TeamworkPM’s Engine Room

We have had quite a few updates lately but I have been a bit slack with putting together blog posts to highlight these new features or updates to existing ones.

Over the next few days I’m going to put the head down and try to get these blog post out so you can see all the wonderful things we have been working on for you all.

The first update I would like to talk about was the one Dan carried out to the notebooks page. I know a lot of you really liked the update that was carried out a few months ago which updated the look of this feature as well as adding some new functionality such as the lock while editing option.

The latest update to this section is small but very handy, and was based on all the feedback we received. You all really liked the new look and functionality, but some of you really  missed the layout of the old version, myself included.

Well the great news is that we listened and we have now added the ability to view the notebooks page in either list or the old style grid view.

To change the view just use the view select in the top right hand corner.

Once again, thanks to all of who you gave us feedback on this.

The all new Android app for TeamworkPM allows you to access your projects on the road at any time, from any Android smartphone.

So what can you do in the app?

Manage Multiple Accounts

More than one TeamworkPM account? No problemo, you can switch between your accounts with just one tap.

Account Dashboard.

The Dashboard allows you to access your current list of assigned tasks and milestones, check latest activity and access your projects.

Stay on top of your Milestones.

Never miss a milestone again! The Android app makes it easy to view all milestones assigned to you, You can also see the milestones on projects you are a member of.

Access your tasks on the road.

The "My Tasks" view on the Dashboard allows you to quickly see tasks assigned to you across all your projects.

You can edit tasks, reassign them, change dates, set priority and add comments.

Oh.. that's right you can complete them too!

What's Happening?

The "Latest Activity" view on the Dashboard will keep you up to date on what is happening in your projects.

Team Status.

Team status is useful to let your co-workers know what you are up-to... especially when you are out-and-about and you need to let everyone back in the office that you're running late becasue you're closing that big deal.

Access your Projects.

This screen lets you view all your active and starred projects. You can star and un-star these with just a tap.

You can add new projects in seconds while you're out with a client, so your co-workers can begin working on the project before you're even on your way back to the office.

Project Home Screen.

From here you can access the Latest Activity, Tasks, Milestones, Messages and open the project in the phones web browser.

The project logo is displayed in the header. Pretty eh!

Join the Conversation!

Keep on track of project messages and chip in directly from your Android Smartphone.

Reply to existing messages and choose who to notify.

Download from Android Market today.

There are lots of other features but enough talk! Get stuck in and download our shiny new app from the Android Market.

We are excited to announce that we have just launched Dropbox integration for TeamworkPM!

We've been working hard on this for quite some time and it feels good to release this top requested feature for customers on the Business 2, Corporate and Enterprise plans.

 

How does the Dropbox integration work?

When you link a Dropbox account with Teamwork you can reference your Dropbox files through Teamwork so they appear within the files tab of your projects. The files reside on Dropbox so when you change a file on your local computer, the very latest version is available in Teamwork. This will also gives you the ability to reference the same file across all your projects easily without having to upload the files separately into each project. 

 

I'm itching to give it a go, how do I set this up?

Customers on the Business 2, Corporate or Enterprise plans get a new tab on the Site Settings page called Integrations. It's pretty easy once you visit that tab but here are some step-by-step instructions:

 

1. First thing you need to do is to allow Teamwork to access your Dropbox account.

To get to the Integrations section, click on Settings in the top right, then click Site Settings. On the settings page, click the new "Integrations" tab.

Click on Connect Dropbox button to go through the authorization process. You will be directed to the Dropbox website and prompted to log in. Once you log in to the Dropbox account you want to use with Teamwork, Dropbox will ask you if you want to allow Teamwork to connect to your Dropbox Account. Course you do, so click Allow.

 

2. Choose your top-level folder.

Dropbox will then send you back to your Teamwork account and you will be prompted to select the Top Level Folder for your Dropbox integration with Teamwork.

Don’t worry if you have other folders and files within your dropbox account that you don’t want others to have access to. Users will be limited to the Top Level Folder you select here and won't be able to browser below this.

Once you have successfully connected your Dropbox folder you're good to go!

 

Project Level Folders

Each project can have it's own Project Level Folder selected which users on your project are confined to. This can be selected in the "settings" tab of each project.

