TeamworkPM’s Engine Room

Once you are in a project on Teamwork it's really easy to add tasks to the project. Sometimes though a phone call comes in from a client or you think of a task that needs to be added before you forget. This means browsing to the Project you want, clicking the tasks tab and finding the task list you want to add the task to.

By the time you've done that you may have forgotten what the task was!

One of the areas we really wanted to improve on this month was making it easier and faster to add tasks to your Teamwork account. Not just from within a project, but from any part of the app.

From today, you'll notice a new feature in the top right called Quick Add

Quick add enables you to quickly add Tasks, Milestones and Projects to your Teamwork account from anywhere. We started with the 3 most common items and over time we'll add more.

The most useful is the Quick add tasks. Over the last few months we've received countless emails and feedback messages from people who want a faster way of getting tasks in to Teamwork. The majority of people wanted to dump tasks in and deal with them later when they get time.

We started by putting the same Add Task form in the pop-up window but it didn't really speed things up. It was overkill for what the Quick Add feature was meant to accomplish. We went back to the drawing board.

Our second idea was to simply allow tasks to be entered one by one. As you add a task, the box clears and you can add another one. It worked but it was still not 100% of what we were trying to achieve.

Then we got it right. We thought of how easy it is to create multiple tasks by email. It's simple. Each task you want to create just goes on a new line in the email. We also had added the ability to assign the tasks to people, set a due date, set the priority and of course the privacy and notification options. This is what we wanted from the Quick Add feature.

When you open the Quick Add Tasks feature, there is a box where you type your tasks and a select tool to pick your project.

You don't have to pick a task list if you don't want to - we'll create a default list called Inbox. (You can pick an existing list if you want to but we don't force you to)

You can create 1 task or you can create 100 tasks. Each task just goes on a new line of the text box.

You can assign people to each task, set a due date and a priority - We added a quick help tooltip so you'll never forget how to do it.

Lets look at some examples:

• @dan [today] Write a blog post on the new Quick Add Feature
  • This will create a task called "Write a blog post on the new Quick Add Feature"
  • It will be due today
  • It will be assigned to Dan
• [tomorrow] @sam @peter @dan Add an FAQ on the website about quick add items !!!
  • This will create a task called "Add an FAQ on the website about quick add items"
  • It will be due tomorrow
  • It will be assigned to Peter, Sam and Dan
  • It will be of High Priority
• [25/12/2011] Answer any Christmas Day feedback
  • This will create a task called "Answer any Christmas Day feedback"
  • It will be assigned to "anyone"
  • It will be due on the 25th December 2011

The order of the items doesn't matter. We'll figure out the people, dates and priority no matter where in the task it appears

The @person is worked out by joining the firstname and the lastname of the user together and figuring it out

For example, my name in Teamwork is Daniel Mackey so any of the following would pick me out:

• @dan
• @daniel
• @danielmac
• @danielmackey

The dates just need to be in square brackets and you can use a real date such as [25/12/2011] (or [12/25/2011] if your date format is set to that) or you can use Today, Tomorrow, Next Week, Next Monday etc

So that's it. It's live now and we're really happy with it. Let us know what you think!

Just a short blog post to let you all know about a nice little update that has also been added to the notebooks section recently.
This update now gives you the ability to move notebooks from one project into another.

It’s very easy to do. Just click into the notebook you wish to move. Click on the options button and you will notice the new “move notebook” option there.

Select this and then pick the name of the project you wish to move the notebook to.
We hope you find this new feature handy.

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!)

It’s been a busy month for us and we have some fantastic new features and interface improvement that will knock your socks off:

Improved categories and category manager

We have now improved and standardised how categories are displayed is the sidebar on the left of the these pages - projects, messages, resources and files. When an administrators hovers the mouse over these categories, a link called “Manage Categories” is displayed and this allows you to very easily add, edit and delete your categories.

Don't lose your work

We’ve all experienced that anguish when you lose 30 minutes of your work; that’s why we’ve added “local storage” support so that the details for your new tasks, milestones and time logs are not lost if you browse away from the page or are interrupted. When you return to the page and click “Add”, the details you had entered are still there. Works in all modern browsers. A nice improvement we hope you’ll agree.

