The new improvements include updates to both the interface and the functionality for the management of files and documents to make related tasks quicker and easier. 

So, what differences will Teamlab users see as a result of these new improvements?

Within their Teamlab portal, users will see that areas of the interface have been improved:

• The display area for the workspace has been increased from its original value to a size of 1000 pixels in width
• Two different display modes are now available and these are ‘standard’ and ‘compact’
• A new filter has been included that will let users search for specific documents to meet set criteria and also to sort documents and files
• A new set of drawing tools has now been included  and offers a full set of paint tools, letting users work with a lines, text, figures and schemes and a pour tool for shape filling, along with the facility to import images

From a documents perspective, a number of new improvements are now available and cover the following:

• Files and documents that have been either created or updated recently now have an associated ‘new’ icon displayed.  This lets users home in on the most recent information and clearly identify new project documentation
• Documents and files can now be shared with other users quickly and simply, with a single click – these will then show in the ‘shared with me’ folder making them difficult to miss!
• Documents and files can now be shared with users who are external to your portal – so they don’t need to be registered to get access.  This means customers and suppliers, for example, can see your documents, as appropriate, without having to give them access to your more private project information.   Access can be given either on a read only or an update basis, giving real flexibility over who can see and modify project-related information.

Teamlab is encouraging its users to try out these changes within the documents section of their portals and are keen, as always, for any feedback.

More on Teamlab

TeamLab is a little different to the vast number of online project management tools that are on the market today in that it originated as an Open Source application and is delivered in 3 different ways: Software as a service (Saas), Open Source,  and Amazon Machine Image (AMI).

It has a comprehensive range of features for project management including, task management, calendars, reporting, blogs and wikis.

For more information on TeamLab, please visit: www.teamlab.com

The new feature will be particularly helpful for those who have more than one 5pm account that refer to the same login email.  The new login feature will simply let the user choose which 5pm site to login to.

About 5pm

5pm is an easy to use online project management application that is available to its user base on a monthly subscription.  Its simple and colorful interface is intuitive to use and gives access to all the key functionality needed to effectively manage a project in a collaborative way.

Functionality covers a whole host of areas, including creation, management and sharing of tasks, central storage and management of project related documentation and notes and the ability to share and collaborate on all aspects of project work, along with a useful summary dashboard style view.  The main screen, organized as dual panes, gives quick access to projects and tasks with the minimum of user clicks needed.  Management of time is a key activity for project managers and the interactive timeline that is offered by 5pm gives a view of a project visually in a graphical format, where it is easy to see progress and any slippages, at a glance.

In addition, the interface can be customized to reflect the user organization’s own look and feel and give a unified corporate face.

5pm has recognized the diverse nature of today’s working environments and project teams and comes with support for 20 languages.  It is an application that is now growing in popularity.  Whilst its colorful interface can give the impression of simplicity, and this is true for navigation and use of the interface, its functionality has all the key components needed to manage a set of projects through to successful completion.

For more information on 5pm or to sign up for a free trial, please visit: http://www.5pmweb.com.

Google offers a great option for a new or small business that doesn’t want to spring for a paid project management suite. You can get as creative as you want with how you put Google+ to use…

The rest of the post illustrates ways to use Google plus to assign tasks, share/spread files, etc. It is definitely a unique take on Google+ and it does accurately, provide a guide on just how to use it in the suggested capacity.

However, in this author’s (and user of basecamp/project manager/business owner) opinion I have to disagree with Nancy Messieh (I love your photography), the posts author.

Even though it’s been months since the inital post and Google has released updates to their plus product, Google+ still does not offer a viable alternative to other paid project management tools – in particular basecamp.

Not only that, but Google apps has had, for sometime, project management type tools that integrate with Google docs, all of which are free. Having used them, as well as a host of other tools, including Google+ I think it’s a safe bet that Basecamp, and a few other notables really have the market cornered, and their free versions of products work great – or their paid versions save enough time to provide a huge ROI for the companies that use those tools.

Where Google COULD Excel

For some time there’s been talk about creating some kind of unified business dashboard for companies of all sizes. I think Google is UNIQUELY qualified to both build, and make successful – this kind of project. Facebook is a great platform for connecting people socially, but it leaves a lot of Internet activity out of the picture.

