Creating simple workspaces - ‘Single Project Redirect’ explained

In this blog post I’m going to discuss a feature of project-extranet called Single Project Redirect. I’ll explain how it works and how you can use it to make accessing your extranet easier.

This article assumes you have already setup your own extranet, so if you haven’t done so, get yourself over to www.project-extranet.com/try and sign up for a free extranet demo account.

Why and how
As someone who has the need for an extranet facility - a project manager, business owner or administrator - you are probably responsible for more than one project. So when you access your extranet you will see, by default, the main summary home page. This contains an aggregated view of your system: all your project calendars combined into one; your top contacts; recently viewed and updated projects list. This will allow you to quickly access the information you need.

As a person responsible for a range of tasks, you should find this aggregated launch portal very useful. But for users who are only a member of one project within your extranet, the home page summary view is potentially confusing; all they really need to be able to do is to get to their single project.

This is where the Single Project Redirect switch comes in. If enabled, which in project-extranet it is by default, then users who have just the one project assigned to them get taken straight to that project, by-passing the home page summary and saving the user a click.

So, Single Project Redirect makes the interaction for users who only have one project much easier - especially when combined with the default starting app feature that allows you to set the default starting page users see when accessing a project.

For example, if you are setting up a file sharing project, by setting the default project app to ‘documents’ and ensuring Single Project Redirect is switched on, a user logging in to your extranet can be taken straight to the documents file structure.

You can use these two features together to create a range of project spaces for your customers depending on their individual needs.

So just to recap, the features for Single Project Redirect are:

• Single Project Redirect can be enabled/disabled via the ‘Extranet Settings > System Settings’ option.
• Single Project Redirect only applies to standard user accounts, not system administrators.
• If a user has access to only one project, they get taken straight to that project upon login.
• The Home, Projects and Contacts buttons are hidden when the redirect is enabled, the rationale being that there is no point giving users access to the projects list when they only have access to one project. The home button will take them back to their project and the contacts are all available via the projects contacts app, if you have chosen to use it.
• As soon as a user is given permission to view a second project upon logging in they view the standard home summary page and the Home, Projects and Contacts main options reappear.

I hope that explains this feature and demonstrates some of the powerful ways you can use project-extranet to achieve your perfect extranet solution. As always though, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please get in touch using the details on our contact pages.

And don’t forget to keep up-to-date with extranet news, hints and tips, details of updates, and also find us on twitter for the very latest from the world of online collaboration.

Gerry

Extranet Update: Sub Folders, Hidden Folders and Templates now live

It seems like it was only yesterday we were buried knee deep in snow but it already feels like spring is just around the corner. Looking at the number of updates and new features we’ve added to project-extranet since the turn of the new year it feels like we’re on a bit of a roll.

And here we are with another, bringing in new features based directly on extranet customers feedback.

This update, (which if you are interested takes us to v3.1.0) contains the usual little usability enhancements and tweaks as well as some slight layout modifications aimed at making the extranet work better for those iPad wielding amongst you. The main feature of this update however, is reworked file sharing.

Up to now, when setting up projects it has not been possible to create a folder hierarchy. As customers have expanded the use of their extranets and have started to load up literally hundreds of files to make available to project members, this flat folder structure has, well lacked a little. You’ve told us and we've noticed.

So as of now, this is no longer the case and from this update onwards you can create a full, no restrictions folder tree.

Before: Flat folder structure

After: Build a full folder tree for better organisation

Hidden Folders
A number of you have also asked for ‘hidden folders’ within a project and I’m please to announce that this is now possible as well. You can now mark a folder, or a whole folder branch as hidden. This makes it viewable only by project owners and users with full modify access. For everyone else in the project, it is completely hidden.

As can be seen in these screen shots, hidden folders are differentiated from standard folders by using using grey folders icons.

Administrators and Project Managers can 

view full tree including hidden folders

Other users can only see normal folders. Hidden folders

are not visible.

Templates
Project Extranet has long had the the ability to create templates from which you can base your projects on. The idea behind project templates is simple; it allows you to create templates that contain settings for your common project types, meaning you don't have to set them up each time. Template include which project apps to use, folder structure, default starting app etc.

To compliment this, we have introduced a number of standard built in templates which are setup for common uses for Project-Extranet. These are:

• Customer Accounts
• Document Sharing
• Meeting Workspace
• Photo Sharing
• Project Collaboration
• Shared Calendar
• Shared Contact List
• Task Management

The names are pretty self-explanatory. Hopefully these new built in project templates will give you (and new project-extranet users) a quick and simple way to get the most out of your extranet. They are of course only suggestions, and you can edit/delete these templates and create your own to suite your needs. Simply go to Extranet Settings > Templates.

That’s pretty much it for this release, we’re not out of ideas just yet and have some other interesting developments just around the corner. In the meantime, please keep the feedback coming, we’d love to hear from you and how your business is using your Extranet.

If you are not already a customer of Project-Extranet you can sign up for a free, no obligation trial at www.project-extranet.com.

The latest extranet updates and news can be found at www.project-extranet.com/news or join us on twitter, facebook and blogspot.

Gerry

Sub folders on their way to project-extranet

Just a quick posting today; the latest update to project-extranet has just completed go-live testing and will be rolled out to our production servers over the next couple of days.

This update brings a number of enhancements, the main one being to document management where nested sub-folders as well as secure folder branches are now possible.

We should be up and running by the start of work on morning of Monday 14th Feb if not before.

