Now that we’re into the New Year it’s a great time to update all the software you have on your computer, software updates are an important part of any product and 95% of the time they are an improvement over the older version.
With ProWorkflow we make weekly updates to the system for a multitude of reasons, and this is also true of browsers though traditionally you’ll find they only auto-update on a monthly basis.
Recently I’ve had a couple of customers express concern that the system wasn’t working as expected when the issue was they were using a very old version of their browser, across all three platforms we officially support Firefox (though of course the system will work in other browsers) and so I thought I would provide udpate information below.
Once you have the program open and running select “Check for Updates” in the “Help” drop-down menu
Firefox for Windows
Firefox for Mac
Firefox will search for updates and present you with appropriate options, if none are found then you know you’ve got the latest version. If you are using Version 2 or earlier it won’t update to the latest version, in that case you want to download from www.getfirefox.com
Coming in the next update is a change to file uploads in ProWorkflow, in the past when you upload any files the naming is kept the same so if you uploaded a file called “Myholiday&123#XYZ.3.2.1.wmv” it would upload, problem is the web doesn’t like many of these special characters in URL’s, something like a hash (#) could be treated differently by the server, your browser and your computer which of course can cause problems.
As of the next update we will replace certain characters in the filename with an underscore to make it all web friendly, this won’t affect any of your previously uploaded files, just your newly uploaded files.
The logic is as follows, if your filename contains . , ; : ‘ ” ? / > < [ ] { } | \ = + ) ( * & ^ % $ # @ ! ` or ~ it will be replaced with an underscore _ so if you uploaded a file called “Myholiday&123#XYZ.3.2.1.wmv” it will automatically be renamed “Myholiday_123_XYZ_3_2_1.wmv” on the server (and display as such on your account).
This ensures all your files always work correctly!
All our Invoicing customers that use Xero integration would have noticed over the past week that their Xero account codes have suddenly appeared in ProWorkflow, this is was part of the latest update to our Xero integration, which we’ve done in response to Xero changing their invoice layout from line items to a grid format.
So how do I use it?
Well it’s really simple actually, whereas previously your invoices came into Xero with no account code on the invoice (so you had to then select it yourself) you can now do this step on the ProWorkflow side.
All you do is select the invoices you want to send over then click “Send to Xero” (same as previously), but you can see (and override) the account the invoices will come in as using the drop-down list.
Xero Account Selection
Can I change the default account?
Yes you can, by going into XERO Settings in the “ADMINISTRATION” section of ProWorkflow there is an option to change the default account, this simply “primes” the drop-down list by pre-selecting the account you would like, you’re still free to change it per each individual invoice you send through.
Xero Import Settings
ProActive Software’s CEO, Julian Stone designed the www.proworkflow.com solution about 5-6 years ago with help from Co-founder Alan Barlow (his surf blog). I (Julian) tend to keep a fairly low profile commercially although can be occasionally found being social on Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook the ProWorkflow blog and of course my personal blog Julian101.
Here’s a few random facts you’d never have known about me.
- I’m a ‘Workshop Guy‘ and spend many hours a week tinkering in my shed building awesome toys and gadgets! I built this years Christmas presents, a rechargeable paddock stereo for Sarah and boat/trailer for Jackson as well as Cookie cutters for the family!
- Fly fishing is my real passion and I love nothing more than stalking a fat trout up a back country river or lake!
- My background is 15 years as a creative in advertising, design, 3d and multimedia. This is where I originally saw the need to the ProWorkflow solution.
- As a fussy creative, I still to this day do ALL of the creative and branding work for www.ProWorkflow.com and always plan to.
- My dog ‘Daisy’ is a Golden Retriever (fat and blind) and she spends most of the day keeping us company in the office.
- I’m an avid boatie and last week nearly landed my first 360 on the wakeboard out in the harbour last week. I vow to land one soon!
- I’m a handyman and have done all renovations to our rural property (fences, kitchen, bathroom, french doors, decks etc) as well as built the single-handedly built and fitted out the ProWorkflow office (including building building all desks and an outdoor area)!
- I’m very blunt when giving advice – I tend to just tell it as it is.
- I never start anything unless I am prepared to see it through and never give up once started.
- I love my wife Sarah and boy Jackson (2yo) and we live on a few acres in the country just outside Christchurch with 2 horses, 6 peacocks, 7 chickens, a dog, a cat and as of last week a pet magpie that adopted us!
