Think Big! That’s what I kept experiencing in my US tour in October. A coffee cup would be five times larger and fifteen times costlier in the USA than my office in India. Everyone was talking about changing the world. Everyone was talking about millions. You can’t stop but get infected by this passion.

I returned on 5th November and last 33 days were about catching up with work. Pending deliveries. Revamping code structure. Solving bugs. Adding new features. Brainstorming our plans for 2012. Training new team members. Just keeping the neck down and working hard.

And then there is activeCollab 3. Yes, it’s looking great and is just around the corner! We get access to developer previews and it’s progressed faster than my own expectations over last two months. So I thought we should share our activeCollab 3 plans with you – as it is they are centered around you!

activeCollab team has been working hard too.  Apps Magnet develops some of the most loved activeCollab extensions and hence we’ve had early access to activeCollab 3 preview builds. From what we have seen, aC 3 is a major revamp – both in terms of the user experience and internal programming. And as activeCollab 3 release date comes closer (promised to be December 2011), we asked this question to ourselves:

How can we create a delightful experience of migrating to activeCollab 3 for our customers?

activeCollab 3 Interface Preview

We thought about questions and concerns people may have about upgrading to activeCollab 3:

• What’s new in aC 3?
• How easy will it be for us to learn activeCollab 3?
• It seems to have a completely revamped user interface. How fast is it?
• I have lots of critical data in activeCollab 3. Will that be transitioned correctly?
• Is it reasonably bug free? Is it ready for production?
• Will my third party plugins be compatible with activeCollab 3?
• Is it worth upgrading to activeCollab 3 now? How long should I wait?
• I’ve been waiting for “feature x”, is it there in activeCollab 3?
• Will I have to purchase the upgrade again? Who’s qualified for a free upgrade?
• What’s the easiest way for me to determine if we should upgrade?

Basically, your concerns will revolve around the usefulness of the new version for your organization and the costs of upgrading (time, money, training, downtime…). Since most of you also use our plugins, you’d like to find out when will we release activeCollab 3 compatible versions and if they will be free.

So we’ve thought of this action plan. Do post your comments and suggestions below.

• Within a week of activeCollab 3 Public Beta Release: Showcase activeCollab 3 to our customers via a webinar – screen sharing the new interface with our commentary, and answer questions
• Within a month of activeCollab 3 Public Beta: Ensure our modules are compatible with aC 3 – including Tickets Plus, Planning, Reports, Confidential Items, Assignments Plus, Time Reports Plus, Communication and Hide People
• Schedule another webinar about transitioning from aC 2 to aC 3 when activeCollab 3 is near final public release
• Provide upgrade / transition service to clients who want us to take care of the transition
• Continue working on improving our products on aC 3
• Continue supporting our products on aC 2.3 for another six months
• Be available for any support clients may need in choosing to and carrying out transition to activeCollab 3

What do you think?

How would you like us to support you in reviewing activeCollab 3 and transitioning to it? Let us know via comments below!

Think Big

Think Big! That’s what I kept experiencing in my US tour in October. A coffee cup would be five times larger and fifteen times costlier in the USA than my office in India. Everyone was talking about changing the world. Everyone was talking about millions. I couldn’t stop but get infected by this passion.

Now I am not really taking on “bigger means better” or “bigger is superior”. I am really talking about freeing up your thinking. Thinking about the great impact you can make on humanity if you pursued your dreams and vision. Thinking about the “grand design” of your business. Thinking and being convinced that you can and will achieve great results. Believing that the world is really “flat”. Expanding self-imposed limits on what and how much you can do.

I am taking on the practice of thinking big. How about you?

Think Small

Think about this – that five times larger coffee cup is filled with hot liquid and can be difficult to hold with bare hands. So what do you do? Well, you invent the coffee cup sleeve! The sleeve would easily fit the cup and protect your hands from that heat. Getting used to the large amount of coffee I could notice at least a dozen remarkable items about that coffee cup that are the result of thinking small – thinking details – thinking improvements.

Now you may be just too used to a large coffee cup (with a sleeve) to ignore all the thinking that’s gone into making one. When we create goals and plans, we skip implementation details and end up with a fraction of results. When we build a product we may forget to think about small details and end up with customers – and not raving fans.

This all sounded too familiar! So I resolved to start thinking small right after thinking big!

There Is No Point Thinking If I Don’t Act

I haven’t yet made contact with 95% of people I met during my tour. Not even people I thought could be great mentors / feedback providers. There are notes I took at conferences that I haven’t even looked at. Whether I am thinking about a big world transforming idea or am stuck with fear in going up to a celebrity and making contact, action is the only way forward.

An example I give my team is that in the game of cricket, a player won’t make any runs if he stands holding his bat and keep thinking about how many runs he can make. To make runs he has to act. As a matter of fact he has to keep taking action just to survive in the game.

Similarly if I just keep thinking about sharing my lessons from the trip, I will never get around it. I got to take action.