Dashboard shows upcoming calendar events

We have added a new tab to your dashboard which displays a nice agenda view of all your upcoming events in one place. You can choose the time frame for events to show. We also added a handy export to PDF feature which can be printed off should you require it for meetings.

 

Milestone detail page now shows associated task lists

We received many requests for this feature recently so we added it to our list and are happy to say this is now ready to go. When looking at the milestone view page you can see all the task lists that are attached to the milestone and you can also edit the tasks within the task list all from this one view.

Task details page improvements

You can now log time directly from the task details page. Previously you could only do this from the main Tasks page or on the Time page by selecting the task. This new update means the task details page now allows you to view and manage all aspects of the task including task details, comments and logged time.

Options to set dates and assign a category

On the new project form, you can now optionally assign the project to a category and set the start and end dates directly from the screen.

Risk register improvements

One feature that has been long over due an update is the risk register, we recently received a lot of request to add in a mitigation plan. We listened and acted, now you will see a  Mitigation Plan field attached to to each risk entry.

From any project, easily switch to other related projects

This small enhancement is due to some great feedback we received from one of our users. His problem was he wanted to be able to move from one clients project to another project with the same client quickly and without having to go back to the project switcher or to the dashboard. We discussed this here and came up with a simple solution for this. Now if you mouse over the client company name at the top of the project it will display all the projects related to this client. Now simply click on the project name you wish to jump straight into.

New permission option: Choose who can manage people & companies

People use Teamwork in a variety of different ways. We received a considerable amount of feedback from people who would like to nominate a person in their company to manage People and Companies without having to give them Administrator privileges.

Printable milestone calendar improvements

The Printable Milestone Calendar feature has been updated so you can control what’s display and we even threw in an Agenda format as an export option. This is available on each project or across all your projects under Everything-All Milestones. Perfect for client reports or face-to-face meetings.

Notebook editor improvements

We have improved the editor used when creating or editing a Notebook. Many people use this to create documents and so we have updated it to function and look more like a Word Processor and less like a HTML editor. One of the two biggest improvements is the spacing between paragraphs and handling of pasted code.

Email dropbox improvements     

We added email dropboxes last month to much fanfare last month. We have now improved this feature based on your feedback. One of the biggest enhancement we made was adding the ability to keep message threads together. We now detect when your email is replying to an existing message and now keep it part of the same thread within TeamworkPM. Much neater we think you’ll agree.

File page improvements     

We’ve overhauled the files page this month with support for editing multiple files and drag-drop categorisation . Read the full blog post...

Tasks page improvements

The tasks page now allows you to drag and drop tasks from one list to another. Read the full blog post...

Other Improvements

• Improved project people page.
• Enhanced Markdown Support - We now handle pasted code automatically.
• API returns last-changed-on date for all items.
• Calendar uses full height of screen.
• UI: Improvements for theme navigation bar colors

After many requests we have now added in the ability to drag a task from one list across into another.

Simpliy move your mouse curser over the task you wish to move. Click and hold on the up and down arrow at the front of the task and then drag this task across to the new task list you want it to be a part of. When you are happy with where the task is just release the mouse button.

You can also watch this short video to show you how it works.

You also have the option as well to drag tasks from a list and drop them directly onto a task list name on the left hand side as well. This works really well if you have a lot of task lists as it saves you scrolling up and down the page.

Over the last few years we have received lots of requests from users wanting to generate a Gantt chart view of their projects. We have been in two minds about adding this feature as a core Teamwork feature as we feel Gantt charts are only really interesting to a small percentage of our users. Since our tag line has has ways been, Project Management Made Easy, we felt adding Gantt charts could potentially scare the pants off our target user base.

Last week we bit the bullet and released a feature that hopefully looks after both camps - those who want Gantt charts and those who want easy project management. Instead of going full force into the charting world we decided the best approach would be to interface with existing Gantt applications. We have built in a new Export to Gantt feature. You now have the ability to export your Tasks and Milestones to either MS Project or the free Gantt chart viewer called Gantt Project.

