Tuesday 20 October 2009

The Projectplace Queen of Bad Narration

I'm thinking about changing my job title. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please check out the films in my YouTube channel. All of them are about Projectplace and things you can do. Some of them have narration - unfortunately.

I'll be back soon, maybe alreday tomorrow, with an update on Projectplace Ideas user of the month.

I'm also busy planning an update of Projectplace Ideas to a new platform. And thinking about a new theme of the month: Planning. How do you like it? You could even upload your own Projectplace Planner plans for people to vote on; now wouldn't that be fun?

Until later,
Karolina

Thursday 15 October 2009

What happens to the ideas I post? Ranking matters!

Hi,

Thanks for all the feedback:) You may have noticed that we do actually develop based on the feedback we receive from you. We get a lot of feedback and one of my jobs is to (at least mentally) divide them into the various tracks ideas can take in Projectplace:

1. Quality Backlog
The top ranked ideas with this status get discussed directly with our interface design team once a month. We will comment on these and tell you how/if we are thinking about this as a potential development.

2. Business Case
Business Cases are basically the argument for new development. Part of my job is to make sure that the highest ranking ideas with this status get a good business case written. Once it's written it will be read, pondered upon, investigated, and prioritised against other business cases. Business cases also come from other parts of the organisation.

3. Problem Backlog
What we in everyday speak call bugs. Problems that are due to our system not working the way it's supposed to. These are reported to a special tracking system and prioritised for fixing.

4. Support Issues
Support issues are problems that occur for individual users because of their specific system set-up. I usually recommend you to contact support directly to see what we can do to help you. If there is a good generic solution to this, I will usually post it as a comment for others to read.

5. Tips and Tricks
Sometimes it takes a while to figure out a new system. Or new functionality in a system that you've used for ages. I for one, still haven't figured out half of the functionality in most systems that I use. Ideas that end up with this status will have an explanation and usually a film in the comments. Please feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel for a complete list of the tips and tricks films. Some are just test of problems people encounter and some are quite useful tips.

We might not be able to develop your idea straight away even though it's brilliant and we love it. But ranking matters, so use the link to your idea, share it and promote it. Comments matter aswell. They give us a clearer grasp of what the need is for this development. We want to make sure that we develop something that helps as many current and future users as possible to work in and manage their projects in a way that is delightful, fun and productive.

Cheers,
Karolina

Tuesday 6 October 2009

New Release Projectplace: Thanks to all contributors at Projectplace Ideas


A new release of Projectplace should be here soon. In fact, I think our clever operations, development and web people are rolling it out as I'm typing. This one is extra exciting for me as community manager and in charge of Projectplace Ideas as the main improvements in this release have involved ideas from our users.

The first ideas that looks like being implemented in the new release are about colour in the Projectplace Planner:


and also colours in Documents


The colours you can choose for folders in Documents and in Projectplace Planner are the same which makes it easier to organise your project information.

Here's an example of what it could look like:


The other idea that will be implemented, although in beta rather than full release is support for Mac participants in our online meeting tool Netviewer:


A lot of people have asked and voted for this and we hope that the beta will work for most of you.

The new release will also include an update of the new visual interface which will then be in release candidate. The update will affect everyone who currently tests the beta and it would be great if you would like to keep testing and giving us your feedback :)

I hope that this release will be successful ! Keep telling us and each other what you like. Next week I would like everyone to vote for someone else's idea.

All the best,
Karolina