We’ve just put live a change to the sign-up process, where previously you signed up then we got in touch for payment details, you can now enter this information when signing up.
We’ve also put the terms before entering in your company information, because it makes more sense to agree to the terms before entering information, instead of the other way around.
Now when you get to the third step “Details” there is an option to enter billing information, there are three options (outlined below).
Credit Card (Preferred)
You can now enter your credit card information directly here, the system will check to ensure it is a valid card and then continue.
Invoice/Wire Transfer
This is pretty self explanatory…
Automatic Payment (New Zealand only!)
If you use automatic payment then we get in touch to give you the bank information and your payment date.
Why should you care?
Well you may not to be perfectly honest 
, but this makes the whole process significantly smoother for everyone involved (because we don’t have to hassle you for information), and it puts us one step closer to Automatic Signup (the holy grail!)
I have re-written the email alerts that are the default in each ProWorkflow account to be vastly simplified and easier to read.
Why did we re-write them?
We did it because the original email alerts, other than being terribly messy code, weren’t easy to read. Many alerts simply had the subject line as “project overdue” which wasn’t helpful if you received 10 “Project Overdue” alerts.
With the new alerts you can see the project name in the subject line of each alert, the content has been re-written to remove any images, links directly to the project or task they are talking, and includes a link to a page I have set up to explain what alerts are.
The page helps people who receive alerts, have never seen them before, and have no idea what they are about by explaining why they received them.
We have set up the email alerts as the default stored, so it won’t over-write any customization you have made to your existing alerts. If you want to use the new alerts then go into the Email Alerts Builder in the “ADMINISTRATION” section and click each “Reset” link (there are three in total).
Tracking time in ProWorkflow has never been easier thanks to a new feature we are announcing today for inclusion in the upcoming Version 6 (rolling out to customers starting this week).
Currently in ProWorkflow if you want to track time on an item you need to log in and navigate to that task, tell the system when you want to start, then repeat the process when you want to finish.
Here at ProActive Software we are committed to making your life easier, upgrading/adding any features that can aid this goal. That’s why we are proud to announce our brand new time tracking feature “Chronomancy”.
What is it?
Chronomancy is a system of foretelling the future (Greek chrono, “Time”; manteia, “divination”), whereby we can tell you your time records for the entire day upon logging into the system on that day.
How is it done?
Chronomancy is done by a series of complex algorithms that analyses all your time records for the past year, factoring in days where you didn’t track time (your weekends and holidays), the time of day those records were created, duration of records and other applicable information.
We then use a series of systems that “read” the names of all your tasks and projects and compares them to various dictionaries and your specific industry’s terms to figure out what each task is related to (whether it is an admin task, design task etc).
Through a combination of these records we can ascertain how much time you normally track on the specific day, how many records the time consists of, and what types of tasks are normally done.
We then go through all of your tasks and pre-track time on them for the day using this information, so when you first log in all you have to do is confirm the time records.
What are the benefits?
Through Chronomancy you never have to worry about time tracking again!
No longer do you have to go into each individual task and track time, because the system already knows what you would have done on the specific day.
This is going to revolutionize the time management portion of ProWorkflow, revolutionize time tracking in the Project Management space, and save you a significant amount of time!
When will this be out?
We are planning to include this in Version 6 of ProWorkflow, rolling out to customers starting this week. Let us know what you think in the comments below, we are really excited about this new functionality!
In the upcoming V6 release we’ve added a new report called the ‘Staff Performance Report‘. This will allow you to see who’s really using the system, who isn’t and who’s working ineffectively. You’ll be able to use this report to fine tune your staff and make sure you’re getting most from both them and the ProWorkflow solution!
As many users know, we’ve been working away on a version 6 release. This is going to set the platform for a lot of interesting development this year and as such there is a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ development in it. So whilst it’ll be a great release with many new features, don’t expect a ground shaking update. That’s coming a little later. Version 6 was always about speed, cleaning up the solution, improving usability and adding some much needed features.
Once V6 is out and all accounts updated, we’ll be rolling out very regular releases all year aimed to helping you work faster, more efficient, more powerfully, as well as getting ProWorkflow talking with your other office systems, such as calendars, email, accounting etc.
In addition, our new AJAX specialist will be constantly rewriting the interface so it’s faster and easier to use. This will improve staff uptake.
V6 Release Date Update!
The V6 release is on track to go into Beta testing this weekend, and depending on how that goes, could be just a few weeks away from rolling out! Cross your fingers for a successful Beta period!
The developers are currently modifying the buttons on popup windows throughout the ProWorkflow application. Currently all submit buttons refresh the main screen, which can take some time if there’s a lot of data to display.
We’re added a ‘Save and Continue’ button and also a close button that doesn’t refresh the main screen. This will improve speed and usability. We’ll release this update prior to the v6 release.
The developers have been busy with a lot of ‘Behind the scenes’ development work over the past month of ProActive Software’s internal business systems. We’ve been smoothing out and automating account management tools for subscription and code customers.
Attention has now been turned to getting the v6.0 release or ProWorkflow completed and ready to rollout The product focus on v6.0 and for the next 6-12 months is on speed, usability and adding some key new features. The v6.0 rollout is scheduled for January, but may be a little sooner or later – we’ll do our best to get it out asap. It’s a big update!
We’ve got the development team implementing some AJAX behind the scenes in the Project and Tasks pages to speed them up. These pages are huge on some accounts – ie: one customer has 1300 open tasks and 400 open projects! That’ll never be instant but we can improve the way data is handled.
These improvements will be rolled out in free updates when done as they will benefit all… Actually there’s a lot more Web2.0 / AJAX and other awesome interface improvements coming out in the next 12 months. We’re staging these rollouts and will incrementally deploy them as the codebase is complex so we want to test thoroughly to avoid code issues.