 

Settings Project Dropbox Permissions

When you choose a folder for a project, you can also specify who can browse and add files from this Dropbox folder to your Teamwork project.

If users have permission to access the Dropbox folder for a particular project, they will see a Dropbox button on the Files tab.

 

Browsing Dropbox and Linking in Files

Clicking the Dropbox button will now pull up a new file browsing interface for selecting a file (or files) from your Dropbox account and attaching it to the project you are working on. 

Once you have then selected the files you wish to upload to your project just click on "Link-in Selected Files" You also have the option to quickly view a thumbnail of any images within your Dropbox folder by hovering your mouse over the file for a second.

Clicking "Link-in Selected Files" will add the Dropbox files to your project. You can easily see at a glance which files are linked to from your Dropbox account via the logo displayed under the files.

 

And there's more....

When you create a new task or message (if you have permission to use Dropbox on the project) you will see a new option when choosing a file called "Dropbox". This allows you to choose and link the Dropbox files while you are creating your task or composing a message.

Wow another month has whizzed by ... and yet again we've been super busy here at TeamworkPM HQ. Here's a list of the updates we have for you this month:

Dropbox Integration!

We are really excited to announce that TeamworkPM now integrates with Dropbox! Available on Business 2 and higher plans. This has just gone live today, hope you LOVE it. For more info read the blog post – Dropbox integration is now available available on Business 2 and higher plans.

 

Milestones scheduled can now be shifted backwards

By popular request, when you move a milestone date, you can now adjust all other milestones backward as well as forward. This missing feature - shifting backward - was causing some of you a lot of heartache. We're in the business of putting smiles on faces so we hope this cheers some of you up. For more information, read the full blog post: Milestone schedule can now be shifted backwards.

 

New grid view released for Files

We've added a nice way to view and find your files visually with the new Grid view option. Check out the blog post – New grid view released for files tab.

 

Create tasks by email now allows you to set the due date

Tasks by email is quickly becoming a vital feature for our Teamwork users. This month we have added the ability to specify the due date of your task! You can say Next Week, Today, Tomorrow or enter a date such as 01/09/2011. Check out the blog post – Create tasks by email now allows you to set the due date.

 

Somebody leaving? Easily reassign their tasks.

You can now bulk re-assign tasks and milestones to another user. The main reason this feature was requested was that a person would leave a company and they would end up being replaced by someone else. Before you had to manually go through all the task assigned to them and reassign the tasks to the new user. - Read the full blog post – New in TeamworkPM - Reassign all task and milestones.

 

Improvements to Tasks

We've make a nice batch of improvements to tasks this month including the following:

• Improved layout of "Priority" on Task form.
• Description now allows [pre][/pre] anywhere description is displayed - this keeps spacing and layout of your description.
• Scroll form into view when editing a task at the bottom of the screen.
• Reassign Tasks: Added in the ability to choose a specific date.
• Create tasks via email form - added "Copy to clipboard".
• Changed "Show Completed Tasks" to a subtle link instead of a big messy button.
• When adding a new task, close any other open Add Task forms.
• Improved prominence of Add Task button.
• Create via email now allows for a date. To assign a date, put it in square brackets e.g: [today], [tomorrow], [22/03/2012] etc.
• Task timer: Starting timer now sends pop-up notification to other admins.
• Comment Notification Emails: Added in link to exact comment.
• You can now reorder completed task lists by completed date.
• Recurring tasks: Added in support for "Every 2 months", "Every 3 months",  "Every 4 months"  and "Every 6 months" (by popular request).
• Added ability to reply to an existing task comment instantly.
• All Tasks page: Added categories to "Late" and "Current" tabs.
• All Tasks page: Added in sorting by company.

 

Improvement to Notebooks

• Updated editor to latest version - it just works better.
• Added in justify button controls.
• Added comment button to the end of a notebook.

