TeamworkPM’s Engine Room

Important Note : it looks like a few people are having problems logging in for the first time.  Don't worry if you're one of them, simply restart your iPad and you should be fine.  Apologies for any inconvenience.  Now continue on and enjoy the rest of the blog post!

 

The Future

We're releasing Version 1.0 of the iPad app today.  This first version probably doesn't have everything that you need, but it should make working on the iPad more enjoyable. For the bits that are missing a tap of a button brings you to the optimised website.  

However, we're moving fast to fill the gaps.  Even as you download version 1 today, we've already submitted version 1.1 to Apple for review.  That update has a new Events Panel to help keep you on top of your schedule.  

But there's no resting there, after that we'll be adding in Search and Timers with full featured filtering following along (that'll be perfect for managers - the ability to customise the information that you see across all of the projects under your control)

As we said in the introduction, we wanted to get it into your hands as early as possible so that you can help guide its growth and evolution.  We have strong plans for where it should go, but as always we're heavily influenced by your needs.  

If you like what you see then let us know so that we can see the parts that are working right.  If you have an idea then let us know that too - maybe we'll be able to make it happen, or if not, maybe it'll spark off something else.  But most of all enjoy the using our new iPad app - TeamworkPM HD.

Important Note : it looks like a few people are having problems logging in for the first time.  Don't worry if you're one of them, simply restart your iPad and you should be fine ( also - you don't need to do the restart unless you actually encounter the problem!).  Apologies for any inconvenience.  Now continue on and enjoy the rest of the blog post!

The rumours were true folks, TeamworkPM now has a dedicated home on your iPad. Download TeamworkPM HD and as soon as you log in you'll notice the distinctive yet familiar look and feel.  We've taken the standard floating panels that you're used to from apps like Facebook and Twitter but we've pushed them further.

The panels smoothly sweep across your iPad's screen.  They can be pushed, pulled and thrown away as if they were physical, touchable things.  They're the perfect size so there’s never too much information.  You don't get swamped in detail, but you can get to the detail fast.  And when you're finished just throw it away to get back to where you started.  

Turn your iPad over into landscape and all of the panels move subtly to make better use of the extra space.  Back to portrait and they all huddle up again, but with the more important panels getting a little bit extra room.

That navy screen you see when you start the app is the TeamworkPM Dashboard.  Just like the dashboard when you're working in your browser, it pulls information ( tasks, messages etc) from all of your active projects.  It's kind of like the launch pad for everything you do in TeamworkPM.  To get you started each morning, the Dashboard automatically shows you a panel detailing all of the tasks that you're due to work on that day.

From there you can move anywhere.  Tap on pretty much anything and a new panel slides in with extra details.  As you focus on this new information, all of the other panels darken out a little.  Throw the panel to the left and it'll try to move over to give you extra room.  Move the panel back right and it'll go to it's original position.  Throw it off to the right with a bit more speed and the panel will simply disappear altogether - not needed anymore.

You can do all of this across any number of TeamworkPM accounts from the one app. Up on the top right hand corner of the Dashboard are your account details. Tap on them and you can instantly switch to a different account, or add a new one.

The main idea behind TeamworkPM on iPad is movement and flow.  Making your Workflow easier makes your Work easier.  But movement is hard to describe in words so take a look at this quick video (or even better go download the app and try it for yourself!)

 
The History Tour starts here or Why has it taken this long?

Let's take a quick spin back through history to explain how the iPad App came to be.
People use TeamworkPM to plan everything from earthquake relief programs right down to the weekend camping trip.  As you can imagine the subsequent range of devices used to access TeamworkPM is huge.  

We always want the best for our customers so we already have four different versions of the service: the main website, the mobile optimised website, an iPhone app and an Android App.  All written in different languages, all with different UI, engines, and frameworks.