There’s the rest of the Internet – then there’s Facebook.

Google on the other hand – has a hand – in nearly every process on the net, is the undisputed master of search (in every category) for much of the world, and, with Google+, has a system for connecting people.

I think the time is right for this kind of central business tool.

Something that combines the administration of one’s marketing, with the ongoing day-to-day activities of assigning tasks to employees and personnel – in some kind of true project management application – all with integration in Google+ and Google’s other tools.

Not to mention this stream of internal business information would be perfect for contextual advertising – and I for one would welcome advertising in this capacity.

Say you were working on a project and someone asked a question like “what is the best email newsletter system?” A nicely placed Google ad, could help direct you and provide an ecosystem that helps business and furthers Google’s ever-expanding ad revenue.

One can dream…

For now, I don’t feel Google+ offers a real viable option for small business owners looking for a free way to manage their projects and internal communication. Stick with the free version of basecamp, or other free tools available on the web.

DeskAway also allows its users to link their accounts to a product called Freshbooks, allowing them to import time tracking information directly into DeskAway, but this lacks the detail behind time spend on particular parts of a project.

The improved user time reports, implemented in January, 2012, by DeskAway sees the introduction of charts into the User’s Detailed Work report.  These charts now give the user a comprehensive overview of the amount of time a user has spent on a particular project.  In fact, two charts have been introduced into this report:

• Time spent by Project: shows the user’s time spent across multiple projects. This report has a default set that shows the top seven projects.  The priority here is based on the total time spent on each project by the user.  If the users is involved in more than seven projects, the time for the remaining ones is categorized under the ‘Others’ option.  A filter can also be applied to the projects displayed.
• Time spent by Activity: shows the user’s time spent across multiple projects organized by the type of activity.

More on DeskAway

 DeskAway is a popular software as a service application, available over the internet, to help project managers and team members manage and collaborate on projects.  Needing little or no training for users to quickly become productive with its intuitive interface, companies both small and large can benefit from its wide range of features, including project and task management, calendar and event management, project and time-related reporting, along with the facility to centrally store project-related documentation and files in a central and secure location.

DeskAway is a subscription based product, which means that companies can pay on-demand, with no need for in-house extensive technical expertise or local implementation of software products.  Subscriptions can simply be cancelled if they are no longer needed.  Prices start at $25 per month and range up to $99.  A free trial lets users try out the application in earnest before committing to any payment.

For more information about DeskAway, please visit: www.deskaway.com.

Here's a Sneak Peek at the New Logo

I’m excited to announce some new changes at Promana.net. For those of you that have been with us since the very beginning days – originally simply a WordPress.com free website reviewing and providing tips on Basecamp, through our initial transition to a fully hosted site at Promana.net, through our redesign, and additional staff – all of which are still a part of this exciting project – I thank you.

But, they say the only constant in life is change. And we’re again changing things up…

Promana is Becoming Zincubate (.com)

We’ve been working on a transition for months, and will continue to be working through quarter 1 and will soon have available our brand new website Zincubate.com.

Why the change? 

Personally, I never connected to Promana.net – I felt the need/opportunity for this kind of site, so lept before I looked so to speak. In re-reviewing our mission and goals I realized that a perfect name was one that was already being used by my company at the time. Zincubate, a combination a few words and paradigms, it’s an element, and mineral essential to us humans, incubate – meaning to “provide heat so as to provide growth” we don’t care so much about the heat part, but we’re all about the growth – and of course the vain “Z” for my name.

Zincubate’s Mission

We’ll be reiterating this constantly on the new site, but our mission will be at the core of our business, our writings, and our service to you. It’s not changing – merely expanding…

Our mission is to help businesses learn and implement technology to grow, market, and run their business.

Pretty simple, but day after day we see companies new and old, large and small, who have been fed a diet of misinformation, have the wrong people in positions of power (when it comes to technology) so we want to provide the tools you need to evaluate your practices, your services, and implement something that really works – saving time, money, and making your customers’ or clients’ lives that much better.

We hate shitty business – and we’re on a mission to make business in the U.S. much better!

What This Means For You?

Just increased quality articles, and our articles, reviews, and featured will be expanded. Although Project Management will continue to be our core theme, we’ll have information and how-tos on Web Marketing, Hosting, Client Relationship Management (CRM) and much more…

You need do nothing – one day Promana.net will simply be redirected to Zincubate.com.