 

Improvement to Files

• Dropbox Integration. Wow oh wow - lots of work has gone into this. Hope you love it!
• Grid View for files.
• Added option to delete the entire file or just a particular file version
• Improved spinner on deleting a file - now replaces "Delete" instead of whole line

 

Improvement to Milestones

• Some TLC for milestone schedule - now has option to "show all" and months separated.
• Quick Add Screen: Added confirmation that an email will be sent if notify is checked on at least one of them
• Quick Add Screen: Added a toggle button for "Send Email" column
• Printable Calendar: Added in Project Start and End dates if set

 

We made some Improvement to API

• Added ability to delete a file DELETE /files/{id}.xml
• Added "responsible-party-ids" and "responsible-party-names" to GET /milestones/{id}.xml
• Added "private" to "GET /milestones/{id}.xml" request
• Add deprecation flag to old "isprivate" field for "GET /milestones.xml" - change to just "private" now - for consistency
• GET /milestones/{id}.xml returns "reminder" - yes/no
• "fileId" now listed with task attachments
• Changed "isprivate" to "private" for consistency
• GET task/[id].xml returns file attachment details
• Exposed "notifyeveryone" so you can change who gets notified when items are added to a project

 

Other Improvements

And a batch of other miscellaneous improvements include:

• Your credit card bills will now say "TeamworkPM" instead of "Digital Crew".
• "Features" selection available on create project screen
• Database replication improved
• When selecting users to notify there is now a business card tool-tip
• When you make a payment, we now ask you for your Country and take VAT for businesses in the EU who doen't provide a VAT number
• New welcome screen with combined Invites option - old invites page deprecated
• User Roles now are truncated and a hover shows all roles
• Activity Log: Markdown not shown
• Markdown: You can now put <code>....</code> around big blocks of code so it's not touched by Markdown.
• Copy project: Recurring info for tasks now copied across
• Some javascript file size optimizations
• Dashboard: There is now a Tooltip menu when you hover on a project name to jump to a various tab within the project
• Time: Various tweaks to layout of grid data and reports
• Risk Register: Added option to export as Excel
• People: Project Administrators can now resend the welcome email to users on a project
• All Time: Added Task list name into excel reports
• All Time: When adding time across multiple projects, you can now pick a task per time entry slot

 

Some bug fixes

• Couldn't remove ALL files attached to task
• Basecamp import now requires the provided user account to be an administrator account
• Recurring tasks preview now updates after picking "Repeats on day of week"
• Fixed display of file name if it was edited by a user in "Preview" and "View File" page
• We no longer jump straight to the project when a user has access to only one project BUT has "Add Project" permission
• UTF collation changes for correct sorting of companies and people in Czech
• Daily Report: Use Installation Logo if one is set
• Billing: Freshbooks Integration - XML Format not used in Description of line item for expenses
• When file is given a display name, the activity log is also updated now. 
• Edit user did not check for Gravatar
• Drag drop for tasks and tasks lists was creating multiple Droppables handlers causing intermittent problems. Working much better now. - Peter got beaten
• Tasks: Via Email: Dateformat bug which gave incorrect month index - Dan got beaten
• Time logs: Dropped invoice number - this is handled by the billing section now
• Reply By Email: Messages: Notification email is now sent to people "subscribed" in the thread (not just people who previously replied)
• Add tasks - fixed 401 with files tabs turned off
• Time Reports - Filename date fix for time reports (Timezone)
• Dashboard: Late Milestones: Grouping was not correct when projects are named the same
• Notebooks Firefox 5: Changed how download works to work around quirk
• Task Report: If time tab is turned off a mysterious "Tab 3" was showing
• Freshbooks was only returning 25 companies - page size option - updated to take in 100 now

So... wow! Our little team has been busy this month and Peter is about to take a hard earned vacation in Tenerife.
But we are already waist deep into next months long avaited BIG update which many of you are going to love. Stay tuned - same time next month. 

Much love from Peter, Dan, Sam, Billy, Fiona and "Young" Donal.

 

PS. If you like these updates, we'd REALLY appreciate some twitter love – send teamworkPM some twitter love.

When you edit a milestone Teamwork alerts you if this date change could affect your schedule. Before this month only linked milestones could be shifted forward. We now have added the abillity to shift milestones forward, backward and also have an option to shift associated tasks by the same amount.

To use this new feature, go through to the Milestones tab and select the milestone which you wish to re-schedule.

Select your new date using the date picker and click on update milestone. Once you do this you will be prompted with another screen giving you the option to ignore changes to your Milestone Schedule or to modify affected Milestones. If you don't want to modify other Milestones, just close this dialog. If you do want to review your Milestone Schedule, proceed and select which other Milestones on the project you wish to either push back or push forward by the same duration.