We realised that we'd be soon adding a fifth version for iPad and a sixth for Android Tablets.  And that's not to mention Windows Phone (growing) or the newly revitalised Blackberry (fingers crossed for BB10!).  So we took the decision to develop our next mobile application in a way that allows us to bring the same underlying code-base to all of the new devices.

It's been a long and hard road however.  We've restarted from scratch three times as we stretched the existing cross-platform capabilities.  But with the release of this iPad app, we now have a code base that should allow us to move TeamworkPM out on to all of those other devices over time.  

We're using the iPad app first off to nail everything down, and once we're happy we can start to bring it other platforms - but with the tweaks needed to make it feel more at home of each device.
The obvious advantage of all of this extra effort : new features will appear across all of the devices at the same time.

TeamworkPM HD is a work in Progress.  We use it everyday ourselves and wanted to get it into your hands as quickly as possible.  So we took the decision to roll it out with a core set of features.  Now that we have the platform in place we'll be quickly plugging the gaps and adding in the most requested features.  So keep one eye on the blog and the other on the App Store. And of course, let us know what you think.

Read more about the features.

Important Note : it looks like a few people are having problems logging in for the first time.  Don't worry if you're one of them, simply restart your iPad and you should be fine.  Apologies for any inconvenience.  Now continue on and enjoy the rest of the blog post!

The Project Panel

A good way to introduce the new iPad app without getting too distracted is to focus on a single panel.  Once you see how one works, you'll be comfortable with all of them.
An obvious candidate is the Project Panel.  It's the hub of getting things done for a given topic so it's likely that you'll spend a good chunk of time here. ( Don't worry Managers, we have new panels planned which will help you to stay on top and in control of multiple projects simultaneously.)

Unlike all of the other panels, this panel is wide.  It takes up the full screen and serves as a background to all your work on a project.  The aim was to make it feel like you've entered a project.  So no matter how many sub panels you drill down through, there’s  enough space to see the project logo in the top left - so you'll always know what you're working on at a glance.

On the left of the Project Panel, you have a standard list of all of the usual project sections - Tasks, Milestones, Messages etc.  If you use either the iPhone or the Android app you'll be pretty familiar with this layout.  

 Tapping on a section will slide in a sub panel from the right.  As you bring in more and more sub panels, they'll re-arrange themselves automatically to give you the best view given the amount of space available.  You can drag, or throw, a panel off to the right to get rid of it - but it doesn't have to be the top panel, you can drag any one and get rid of multiple sub panels with a single gesture.

If you're in portrait mode the activity section takes up most of the screen.  This is where you can keep in touch with everything that's happening on the project.  Just like Latest Activity in the Web App, you'll see all of the tasks, messages, milestones, comments, files and notebooks as they’ve been added or edited over the last while.  If you want to find out more about a particular activity, simply tap on it and a new panel will slide in with the extra details.

 

When you rotate the iPad into landscape mode, instead of simply expanding out the activity column, you get some statistics about the Project.  The top green progress bar represents every task in the project - irrespective of who it's assigned to or when it was completed.  If it's a long running project it can be fun to know just how many hundreds or thousands of tasks your group has gotten through!  

The next section breaks down all of those tasks that have either a Start or a Due Date. You can instantly see the proportion of tasks that are due today or, hopefully not, have run late.  Tap on any of the donut graphs and a very handy panel slides in listing just those appropriate tasks.  So it's your one stop shop for everything that needs to be done straight away, or should have been finished before now!

When you're finished with those tasks, throw away the panel and you're back to the Project and the final section - the people section.  Here is the avatar of every person working on the project.  If you haven't uploaded a photo of yourself yet then now you have some incentive, as every time you open a project you'll see the community of people pulling together to get it over the line.

Syncing

Unlike the iPhone or Android apps, you don’t have to remember to sync with the server. Every time you slide in a new panel it instantly checks to see if there’s any new information ready to download.  It’s pretty much transparent so mostly you won’t even notice it happening.  But for those of you who still have the habit : pull to refresh is there for when you feel the need.

