• It will be confusing for users to have a new module for confidential pages
• Features provides by Pages – like versioning, tracking changes etc were not that important
• Pages functionality is very similar to Tickets
• As a matter of fact, it will be very good to have Confidential Tickets
• The reason why we wanted a separate module was that it will not create problems for any existing modules. Hacking a core module can cause things to break – e.g. Confidential Tickets may show up in Planning Module
• After thinking about this long and hard, we concluded that Confidential Pages Module will be no more.
• We will promote Tickets Plus as a first class module for activeCollab (instead of the current “hack” status). This new module will support Confidential Tickets – tickets accessible only by people who are subscribed / assigned to them (and Administrators)
• This will also mean less maintenance for us as we have to manage  a single product
• More importantly, it means Tickets will now pack immense power. Imagine creating tickets that only a specific person in your team can see.

What do you think? Is this wise? Will it make more sense?

Quick Test: Which image can you relate to more? A or B?

It’s always more satisfying to talk with people with faces. When you can put a face to a name, you suddenly feel related. This connection helps you collaborate better.

I have worked on hundreds of projects using activeCollab, Basecamp and other solutions. Many times I have not even met the client in person. Seeing their face just makes it so much more comfortable when I next call / email them.

activeCollab allows users to upload an avatar image, but most clients won’t bother doing it. This means you will see those dull, gray default avatar icons while you work with them on your projects.

Enter acHack – Gravatar. This hack will pull avatar image from Gravatar if none found on activeCollab. It’s a little hack that makes a lot of difference.

Click here to learn more about this hack.

Benefits:

• Add Estimates and Start dates to tickets
• Track status of the ticket via Workflow Statuses – new, reopened, feedback, acknowledged, assigned, resolved, closed.
• Quick Update a ticket – change status and assign to a person
• Icons for ticket categories – makes it easier to review them at a glance
• Quickly jump to a ticket by entering its ID
• Enhanced ticket listing view – adds workflow status, one click description of the ticket, due date and more…
• Sort tickets list easily
• Quickly update status of tickets via batch update
• Track changes to a ticket better with full change log
• Jump to ticket edit screen right from tickets listing – save time
• Use estimates, start dates and statuses in template projects – they will all adapt to the new project’s dates

These hacks were available exclusively to Planning Module customers for over a year and we are now making them available to everyone. The hacks are available at $49 now.

Learn more, watch screenshots and buy this product from here.

This module allows you to see comments from next page on current page for discussions, tickets, pages and files. You can now see all comments on single page. Quickly review them, make connections between what people said and take decisions. No back and forth / page reloads required.

This nifty little productivity enhancer will surely impress your team and client! We can promise that.

Learn more, watch a quick tour video and buy this product from here.

This acHack allows you to see comments in reverse chronological order (latest first) for discussions, tickets, pages and files. It ensures comment numbering and permalinks work. We have also included an administration panel to enable this hack only for selective modules.

We have pages full of comments on some discussions and tickets. This hack will free us from the trouble of navigating to the last page to find the most recent (hence most important) comments. We hope it helps you as well.

It’s only $15 and you get one year upgrades free.

Learn More – Buy Now

You may also want to learn about our other acHacks or acGarage (acGarage subscribers get all acHacks free, plus one year expert managed upgrades for activeCollab and other modules)

Got feedback? Have an idea? Feel free to post a comment!

Apps Magnet is launching 3 products today, and have a special 20% off on combo pack till midnight November 30th.

What are these new products?

Housekeeping Module – $19

Automate routine system maintenance and cleanup activities with Housekeeping module. Our housekeeping module was exclusive to acGarage subscribers, now it’s open to all! It can save you many hours of work and give you peace of mind. All for just $19!

acHack – Incremental Backup – $21

activeCollab’s Backup module takes full backup every day. Incremental Backup copies only those files that have changed to the backup. This significantly improves backup performance and drastically reduces disk space usage. This provides you the most optimal and secure data backup for activeCollab.

acHack – Copy Pages and Discussions with projects – $17

The process of creating new projects from templates in activeCollab does not copy over pages and discussions. Pages and Discussions are very important part of a project – we use pages to gather initial design brief / project requirements. We even want that our discussions are structured similarly across projects.  Not being able to import discussions and pages was a limitation.