So thank you again for your time throughout the years so far. Things are about to get way better, with a new design, more quality articles, and some other things I’ll just keep quiet about.

Zach Katkin

Exceptions in software happen when something under the hood goes wrong, unexpectedly, and these can cause disruption to the user base, whether it’s a single user, multiple users, the entire user base.  Exceptions will happen in any software application, even where the development quality is high, particularly where that software is under ongoing revision, with new releases delivering new functionality.  So given that exceptions will happen, it is how they are responded to that will make a big difference to customers.

Of course, the serious exceptions that affect a large part of the user base get immediate attention, but 37signals recognize that good housekeeping and management of the smaller, less intrusive exceptions and problems can help to minimize larger problems, as sometimes smaller exceptions experienced by individual users can reflect the fact that a larger issue may be lurking somewhere below the surface.  In addition, routine maintenance of software issues can show demonstrable results, for example, 37signals reports that it reduced application exceptions in December, 2011 by a massive 43%, reflecting the fact that the developers had taken care of more issues before they had ever resulted in an impact on the users.

Each week, the programmers at 37signals will take a detailed look at problems their clients are experiencing and combine those with other problems that become apparent that don’t always get as far as actually affecting the end users.

In looking at exceptions, the overriding driver is to find the root cause that clearly explains why the exception has occurred.  Without understanding the root cause, any mitigating action is simply glossing over the problem and not necessarily fixing it such that it won’t happen again.

37signals has a good history of delivering its applications as online, subscription-based services and has 4 key products, delivered in this way over the cloud, that it offers to customers that come together to form an integrated suite of business and project management applications:

• Basecamp: project and task management, with centralized document storage & management and collaborative tools
• Campfire: real-time chat application
• Backpack: online, centralized management of internal communications
• Highrise: management of detailed contact information

For more information on the 37signals products, please visit: http://37signals.com.

As a product, TeamLab, the online, collaborative project management tool, has been available in a number of different languages:

• Entirely: English, French, Italian, German,  Russian, Latvian, Simplified Chinese and Spanish.
• Partially: Greek, Brazilian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish and Czeck.
• Coming soon: Ukrainian, Slovak , Georgian, Korean, Portuguese (full language support), Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Traditional Chinese, Swedish,  Thai, Romanian, Dutch, Croatian, Indonesian, Norwegian, Finish

As a product that has originated as an Open Source application, TeamLab has a number of contributors who put their time into advancing the applications, making their own developed benefits available to all who use it.  Contributors have worked long and hard using the Online Translation System, a custom development to let developers translate TeamLab into different languages.

Another development to assist contributors in language translation is a new portal for TeamLab that was introduced late last year in December.  The purpose of the portal to bring together those who would like to see TeamLab available in a different language or to make improvements to an existing TeamLab alternate language translation.  A number of contributors (in fact, 56 in total) have been invited to join the new portal for translators. The portal lets contributors keep up to speed with progress of different translations and gives them a forum in which to ask questions, raise issues with the TeamLab software, existing translations or, indeed, the portal itself. The portal also lets contributors share information with each other, and generally collaborate with their online translation colleagues.   New members are welcomed to the translation portal at any time!

To contribute a TeamLab language translation or simply to join the portal, please contact the support team at: documentation@teamlab.com.

TeamLab is currently available as what’s known as a freemuim application, which means its basic functionality (which in TeamLab’s case, is actually quite extensive) is available free!  Its more advanced functionality comes with the payment of a regular subscription.  Basic features include support for project and task management, resource assignment, time tracking and reporting.  For an additional cost, document management, privacy options and access rights can also be available.

For more information on TeamLab, how to sign up for a free account and its available subscription options, please visit: www.teamlab.com.

So how do we define uptime?  It’s the period of time when the application is up and running and accessible by its customers.

As part of their resolution for 100% uptime, 37signals is publishing a monthly uptime clock to keep its customers informed.  100% is a mighty challenge for the team at 37signals to lay down to itself – of course, with a continuously evolving application, new functionality needs to be delivered and this will mean upgrades on the Basecamp servers, so there will be those rare times when the application has to be down for short periods of time for essential maintenance and upgrades but these will be limited to the bare minimum.