There are a number of ways to export your data:

1: Via the task page. Go to the bottom of the column on the left and select Gantt chart export:

You will be presented with a choice to export to MS Project or Gantt Project format. Select the option which applies to you.

If you go with Gantt Project export as your choice, we also supply you with a link to download the free viewer if you don’t already have one.
Once the viewer is downloaded and running choose the import option and then click on your downloaded file to see your project within Gantt Project.

2. Via the project options page. Click the Project Settings tab in a project and choose Gantt Chart Export

During the week we added in formatting support to our message and comment areas within TeamworkPM. The new formatting option is called Markdown. It allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). 

Markdown is a way to format your text to add bold and italic text, headings and a few other things, without having to use HTML.

Since we have added this new formatting feature in we thought we better give you a way to see what your messages will look like before they are sent. So we have also included a new preview option into the message section to allow you to see how your formatting will look before it's published

Markdown: An introduction

Below is a brief introduction into Markdown and how to use it. You can also check out the Wikipedia page which goes into more detail as well as given examples of other tricks and tips for using it.

Bold and italic text:
To create italic text, surround one or a few words with stars:

This is how you create *italic text*.

To create bold text, surround one or a few words with double stars:

This is how you create **bold text**.

If you have to, you can make your text both bold and italic:

This is how you create ***bold and italic text***.

A bulleted list:

Create bulleted lists using stars:

 * Item 1  

 * Item 2  

 * Item 3

The text above will look like this:

• Item 1
• Item 2
• Item 3

You can also use plus (+) or minus (-) instead of a star.

Creating links:

Combine brackets and parenthesis to create links in the text. It's quite simple:

Here's [a great website](http://www.teamworkpm.net). It'll really help you manage your projects.

The text above will look like this:

Here's a great website. It'll really help you manage your projects.

 

Quotes:

Add a greater-than sign (>) in front of anything you are quoting, and the text will be moved slightly towards the middle.

 > " Time is the scarcest resource,   

 > and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed."  

 > – *Peter Drucker*

The text above will look like this:

 Note how the name, Peter Drucker, is surrounded by stars to make it render in italic text.

Headers:

Markdown has support for different levels of headers using the hash sign (#):

 # This is the title

Here's some very good boiler plate text. I don't even know what a boiler is, even less a plate. 

 ## This is the subheader

Subheaders are awesome. Even better than you think. 

 ### This is the third level header.

And so on.

The text above will look like this:

This is the title

Here's some very good boiler plate text. I don't even know what a boiler is, even less a plate.

This is the subheader

Subheaders are awesome. Even better than you think.

This is the third level header.

And so on.

Today is finally the day we release a feature that we have had on our roadmap for quite some time now, and boy is it a great feeling.

I have lost count of the amount of times people have requested this feature in the past and it was always hard to just say to them all, "it's on our roadmap, so we will be adding this in down the line." That's why it fills me with great joy to finally announce the full release of the new feature — "Task Dependences".

(pause for loud thunderous applause)

We have spent a large, huge incredibly massive amount of time working on making Dependencies powerful but incredibly easy-to-use and understand. One of the major issues we faced was deciding how to go about adding in this type of feature in — if it wasn't done correctly TeamworkPM would start to move us away from our vision: Project Management Made easy!

To make sure we stayed true to this statement we spent a a lot of time and drank large amounts of coffee debating, designing and re-designing every part of this new feature. We really hope you all enjoy the outcome...

 

So, how do you use task dependencies?

Well now when you click into the add a task section you will see for the first time a lightly greyed out link called more.  We did this to keep the interface as clean as possible and to avoid adding too much confusion to new users and well as users who don’t wish to use dependencies.

Once you click on the more link it will reveal the new Dependencies tab. To hide this tab again just click on "less" on the right hand side.
When you go ahead and add a task you will now have the option to make the task linked/dependent on other tasks within the task lists in the project.

In these screen shots I have my first task added in called "Design the new look".

The second task on the list is, "Sign off on design", which I assigned to Dan.
I set up the task so Dan can’t start his task until my first task of "Design the new look" is completed.  A red stop sign appears in-front of his task to let him know that there is another task on the project holding him up.

