Our iPhone App sneak preview

I thought a few of you may be very happy to see this quick video I made. I stole the iPhone off Mike, our App developer, on Friday just to quickly show you how the iPhone App for TeamworkPM is turning out.

I have also asked him for a screen cast of the App so you can all get a better idea of how it works screen by screen. Until then he is a quick rough video I captured on Friday of TeamworkPM working on the iPhone.

Excel Reports Improved

In about 5 places throughout Teamwork, we provide the option to export reports in excel format, but we cheated: we used to simply generate CSV files and download them as ".xls" files. The problem with this is that excel would pop up a warning message when the file was opened and there was no styling or formatting to the data - it was just plain ugly text.

This has been bugging me for a while so last Friday when Sam asked me to add two missing columns (Invoice number and was invoiced) to the time excel report I couldn't help myself.

I've ended up spending all of last Friday and some of this morning programming new Excel code that generates 'real' excel files with nice styling.

Getting the date columns to render as proper dates that could be sorted etc. broke my heart - it took me about 200 attempts to get it right.

Hope you like it! :-D

ps. Dan and I are working on allowing you to assign tasks to multiple people - it will be sweet!

Persistent date select bar on All Time, Project Time and All Completed Tasks

Just a quick one regarding a new feature that was released this weekend that may not be apparent as it's not a visual change but an important functional change.

The date select bar on All Time, Project Time and All Completed Tasks, now remembers that last date range you used. This will make it faster when running reports.

Hope you find it useful, another task off my *long* list....

Dan.

Updates to the API and developer site

Lick of paint for developer.teamworkpm.net

I've just got Fiona to add icons to the 3 badges on the home page http://developer.teamworkpm.net/
Looks good methinks.

Going to have to add in a killer money somewhere..

API - Authenticate request more powerful

One iPhone developer asked that we have a simple authentication request that based on the users unique API key would provide him with the site code.. so I added that in! See we do listen! Now "GET /authenticate.xml" can be invoked on any Teamwork address such as "http://query.teamworkpm.net/authenticate.xml" and it will send back details about the user and the Teamwork Site.

This will be very handy allowing app developers to request just the API token from the user and nothing else.

I will be working on shorter more memorable API tokens to make it easier for the end user to enter into the likes of an iPhone app.

API - Project Name returned on most calls

Mike, our friendly iPhone app developer begged me to add in the project name to a few of the task list API calls so I've done just that.

If there are other similar changes you need, just let us know.

WiFi dropping on the iPad

It's a few days in now since we all received our iPads here in the office and I have to say we are bloody loving them.
They are a joy to browse web pages with and reading blogs is just fantastic with the almighy iPad.
The only issue I have had, and from reading a few tweets and other posts it seems others have this issue too, it's the fact that the Wifi seems to drop and and your network seems to vanish from time to time.

I have found a quick fix/work around instead of going into your settings and going through the re-connecting steps is just to hit the power button at the top and then unlock the iPad again and then wham your connection is back. I know it's not really a fix but it's a lot faster then messing round in your settings and once you know this it's not too much of a pain.

It's a strange bug but I have to say I wouldn't my iPad back for this, I forgive you Apple for this little mistake. :-)

Mouse Trap

As I type, I can hear Dan and Sam in the background frantically hunting down a mouse who has found his way into our office...

API is go!

 

In case you didn't notice, we like to roll out major updates to the servers on a Saturday when there is less activity on the servers - we don't like interrupting your work. So that's why we have two major updates rolled out today. Now.. drum roll please...
 
The API is online!!
 
FINALLY. The TeamworkPM API is now open to all installations. I have been working on tweaks, optimisations and improvements to the API for the last 2 months and I'm delighted to invite you to give it a whirl. Thanks to everyone who helped me round out the rough edges.
 
Developer Zone
 

Yesterday, I asked Fiona out graphic designer to cook up a fun design... and she delivered: Welcome to the TeamworkPM Developer Zone where we  have the API documentation and API code samples available.

 
What's Next
 
Now that version 1 of the API is complete and the developer zone is online, I will be working on
  1. A series of sweeping speed and stability improvements
  2. Asigning tasks to multiple people (in a way that is much better that every other PM system)
  3. Then, something I'm personally really looking forward to - Recurring tasks.
 
Stay tuned.
Feed me feedback and burgers please...