I will post more information here when we go-live, so keep checking back, or, if you tweet, join me on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/gerrymcnicol/

Gerry

Another week, another update to Project-Extranet

Ok so it’s not the most glamorous number in the world, but none-the-less Project-Extranet v3.0.15 is now live! A tiara wearing release number it may not be, but as well as a host of little improvements and fixes, v3.0.15 does contain a new and interesting feature, one that has been often requested, and might benefit you too.

As you may know, when you click on a Project you are taken initially to the Project Summary screen. This aggregates all the information from the various Extranet Apps used in the Project, such as calendar, documents, contacts, as well as any bespoke Extranet Apps you may be running. It looks like this:

Project Summary

For rich collaborative extranet projects this works well, but there are a number of cases where you are using just one, or maybe two, Extranet Apps in certain Projects. There are other cases where, although you are using a number of Extranet Apps, it makes more sense to use, for example, Documents, as the starting page for a Project.

Well this is now possible. Your Extranet now has a new feature that allows you set the default starting page for each Project.

You can now set the default app via Project Settings > Project Apps

You can set any Extranet App to be the starting point for a Project. So for example, if you have setup a client a login so they can view their invoices, you have probably made a Project that includes the Document App. You may also have included the Calendar, to record payments, contract dates etc, and let’s say for the point of argument, the Notes App, maybe to keep a copy of purchase orders etc.

So the Project has all those features, but really the main thing you want your client to be able to do is view a list of all the invoices (that they should be paying you) and so it makes sense to set the default App for this Project to be Documents. It keeps things easy for them.

Another example is if you a photographer and want a way of using the Extranet to distribute photos to clients. Project-Extranet has a lovely Photo’s App included and you can now set that as the default App. Now when your clients login from your website to see their photo’s (wedding, event etc) they get taken straight to their private Project page where they are all presented for them to view.

Give your customers now excuse not to pay you by creating an
accountancy project for them. Set the default app to documents

Photographers give your clients a preview of their Photo's.
Create a photography project and set the Photo's App as the default app.
Once they have paid you, you can upload their final files to the Documents App, what a great way to do business!
And as you can see you can brand the Extranet so it fits seamlessly with your website.

Templates
In Project-Extranet you can of course create templates. These can be use as the basis for creating your Projects. The default app works here as well. Simply create, or edit, your templates, in the usual way (via Settings > Templates) and set the default App.

Templates can be used to create a list of common project configurations meaning
you don't have to start from scratch for each Project.

Now when you go to create your new Project it will already have the default app set correctly, and as you can see from the screenshot below, gives you and your team the option for many basic project types.

That’s all for now folks. Don’t forget to come and like us on facebook, follow us on twitter or visit the website and the blog. So many ways to stay in touch!

Gerry
Linked In

Project-Extranet, now with added speed!

It was a busy weekend here at Project-Extranet as we migrated our hosting infrastructure to new and more powerful servers.

The number of companies using Project-Extranet to share documents with their customers and distributed workforce has been growing on a daily basis, so that was quite a lot of data to move! However, everything was completed according to plan so now all users will see their Extranet’s running faster and more smoothly.

We have another update coming soon, so remember to check back regularly, but as always, if you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to contact your account manager or get in touch via www.project-extranet.com/contact/

Have a good week everybody
Gerry

Project-Extranet updated to v3.0.14

Those with the eye's of eagles will have noticed that we published a minor update to Project-Extranet yesterday containing a small fixes and minor enhancements:

Firstly there was a slight discrepancy in the way the send/skip notification buttons were working in Internet Explorer compared with all other browsers. This was leading to a little confusion, so we have addressed this and now IE operates in line with Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Thanks to Martin from ProWaste Management Services Ltd and Jackie from SkyCaddie for helping us out with this one.

Also fixed is a bug in the file uploader which sometimes caused documents you uploaded to the same project to be listed when starting a new upload session. This was occurring mostly for Chrome users and should now be resolved.

While were were at it we have added a little feature to the file uploader so that it remembers the last folder between Extranet sessions. We hope this makes your life a little easier, especially for those of you using the Extranet to publish invoices to your customers on a monthly basis!

The Notes App has been renamed to Sticky Notes. We are working on a new, more comprehensive Notes App, so stay tuned for that.

Otherwise v3.0.14 contained some behind the scenes changes that support the new Meeting Workspace App. This is now published as a free addition which you can add to your Extranet via the Extranet App Store.

Thanks to all those who helped test and provided really useful feedback.

I am going to blog with more information on the Meeting Workspace App soon, so check back for a 'how-to guide' and other instructions.

Don't forget, you can try out Project-Extranet for free. Create your own Extranet, quickly and simply by visiting www.project-extranet.com/try/.

That's if for now, have a good weekend everybody
Gerry

This is snow joke!

How much do you think the snow is costing us right now?

Last year the Federation of Small Businesses estimated that the snow cost UK businesses around £1.2bn.

Employees not making it into work, suppliers not being able to get the information they need from you to fulfil your orders and customers not being able to get their stuff from you. It’s all very frustrating and a bit of a vicious circle.

It’s also something that here at Project-Extranet we know we can help with. Take Lee’s business, Foremost Magnets for example, a client of ours here at Project-Extranet. Last year, with a bulging order book of print work to deliver before Christmas, the snow left him with a stable of designers waiting for briefs and a print shop waiting for final artwork proofs while couriers languished on various parts of the UK’s crumbling infrastructure.

 This year Lee is not going to be one of the 2000 to 3000 businesses that fail because of having to shut down operations. Last year he came to us for an Extranet solution that allows his customers, designers and suppliers to collaborate via a branded Extranet portal.

It’s satisfying to know that, a year later, Project-Extranet is helping his business keep trading. And getting his employees to work on time? Sadly, clever technology solutions can only go so far... a Land Rover does the rest!