The Beautiful New Image Viewer

This month we have been working on a re-vamp of the Image Viewer.  The easiest way to see why is to take a quick walk through the way things used to work.

Let's say you're building a house.  Of course you project manage it with TeamworkPM. The Architect revises the plans and adds some 3D images for you to look at. 

The first thing you do is jump straight to the images.  Thumbnails are nice, but of course you go look at each image individually.  That means clicking on the image, waiting for it to appear, canceling out to go back to the list of images, choosing another image, waiting for that to appear, canceling out of that, and... well you get the picture.  Or at least you don't.  You only get half the picture.  What changed between the first and the second images?  By the third image can you even remember what was in the first?

Then move on to the changes the architect made to the plans.  You see the plan, but what's new?  From the file list you can choose which version to look at, but just like with the images above, are you really going to remember what changed?  Plus, hands up, how many of us even knew the versioning system was even there in the first place?

 

The new Image Viewer get's rid of all that fuss

Click on an image and you're brought straight into a full screen, simple, clean and distraction free view of your image. It's just you, the image and a way to write down your comments.

 

Remember all of that canceling and choosing from the example above?  Just hit the up and down arrow keys and you'll move flicker free between images - no more leaving the viewer to choose a new file.  Trying to choose between two of the images?  Go back and forth to your heart's content.

 

 

The power of versioning really shines with this new viewer.  Moving between different versions of the same image is as simple as hitting the left and right keys.  Remember the changes that the architect made in the example above?  Now you'll literally be able to see those changes pop in and out, making it easy to choose which to go with ( well... as easy as it can be when comes to hypothetical building plans!)

The best way to find out about the new Image Viewer is to try it out yourself.  It behaves exactly as you’d expect and doesn’t need much more introduction than that.

People like to look at images.  Always have.  Always will.  The thing is, it's just so much more enjoyable doing so on TeamworkPM now...

Meet the Team: Adrian – Customer Support

Hi, my name is Adrian Kerr and I look after support here at TeamworkPM. I have known most of the guys here for over 10 years, so when the opportunity to join TeamworkPM arose I was delighted to come on-board. I joined the company in February and I’m thoroughly enjoying being part of the team. It is great to be working with a company who are so customer-focused and passionate about their product. 

 

I can’t say I’m as tech savvy as the others here, in fact my technical skills pale in comparison to the others here (nerds!). My background has had more to do with customer service; in College I studied Commerce and achieved a Major in Law and a Minor in IT. In recent years I studied to become a life and business coach.

I am very customer orientated and thrive when helping people. I've had past experience dealing in customer support and sales within the motor and software industries.

A Day in the Job

  • Arrive around 8am at our local 'Costa Coffee' where the team meets up for a chat (All TeamworkPM related of course).
  • Drive to the office, start up our website live support chat. The chat allows you to contact me directly through the www.teamworkpm.net website  – it’s the little button in the bottom right of the page.
  • Answer all the outstanding feedback, all good of course :-) 
  • Throughout the day I occasionally update the FAQ section of our site with any new questions that we hadn't covered yet.
  • When I have time, I help the guys here test and tweak the latest amazing updates that are coming soon!

    Tools that I use

    • My MacBook Air - Love it, it’s my first Mac and I’m not going back :-)
    • iPhone - always in my hand

      Software preferences

      • HipChat - we use it in the office for all our internal and mobile chats
      • TeamworkPM - I should know how to use it :-)
      • XBox - I am the FIFA king in the office. We have an office lunchtime league.
      • Twitter - I like to see what’s going on

        Other Interests and Hobbies

        In my spare time I enjoy nothing more than being outdoors; whether kayaking, playing golf, tennis, walking or running.

        I am an avid Rugby fan and would still love to be playing but unfortunately given injuries incurred, I’ve decided to called it a day. However, I can be found most weekends watching some form of it and occasionally I even try to teach my 3 year old son how to play (but alas with mixed results).

        So that's me. Delighted to introduce myself to you all. If you want to get in touch, you can find me by submitting feedback or getting in touch on the live chat. I'll be eagerly awaiting to speak to more of you, our wonderful users, very soon.