Dan's All Tasks Update is Online

 

Update Online
 

The major update to the All Tasks page that Dan has been working on has just gone live and I am delighted with the changes.

 
I could see myself working off this page alone now, working my way through the tasks. I like the notepad style feel of it. Good work Dan.
 
New 'Assigned-To' Pills
 
You should have seen Sam, Dan and I yesterday gathered around Dan's 5 monitors arguing (I mean discussing) passionately if and how the display of who is assigned a given task should change. We had tried putting the name of the person on the right hand side but Sam made a valid point that it was hard to scan a task list for the items assigned to you. We tried all sorts of combinations and I'm happy enough with what we have come up with and will be even better when we finish a bit of tweaking over the coming weeks.
 
Anyhow enjoy the update and feel free to send us feedback - we love feedback at engineroom@teamworkpm.net (or comments here).
 
ps. another update coming in about 5 minutes... to launch something I have been slaving away on for the last 2 months...

New update going online shortly....some nice additions added

It's that time of week again! Savage day outside, sun is splitting the stones and as my office is 4 solid walls, the only windows I get to look at are on my computer....

It's time to update.

So what's coming with this version?

  • Finally added a new way of attaching files to messages. You can now pick from existing files and it fixes the bug where the flash uploader loses the files if you flick between tabs.
  • Sort tasks in a list : You can now sort the tasks in each task list. New option in the task list options drop down
  • Mac friendly file names. We run windows and windows doesn't like some characters in the file name. We found a fix for this.
  • Everything : All Tasks : The thing that gave me grey hair. I'm happy with it now.
  • Tasks : Notice the nice new interface for the person responsible? Done. This drove me nuts. 5 different variations and we're happy with the one going up.
  • Bug fixes : yes, we found some and they're fixed.
  • Everything : All Tasks : Added ability to see tasks per person, tasks assigned to all people and tasks NOT assigned to people (I'm going to add in a bit to this to filter by "Tasks I have assigned...."
  • Comments : These are now ordered most recent first (Thanks Dawn!)
  • Copying a project now has an option to keep stuff off weekends


There are some other minor updates which we'll go into on the main product blog.

On another note, I didn't get to talk to Mike about the iPhone post yet but we'll get something next week. BTW: Rick, you're a legend ;-) Thanks for the comment on the iPhone post....

Some screenshots:

New task listing:

The new task listing was a nightmare. We didn't want to make it too different but it's a section we use everyday (the killer part) and we were not happy with the existing way:

The names at the start are good. They just blend too much into the task and looks messy. It's also harder to spot what is yours....

The new way is much better. This was not easy. We changed this 5 times until we were happy with it. The hover on the name (highlighting in black) makes it more intuitive to edit the task too....a request we get so often.....


All Tasks : Sorted by date due

Hope you like these improvements. Along with the API Docs, API programming and new features we have been busy this week.....

Dan.

Everything : All Active Tasks : Revisited

Hey All! Thanks for all your great feedback on Twitter (@teamworkpm) and via email, I really appreciate people giving valuable feedback.

So, what have I learned?
  • Details matter.
  • When tasks are sorted by Due Date, the task is the important bit, the task list is secondary
  • When tasks are sorted by Project, the task list is more relevant
  • I'm not right all the time ;-)
I have been thinking about this non-stop all night. Peter liked my final version late last night. I liked it late last night but something in the back of my mind wasn't 100% confident that the final direction was the right one. People's feedback indicated that there was more work to be done.

Before I tuck into a massive Easter Feast, I decided to update my work last night taking the feedback into consideration and this is the result:
  • If you sort by Project, you now get the view I decided on last night
  • If you sort by Date, you get an improved view of version 2 that I threw away last night.
Sort By Project


Sort By Date

You'll also notice that Peter (after we discussed the issue last night) has made a great job of improving the aesthetics of the task listing view. The person responsible is moved to the end now and not BOLD so the tasks are easier to digest and look neater. There is another very good reason for doing this, assigning to multiple people. Once we are finished, you will see "You & 3 more" or "4 people...." and we needed to refactor the listing so we can move in that direction. It will be a thing of beauty!

Once we are 100% happy and the feature is live, we'll do a nice blog post on the main blog on the new changes. This blog (Engine Room) is a great sounding board and is a more personal blog than the formal blog.

Happy Easter Everybody! We like 2 kinds of presents: Easter Eggs and iPad's ;-)

Dan.