We'll show you the dates of your current Milestones and also the dates that they will be moved to. You can click Options to specify if you want weekends factored in to the move and also if you want to move any associated tasks by the same duration.

Once you have selected the milestones you want to shift, click Update and your project will be re-scheduled.

All that's left now is to actually do the work and make sure you can meet these new targets.

(Unfortunatly there is not much we can do to help you out here, so you better put the head down and get back to work!)

Another small but useful update to the "Tasks via Email" functionality.

Recently we added the ability to assign tasks by including "Twitter" style mentions in the task e.g: @dan @peter @sam

It works it out by joining the users first and last name and matching that way so for example, as my name is "Daniel Mackey", the following would work @dan or @daniel or @danielm or @danielmac or @danielmackey

Today, we've added the ability to also assign a due date to the task (or tasks if you're posting multiple items).

To specify the due date, simply include it in square brackets somewhere in the task.

You can use [today], [tomorrow],[next week],[next month], [sunday] ..... [friday] or specify it in your date format such as [22/03/2011] if your date format is set to dd/mm/yyyy.

If you have a date format such as mm/dd/yyyy you can specify the date as [03/22/2011]

As always we try and accommodate variations so you can also do [fri], [mon], [sat] :-)

When you use the name of a day such as "Friday", we'll pick the next Friday from today and assign that as the due date.

Hope this helps some of you guys! From our logs tasks via email is extremely popular!

We have received quite a lot of requests for this over the years and last Friday Peter finally got around to implementing this feature.

You can now bulk re-assign tasks and milestones to another user. The main reason this feature was requested was that a person would leave a company and they would end up being replaced by someone else. Before you had to manually go through all the task assigned to them and reassign the tasks to the new user.

Now you can do all of this in one quick and easy step.

First of all, login to your Teamwork account, click People in the top left and select the person whom you wish to reassign the tasks from and select the new option "Reassign items"

(IMPORTANT NOTE: If a person has left your company you must do this step before you delete them as a user)

The next step is to pick the person you wish the items to be reassigned to. You can optionally pick to reassign either tasks, milstones or both tasks and milestones. Once you have made this selection, hit Reassign items and hey presto it's done!

Take note, this change can not be undone so make sure you are 100% sure this is what you want to do before you press the button.

Once again we hope you find this new feature handy while running and managing your projects with TeamworkPM.

We thought we would finish off the week here with a nice update to the files page.

This update now allows you to change the view on the files page from a list view to a grid view which enables you to see far more files in one go. It's great if you want to browse through all the files on the page visually.

This is a screenshot of how the files tab used to look.

And this is the shot of the new files tab, notice the new icons in the top right for switching between list and grid views.

Once you click on the grid view you get a really nice view of all the images on the page side by side.

You still have access to all the same nice features as you do in list view, such as the ability to view the latest comment and access other file details.

We hope you enjoy this nice enhancement to the files section.

Continuing our Meet the Team campaign, this month it's Sam's turn to come out from his office,  and say "Hello" to you all...

I have spoken to a lot of you either on the phone or over emails so I thought it would be nice if you all got to know a little more about me, so you can put a face to name...

I’m 32 years old, originally from New Zealand but have been living here in Ireland for the last 16 years. My family and I moved over here back in the early 90’s as my Dad was coaching rugby in Ireland. We moved around quite a bit, even going back to NZ for two years during this time as well.
Eight years ago they decided to move back in NZ for good but I decided to stay on as I had met a girl while at college, whom I have since married and we now have a two-year-old son Ryan, plus I was starting up a business as well filming rugby and other events.

Over the next few years the filming was going well apart from one major problem I ran into which was that customers only wanted me to do the work, and they didn't want other people I hired in to help with the load, as my experience with rugby meant I filmed the game really well and understood more about what they were looking for. This meant it was impossible for my business to expand in any way which was not a great outcome.