These stop sign type icons allow you to quickly see what tasks can’t be completed because they are waiting on other tasks within the project to be completed first.

You will notice the last task on the list has a green stop sign in front of it. What this means is that the task can be started but can’t be completed until certain tasks are completed first.

Below is a short video I have made to show you just how task dependencies actually works when you are using them; sometimes it’s a lot easier to see a feature in operation.

We are delighted to finally cross this one off the roadmap and we are really looking forward to hearing all your views on this new feature and hope you all enjoy using it!

You may have noticed new enhancements to your TeamworkPM account this week. Over the weekend we rolled out the latest updates which we have been working on for the last few weeks.

Some of them are new features and others are improvements we have made based on the great feedback we receive from our users. :-)

The ability to edit comments

This feature has been a long time coming. It has always been put on the back burner because of other features jumping the line. We finally got around to adding this in. Now you can edit all comments throughout the application.

 

View & Edit Milestones from the Milestone Calendar

We have improved the upcoming Milestone calendar to be far more useful. You can view the details of a milestone and make adjustments by hovering over the milestone name.

 

 

Choose files by category when attaching files to Tasks or Messages

This feature is thanks to all the feedback we received. What users were saying was that once a project had a lot of files on it was to hard and time consuming to find files when attaching an existing file to a message or task without the file categories being loaded into the file picker. We have now corrected this and added this feature in. You will now see the file categories on the left hand side so you can quickly filter through your files to help you find the one your looking for to attach to your message.

 

 

Improved Language strings throughout application

Another area we spent a lot of time working on this month was our localization support for multiple languages within the application. We still had a lot of areas where we weren’t translating the text but hopefully these should all be fixed now. We have used quite a lot of machine translation so if you come across words that don’t make sense in your own language let us know and we will be happy to correct these.

 

 

Fixed bug with attaching the same files to multiple messages and tasks within a project

We have now fixed an issue that arose when you tried to attach the same file to more than one task or message at a time. Before when you selected a file that was already attached to task it removed the file from the first task and attached it to your new one. We have now corrected this so you can now attach the same file within a project to as many tasks and messages as you like.

 

Completed tasks now show time icon if time was logged

This feature is again due to the feedback we received from a lot of users.  The problem was if you had logged time on a task and then completed it you lost the time icon which displayed next to tasks that had time logged against them. We have now corrected this so all completed tasks still have the time logged icon displayed and if you hover over the icon the detail of the time logged will also display for you.

 

When adding a comment the task title displays to help with context

This is a small tweak that was suggested to us last week. We were told that when you have a lot of tasks and you go to add a comment to one sometime you weren’t sure if you picked the correct one so by us now adding the task title to the comment window this issue is now resolved.

 

Added in option to download Excel file of milestones

If you are a mad excel junkie you will be delighted to know that we have now added in the ability to download an excel file from the all milestones tab in Everything or from the Milestones tab in a project. Once you have this you can go crazy doing all your excel magic and create as many reports from this information as your heart desires.

 

Improvements to the API

For the techies out there we have added a lot of extra calls to the API and improved some of the ones there already. For more information on the API make sure you check out our developer page http://developer.teamworkpm.net

 

Reordering Task lists feature improved

This is a nice example of improving a feature we already had.  Before when you decided to reorder the task list all the last list names remained on the left, so if you had a lot of task lists it make it a little more confusing on how to save your changes to the list as the complete button was actually hidden from view under all the task lists.

Now when you go to re-order the task list it’s not only easier to drag and drop the lists but now the task list names disappear form the left which brings the complete button up into view.

 

Desktop timer App

For those of you who don’t read our blog or "like us" on Facebook (shame on you) you may have missed the news about the launch of our new desktop timer app. This cool new application allows you to place a timer on your desktop, and gives you the ability to quickly track and log time across a number of tasks within your projects.

Improved Notification Emails

Our notification emails sucked. We got so sick of answering feedback and looking at them ourselves we finally did something about it. We still have more improvements to make to them but the new update really improves readability.