        All New Messages

        This morning we rolled out an update that brings you a slew of subtle improvements and drumroll.. drastically improved project messages!

        Three view modes

        The first thing you'll notice is that we now offer three ways to view the messages section of a project: compact, list and expanded.

        • The compact view is useful when you have a lot of messages and want to scan them quickly.
        • The list view is the default; it shows a preview of the latest message.
        • The expanded view shows you the full original message and the latest reply. This view is similar to how the messages section used to work.

        We worked hard to create these three elegant views which will hopefully cater to every users individual tastes and preferences. Once you switch to a different view, that option will follow you through to any other projects.

        Unread messages are highlighed!

        Messages you have not yet viewed are highlighted so now it is immediately obvious which messages have new content.

         

        This simple improvement makes project messages vastly more useful. You can now easily see what messages have been added and updated at a glance.

        When you click into a message, the messages you haven't seen yet will now display a "new" icon beside them so you know which ones you haven't seen before. 

        Tip: You may have hundreds of messages marked as unread right now – there is an option to to mark all messages as read available by clicking the cog icon on the top right of the listing page.

        The latest post is what's important

        We feel the latest message is what's really important and for this reason the "compact" and "list" modes show the picture of the user who posted the last message on a thread. The original title is still displayed of course.

        If you want a more traditional view, the "expanded" view still shows the original author first followed by the latest message.

        Updated messages rise to the top

        When a user responds to an existing message, that message will be now listed at the top of the page so that when you return to the project you will see the new messages instantly.

        We initially show you 40 messages. To see more messages, you can simply click the "More" link at the bottom of any page.

        Faster loading

        The new messages system has been built using the latest client side MVVM javascript technology to give you the best possible experience. The pages should load nice and fast for you, certainly much faster than the old messages.

        "All Messages" updated

        The "All Messages" page also uses the new messages listing system so you can use this one page to quickly scan unread messages across all your projects.

        That's it folks.

        It was a lot of hard work to create something that looks so simple but that's the general idea. We are really happy with what we have created and hope you are going to love using the new messages.

        Task Timer: Improvements to logging time

        When using the Teamwork Web App you can start a timer for any task that you are currently working on. When the timer is complete you can log the time directly to the task and add a description to the new time log entry.

        This month we've also extended this form to include the hours and minutes to be logged so you can adjust them to account for lunch breaks etc

        We've also added a new keyboard shortcut so when you are looking at your list of tasks you can put the mouse over the task name and press "T" to bring up the Log Time dialog for that task. This shaves 2 mouse clicks off the effort to log time on a particular task - especially handy if you need to log time on multiple tasks in a list.

        We didn't stop there though. When you log time on a task, we've added a new checkbox to also complete the task when the time is being logged. Again this shaves a few clicks off the process of logging time on a task and marking the task as complete.

        Logging time is very important and a core feature of Teamwork. We have more great additions coming down the line to make logging time less of a chore and we'd love to gather more ideas so drop us a comment on this post with your thoughts.

        PS: Don't forget to install the Teamwork Desktop Timer App to make time logging easier

        Easy TeamworkPM automation on a Mac

        In last year's May Newsletter, Email Dropboxes made their debut under the breathless heading:

        "OMG!... You can now create tasks & messages via email!"

        Sounds simple doesn't it? But there's a lot of potential hidden behind those exclamation marks.  One particularly easy thing to do, if you have a Mac, is to give yourself the ability to create a new task and assign it to yourself, by simply selecting some text.

        That's any selected text, in any application, on a Mac.

        Now this involves using an application that Apple provides called Automator. If you've never used it before don't worry, just follow along with this post and you'll be fine. It's simple, so simple in fact, that this post is mostly just a bunch of screenshots.

        To get started, go to the Applications folder on your Mac and launch Automator.

        Automator makes it very easy get your Mac to do all sorts of interesting things without requiring a degree in Computer Science. Most of the time you simply drag and drop a few actions to create powerful plugins for Mail, or iTunes or the Mac itself with zero effort. 

