Projectplace Goes Social in the New Release

Conversations on Project Overview


The main feature of this release is the change on the Project Overview.

To understand why we are so excited about this release it's important to understand what we believe are the crucial factors to project success:


-We believe that the key to successful projects is to help people share information and manage their commitments.
-We believe that projects with the courage to open up communication and share information transparently to create trust will be the ones most likely to succeed.


This is why we introduce conversations on the Project Overview. For those of you who don't use Facebook, this can be a chance to see what the hype is all about. Use the conversations to:
-Inform everyone about important desicions
-Share tips and tricks
-Share ideas and inspiration
-Comment and converse about links, documents, pictures and videos
-Ask questions
-Keep everyone updated on the status of your work


Some of you have tested the conversations during the beta test. Thanks, your input is invaluable for the development of the final version. Here's some of the feedback that has been implemented in this version
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/56854-give-the-adminstrator-more-power-ig-to-delete-messages-in-the-discussion-forum
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/56246-post-erasure
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/53791-category-for-information-on-project-wall


Some other ideas are high on the list of features that we want to implement like:
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/55560-wall-indicator-updated-thread
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/56244-forum-topic-queue


So what is @referencing all about anyway?


@referencing is a way to notify and highlight specific project members in a post. The member shows up as a clickable link in the post and will also automatically be notified my email.



So what is hashtagging all about anyway?


Use a tag preceeded by # to organise your information and conversations. So to tag something, just type # followed by the desired tag, e.g. #requirements, #products, #risk. The tags show up under a special tab or you can just click on the tag to reveal all posts and comments that contain the same tag.





We have removed some features like the shout box for the Project Manager and the News section. The News will still be available, but only via the Project Site.





Upload several documents at once


Finally, I know that you have waited. But now it's here...the possibility to upload multiple documents through the "Upload file" button in Documents. You can also put the uploaded documents under version management all at once.



The following ideas can benefit from the new function:
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/52710-get-rid-of-the-plugin
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/50829-complete-folder-structure
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/48303-automatic-versionmanagement-at-upload-of-files-and-folders-in-a-folder-structure
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/46533-upload-multiple-files




Define your project role per project


Most of our users are part of only one project at Projectplace, but an increasing number are members of many projects in which they have different roles. You can now define which role you have in each project. Just log in and go to the People tab in your project. Click on "enter project role" under your name and enter the role you have in that project. Administrators can update the role of any member.


As usual we are happy to receive feedback about the new release, both positive and negative, over on Projectplace Ideas.


Karolina

New release 1st June 2010

We had a release on Tuesday night where the main focus was improvements in the beta of the social features on the Project Overview aka the Project Wall.


Improvements to the beta of the new social features on the Project Overview

• Graphical improvements, we have some buttons instead of just text links.

• There are improvements of the notification, e.g. you get an e-mail when you are @referenced. Information from the conversations on the Project Overview are also included in the daily Activity Report.

• @ referencing. If you use Facebook you will be familiar with this feature already. If you want to direct a post to a specific person you write @ followed by the start of the person's name. You will get up a list of the project members whose name start with those letters to choose from. See a film about it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kvitQnO1AU

• #tags This is a standard feature in e.g. Twitter. Tagging your conversations makes it easy to follow and find relevant information. Clicking on a #tag will give you a list of all the posts containing that #tag. Here a film on how to use #tags to organise your information on the Project Overview. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6cZVZzerl0

If you haven't got the beta activated and would like to try, there's a link to activate it on the Project Overview. This link is there for administrators only. We welcome feedback on Projectplace Ideas.

Gravatar Support

To make it easier to upload an image to Projectplace, we now check if there's a Gravatar image for the email address and let you import that. Here's a film on how you use your Gravatar image in Projectplace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMuWFLOisE8

Your picture will now also be visible in the Member tool.

Easier for new members

We have simplified the process for people invited to a project so there's now only one screen to fill in. This means that your invited project members will have an easier time creating a user account.

Release Night at Projectplace - BETA of new social Project Overview

Tonight we have a release which includes as the main feature a more social version of the Project Overview. It's being deployed as we speak and I really wish the hard working team all the best luck.

The new version of the Project Overview is released in beta so that we can get feedback and make sure that it's as good as we can get it before releasing it in all projects, Team Edition and Enterprise Edition, later this year. I could rant and rage about it (we have tested it in internal beta for a while and I absolutely love it) but I think I will first show you my colleague Beate's film http://files.projectplace.com/english/demo/projectwall/projectwall.html

I hope that all you people out there who have been on the look out for a more social communicative platform for your project will take the opportunity to test out and influence this part of Projectplace. Of course we will gather your feedback on Projectplace Ideas and you can also check out how other people like it, vote and comment on their ideas and take a short survey about the new Project Overview.