So you can safely say that as a CEO of a high tech global software company, I don’t fit the ’standard assumed profile’ as such of an inner city, slick, tradeshow and network attending, VC chasing whiteboard sketching, high profile entrepreneur, however, we are doing well and the fairly relaxed life I lead allows me to spend time coming up with smart solutions and investing in customer relationships.
New features are always being requested for ProWorkflow. To keep the application easy to use, and provide the greatest flexibility, extensions are being developed so we can meet the ever-widening needs of our customers. Rather than fatten the application with features people don’t use, we’ve opted to keep a slimmer core feature set and build a library of ‘Extensions‘.
We’ll be developing many more over the next year so keep checking back to see what’s new in the ProWorkflow camp! Here’s the current list:
Downloads:
Time Tracker
Use this downloadable, desktop Adobe Air widget to track time fast and simply. Compatible with Mac’s and PC’s! This was rolled out in November 08 and has been a success. Customers are loving the time saving ability of this tool!
Plugins:
Invoice Plugin
Create and send Invoices easily! Now includes QuickBooks and Xero integration! This is an easy way to create an invoice based on actual project time and info! It only takes a few minutes to create the actual invoice and once all project data is brought into the invoice, you have full ‘massage’ control!
Quotes Plugin
Create and send Quotes easily! These can be created easily in a few minutes. Once created, quotes can be ‘approved’ and turned into a live project in the system! Easy as pie!
Integration:
QuickBooks Connect
Integrate invoices between ProWorkflow and QuickBooks. This is built into the above Invoice Plugin. Basically, you use a web connector to setup a sync between ProWorkflow and QuickBooks. This will update the status of invoices in both apps automatically! This way you can have the accounts person working as part of the project workflow loop!
Xero Connect
Integrate invoices between ProWorkflow and Xero. This is built into the above Invoice Plugin. Basically, you can tick the invoices in ProWorkflow to send to XERO and they’re sent across. The feature updates the status of invoices in both apps automatically!
ProWorkflow API
Write applications to connect with your ProWorkflow account. There are many different ideas customers want to develop and as we have a large number of tech customers, many could write apps themselves. So we’re enabling them to write apps which talk to their ProWorkflow accounts directly! Over time we’ll create a developer network and app store.
What’s being developed?
We always have something on the go around here! Here’s a list of just a few things we’re working on. There’s a lot more in the planning stage, but one thing is for sure – it’ll be a big year for the app!
- ProWorkflow API
- More account features for customers
- Enhanced Xero and QuickBooks integration
- Outlook Contacts & Calender Sync & many more…
In the past years, www.ProWorkflow.com used to focus on code installations, and had plenty of users who would customize their code. As such, there was a need for full release notes to keep track of changes so customers didn’t overwrite their development efforts.
We now are a subscription focused company and as such, the users are more interested in what we’ve changed to the front end rather than to the code. Front end changes are best described using blog posts and articles, so we’ve decided that is what we’ll do.
Going forward, all changes that affect users will be explained on this blog with clear descriptions of what we’ve done and why. We’ll even include videos occasionally!
Grab our RSS Feed to stay informed!
Vishal Nath is one of the top developers in the development team here at ProWorkflow, and a stealthy efficient fella. His focus is on usability of the application and getting jQuery integrating nicely with ColdFusion in the application.
He achieved his Bachelor in Computing Science and Information Systems at The University of the South Pacific and has previously worked with a web agency on website design and development. Vishal tells me that the best part of his position with ProWorkflow is that he is doing new things every week, “it’s interesting to me and I love it!”. Regular rollouts keep him on his toes (and he does have to live up to his ninja moniker!).
Also a bit of ‘top chef’ Vishal specializes in Chinese and Indian cooking, loves to swim, plays a good game of football and drives a yellow Lamborghini – apparently his Need for Speed is such that he is unable to walk away until the races are all won.
In 2009 Vishal looks forward to more swimming, further challenges in the development world and the opportunity for international travel and adventure.
With the new year upon us many are looking to add more users for their ProWorkflow account.
This is a two step process that is easily done via the Client Area and then in the additional user’s contact record.
Step 1
Login to the Client Area, go to the Add Users page and then select the New User Number from the drop drown list.
Step 2
Go to the Contacts Page and either create a new staff user or edit a current contact, you’ll need to check that the Contact Type is set to “Staff” and that they have Allow Login set to “Yes”.
If you have any worries then just drop a line to Support – they’re happy to help 
