Q2 2014 Product Roadmap

2014 is already off to a big start, with major company changes and an exciting roll-up of product releases. To recap, we introduced an entire family of Accelo products with new, affordable pricing, making it easy for users to get what they want. We also released the iOS app for beta, the new Projects product, a GFI Max integration and moved over to Amazon Web Services.

If Q1's big changes left you a little dizzy, we understand, and we've got good news for you. Things in Q2 are going to be a lot more about gradual improvements and a couple of new things rather than changing things you're familiar with. Here’s an outline of our priorities in Q2, and a sneak peek into where we’ll be focusing our efforts in Q3 of this year.

• Android and iOS Apps (continued)
• Automation with Triggers and Notifications
• Quotes
• New Timesheets & Desktop Timer
• Project Portfolio Management & Resource Scheduling
• Peeking Ahead at Q3

Mobile Apps (continued)

As our second most requested feature, we were super excited to get our first beta (for iOS) into the hands of hundreds of beta testers towards the end of Q1. While we were also aiming to get Android live at the same time (our CEO is notoriously anti-Apple and a big Android fan), Apple actually managed to spoil our Android party.

Unfortunately, the test dev platform we were relying on to manage the beta process, TestFlight, was acquired by Apple with the news breaking in late February, and Android access was shut down right in the middle of our planned beta rollout.

App Stores, Control & Beta Frustrations
When it comes to rapid development and beta testing, the "App Store" process is really cumbersome; at least in the case of Apple, every update and bugfix needs to go through the whole approval process.

Why do we need to rely on App Stores? Because even though you've paid over $500 for an iPhone you own, Apple don't make it possible to install the apps you want on your own device - they force all downloads to be via their App Store because the Evil Fruit wants to get their 30% tax.

For developers there is a very limited workaround, which is what Testflight facilitates. In short, we compile each beta build of our app the UDID of every beta tester's phone. This process allows us to bypass the App Store by building apps to specifically run on specific phones, which is how we're able to rapidly develop in the beta period, fixing bugs and making improvements that are only really obvious when you're using the product in a daily setting. Apple only allows this approach for a limited number of devices per developer account, which why our beta is now full.

While TestFlight was cross platform, Apple wasted very little time post-acquisition sticking their finger in the eye of Android developers; they announced that no-one would be able to upload new builds for Android testers from March the 21st, right around the time we were targeting the roll-out.

We had to make significant changes to our beta roll-out plans for Android at this point, and as a result the Android beta is now a month or so behind the iOS beta - keep an eye out for an announcement in early May about how you can get into the beta.

Automation with Triggers & Notifications

One of the features we had slated for Q1, the Triggers and Notifications didn't make it out in time. We're really excited about getting this feature out early this quarter because it will add a powerful weapon to the Accelo automation arsenal, as it will allow a user to configure rules which will trigger a business process automatically - whether it be sending an email escalating the request or converting it into an issue.

Imagine being able to automate reminder emails, changes of status or setting fields based on a powerful set of business rules you can configure yourself. The rules can include things like the client’s status, subject/body text matching (like “URGENT” or perhaps a curse word or two), whether a request has had activity on it and time delays between other key steps (like the time a request was created, for example).

To get a sense of the power of what’s coming, check out this demo of the feature from our Sneak Peek session for the Requests upgrade from late last year:

This will be a Premium only feature (since it relates to the custom business processes and is controlled in the same section), so for our users who’ve adopted Premium for the power of its business automation, you’ll now be able to benefit from automation even while you’re sleeping!

Quotes 

We're looking forward to making some improvements to our sales this quarter by adding the ability to create quotes - we're sure it will be popular, given it is the most popular request on our ideas forum.

Our focus with this is around making the creation of quotes quick and easy, with a focus on line items, pricing and using our signoffs for acceptance. We won't be competing with the great functionality of our partner at Quoteroller with their incredibly flexible layouts and focus on rich content, but we will be making it easy to prepare quotes for projects and ongoing retainers/contracts so that going from quote acceptance to a running project/retainer will be super smooth, quick and easy.

From proposal line items to project milestones, you’ll be able to cut the time you spend on budgeting & planning in half. Combining this with our Signoffs, we’re hoping we can give you a streamlined way to create powerful quotes and instantly turn them into pre-planned projects and/or retainers as soon as your client gives you the green light.

