Recent Posts by wingerrb

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Visibility of projects / categories

We are finding it far too easy to create duplicate projects and categories because unless you are the owner of the project/category or have a task in it, you won’t see it.

What we are finding is that a person will have a filter set to them being the owner and then when they need to add a project, they scan through the list to make sure it is not there and then add it. Unfortunately, another person did the exact same thing. Now we have to projects with the same name with related tasks under them. The projects are treated individually.

It would be nice to have the ability to display all projects/categories even if you didn’t already have a task in there. I know we can set the filter to view all, but that is too much. I just want to see all projects/categories and only my tasks (well, in a better world, I would like to be able to set the filter to display one or more selected people). Currently, we are having to create fake tasks for each person and put them in the categories/projects so they show up.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / better "you're about to lose data!" warnings

I second that motion. Nothing worse than typing a large amount of information in then losing it without warning.

Topic: general questions & discussion / Scheduler with promise date and delay until date

I have a project which is a 3 day training class. So, I created a project called ‘Training’ and 3 associated tasks (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3). The project is ‘Promised by’ July 10…and ‘Delay start’ until July 8. Each task was set for a low of 1 day and a high of 1 day. This is my first project on the list.

For Day 1, my Finish is July 9.
For Day 2, my Finish is July 11.
For Day 3, my Finish is July 14.

Shouldn’t they be July 8, 9, 10?...or I can maybe see them being July 9, 10, 11. Is the ‘Promised by July 10’ mean the start of July 10 or the end of day on July 10? Let’s see if I can add one more question in here :) ...what would be the correct way to set up this project?

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Email Alerts

One email alert feature that we would really like to see is the ability to specify who will get an email alert.

In many cases, I want to involve many others in a task or collaboration. It would be very helpful, when a task is added/updated, we could specify what individuals will get an email alert.

For example, if there is a task assigned to me and I add a comment to it that is really a question for someone else or a group of others, I have no way of sending them an email alert from LiquidPlanner. In addition, if I see a task/project that I am interested in, I would like to be able to ‘subscribe’ to that project so I get email alerts when there are updates made.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Email Alerts

Thanks for the quick response. The only issue I see is that I am getting the email alerts even for items that I entered and assigned to me. Perhaps this is by design; if so, I would suggest it not email if the person who the item is assigned to is the same person who last saved it.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Email Alerts

I see that the latest code has been pushed out for LiquidPlanner and it includes email alerts. We have tested it by adding new tasks, assigning it to another using and waiting for the email, but we are not receiving anything. We have our subscriptions set to ‘realtime’. I noticed that it says that my next alert will be sent this afternoon (even though I am set to ‘realtime’). Any thoughts?

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Email Alerts

Here is something that some of your competition is using that I have found to be quite handy:

New Basecamp Features: Reply to a message via email and more

”...This weekend we pushed live one of the top Basecamp requests of all time, plus some other related improvements. You can now post comments to a message via email. Prior to this update, you had to log in to Basecamp to post a comment on a message. We sent you an email notification, but replying to the message required a log in. Now you can just reply to a message or comment notification by email and your comment will be posted to the project.”

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Email Alerts

I see that the new version has the ability to get a daily or weekly email of activity which is helpful. However, when discussing an item, having a more “real-time” approach by getting emails is much more helpful. I know we could just send an email to the person, but that then moves project information out of the project management software.

For us, email alerts are quite important in two areas: 1) when a new item is assigned and 2) when a new comment is added on the ‘Collaborate’ tab.

A couple thoughts about email alerts when adding a comment on the ‘Collaborate’ tab. It would be helpful to see a list of users that you could check off if you wanted them to get an email about the comment. The checkboxes would automatically be checked for people that received email alerts in the thread already.

I think the email alert piece is the only piece preventing this becoming the replacement for our current tool immediately. Any idea of when you think the email alerts will be incorporated?

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Dashboard - space activity

I have a couple ideas about the dashboard that would be helpful to me.

1) Under space activity, there is currently a checkbox to “show everyone’s changes”. It would be helpful if this was a dropdown box and I could select ‘everyone’ or any other person. For instance, I would like to quickly see what updates my boss has made. Or, I manage a small team, so I would like to glace at their updates from the dashboard. I could quickly do that just by picking their names from the dropdown.