Memories From The Trip

I returned from my US tour on 5th November and last 33 days were about catching up with work. Pending deliveries. Revamping code structure. Solving bugs. Adding new features. Brainstorming our plans for 2012. Training new team members. Just keeping the neck down and working hard.

Here’s what’s on our lists:

All Our Products Are activeCollab 2.3.7 Compatible

We have just confirmed that all our products are compatible with activeCollab 2.3.7. Latest versions will continue to work with it and there are no changes required. If you are running an old version, we do recommend you download and use the latest version.

New Members System and Website coming soon

We have lived with a bare-bones website for a long time. Over the next few months we will keep incrementally improving our website but you will see the first round of fresh paint in December itself! We will also be transitioning to a new shopping cart / members / downloads / support system in near future. It will now be easier to find the information you need and keep track of your purchases!

Mizen – our activeCollab desktop & mobile client

This has been on our list for over a year, but it’s finally coming together. We have done a lot of ground work and are working on activeCollab sync right now. Mizen will allow you to sync your activeCollab tasks to your desktop and work on them even when you are offline. It will track time, let you complete work items and keep track of recent activities as well. We plan to start a private beta near the end of the month!

Winning The Collaboration Game For Our Clients

Our new consulting / hand holding / training service is going well and we are really thrilled to see clients experience great productivity boosts in every session. It’s like instant gratification for us – we get on a call with the client, discuss ideas and suggestions, clients alter how they use activeCollab and immediately experience better results. We have enjoyed it so far and are looking for more sessions this month!

Alright, Now for a little smile!

Wanted to let everyone know that all our products are now compatible with activeCollab 2.3.6.

We updated Confidential Items Module for compatibility, and even added some bug fixes and new features to Tickets Plus. All other modules will work without a change.

Products we’ve updated:

• Tickets Plus Module (version 1.5.8 – this also adds useful new features and fixes bugs)
• Confidential Items Module (version 1.3.3)

Latest versions of all other products are already compatible with activeCollab 2.3.6

Tickets Plus 1.5.8 Changelog

Enhancements:

• activeCollab v2.3.6 compatibility version.
• Option to include descriptions while printing tickets list

Fixes:

• Call to undefined method “time_to_float” error. Fixed.

Customers can download these updates from our members area.

Enjoy!

We released Tickets Plus 1.5.7 yesterday. If you had a problem with tickets not being created with incoming mail or estimate values, this release will fix it.

Here’s the change log from 1.5.6 and 1.5.7:

• Creating tickets from incoming mail was broken. Fixed.
• Estimate value did not consider minutes. Fixed.
• Assignees were removed if status changed from mass-update
• Default status not set when creating a ticket from Planning module
• Setting assignee to –None– using mass update did not work correctly

As usual, you can download the latest release from our members area.

We are glad to announce updates to five products.

• acHack – Gravatar (v1.3.2)
• acHack – Incremental Backup (v2.2)
• Hide People module (v1.1)
• Tickets Plus module (v1.5.5)
• Time Reports Plus module (v1.3.3)

You can download these updates from our members area as usual!

Here’s a summary of updates in these versions.

acHack – Gravatar (v1.3.2)

• activeCollab v2.3.5 compatibility version.

acHack – Incremental Backup (v2.2)

• Takes database backup of only activeCollab tables.
• Fixed: (Backup returned these errors: Array) email notification issue.

Hide People module (v1.1)

• Removes “Who Is Online” and “People On This Project” blocks from dashboards.

Tickets Plus module (v1.5.5)

• Fixed: Send email notification twice on ticket completion
• Fixed: Attachments are not visible for tickets created using Public Submit
• Fixed: UI fix for filter drop downs in Tickets list

Time Reports Plus module (v1.3.3)

• Fixed: Time records not grouped correctly by billing status (Billable, Non Billable, Billed etc.)
• Fixed: Increased memory limits while generating time reports

Enjoy!

Update (27/Sep): Our account is active now! And I think it won’t be limited again!

Update (24/Sep): PayPal has limited our account again! I guess they have a weekly cron that limits accounts, and have not yet updated their logic of verifying PAN. Very frustrating.

Update (20/Sep): PayPal has lifted the limitation and we can receive payments again now. Thank you PayPal for prompt attention to this.

I just got an email from PayPal that they have limited our account from receiving money. And that because the Permanent Account Number that I’d entered, could not be verified.

Now my PAN is valid, but the business is in the name of my wife. Apps Magnet is also not a “limited liability” company yet – having it’s own separate legal identity – which provides it a new PAN of its own.

I’ve just written to PayPal, and am hoping for a quick resolution.

But till then, (or till we add an alternate payment system), we won’t be able to accept new orders.

Please bear with us while we sort this out.

Thanks.

:Nirav

Assignments Plus module for activeCollab lets you kill work overwhelm, get back in control, become super efficient and get things done quickly.

We won’t be surprised if it becomes one of our most popular modules…

Watch “Dave’s Day: how an overwhelmed, overloaded worker created family time” video and learn more about Assignments Plus here…

coming soon!