Wrapping Up

That's it.  We have a cunning plan to make this panel even more useful, but we'd love to hear what you think.  What would you like to see here?  Be as mad with the ideas as you like - they may not make it in, but they might inspire something that does!

Read more about what we have planned for the future of the app.

Today we are happy to announce the launch of Teamwork Mobile. This optimized version of TeamworkPM will work on most modern smart phones and tablets directly within the devices web browser. There are no prerequisites; no apps are required and nothing needs to be installed.

What is Teamwork Mobile?

Teamwork Mobile is a touch-optimised web app which utilises the latest in web technologies (HTML5, CSS3 & JS). These allow for smooth transitions, quicker page loads, data caching and much more. These technologies allowed us to make one app that works on most modern phones and devices.

For all of you that have been asking us for a BlackBerry app, this version will work very well on the latest BlackBerry phones.

The app features a responsive layout which allows it to adapt to screens of different sizes. So whether you are using it on a tablet, in your PCs web browser or on a touch device, the interface will automatically change to allow for optimal use (so it works great on an iPad for example).

 

This version of Teamwork will work across a wide range of devices. Though we do not have the means to test TWM on every platform, we expect that it will work so long as your device fits any of the specifications listed below.

Apple iOS (3.2 - 5.0) Android (2.1 - 4.0) Windows Phone (7 - 7.5) Blackberry (6 - 7) Blackberry Playbook (1.0 - 2.0) Palm WebOS (1.4 - 3.0) Meego (1.2)

Samsung Bada (2.0) Kindle 3 and Fire Nook Color (1.4.1) Chrome Desktop (11 - 17) Firefox Desktop (4 - 9) Internet Explorer (8 - 9) Opera Desktop (10 - 11)

 

So what can Teamwork Mobile do?

If you are familliar with either of our current native apps (Android & iOS) you will be happy to see that we have used a very similar layout and the feature set is much the same; so getting to know the new app should be a piece of cake.

Some of the features included in this version are as follows:

• All Tasks Page
• All Milestones Page
• Search
• Statuses - View / Add
• Activity Views
• Notebooks - View
• Messaging - New / Reply
• Tasks - View / Add / Edi t/ Complete
• Task Lists - View / Add / Edit
• Milestones - View / Add / Edit / Complete
• Contacts

We also have a few updates planned already so make sure you keep an eye on the blog to remain updated on what we are working on.

How do I access the mobile version?

TeamworkPM should detect that you are accessing your account from a mobile device and should change across to the mobile version automatically. If it doesn't just put /m after your TeamworkPM url to access the mobile site. eg. http://yourcompanyname.teamworkpm.net/m

I'll leave you with a fun video showing Teamwork Mobile running on different devices.

We would like to thank everyone who took part in last months newsletter competition to win an iPad 2.

The draw took place on the the 7th of December using Random.org to make sure it was fair. The winner, drawn out of the virtual hat, was Nick van Silfhout, from Textcetera in the Netherlands.

Nick was delight to hear that he won. Once Nick had received the iPad I asked him to send in a pic of him holding up his new toy....I mean business tool ;-)

I also asked Nick for a few words as well on what they do at Texcetera.

Textcetera is a graphic design studio that creates publications in all forms: from regular printed books to the newest standard of eBooks.
We also design ads, book covers and other graphic illustrations.Since we have an average of 100+ active projects, it’s essential to have a decent project management system to efficiently streamline the workload.
We use TeamworkPM to keep track of the project status and it helps us to unite all the information about a project in one place.
The basic functions of TeamWorkPM give us great peace of mind in a chaotic branch!
To read more: www.textcetera.nl (Dutch only, unfortunately)

Thanks again to everyone who entered the competition.  Make sure you keep an eye out each month for the newsletter which will have all the latest news from TeamworkPM, as well a chance to win a few goodies from time to time.

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. :-)