        Which is what we're going to do now.
        First thing, go create a new Service document in Automator.  

        Now, you could simply play around with the "New Mail" and the "Send Mail" actions in Automator and have the whole service working without any typing at all, but we're going to go a little further and use a script so that we can automatically specify who to assign the task too.

        In the top left of your new Automator window, start typing AppleScript until you find the "Run AppleScript" action.

        Drag that action over to the right hand side of Automator and delete all of the placeholder text in it.  We'll be adding our own script in the next step.

        To get the service to do what we want, simply copy in the little bit of AppleScript shown below.  AppleScript prides itself on looking something like English, but don't worry you don't have to try figure out what it does if you don't want to!

        on run {selectedText, parameters} 

        tell application "Mail"

        ----------- Don't forget to change myName and emailAddress to your details!!! ---------

        set myName to "mike" 

         set emailAddress to "TWiPhoneAppBugs.I_EAT_BUGS_FOR_BREAKFAST@t asks.teamworkpm.net"

        ---------------------------------------

        set theTaskTitle to "@" & myName & " " & selectedText

        set theMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {visible:true, subject:theTaskTitle, content:""}

        tell theMessage 

         make new to recipient at end of to recipients with  properties {name:"Bugs", address:emailAddress}

         

        end tell

        send theMessage

        end tell

        return selectedText 

         end run

        To automatically assign the task to yourself, change the value of myName to your own name.   You could of course specify the name of someone else on the project if you want to assign the task to them.

        Finally change the value of emailAddress to the unique email address for the task list that you're interested in. To find that address go to Teamwork and click on the option menu beside the name of the task list. Choose the "Email tasks to this list" option.

        Copy the email address and paste it into the AppleScript.

        Now that you've made the changes, hit the hammer button at the top of the AppleScript to build it. If everything is typed in correctly the script will change colour nicely and your document should look something like this:

        And that's it! Just save the document and give it a useful name. In this example I've created a service to send tasks to my bug task list so I named the service app : "Send Task To Bug List"

        And now the fun bit - go select any text and bring up the contextual menu for it ( you can do that by holding down the control key when you click on the selected text ) and you'll find that you are now able to magically send that piece of text to your task list as a new task.

        Simple isn't it? The possibilities are endless - create as many services as you like for all of your favorite task lists and message categories.

        And if you come up with a good Automator script don't forget to let us know so that we can share it with every one else!

        That's it, as usual, let us know what you think. 

        Mike.

        From Documents to Files, Billing & Time Keeping, TeamworkPM integrates with your favourite apps!

        We started this year with the aim to integrate with as many useful third party services as we could. We wanted to enhance the power of TeamworkPM and allow people to continue to use the services that make their job easier. 

        One of the joys of cloud based computing is that there are now more options available to link multiple services together. All that's required is a good API. We wanted to put one post together that would act as a good reference point for all existing and future Teamworkers to go to if they needed to quickly see what was available to integrate with and more importantly how to hook TeamworkPM up with these apps and services. 

        A full list of our integrations to date: 

        Freshbook: A fast and simple invoicing and time tracking service that help you manage your business and get paid.  Read more here.

        Harvest: Simple time tracking, fast online invoicing, and powerful reporting software. Simplify employee timesheets and billing. Read more here.

        BlinkSale:  Is perfect for anyone who needs to invoice clients for services or products sold. Read more here.

        Dropbox: Is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Read more here.

        Quickbooks Online: Accounting software creates invoices, pays bills, and tracks expenses. Manage business accounting online quickly and easily. Read more here.

        Xero: Online accounting software for business. Web based system for invoicing/billing, accounts payable, bank reconciliation and bookkeeping. Read more here.

        Box: Simplifies online file storage, replaces FTP and connects teams in online workspaces. Read more here.

        Google docs, now known as Google Drive: Create and share your work online and access your documents from anywhere. Manage documents, spreadsheets, presentations, surveys, and more. Read more here.

        The full list of May Updates.

        While it's always fun to work on the nice fun front facing features sometimes you just got to get your hands dirty and get stuck in to the very un-sexy behind the scenes code. This month we have spent a lot of time and focus on the engine of TeamworkPM.

