Sneak Preview – New Messaging!

One of the areas of ProWorkflow we haven’t really been happy with was the ‘Communication’ area on the Project Details page. It annoyed me enough that a couple of weeks ago I decided to change it!

We wanted a more intuitive way to add messages to projects and tasks and also to control messages sent externally to email.

In the old system for example, you could send a message to a client or contractor, but they would have to login and navigate to the project, scroll down and then use the Communication tool to reply. Not exactly efficient. And that’s if the client or contractor either had or actually remembered their login and password.

Also, the messages were assigned to the people on the project only, so if you added another project member, they couldn’t see any messages added before they were added to the project.

It was pretty basic, so we gave the section an overhaul!

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.Note: This feature is coming in the next update!

Here’s what we’ve done!

1. Eliminated Page Refreshes!
   Now you can add messages to projects and tasks on the fly (without page refreshes). Just the relevant data changes.
2. Inline Viewing and Editing!
   The editors are all inline. Just add a message and the editor drops down below, when done slides up! Clicking ‘View Messages’ will display a list of that task’s messages beneath the task.
   
3. Create Public Messages!
   You can create ‘Public’ messages. This means they will be seen by anybody who can view the project even if they are added later. This means everyone can see the conversation history that needs to.
4. Print View!
   Print all the messages in an easy format so you can check up on the projects ongoing communication…
5. View as ‘Date’ or ‘Projects and Tasks’
   View the list of messages on screen either by the ‘Date Added’ or grouped by ‘Project and Task’. This way allows you to easily see all messages added for a particular task if you are about to start work on it.
6. Make All messages Public!
   This option will allow you to change all historic messages (before this update) to ‘Public’ mode so any new staff working on the project can see the messages if needed. Great if you have 100+ messages that the new user wasn’t assigned to, but needs to see! The previous workaround was to make the staff user a SuperUser, but that’s not ideal.
7. Threaded Discussions and Replies!
   We’ve created the new messaging to cope with threaded discussions and replies! So grouped conversations stay together and be understood in context. Project managers can send out messages, and staff, clients and contractors can easily reply without logging in! Brilliant!
8. Simple One Click Replies!
   When a message is sent, the recipient receives a simple email containing the message, but also the relevant project information.They can click to view the project, but the real feature is the ‘Reply to Message’ link!

   Clicking this allows the user to reply to the message quickly and get back to work! They don’t even have to login to ProWorkflow to reply!
   
   How cool is this! Think about this… It means all your clients and contractors can be a part of the project and task collaboration without ever needing to login to ProWorkflow. They don’t even need to be sent login details! This is a feature that will make you look professional to clients, and will make project collaboration a total breeze!

   

9. View Messages on Tasks
   In the popup ‘Task’ window, you can now add and view messages. View the conversation history while working on a task.
10. Move Messages
    Both the ‘Move Task’ and ‘Copy Task’ tools allow you to also move the associated messages between projects if you move the task.

And more!
So that should help you all collaborate better with your clients!

Tags: Collaboration, communication, IM, Messaging, Preview, Project Management Software, proworkflow, updates