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
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| Extranet home page without newsfeed |
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| Extranet home page with the newsfeed |
Project Summary
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| Project summary without the newsfeed |
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| Project summary with the newsfeed |
The user profile page
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| 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
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