2) Be able to filter on the type of activity (well, I’m not sure how much I would use that…so, maybe not)

3) Include the ability to ‘expand all’ the space activity. Typically, if I want to see project activity, I want to know what was done and by who. Having to expand each item is a little tedious.

4) Currently, the space activity is grouped by day. I would also like to have the ability to group it by project. For me, I would vote to remove the “your upcoming items” and replace that section with a “space activity by group”. I would always look at the Estimate tab to see what my upcoming items are…it seems like it is just duplicated information. My company uses Basecamp for many projects. And, while I find Basecamp a disaster for projects, I do find this “space activity by group” view helpful.

Just my 2 cents :)

Topic: project management / Managing small projects during one large project

I’m looking for some advice on how to handle small projects that surface during a large (1 – 2 year) project.

We have everything in one workspace with our company name at the top. Under that, we have a project (ex: Large Project 1) that will take 1 year to complete.

Now, there will be other small projects (1 week estimate for example) that will come up that are a lower priority than Large Project 1, but realistically we will not say that we cannot get to your project until sometime next year.

So, we could move the small project up ahead of the large project. But, the small projects will just keep on coming and we’ll never get to the big project. What we would like to do is put the small project time-line inside the large project, which would be realistic (meaning we’ll get it done sometime during the large project…such as working late a few nights to fit it in). But, then it looks like it is part of the large project.

Any advice would be appreciated. This scenario happens all the time.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Displaying stats by who requested an item

Yes, seeing who created the item would be helpful. In my example, I was thinking that the person who entered the data wouldn’t necessarily be the person who made the request.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Displaying stats by who requested an item

Often times in my organization, people want to know where an item that they requested is scheduled be be completed. It would be great if we could 1) record who requested a task and 2) have the dashboard be able to display the items that you requested. The view could display something like:

Request: Do xyz
etc.

When the product is email capable, it would be very helpful to add this into a daily (or weekly, or whatever the person’s profile is set up to be) summary email.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Tracking of changes in order sub-projects or tasks

It would be helpful if it would somehow track that a sub-project or task was inserted before a previously created one.

For instance, some people always believe that work that they are involved in should take precedence. So, they will create their sub-project and tasks and drag it to the top of the list so it reorders my priorities. However, it may be the case where the newly added sub-project should not have preceded others.

It would be nice to receive an alert that project x was inserted before project y. Then, an internal discussion could be had to iron on the priorities. If you weren’t alerted to it, then people could add items that push other sub-projects way back without you knowing it.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Dashboard view to only show sub-project activity

It would be helpful if there would be an option on the dashboard to filter the view to only show the activity of a selected sub-project.

Topic: general questions & discussion / Recurring Meetings

I can understand using the calendar for recurring meetings, but what about other recurring tasks in a project? For example, there could be a task once a week to import the latest data into a testing environment. I would think this would be included in your project estimate because it would certainly affect your time line if it was an involved process.

Topic: general questions & discussion / Space compared to Project / Tabs

I’ve been testing LiquidPlanner for a few hours now. It looks very promising :)

But, I’m not sure I understand the concept of a ‘space’ compared to a ‘project’. It seems in your demos, you typically have the space called your company name, which works fine. However, if I invite a new person to join a project from the same company, it also creates a ‘space’ for them. Maybe it is just me, but it seems confusing if all the person wants to do is join the current project. On the other hand, if I invite someone from another company who already has a site on LiquidPlanner, then they will now have two sites. With two sites, I cannot look at my dashboard and get an overview of what I need to do. Instead, I need to look at site 1 and then site 2 and see where there is overlap. Sorry for the rambling…hopefully it makes sense.

As far as the tabs, it seems like there is an extra layer of navigation and duplication. For example, if I am on the Dashboard, there is a dashboard tab and a dashboard button right above that. Why not have all the tabs available (Welcome, Dashboard, estimate, schedule, etc.) on the same level? It would seem more intuitive.

Well, like I said, I’ve only used it for a few hours.

Thanks,
Bob