        Check out the full list of updates below. Remember you can keep an eye on the list as we go throughout the month on our live Latest Updates page.

        Highlights

        • Xero integration for TeamworkPM. Read more...
        • Dashboard Improvements: Sort activity by date & quickly view comment items. Read more...
        • Activity History Management - Remove items from the Dashboard and Project Overview Read more...
        • Browser side Draft Storage added to Notebooks. Read more...
        • Change to email notification subjects to avoid incorrect grouping in GMail. Read more...

         Features 

        • Box.com Dramatic increase in browse files/folder speed
        • Box.com: Change GetFolderDetails to V2 of Box API for speed increase
        • Update Notebooks: Added button to retrieve any saved draft if not saved correctly
        • Update Dashboard/Overview: Hovering over a comment shows the related item name and link (Task, Milestone, Notebook, File, Resource)
        • Update Task Timer: Added ability to change the time to be logged from the Add Description dialog
        • Project Settings Choose Company: Add option to create a new company
        • Update Reply By Email: Blackberry seems to put the subject at the start of the reply body
        • UI Messages list view - work in progress but looking sweet
        • Update Project Overview: Added new Administrator option to delete specific Activity Item Records from the Overview/Dashboard
        • UI  People: Alt Emails: Added text to explain what these are for and a link to the FAQs
        • Update Billing: Xero: Escape double quotes for CSV in item description
        • Update Billing: Added activity log items for when an Invoice is marked Complete/Reopened
        • Update Xero: Added in option to select Date Format that Xero accepts invoice dates in
        • Pagination Dashboard - Late Milestones
        • Optimisation pushState clearing .sectionContent = faster
        • V2 Caching branch reintegration
        • JS Added Paginate class
        • Lightbox can now close instantly when required
        • Login spinner added when "working" showed
        • Update Activity: Show "Inherited Privacy" icon on history view instead of "Privacy" icon if privacy is inherited
        • Mail connectors updated in prep for V2 caching rollout
        • Projects: Export List: If on Starred Tab only export Starred Projects
        • Email Notifications: Dropped name of Teamwork account from the end of subjects as we now have it in the FROM name
        • Email Notifications: Replaced square brackets with round brackets to help with Gmail Conversation view grouping unrelated email notifications together
        • Billing: Added support for exporting Invoices to Xero
        • UI Added a sample CSV file to user importer.
        • Maintenance Removing old tipped code
        • Scroll to top fix
        • Update Notification emails: Added link to retrieve password at end of email
        • Project Chart Added tooltip for project name on left for truncated project names
        • Reversed decision on project categories being visible to users
        • Update Reply By Email: If a reply to a previous comment includes the logo image from the account ignore it as an attachment
        • Update Billing: Added HTML as an Export option
        • UI Search page loads with pushState now
        • UI Beautiful iPad navigation
        • Update Calendar: iCal Feeds: Added option to exclude Milestones from iCal feed (showMilestones=0)
        • Update Calendar Notification Emails: Name of the user who created the event is now listed in the FROM field
        • Update Copy Project: Milestone description is now copied to target project
        • "Refresh" button invalidates cache
        • UI Nicer page titles
        • PushState Page titles fixes
        • Ajax loaded full browser titles for all pages
        • Calendar Events fix
        • UI String passwords option - Password strength information fix.
        • UI All time - Quickly log time form, description changed to textarea instead of input - multiline support added
        • Update Fix for Firefox 3.6 white login screen
        • Billing - was not resetting project cache
        • Rewrite of queries to not rip out duplicate names
        • SecurityCalendar events - prevent edited by ordinary users
        • UI Files fix
        • Lightbox - onFocus after effect

        API Changes

        • All GET requests now are memcached and also return eTags
        • Fix for v2 caching of projects.xml list
        • Caching system updated to integrated to V2 Caching system
        • eTags enabled on all calls.
        • Fixed v2 caching glitches the regression test found