I met Dan a few years before while playing rugby back with a team while in our twenties. We didn’t really have much to do with each other until I moved my office into the same building as himself and Peter were already working in. The three of us would then often meet in the coffee shop below and chat and share ideas. In fact, we probably drank more coffee than we did actual work. Then in 2004 the three of us acted on one of the ideas and opened an Internet gaming cafe called AREA51. We were the first dedicated PC gaming café in Ireland open 24 hours a day. I gave up my other business to focus on this and Dan and Peter were able to continue in Digital Crew while working part time in A51.

Over the next five years we experienced both amazing highs and some soul crushing lows. The main advantage we had over our competition in Cork city was our customer management. We worked really hard to build customer loyalty, simple things like remembering customers names, talking and joking with customers, employing staff that knew and loved games. Then every Tuesday night the three of us would stay late and play against our customers joining in on all the banter and smack talk, this all helped us to build a really loyal customer base.

Joining the Crew

By 2007 the third founding member of Digital Crew had decided to leave and head over to Australia to persure other work. Dan and Peter then asked me if I would like to come on board and help pick up the sales role with Digital Crew. I accepted.
I have always had an interest in technology, web sites and web apps so it didn’t take me too long to get up to speed with what the guys had to offer. Sales went really well and business picked up. This was also the start of TeamworkPM being developed. So as consultancy sales picked up, it put more pressure on the guys to keep up with the extra workload on top of developing TeamworkPM, but they managed. The increase in sales also gave us the ability to hire in more staff so we could begin to focus on TeamworkPM fulltime.
As TeamworkPM got bigger and required more staff, I began to move into a customer support role helping customers out with a variety of issues from billing, to payments to general ‘how do I do this?’ questions. The other role which I have now moved into is marketing.

My Day

Once Ryan wakes up we’re all up (anywhere from 6:30am - 8:00am) The first thing I do is check sales on my phone from the night before.
I get Ryan dressed and sort him and myself out for breakfast. Then my wife Emma takes over so I get dressed and check emails.

EDIT: Since I wrote this post a while ago thing have become slightly more manic in the mornings. I now have a daughter, Zoe added to the mix as well so this really makes mornings pretty full on :-)

Once everyone is feed and watered and I have managed to shower and get out the door,  I then get in the car and head to work. Normally I listen to Mixergy podcasts while I drive in. I love the show and it's given me loads of ideas over the years. If you love business, startups and being inspired then you have got to listen to this show.

I drive to Costa coffee where I grab my morning coffee and go about answering all the feedback from the night before as well as direct emails that have come in.
Once my laptop runs out of power I head up the road to the office where I spend the day answering more emails that come in, feedback from our support tool and the occasional skype or phone call. A fair chunk of my day involves online meeting and demonstrations to people interested in learning the more advanced aspects of Teamwork.
I also look after all payment related issues such as failed payments or users that need to be invoiced instead of paying online as well.

I also try to set time aside for getting the TeamworkPM name out there. I read through blogs and post comments where and when it’s appropriate. I look for opportunities in which we can advertize as well as organize any sponsoring of events that we can do.

Being the only one on the team who is not a developer has it’s ups and downs. I try to give my ideas and feedback on new features from a "normal" users point of view. One of the big advantages I feel we have over competition is the speed at which Dan, Peter and the rest of the development team can roll out updates. This also makes my job a lot easier and also allows me to deliver good news to customers often.
There is nothing better than getting feedback from a user about something they feel is missing in the app. If I think the user is making a valid point that needs attention on our part I bring this up with either Dan or Peter and they make the change either that day or during the week. I then go back to the customer and they are amazed at how fast we rolled it out and delighted that we do actually listen and make the appropriate changes.

EDIT: March 2013 - I have just moved back to New Zealand to open and operate a TeamworkPM office over here. This move will help us give our customers support and help around the clock.

What I use in work.

Computers

• MacBook Pro Retina with 27 inchThunderbolt display
• iPhone 4
• iPad

Software

• TeamworkPM - Obviously ;-)
• Hipchat - office communication
• Dropbox - all my files are saved here so I can access them from anywhere
• Woopra - tracking people live on the website
• SEO MOZ - tracking SEO and rankings in search engines across countries
• Tweet Deck -  tracking search terms across twitter, posting tweets
• Twitter - on the iPhone and iPad
• FireFox - browser of choice
• Screen Flow - making screen recording
• Google alerts - tracking what is being said about us as well as others online
• Google analytics - tracking users to the site
• Adroll - loving this new company. Really easy to set up retargeting ads

 
Well that’s all I guess, I hope this gives you a small insight into who I am and what I do at TeamworkPM.

