The iPad and the Extranet

Well the iPad 2 is out. Queues are forming outside shops as word of shipping delays and product shortages spread. It seems to be that demand for tablet devices just keeps getting stronger and stronger and yet they’re not even fully fledged computers? They are difficult to write on, spreadsheets are fiddly and there is very limited local storage. My iPad filled up long ago with photos and music leaving me having to make a choice which albums and photo’s to exclude from the obligatory iPad to iTunes syncing process. It’s okay, a friend recently observed, surely you can just put an SD card in and expand the storage. Nope. Neither there is an SD card slot, but even if there were, iPads don’t really have a file system to speak of so there would be no way to access it.

iPads, iPhones and the like do of course have an underlying file system otherwise how would they work, but the point is that there is no typical way to browse the contents of your device, no standard ‘My Documents’ folder. There are other limitations too, such as the inability to plug in peripherals via USB cable (no USB slots). However none of these prevent the iPad, or the impending avalanche of Android, Blackberry and HP WebOS devices, from providing a productive and enjoyable computing experience.

In fact, here at project-extranet we think the devices are compelling because of their limitations, not in spite of them. The world is changing, software is moving online and data is being freed from the device. Collaboration software, exactly like project-extranet, is now the file system for your business; available to any of your devices, be they historic platforms like Windows or Mac OSX, or one of the new breed such as iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry or,  to really show that this is the future, devices running the upcoming Google Chrome OS, essentially nothing more than a web browser with a keyboard.

These new devices offer a much simpler computing experience, and for simpler, you can also read cheaper. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to maintain; they don’t really go wrong, catch viruses or get corrupted system files, and if they do, they are essentially disposable items. Your business is safely stored in the project-extranet cloud, and your other business apps are either other online applications or can be reinstalled by visiting the appropriate app store.

We’re not there yet though. Traditional computing platforms still dominate, but the queues in the streets of London and the wave of new platforms show that this revolution is underway.

Right from the start we have been designing project-extranet to be a part of this march to ubiquitous computing, offering core functionality useful to any business as well as the ability to expand the extranet via your own bespoke extranet apps, and we will continue to enhance and improve the extranet as this new IT business model develops.

So here at project-extranet, we love the iPad, especially for it’s limitations!
Gerry

Create an extranet portal by linking your extranet to your website

Extranet systems are designed to streamline your business, save you and your staff time by having a central repository where all project information, documents, calendar, knowledge bases etc can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

When setting up your extranet it’s important to make sure that it’s easy for your users to access. We have put together a handy little guide telling you how to integrate your project-extranet solution with your website, including how to place a link on your site and also how to send users back when they have finished and log out.

'Simplifying login - Linking your extranet to your website' as well as other how-to’s can be found in our extranet guides section now.

Gerry

New guide: Adding users to projects

We've had a few people recently tell us that adding users to projects can be a little long winded, and if you go about it the wrong way then it can be.

So we've posted a new article in the extranet guides section explaining the two ways this can be done. Find out more here: 'Two ways of adding users to projects'

Gerry

System status update

We have been addressing two issues that have been affecting a number of customers this morning who have had difficulty uploading either large files or large numbers of files (> 100) into a single project directory.

Both these issues are now resolved

Gerry

Newsfeeds are coming to project-extranet

We have a new update coming to project-extranet that we are planning to roll out early to mid next week, starting 7th March 2011.

As usual I will post a notice to our extranet news page with the all the details, however before we go live with this update I want to quickly let you know about one particular feature we are introducing called project newsfeeds. The project newsfeeds brings information that was previously hidden away in the project log app and puts it center stage; showing on the main summary page, the project home page and also on a new user profile page.

With one glance you can see all recent activity in your projects, activity that has happened today or all the things that have happened since you last logged in.

You can view the newsfeed for all your projects, on a project-by-project basis or on a per user basis; users who have the appropriate permission can even post their own messages into the newsfeed.

We think this update really brings your extranet to life by bringing the tools and collaboration models popularized by social media directly in to benefit your business. We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback from our beta testers, we’re really excited to be getting project newsfeeds up and running in our project-extranet collaboration system.

However if you are one of our existing customers, currently going through a trial or thinking about adopting project-extranet in your line of work and reading this and thinking, “oh no this is not for me!” don’t worry.

We recognize that this new feature expands the possibilities of the system and so we have included options for switching the newsfeed off completely.

So now I’m going to explain how to do this and, if you follow these instructions, your extranet will work exactly as it is now; well apart from some nice performance increases in the shared calendar component, which I’m going to assume you don’t mind.

Firstly some screenshots to show what I’m talking about:

Extranet home page

Extranet home page without newsfeed

Extranet home page with the newsfeed

Project Summary

Project summary without the newsfeed

Project summary with the newsfeed

The user profile page

The new user profile page

Removing the newsfeed from the home page
1. Log in as an administrator and click on your extranet settings cog.
2. Click on the system settings (the gears icon)
3. De-check the option ‘Allow Newsfeed on homepage’
4. Press Apply

Actually, each user can independently choose whether they want to display the newsfeed on their homepage. This is controlled via their profile settings. If you de-check this box the option view the newsfeed on the homepage in the profile is no longer available, effectively removing it from the system.


Remove the newsfeed from the user profile page
The new user profile page newsfeed shows items attributed to that user on projects both they and the person viewing their profile is a member of.

The steps to remove this newsfeed are very similar to those above:
1. Log in as an administrator and click on your extranet settings cog.
2. Click on the system settings (the gears icon)
3. De-check the option ‘Show Newsfeed on User Profile’
4. Press Apply


Removing the newsfeed from a project.
The choice to display the newsfeed on the homepage and on the user profile page is not mutually exclusive. You can show one or the other. The same is true for using the newsfeed within your projects; you can use it (or not) regardless of the options taken previously.

The newsfeed can be added to a project in the same way as any other extranet project app. Simply open the project settings and check/de-check the appropriate app.

There are two project apps in play here. The Newsfeed Summary App and the Newsfeed App. As the name suggests the ‘Newsfeed Summary’ shows/hides the newsfeed in the project summary:

The second controls the link in the project menu. Use this app to gives you full access to the projects newsfeed via a standard link in the project menu.

We really like the newsfeed feature, but if it doesn’t work for you then hopefully these control options gives you the flexibly to set the extranet up as you need it.

If would like to get your hands on the update for a trial run before it goes live we’d be more than happy to set you up with an account on our beta test site.

If you don’t want the newsfeeds feature please do let us know. We will make sure it is disabled on your account as soon as the update goes live. Contact your support contact or get in touch via the details on www.project-extranet.com/contact.

Finally, keep watching www.project-extranet.com/news for all the latest extranet news and updates or follow us on our extranet twitter where we post progress updates and other news from around the world of project collaboration.

Gerry