Announcements

Let the survey begin!

ProjectOffice.net — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:39:25 GMT

OK! It’s Monday and it is time to win your book.
As we previously informed you, all you have to do is to log in to the application and click the “Take the survey” button on your Dashboard!
Note that you can take the survey only once.

Once again, you can win:
•    Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide (PMBOK Guide)
•    Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
•    Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional)
•    Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs
•    Fundamentals of Project Management (Worksmart)

GOOD LUCK!

The survey will be open until the 15th of August. The winners will be known on the 20th of August.

How to win a good book?

ProjectOffice.net — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:14:53 GMT

The ProjectOffice.net team is giving away 5 books for the users that will answer the survey starting Monday.

Who? When? How?

Who?

Every ProjectOffice.net user that is interested in having an advanced application tailored to his/her requirements should participate in this survey. Questions in the survey will be addressing the most and least used ProjectOffice.net features, the planned ones as well the features the users would like to see in ProjectOffice.net in the future.

When?

The survey will start on Monday, the 21th of July and will last until the 15th of August. Every user will have the right to answer the survey only once, thus be careful what you write.

How?

The way you can participate in the survey is to click on the “Take the survey!” button that will be placed on the Dashboard.

What can you win?

You can win:

The winners will be randomly chosen and known on the 20th of August 2008.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL!!!

New features and improvements implemented

ProjectOffice.net — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:42:16 GMT

Yesterday we have managed to silently deploy a patch that is not just bug fixing, but also has some functionalities implemented. This refers to:

• Default space when you log in is the space you worked at last before you logged out or before your session expired.

• Project name where mentioned on the Dashboard is now a link to the Gantt chart for the specific project.

• Back to top links in the wiki pages – if you have many paragraphs in a wiki page, you can simply click “Back to top” instead of scrolling up and down the page.

• The Projects&Tasks list in the Wiki tab has been complemented with additional icons in front of every task and project. If the icon is or , it means that there is no wiki created for the specific project or task, and if the icon is or , it means that there is at least one wiki created for the specific project or task.

• Even a great application like ours has spelling mistakes and thanks to our users we have managed to identify and change all of them (hopefully ).

• It may happen that you have several issues with the same name or you want to see what the issue is about. Up until now you needed to open each issue to find the information you want. Thus, we put a tooltip for each issue in the Issues list. This tooltip shows the specific issue description.

Over and out for now!

How to make history?

ProjectOffice.net — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:00:55 GMT

By definition history is a chronological record of significant events (as affecting a nation or institution) often including an explanation of their causes.

Because everything and everyone has history - we decided to create history in our application.

The question is: Where and why we added history?

The answer: We added history in the Issues tab for a very simple reason: In order to anticipate the future you must know the history.

Issues History can be reached in Issues Options in Issues tab. To check the history for a specific issue you should open the issue and click on the History tab. Then, details for every change that was made to an issue is shown: the action that was performed, project, task, priority, status, type, severity, assigned to and description of the issue.

Soon to come are the histories for: Projects&Tasks, Time&Expenses and Wikis.

Want to learn something more to improve your work in ProjectOffice.net?

ProjectOffice.net — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:15:15 GMT

Of course you do.

In one of the previous posts, you read an overview of the new and improved features. If you want to educate yourself in organizing, here is how all the story goes:

First, the question which we had heard often: “Can I customize the Dashboard?”

And the answer is YES, you can customize the Dashboard by dragging and dropping the boxes where you want them to be to fit your needs.

Second, new and improved Projects&Tasks:

Here, I will explain in details how we have improved the “Tasks” section.

We have added the “Work” field in the “Task Information” section besides the “Duration” field. And what does this mean:

Work= Number of hours of planned work

Duration= Difference between the task start and end dates

More important, completely new features are “Milestones” and “Task predecessors”.

“Milestones”

If you have a major event in a project, you need to use “Milestones”. In this way you can easily monitor the project’s progress.

