TeamworkPM’s Engine Room

We added the Project Chart feature over a year ago and since then it hasn't receive any love. This month we decided to revisit this feature, gut what we did before and start again.
The result is a more useful, better looking and printable chart.
We took all feedback in to consideration and we love how it turned out.

The big change here has been the underlying technology used to build the chart. The old chart was built in Flash. This was fine at the time but with the rise of Apple and their lack of love for Flash meant that it didn’t work on iPads or iPhones. This also caused issues when it came to trying to print the chart for meetings.
We decided this time we would scrap Flash and completely rewrite it. This means that the new project chart is fully supported on all iOS devices and it also has the ability to generate a great printable view.

As well as updating the look of the chart we have also added a few more goodies to it. You now have the option to filter milestones on the chart as some charts where becoming very cluttered with the amount of milestones used in each project.

We then added the ability to filter the chart by company. This allows you to just display one company at a time so you can get a better idea of where a specific company's project's start, end and overlap.
The last feature is the tool tips on the chart. If you place you mouse over a milestone or over a project bar it will display extra information about each such as who is responsible, due dates and the completion status.

We hope you find this update to the chart really useful and as always any feedback you have on this, please let us know.

And so another month whizzes by and we're nearly in to the Christmas funny season!

We have been busy little bees this month and now it's time to pop up for some air and let you guys know what we've accomplished this month...

Big Ticket Items

• We finally added Estimated Time to tasks. Feedback comes in waves and this was a top requested feature. We were spending so much time answering feedback on this item that we bit the bullet and implemented it. We took all good suggestions in to account, mapped out how best to implement it and added a few suggestions of our own. Read about this here
• We overhauled the Project Chart. The old version used Flash, looked ugly and couldn't be filtered or printed. It bugged us that we couldn't display the chart on iPad. Read more about this here....
• We added some required features to Notebooks. The major additions include moving Notebooks to another project, a new grid view of notebooks and some updates to improve the PDF downloading.

Small Ticket Items

• Dropbox: Added the ability to turn Dropbox off on a per project level
• Calendar: Project Events: Added ability to mark an event as editable by people on a project
• Tasks/Milestones: Added in the ability for an Administrator to change the date an item appears to be completed on
• Tasks: Added in a new drop down option so Administrators can change who create the task (Handy if you want to notify a client when the task is completed)
• Notebooks: Finally added in a way for people to tab through table cells in the Notebook editor
• Email: Creating tasks/messages by email got a new priority setting. You can add "!" for low, "!!" for medium and "!!!" for high priority
• Email: We are testing a new method of email parsing which allows you to create a friendly forwarding email to the tasks/messages Teamwork email address (e.g: Create an email address tasks@mydomain.com which forwards to the Teamwork email addres)
• Freshbooks: We now pull back and cache all your contacts when your exporting to Freshbooks. Before this there was a limit of 100 contacts. Now there is no limit!
• Milestones: Viewing a milestone now gives you the option to download a PDF document of the Milestone containing the milestone details, comments, tasks etc
• Tasks: Find out who created a task by hovering your mouse over the task name. Small but important update!
• All Milestones Page: Gutted this and re-wrote it to bring it up to date with other parts of the app
• API: We now have added full support for Resources
• API: We now have added full support for Notebooks
• Tech: Added new headers to force ISP Proxy Servers to always grab a new page

For a full list of changes and updates check out this page TeamworkPM Latest Updates

 

 

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.

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.

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

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.

We have just released Version 1.34 of the Teamwork PM Desktop Timer App.

This version brings the following updates:

Be sure to let us know what you think by adding a comment to this post!

Dan.

Today brings good news. The official Teamwork Project Manager Desktop Timer App has been released into the wild.

We built this app using Adobe AIR so it will run as a native desktop application on Windows, Mac and Linux. The app lets you to create timers and log the time directly back into your TeamworkPM account.

Downloading the app....

The app can be installed from the Desktop Timer Download page

Quick start guide.....

Once you have installed the app, you will need to authenticate yourself using your API key. This key is found in your account settings within your TeamworkPM account. Click on your name in the top right of the web app, select 'My details" and on the pop up click on the tab 'API". Copy the key from here and paste it into the Options dialog in the Desktop Timer App.

The options dialog also allows you to set other key features such as;

• Pause timer when you're idle after a set amount of time - When you go back working the timer will start again auto-magically.
• Return only starred projects when logging time
• Option to keep the Timer App on top of all other desktop windows - Perfect when you're using the mini view!

With the timer app authenticated, you can choose to create timers in a number of different ways.

The first way is to manually create a timer using the Add timer button. This creates a Plain-Jane timer where you choose the Project (and optionally the task) when you are finished.

The second way is to use the import function. This pulls back a list of all upcoming tasks that are assigned to you in Teamwork. You can then select the tasks you wish to bring through to the timer app. Holding down CTRL (on PC) or CMD (on Mac) will allow you to select multiple tasks at a time.

Once you have finished logging time on a task, click the Log Time button. If your timer is associated with a task, it will automatically place this logged time into the right project but if it's a manually created timer, clicking this it will give you the option to pick which project to log the time against. You also have the option to dig in further and select which task the logged time belongs to. You can then enter a description and choose whether the time is billable.

The last option here is reset timer or remove it from your list once the time is logged. Resetting a timer sets the time to 00:00:00 but keeps the timer in your list so you can log more time against it later.

If a timer is against a task, you also have the additional option of having the task marked complete when the time is logged.

Another nice feature is switching to mini-mode. If you double click the circular part of the logo it will minimize the app down to a more compact view that can sit out of the way on your screen.

We hope you enjoy this new addition to TeamworkPM and as with all our features we invite you to provide us with feedback on what you think.

Words of thanks...

We hoped to have this Desktop App released in January but due to some great feedback from our Beta testers (special thanks to Mike B. and Dennis M.) we moved some features from Version 2 to Version 1. This forced the expected release date back but allowed us to deliver a much better product. The app has an auto-update feature so as we add new features (and bug fixes!) you will be prompted to update to the latest version. Thanks for your support over the last few months and pushing us to make a better app...

Also make sure you check out our timer FAQ's page if you need any help.

After many months of work we have now finished and launched the referral program we promised you all.  To find your new referral page, scroll down to the bottom of your TeamworkPM account and you will see a new link on the bottom right called "Refer TeamworkPM".

Over the last few months we spent a lot of time looking at a whole load of sites which offered all different types of affiliate systems. We have tried to take the best parts from all these different sites and then use these ideas to create a really nice, simple to use system that doesn't require any real work on your side. You can put in as much or as little time as you want into promoting TeamworkPM.

You can quickly use one of our social share options to easily send out a tweet or post a message to your facebook account. You can also use the quick email option to send a few contact your link to give TeamworkPM a go.

Track all your referrals from your account home page.

Once you have sent out your links, or used one of our pre-made banners on your blog or website to send people through to us, you can then use the referral homepage to keep track all the people that signed up using your links.  Once they sign up to a paid account you start to share in the revenue they generate. Now how easy is that?

There is no limit on the total earnings you can make using the referral program or the number of subscribers you may enroll. The only limit we have is that you share the revenue for a maximum of 12 months per customer. But during this time if they move from a Personal account up to an Enterprise account your amount also goes up, so basically you earn 25% of what ever we earn from that user for a whole year.

To get started, scroll down to the  "Refer TeamworkPM" link. In here you will find all your unique referral links and media. Use the social media links to send out quick messages, or place one of our pre-made banners onto your web page. You will also find your direct referral URL which you can use if you wish to make your own banners or if you wish to create text links within a blog post or website article.