This hack solves that problem. Creating a new project using a template project will now also copy pages and discussions from your template project to the newly created projects.

What’s the special deal?

These three products total up to $57. But we are giving a big 20% off if you buy them together. The offer is valid only till midnight November 30th, MST.

Get Housekeeping Module + Incremental Backup + Copying Pages & Discussions for only $45.60 – Offer Expired.

Plus you get full one year upgrades.

Not sure yet? Take your money back if you are not happy

We are confident of our work. We use these tools daily on our projects. And we know they create awesome value. So if you are not happy with the product, just let us know within 30 days and we will give you your money back.

Support us in bringing out great products

Building great products takes huge efforts. We spend long hours thinking, crafting and fine tuning our products. We took one extra week to tweak little things so that your experience with the products is great. When you buy Apps Magnet products, you are not only getting value for yourself, but also allow us to invest in improving these products and building better solutions.

Buy all three products together, and get 20% off now

The offer is only available from this page, and will end midnight 30th November 2009 MST.

Click here now to buy Housekeeping Module + Incremental Backup + Copy Pages and Discussions with Project for $57 $45.60 – Expired.

BTW, acGarage customers get all three products free. acGarage customers will also get all future acHacks for free. Learn more about acGarage and how it can save you many hours and thousands of dollars.

Another must-not miss opportunity

You may know that we are also working on the next version of Reports Module. The new version will be coming next week and the price will go up to $69 from the current $39. If you haven’t purchased the Reports Module yet, lock in the price and buy it now. You will get one year upgrades for free.

That’s all! Thank you

That’s all for now! We thank all our customers for their continued support. We will strive to make your activeCollab experience better and better!

Our Answer:

If you set up frequently, hourly and daily it will make activeCollab happy! (The new Incoming Mail module uses frequently job to pull emails).

For Reports, once a week is sufficient, but you will need to ensure it gets called on the day your week starts (as per aC configuration you have). Webcron.org may be in some other timezone than your server. So you will need to ensure it gets fired at correct time. When cron gets executed, it checks if this is the start of the week, if so, it will take reporting snapshots.

Every week, on start of week (e.g. Monday) we take snapshot of previous week.

If your server has a web based control panel (cPanel, Plesk etc), there are good chances you can configure cron jobs with it. If you have shell access to the server (SSH), you can easily configure cron jobs from command line (crontab -e).

If all that fails, what are my alternatives?

Alright, so life is really making it difficult for you, you have two alternatives.

1. Re-install Reports module every week. When Reports module installs, it collects all historical data about your projects. Re-installing it (uninstall, and then install) will refresh your data.
2. Run cron from another computer. Either set it up on your desktop or use a third party service to run scheduled tasks (e.g. Webcron.org). Just ensure your are using correct URLs of your activeCollab installation. Reports module needs the daily cron / scheduled task to be executed.

Why does this happen?

Access theme uses a custom CSS file to override look and feel of activeCollab. By default it hides any unknown styles. They do not have an icon for Reports module yet. This results in no icon showing for Reports module.

How to fix it?

It’s easy to fix this. Here are the steps:

1. Copy public/assets/modules/reports/images/icon.gif to public/assets/themes/Access/images/icons/reports.gif. Note we are copying as reports.gif, not icon.gif.
2. Edit theme.css in public/assets/themes/Access/. Search for #menu_item_status in it. It may have another line for invoicing module after it. Add this line: #menu_item_reports span.outer {background: transparent url(images/icons/reports.gif) no-repeat center 15px;}
3. Save the file and exit.
4. Refresh your activeCollab page. Reports icon should now show up.
5. If it does not, check permissions on reports.gif that you copied. Ensure it has same permissions as other images in icons folder.
6. If you notice that the icon is not positioned properly in the menu, ensure you have used 15px and not 10px like other Access theme icons.

If this does not work, post a comment here with some more details and we will sort out!

BTW,  we have already requested Leon (Access theme developer) to include a Reports icon. We are still to hear from him.