If you have any questions about me or anything at all about Teamwork feel free to get in touch. You can also read about Dan and Peter.

It's been another been crazy busy month here at TeamworkPM! We have some massive improvements for you this month.

Recurring tasks!

We are excited that one of the top requested features has been rolled out. This has just gone live today - read the blog post – New in TeamworkPM: Recurring Tasks.

 

Notebooks overhaul

Another big improvement to TeamworkPM; this too get it's own blog post – Notebooks - a love story.

 

Custom iPhone/iPad and favicon logos

A subtle but nice improvement to TeamworkPM, check out the blog post – New in Teamwork: Custom favicon and iPad/iPhone icons.

 

Ability to change the name of a file uploaded

Such an obvious feature that we over-looked it for so long! We finally added the ability to rename the files you upload to Teamwork. Useful if someone uploaded a file with a generic name such as MeetingNotes.doc

 

Improved file upload screen

The file upload screen got a bit of love this month. We now present the file upload in a "Lightbox" overlaid on top of the screen. We've also improved the UI with better styling and spacing. Everything looks much neater and feels better.

 

"View all files" option added

By popular request we added in the ability for you to quickly load in the full list of files instead of 25 at a time. You'll find the option at the bottom right of the files page (when you have lots of files).

 

Quickly add time across all projects

Many of you are going to love this – you can now log your time on any project directly from the All Time page. You can multiple items at once nice and quickly.

 

Installation logo and company logo are not the same

In the past your site logo and company logo had to be the same image. But this may not suit all of you! We have added the ability to upload a different site logo and company logo. It's s small thing but may of you requested this feature.

 

Other Improvements

• Better drag handle on tasks (Bigger and easier to grab!)
• Adding and editing of time logs is now in a Lightbox
• Improved Task Report - We've added 2 new options: "Include Late Tasks" and "Include Anytime Tasks".
• Improved iPhone and iPad support.
• Optimized the login process - ajax based with redirect straight to correct page instead of javascript redirect.
• Lots of minor UI enhancements - Toned down prominence of RSS link on the Dashboard for example.
• Billing tab - "Export invoice to PDF" now shows total time.
• Some love for the "Import Users": now more robust, handles foreign characters and non UTF-8. Also also handle some new formats and has better vcard support.
• Settings pages - "Import" and "Export" tabs now side by side.
• Task via Email: You can now use @person to specify who the task is assigned to (e.g: @dan) - We work this out for you based on users first and last names!
• OpenID: now handles openID for Google Apps (Domains) - Google does some strange oAuth Dances!
• API - Tasks - can now link in existing attachments and pendingFileAttachments
• "Everything" page - "Sort by project" now remembers the selected display order
• API - Added "progress" into all task requests. - The killer monkeys got a day out this month!
• All Tasks: Added company name under Project Name to help differentiate projects named the same but belonging to different companies
• Categories: Mouse over truncated categories now show full name
• Projects page - selected category name now displays in page title.
• Notebooks editor upgrade - It even works in iOS5 Beta on iPad!

 

Some bug fixes (or "Easter Eggs" as we like to call them)

• Task Timer Bug Fix: On Everything the description box was not showing in some cases.
• Files: Disable dragging when viewing files attached to tasks
• Files: Chrome: Fixed link clicking of thumbnail
• Security Update: Users: Permissions: If user is not an Administrator but can manage people, block them from editing Administrator accounts or setting project access on People page. (not really a bug but a result of the new Can Manage People setting)
• Files were losing selected category when sorting.
• Fixed a "date uploaded" display glitch in files for certain users (timezones).
• Markdown: Auto-linking improved in code blocks (Dan's hair is now fully grey)
• Extra time allowed for backup creation
• API Fix - todo_lists.xml now returning the names of all people assigned
• API Fix - /todo_lists/{id}.xml now returns "private"
• Fix for preferences not retrieving - Freshbook credentials were not being remembered! (Cheers Zach!)

We've been working round the clock and the sweat is dripping off us... hope you like the changes! We're already deep into the next round....