And how can you add milestones?

Any task will be automatically displayed as a milestone if you enter zero in the "Duration" field. Alternatively, while creating or editing a task you can mark the check box "Mark as a milestone".

“Task predecessors”

“Task predecessors” are of great help for your dependent tasks.

If you have tasks that should be finished before the specific task you are currently working on, you may add task predecessors when you click on the "Predecessors" tab in the "Task Information" view.

To view how the Predecessors affect on your tasks' progress open the Gantt chart. Also in the task sheet view you can gain info for the specific task predecessors from the "Predecessors" column.

These are only the initial explanation of the new and improved features and functionalities in the ProjectOffice.net new release.

In a few days, check us out for more.

And, at the end, are you following the matches’ info and updates in the EURO2008 Space?

If not, it’s time to start: www.europroject2008.net

www.europroject2008.net - What do football and project management have in common?

ProjectOffice.net — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:56:25 GMT

At first sight it’s hard to connect the football vigor with the precise organizing of the project management. Look at the pictures below and try to analyze carefully:

Picture no.1

Picture no.2

In both pictures there is striving for something – the ultimate goal.

In the first picture the two players are trying to beat each other so they can shoot a goal.

The second picture is describing how the whole team is trying to organize themselves in a manner to finish their project on time and with best quality.

Still, nothing in common?

Maybe I won’t compare these two incomparable acts, but I’ll suggest you a tool that conjuncts football and project management in one.

ProjectOffice.net EURO2008 space.

What’s this?

If you want to see EURO2008 in ProjectOffice.net – all you need to do is to go at www.europroject2008.net!

The European Championship 2008 is organized in the www.projectoffice.net in the following way:

Get the full schedule for EURO2008. You can see each stadium as a project in which the matches are organized as tasks in the Projects&Tasks module.
Get more info about the stadiums history and football teams, matches and each match flow (minute by minute) in the Wikis module
while all the issues that appear during the matches (like injuries, yellow/red cards) are written in the Issues module.

If you want even more fun, you can also check Euro2008 space when you log on your iGoogle, Pageflakes or Netvibes desktops.

Enjoy the second most important thing while learning to excel in online project management!

Want to get things done for real???

ProjectOffice.net — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:54:09 GMT

Finaly!!! New Beta release is live and running smoothly.

Many new features had been introduced, which leads us a step closer to where we want to be – closer to your needs.

So, lets make an overview?

What’s new?

1. Dashboard Drag-and-Drop and resizing – Now the Dashboard is fully customizable, therefore you can organize it just the way you like it. Just drag and drop the boxes where you want them to be and resize them to fit.

2. Column Sorting – For a better user experience sort each column.

3. Issues history

4. Secure channel communication over HTTPS

5. Export to PDF

Most important news:

1. Multiple project managers per project

2. Milestones

3. Task Predecessors and

4. Space manager –The Space manager is the owner of the space; he/she “administers” the space. One space can have more than one space manager. The space manager will have the following permissions:

Add new users
View all projects
Create new project

What is improved?

1. Projects and tasks constraints removed – Now, both projects and tasks can be created in the past

2. Task: Work, Duration – In order to be MS® Project consistent, besides the duration of the task there is a new entity named work. It represents the work in hours that needs to be done on the particular task.

3. Delete resources and time offs – now you can delete not needed resources from your resource pool and also you can remove time offs which you do not want to be in your time offs list any more.

4. Export to .xls – More export possibilities: projects, tasks, expenses and time-offs.

As you can see, we are making our best to fulfill all of your work needs and desires.

What you have to do next, is to make your best in enjoying your time working in ProjectOffice.net.

In brief, your feedback is compulsory.

What's up?

ProjectOffice.net — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:04:35 GMT

Have you found some changes on our homepage? I bet you did!

Well this is the story: Do you remember that we have provided our CeBIT visitors with shortened registration process? If you don't, you can refresh your memories here.

Also, you can check out what was new then, beside the CeBIT Login Window.