New Timesheets & Desktop Timer

As fourth on our list of top user suggestions, we’re excited to improve the interface and approach to timesheet entry.

The areas we’ll be focusing on are:

• A new spin on traditional: We’ll be making a new work screen that looks and works more like a traditional timesheet. You’ll be able to view an entire week on one screen and an easily change the “total” or sum of hours on a given day in one input box. We’ll still make it possible for you to see the specific activities that combine to make up that amount. For people familiar with traditional timesheets (or who do a lot of entry all at once like at the end of the week), we think this new interface will be very much appreciated.
• Desktop timer: We’ll be rolling out new timers and a desktop widget so that you can easily keep track of your tasks and time outside of Accelo.
• Bringing back re-estimation: With the Activities Upgrade mid last year, we removed the re-estimate feature (since a lot of activities aren't against tasks or things that have estimates). During this upgrade, we’ll be bringing that feature back, making it easier to re-estimate time from the ‘create activity’ screen again. it is invaluable when managing projects and forecasting resource utilization, which you’ll see is a big priority this quarter.

Project Portfolio Management & Resource Scheduling

The major upgrade to the Projects in Q1 has allowed us to make some really big improvements to the way we handled tasks, milestones, deadlines and dependencies under the hood. One of the outstanding project features requested by many of our users is some functionality around "Project Portfolio Management" - how to see multiple projects at once, and, more importantly, how to shuffle and assign workloads between your various staff in one place.

To say that “doing this screen properly will be a challenge” is quite an understatement. Representing multiple projects, with many milestones and many people in a way that is easy to understand, easy to interact with, and able to work in a browser based environment isn't at all easy.

In the back half of this quarter (after quotes, mobile apps and notifications) we'll be throwing everything at this challenge. Our intention will be to go beyond what Project Portfolio Management tools allow, and encompass tasks and resource schedules including work going on in contracts and retainers, work against issues and even work in client account management and sales - why shouldn't you be able to move the tasks and workload between your sales and client service staff after all?

Peeking ahead at Q3

While we're still very early in Q2, we also wanted to give you a forward looking peek into Q3. At this stage, our priorities include:

• A New "Contractor" User License and Access Model
  We surveyed our users last year and found that around 70% of them use contractors on a regular basis. While these contractors are often trusted and treated the same way as regular team members, sometimes these contractors are people you want to keep at arms length. The new "Contractor" feature will allow you to create users in Accelo that have very limited visibility and access; they'll be able to see the tasks and projects they're working on, but they won't be able to see your client database, sales information or other projects/issues/retainers they're not currently assigned to. They'll also have a special user price which will be reflective of their more limited status in the business.
• Enhanced Reporting & Dashboards with KPIs and Trends
  One of the areas where we know Accelo still needs a lot of improvement is in its reporting and dashboards area. One of the areas we're going to be focusing our efforts in middle of the year and into Q3 is around enhanced dashboards and reports. Aside from more charts and insights, we'll also be introducing a new "KPIs" feature which will allow the administrator to define targets and expectations for different users and roles. Our plan is to support a scenario where a salesperson has a target of a certain amount of closed sales value per month, as well as a target time-to-respond (or action) client emails, whereas a developer might have a target mostly based around utilization (billable time logged) and completing their tasks and milestones on time and on budget. Different KPIs will be able to have different weightings, and users will be able to see their "magic number" prominently when they're in Accelo, along with a leaderboard to spur healthy competition among the team. We're really excited about this development - we'll have more to share with you mid-year as our plans sharpen.
• Asset Management/CMDB
  With the release of our new GFI Max integration, Accelo is seeing record interest from IT consultants and managed service providers. Increasingly these businesses are advising their clients to move to the cloud, but the tools they use to run their own business date back 30 years in some cases - no wonder they're excited by Accelo. During Q3 we'll be making further investments in features these businesses will benefit from, including the ability to store a list of customer assets and attributes; we're also confident that other clients will find these features - with their ability to index, search and segment with different grades of security restriction - valuable too.
• Usability Focus (upgraded design, many enhancements)
  With all of our work on large improvements (projects, new timesheets, triggers & notifications) and new features (quotes, resource scheduling), it is easy to skip over the small stuff, the little improvements and tweaks to usability which would make a huge difference to our users interact with the product every day. In Q3 we're planning on setting aside a lot of time to make big improvements to polish Accelo, smoothing out some rough edges and making your day to day experience much better.