        Bugs

        • Dropbox Fixes for when selected project folder becomes no longer available
        • Added checks for the OpenId length to core
        • Messages: Auto-save: Load issue fixed
        • fixPushState:Fix for project tabs - they load in dynamically when change detected now
        • When you click no to change the rest of Milestones the box should close
        • fixedV2 Caching - edges case fixes
        • Basecamp import will import project names that are the same as "[name]", "[name] (2)", "[name] (3)" and so on.
        • Task list changing order from template
        • Automatic URL linking in Task Description adding extra chars
        • People: Companies: Show "Add User" button to people with "Can Manage People" permission
        • Milestones listing "You + [Your name]" should be "You + [Other name]"
        • Fix user vCard import to suck in "EMAIL:" data.
        • Fix for CSV importer - wasn't handling "\r" as a newlinefor project tabs
        • for mobile nav - made to work with all Android mobile devices also. Detect user agent in onRequestStart now.
        • Activity Report Download: Blank page - Monkey dispatched, beating accepted.
        • Calendar lightbox fix
        • Messages/Comments/Tasks: Linking files from Google Docs, Box, Dropbox was causing page to reload
        • Calendar tabs not showing (lightbox animation cause)
        • After user added, screen blocked out
        • "Date completed" showing on "View task" page when reopened
        • People - link accounts seems cached due to lightbox closing effect

        Activity History Management - Remove items from the Dashboard and Project Overview

        When an action is performed in Teamwork, we add an activity item to the Project's Overview screen which in turn shows up on the Dashboard. This is a great way for people to check regularly what has been completed, added or edited on a project and at a quick glance you can see progress being made.

        Sometimes mistakes happen and a task has a typo or a milestone is added with an incorrect due date and people requested that we add the ability to delete specific items from the history log. This month we added a new function for Administrators on a project to do just that.

        An Administrator can scroll to the end of a project's activity log on the Project Overview and click the "Delete Activity" button. The last 60 entries for that project are displayed in a dialog.

        Select the entries you want to remove and bingo!

        Dashboard Improvements: Sort activity by date & quickly view comment items

        One of the most important areas of Teamwork to keep up to date on what's happening across your projects is the Dashboard section. The Dashboard shows the last 8 activity items from the last 10 updated projects. Sometimes though only 1 item may be changed on a project and the last 7 items for that project were also shown. 

        Lots of people told us via Feedback that they wanted to see more projects that had items added to them and also a greater number of "changed" items shown.

        This month we've extended the Dashboard and added a "Sort" function.

        The new sort function lets you toggle between the "old style" of listing the last 10 modified projects and a new view which lists the last 100 items that changed.

        This new view makes it super easy to stay on top of your Teamwork projects and colleagues actions.

        We also took this opportunity to add a much requested feature to the Dashboard and Project Overview - Comment Context

        When a comment is added to a file, milestone, task, notebook or resource, it was shown on the activity list. You had to click in to the comment to see what item the comment was added to. This month we added a tooltip to the comment entries on the Dashboard/Project Overview so if you hover your mouse over a comment for 1 second, we'll show you the underlying task, file, milestone etc that the comment was added to.

        This gives much better context to the actual comment without having to jump in to the comment view page.

        This is only the start of our list of improvements to the Dashboard and we have plenty more ideas to implement over the next couple of weeks.  

        Browser side Draft Storage added to Notebooks

        Everybody hates when things go wrong - internet connections go down or in the middle of a long Notebook entry or you click the wrong button and the browser closes.

        It's happened to us all at some time of our lives and when there is no draft version saved it can leave you feeling pretty miserable.

        The Notebooks section in Teamwork always had a prompt if you tried to navigate away from the document you were writing but it didn't help if the power went, the machine restarted or your internet connection went down.

        We've had quite a few requests for browser side saving of drafts and this month we dug in and implemented HTML5 storage on Chrome, Safari and Firefox (IE9 is supported if certain settings are enabled)

        Now when you write a Notebook and something happens where you lose your Notebook content, when you get back a new button is shown in the editor toolbar if a draft was successfully saved.

        Click the "Restore Draft" button and your content will be retrieved. Once your Notebook is successfully saved, the draft will be removed.