Well we kept all the new stuffs, since we are surprised of the "BOOM" which the Buzzer and the Gadgets have made in the meanwhile.

But the CeBIT Login Window has expired.

You wonder why?

Well it was available by 15th of April. Thanks to all our visitors who had gotten the special login cards on CeBIT and used their ability to register in a very short way. Now, all of you can login straight from the Login form. Just use your e-mail and password which you have used for login to ProjectOffice.net through the CeBIT Login Form.

We hope you've enjoyed your ProjectOffice.net visit on CeBIT and you are enjoying using ProjectOffice.net.

At the end let's take a short look on the refreshed homepage:

Highly confidential: Major news are coming.....

So invisible, but so practical – Expand&Collapse functionality

ProjectOffice.net — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:15:41 GMT

In this post I want to show you some little but very useful hint for making your usage more elegant.

What you might have not noticed is one very handy tip-off which will make your work space spacier.

Have you ever used the ProjectOffice.net Expand/Collapse functionality?

If not, it is time to start using it. You will get more breathing space for managing your projects and tasks.

How it is arranged?

There is nothing new and innovative here. It is up to the functional aspect only.

For example, some of you might find the Dashboard full of information that actually you never use. Then why would you want to see this kind of information in your screen?

What you can do is to click the “-“ symbol in the top right corner of the section, and this information would collapse. But, you don’t know if you will need this information in the future. That is why you can expand the section which you have previously collapsed and you gain access to the needed data.

So, let’s resume:

1. By clicking on the "-" icon in the top right corner of every section in the application, you will collapse the section.

For example, if you only want to see and concentrate on the "Recent Changes" in the Dashboard you can collapse all other sections:

Therefore, they'll not get your space and attention unnecessarily:

2. When you will need some of the collapsed information, just click on the "+" icon in the same top right corner and they’ll expand.

What is most important, you can do this in all screens in all modules and you will arrange your working space as you want.

And another hint here is that you can collapse and expand part of the sections.

For example, in the “Issues” Module, besides the ability to collapse the whole “Issues List” section, you can also collapse the issues filters if there are taking a lot of your space in the section.

What you get is more space for managing all of your issues:

If you want to reach your issues filter again, just click on the “+” icon in the right corner to expand it.

So simple, but so useful and practical.

ProjectOffice.net Buzzer - Part 2!

ProjectOffice.net — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:14:18 GMT

Have you already installed the Buzzer ? If no, I recommend you to read the previous post here. If yes, then you are ready to use it!

We promised that we will guide you in using the ProjectOffice.net Buzzer!

So, let’s start!

How to use it?

1. Start the ProjectOffice.net Buzzer placed on your desktop:

2. The Login window appears. Here enter the e-mail and password which you use to login in the ProjectOffice.net and click "Login":

3. After login the ProjectOffice.net Buzzer window will appear on the screen.

As you can see here, all recent changes which have happened on your projects and tasks are listed (starting with the most recent, finishing with the oldest). They show information about the Module; Space and the Project where these changes have been made and also the date&time when the changes occurred.
Clicking on the specific notification, the description of the particular recent change will be displayed in the right upper box.
Moreover, you can view the particular recent change directly in ProjectOffice.net only if you click on the “View in Brower” button. This action will automatically take you to your Dashboard. Or, you can delete the particular notification by clicking on the “Delete Notification” button.

4. Also in the system tray menu the Buzzer icon appears.

There are three types of icons:

when there are no new notifications
when there are new notifications
when some error occurred

When clicked twice on the icon the ProjectOffice.net Buzzer window will appear.

5. What I like the most are the notification jumping up from the system tray when there are new changes going on on my projects and tasks. i believe you will like it too. Check out the image:

6. On the right click on the Buzzer icon in the system tray a Settings menu appears where you can modify your setting and arrange the Buzzer to work according to your needs.

And after all of this you still haven't downloaded the Buzzer?