It’s been a long time since we posted here, so an update on what’s been going on is in order. Since we last posted, quite a few bugs have been fixed, and most of the features you guys have been asking for have been implemented. We have pushed all those changes to the live server a few minutes ago.

You may notice Goplan is a lot faster than it previously was due to our new caching mechanism. You will also most likely notice the text ads below the sidebar if you have a beta account. Naturally all paying accounts will be completely ad-free, and we’ll start allowing people to upgrade their plans to paying accounts in the next three weeks, as we push towards the final launch.

We’re getting really close to launch, so any feedback you send now is crucial. If you have anything to say, drop us a note. And we’d love to know how you’re using the application, so if you have a story to tell, send us an email.

Oh yeah, and tasks can finally be re-ordered. We know some of you have been waiting for this change to be pushed to the live servers.

We have received some emails about how we’ll migrate the current testers to the final system once we launch. People are concerned about their projects (and rightly so). Every project on the current servers (except for the sandbox) will be kept and will be migrated to the final services, so transmission for you guys will be seamless.

Also, goplan’s current users be able to keep their current plan for 3 months. After this period, they may either adjust their projects to fit the free plan or enter a paid subscription according to our pricing model. This 3 months period will begin once the subscriptions become available.

If you have any doubts about this process leave a comment or send us an email.

After getting some feedback on the announced pricing model, we decided to change it a little. So here is the revised pricing model for Goplan:

Again, if you have some thoughts on it, get back to us with them!

We previously wrote about IE support for Goplan and we’ve finally updated the updated the servers. So, IE users should have a better overall experience when using Goplan.

Both IE6 and IE7 are supported (although we recommend that you either upgrade to IE7 or use Firefox - we’re all for the latter). If you run into any issues please report it to us.

As most of you know, the code currently up at sv1.goplan.org is quite old by now. In the meantime, many issues have been solved and some functionality has been added to Goplan, and now is the time to update the running code to the latest, bug fixed version.

So, tomorrow Goplan will be down for maintenance for some time - we’re predicting about 3 hours - starting at 10 am GMT (2 am PST). We’re sorry for any trouble this may cause you, and promise to be as fast as possible.

UPDATE: Goplan’s back! Apparently everything went smoothly, but if you run into any trouble please get back to us with your problem.

Many users have been asking us about Goplan’s pricing model once its finally released. Now that everything is in place and the much anticipated release day is coming in fast, it’s the right time to discuss how we’ll be pricing our subscriptions. The following table outlines our current pricing model:

As with everything else on Goplan we’re keeping this table open to discussion. As you’ve read from us time and time again in this blog, we want to build a great product and like with everything else, we want feedback in our pricing - so if you have any, please leave a comment or email us. Is it cheap? Is it expensive? Let us know.

Naturally you only need a subscription if you want to create projects - people who will only be accessing these projects don’t need to pay anything. One thing you can also do is share your subscription, so if you are running a few projects and have a few friends that want to run some as well, you may subscribe a bigger plan (giving you more features and less limitations) and share both the subscription and costs - as we have that functionality built into the application.

With the opening of the Sandbox, we finally have a test system for all developers out there who want to build productivity tools on top of Goplan. We have a SOAP-based API ready for you, and a REST-api coming up soon. You can use the SOAP API today to get cranking on some really cool stuff!

Starting points

We set up a developer wiki at api.goplan.org, with reference for the SOAP API, code samples and a couple of already built applications. By using the API, you’ll be able to tap into all of the Goplan functionality and develop tools (free or commercial - drop us an email if you’re thinking about the latter) to help people and teams manage their projects on top of our software.

The wiki has all the information you need to get started, so feel free to create a user for yourself and start contributing - we’ll be showcasing the best contributions everywhere with Goplan itself. Remember to use the sandbox server to test your code, and go creative!

So, we’re making the final preparations for the grand launch. As some of you know, we sent a few thousand invites to our testing phase and around one thousand people signed up. If you’re one of those, you’ve seen the application at about 65% completion - and you’re likely wondering what we’ve been doing since then.

Since the testing phase, most of the application was updated - including UI, functionality, backend and APIs. However, our testers didn’t get to see those recent updates because the changes were significant enough to mess with the experience of the testing environment - and since there’s real people working with real projects there, we didn’t want to mess it up.

So, meet the sandbox!

So today, we’re opening up the sandbox. The Goplan sandbox is an instance of Goplan where anyone (that means you people who’ve never seen the app, too) can test the application, sign-up, and get a feel for what it’s going to be when it launches. One very important detail is - use the sandbox for testing only, as we will NOT be backing up the database, and we WILL be doing tests.

You may be wondering why we’re giving everyone access. People with previous access to Goplan will probably want to check out the new features, and people who’ve never seen the application have a good opportunity to do so now (as we’ve been getting requests every day for invites). Also, developers can finally start their engines building cool stuff using our API.

Give me the link, already!

Less text, more information, right? The sandbox is located at sandbox.goplan.org, and you can get there right now, sign up and test out the application. And since you’re using it, please send us any feedback you may have to our email (or leave it here, in a comment). We’re reaaally close to launch now, so any opinions are useful.

Try Goplan right now in the sandbox!. And as always, have a lot of fun.