The company that manages the 37signals network provision has published figures for their 4 key products for the last 12 months, and those figures look good:

• Basecamp: 99.93% – which equates to approximately 6 hours of down time
• Highrise: 99.95%  - which equates to approximately 4 hours of down time
• Campfire: 99.95%  - which equates to approximately 4 hours of down time
• Backpack: 99.98%  - which equates to less than 2 hours of down time

About Basecamp

Bascamp offers online, collaborative project management functionality helping both co-located and distributed teams to work in a collaborative way on a central source of project-related information.  With its colorful and customizable interface, the application is easy to use and team members can be up and running with little or no training requirement to get them going.

Basecamp offers different levels of subscription with something to suit most needs irrespective of company size.  With it’s sister products, Highrise (contact management), Campfire (online chatrooms) and Backpack (internal communications) the suite of 37signals applications offers an integrated business and project management solution.

Basecamp offers a 1 month free trial that gives full access to all the features offered and is well worth a try.

37signals began this score-keeping in 2010 and initial findings suggested an 84% satisfaction rate.  Extended on into 2011, 37signals is pleased to show that this satisfaction rate has increased to 90%, with the ‘frown ratio’ reducing to a mere 3%, a figure they are proud to present as over a 50% reduction on the previous year.

37signals puts its increased success rate for customer satisfaction down to increasing the team size, giving them more capacity for dealing with customer emails on an individual basis.  Team members were originally dealing with in the region of 80 emails per day and the revised team structure has reduced this to around 40 per day.

Additional improvements in customer reactions has also come from looking at the data and working out what  is was exactly that made individual customers unhappy.  This gave 37signals the direction to go in to make specific improvements.

37signals now aims to follow up every ‘frown’ response they get and work to turn it around to a happier response by tackling the original problem.

Good customer service can be the difference between keeping customers and losing them, in a market where products have competing functionality, all of which can do the job in question.  Even where a customer has had a negative experience, a strong customer service approach that looks to address concerns and problems, tackling them head on, rather than sweeping them under the carpet and hoping they’ll go away can turn that negative experience into a positive one. Customers typically respond to being listened to and having their opinions acted on!

So, on the face of it, 37signals customers are, indeed, happy!  It is worth noting, though that the figures represent responses received from customers who contacted the customer support facility and who took the time to feed back – it neither represents everyone who contact customer support, nor the entire estate of 37signals customers. 

About 37signals

37signals, based in Chicago, is a market leader in the delivery on online, collaborative software applications to support businesses in managing their projects, day to day operations and communications.  With a core of 4 key products: Basecamp (project management), Highrise (contact management), Campfire (live chat rooms) and Backpack (internal communications management),  the 37signals products come together to provide an integrated solution for businesses, particularly those who work in a distributed way.

For more information on 37signals and its suite of collaborative products, please visit: http://37signals.com

• Filter by tags: The new filter by tags option has been added to the General Report facility and allows users to filter their report according to text stored in tags.
• Mark as Done: The new mark as done option has been added to the Project Options view and lets users close down a project and all of its component tasks in a single operation.  This is a huge time-saver and avoids the need to close down the individual tasks before closing down the project itself.
• User profile change notification:  A new email notification option is now available to let users know when user profile has been updated. The new feature allows a user to be emailed with their login details at any point.

About 5pm…

5pm is a colorful and feature rich project management application that is available over the cloud.  Customers pay to use the application through a monthly subscription with varying rates to suit particular needs.  The application includes a range of functionality including, project and task management, reporting, document upload to a centralized project location and email notifications, along with a very useful interactive timeline view.

Monthly prices start at $18 for up to 5 users, 1Gb of storage and 10 active projects and range, through a total of 5 different options, right up to $175 for unlimited users, projects and 30Gb of storage for documents.  All pricing options allow an unlimited number of clients. A free trial that runs for 14 days is also available letting users get a true feel for the application before committing to pay a regular subscription.

In recognition that project teams are often distributed not just geographically, but also across different language barriers, 5pm comes with support with more than 20 languages.

With customization available for colors, the interface can be designed to suit the particular organization’s own look and feel and the main dashboard view gives a useful and quick summary of the current status of projects and activities.

For more information on 5pm, please visit: www.5pmweb.com