Veetro 2.0. ...

Veetro's new Rich Text Editor

Daniel Barnett — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:00:00 UTC

Fresh with the impending launch of Veetro 2, is a new, better equipped, easier to use and more accurate rich text editor (R.T.E). The RTE is used every time you enter copy into your company's Veetro Intranet. This means more options to insert images, links, documents and even other Veetro tasks and projects directly into your content. For example, if you are working on a new project entry, you can instantly link to an article in Veetro's knowledge base, attach a document from a client library and upload a diagram. Whats' more, the diagram can be resized on the fly, linked to a full-scale image and even captioned. Here's a preview:

Tasks & Project

Daniel Barnett — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:00:00 UTC

A major change of methodology in Veetro 2 is that time sheets, calendar entries, documents and contacts are now intimately part of projects. This means that from a project view (see below) you can now view everything related to that project. Another key differentiator between Veetro 2 and other project management applications is that the new interface takes buried comments and brings them to the top of the project stack. The benefit of this is that every time you log into Veetro, you are presented with the latest comments about a project or activity as well as being presented with a list of activities that you haven't viewed yet. This makes getting up to date on a project (especially if you've been taking a few days down time!) really painless. Best of all, you can keep track of progress via RSS. Everytime a comment is added, a document uploaded or a task completed, Veetro will push that development through to your blog reader.

Project Editor Revamped

Daniel Barnett — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:00:00 UTC

Here's a sneak preview of the new project management tool. As you can see from this screeny, we've taken on board a lot of feedback. You can now colour code projects and milestones, the milestone editor itself is infinitely more intuitive than Veetro 1.0's "Phases" table. Also there are no AJAX related performance issues/freezing. Adding a new milestone is as easy as click & drag to highlight your project region, punch in a name and you're done. If you need to resize a milestone, you can simply grab it's ends to adjust, or you can shift the entire thing anywhere along the gaant chart. Easy as pie. This whole new approach to project management makes setting up and modify a project insanely flexible. Sign up to be the first to try it out.

Enhanced Address Book

Daniel Barnett — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:00:00 UTC

With Veetro 2 comes a greatly enhanced Address Book and Contacts navigator. The big change here is the ability to tag a company, a person or an employee. For example, your business might have 10 suppliers for office stationary. Some suppliers may deliver overnight, others may be a discount supplier or may only have a limited product range. When an employee new to your business comes to place a stationary order, the tags immediately help them identify who to order with. Another scenario may be sales prospects for your business. By tagging leads with the name of your employee who is the contact for that opportunity, other employees know who to go to before making an approach. Tags can then be used to compile email marketing lists, direct mail pieces and to report on. From the sneak preview below, you can also see how much cleaner and intuitive the new interface is.

Sneak Preview Part 2 - built in support.

Daniel Barnett — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:00:00 UTC

There is nothing worse than getting half way through a task and realizing you don't know what to do next. So much of the web 2.0 software I've played around with doesn't provide adequate documentation. For example, you might be halfway through creating an entry in a blog and realize you don't know how to embed a Youtube video into your post. You're then forced to leave what you were doing and search around for the answer. We've addresses this common complaint in Veetro 2 by embedding support directly into the Veetro 2 interface. On every screen, support for that tool can be accessed on the right side panel. Take a look here: Technorati Profile

Sneak Preview - new menu system

Daniel Barnett — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:00:00 UTC

One of the big stumbling blocks with Veetro 1.0 we discovered was the steep learning curve, which was largely a function of complex user interface. Even though all the tools were categorised and neatly grouped by related functionality, people found it difficult to remember were tools were located. Also - there was no quick and easy way to skim through the menu items to find a tool quickly. We've gone right back to the drawing board with version 2.0. Completely redesigned the user interface and menu system. Over the coming weeks, we'll reveal through this blog how the newly designed tools are shaping up, but for now, here are some samples of the new menu system.

What's coming in Veetro 2.0?

Daniel Barnett — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:00:00 UTC

Welcome to the first public announcement for Veetro 2.0.Whilst this is the first public announcement, we've been working in the background almost since the release of version 1, 18 months ago. We've taken 18 months of feedback, 18 months of customer suggestions and 18 months of learning as we go and brought it all together in version 2.0. Two of the major changes include: - A vastly improved user interface. One of the common suggestions from version 1.0 was that the menu system was not intuitive. It took a while to learn and could be confusing. With the range of tools we bring together as Veetro's Small Business software solution, it was always going to be challenging to get it right. We've overhauled the design, refreshed the code and have come up with a simple, but extremely functional system. - Better Integration. Better Classification. No business is the same. Businesses have their own unique vernacular, their own processes and personalities. Version 2.0 introduces the concept of "tagging" and language. By tagging an object such as a contact, you can provide more descriptive depth which in turn allows better searches, better profiling and more detailed profiling. Changes to the Veetro language library also means you can adapt the Veetro tool language to suite your organisation. Customers can be called clients, partners can be changed to affiliates, resellers, licensees etc.As we continue to develop version 2.0, we will release more information and invite feedback. Stay a part of Veetro 2.0 by subscribing to this feed and pre-registering for the Veetro 2.0 launch.