We get many emails from users who ask us “What happens to my data if your servers blow you, you go out of business, or you take a life-long trip to hawaii?”. This question is not only sensible but one that is logical to pose in times like these, not only to us who run Goplan, but to anyone who runs a web-based application that stores data that belongs to you. People often also ask “What happens if you’re hacked? Is my data safe?”. We’ll do our best to clear up all these concerns with this post.

Security and scalability

Goplan’s infrastructure run on top of Amazon’s web services (AWS for short). This is one of the main reasons why Goplan runs so smoothly with little to no downtime - even when we update features and functionality. Running on top of AWS also means that we have created a flexible architecture that scales as demand rises. If a lot of people are using Goplan at any given time, additional servers are instantly and automatically added to our cluster (nerdy-talk for group of servers) so that your access speed is always great.

With AWS comes the security and reliability of a company you probably already know quite well (Amazon.com), which we hope lets you sleep at ease knowing that your data is safe. As if that weren’t enough, we backup data every hour and keep these backups, so even if something went very wrong with Amazon, you’d still be safe.

Getting out as easy as getting in

We make it really easy to get started with Goplan (we even let you import data from other services), so it makes sense if we make it just as easy to leave if you are unhappy. If you ever want to pack up your data and leave, you can use our API to export all your project data and files. And for those of you who do not have developer-chops, we’re working on an export/backup solution which should be released soon.

So to cut a long story short,

You are safe with us. We want you to be confident that our team is constantly doing everything in its power to not only keep your service going but improve it at all times. If you have any questions, we’ll be glad to answer them in the comments. And as always, the community spirit is going strong over at Get Satisfaction so do check it out too if you have any requests, ideas or problems with Goplan.

A couple of hours ago we pushed the new dashboard to the live servers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, login to your company space and have a look. The new dashboard is an improvement over the last one, by removing the things you don’t need (People and Projects, that are still available on the sidebar) and focusing on the things that do matter - what you have to do and what else is going on with your company.

We’re not done with the dashboard yet (we’re firm believers that no product is ever “done”, though). We’ve been getting great feedback as to how you and your clients would like to use the dashboard, and we’re going to make some extra changes to it to include some of those suggestions. We’ll keep you updated right here on the blog.

We’re really happy about Goplan. We think it’s a beautiful product, and we’re delighted about the feedback we’ve been getting from you guys - you being happy makes us happier. Still, there was this one screen we weren’t that thrilled about. On top of that, it is one of the most critical pieces of the application - your company dashboard. Yesterday, while thinking about the dashboard problem, I tweeted:

Quite a lot of people believe that making a product better means adding new stuff. While that is sometimes the case, sometimes you can make something better by simplifying (Maeda’s laws of simplicity come to mind immediately - read that book if you haven’t yet). That’s what we’re doing with the dashboard redesign. The new dashboard will have less stuff than the current one does, and the thinking behind that move is quite simple. A screenshot first:

There are two main things you need from your dashboard on Goplan. You need to know what’s going on in your company - which is what the activity feed is -, and you need to know what you need to do - which is what the todolist bit is. The old project and people lists are gone. How often do you need to use those? Companies don’t add new projects or people every day, so they’re basically just UI pollution. Off they go.

A penny for your thoughts?

We’re still not done with the dashboard redesign. We’re constantly thinking about it, and before we launch the update, there will likely be more changes to both its design and functionality. But we do want your opinion. What do *you* need off of your Goplan dashboard? If you have any comments, feel free to send them in, either by commenting on this post, or sending us an email at our support address. Thanks!

(PS: we’re aiming to launch the dashboard update by early next week)

Today is a big day for us. A few hours ago we pushed quite a few changes to Goplan which we’re really excited about - here’s what’s new:

Calendar: The calendar now includes a weekly view in addition to the existing Monthly view, which makes it much easier to plan things out on a week-by-week basis. The new view (available on the Calendar sidebar) also includes the javascript goodness you were used to in the monthly view, like clicking and dragging to create new events. Oh, and here’s something you might not know. On text fields that take dates, you can use real text like “tomorrow” or “next saturday” or “two weeks from now”. Give that a try, it’s awesome!

Person view: Something quite a lot of people have requested in the past (which makes total sense, by the way), is a way to quickly get a glimpse of the activity from a particular user. That’s the new person view. Anywhere you see someones name or alias, you’ll be able to click through to a page, which lists assigned items (tasks and tickets), latest status updates and latest activity for that particular user.

More RSS feeds: Many of you are using RSS readers to stay on top of project activity. But sometimes, keeping up with the full feed of project activity can be a daunting task, so we added separate feeds for tasks, tickets and discussions - you’ll find them in each sections page, ready for you to subscribe.

More speed: We changed a few things under the hood to improve our caching mechanism (for the techies, we started using a cluster of Memcached servers), which causes the app to be much snappier. We hope you enjoy the extra time you get to actually manage projects :-)

Cosmetic changes: There were quite a few other changes throughout the app, particularly in support of our users who are using Internet Explorer (please consider our recommendation of switching to a browser more ‘up-to-date’ with the latest standards, like Firefox 3 or Safari 4)

Final notes

Good thing about these updates, is that we already have a few new things up our sleeves for the next few weeks, so do keep an eye out for more news. We wouldn’t be updating the application so frequently if all of you weren’t being so prolific at sending in great feedback. We really appreciate all the love we’re getting. Thanks!

Good news for people who love development-related news. We just rolled out to the live servers the new version of the Goplan API. This means that developers out there now have the necessary tools and resources to build cool stuff on top of our data and functionality. The API documentation is available at goplanapp.com/api.

We’re also launching a contest for developers who want to build apps with the API. It runs until September 30 and gives you the chance of winning a full year of our Unlimited plan. There’s a bunch of details about the contest on the contest page, so check it out here if you’re interested. We can’t wait to see what you guys come up with.

Oh, and here’s something for your OSX Dashboard

As a simple example of the kind of stuff developers will be able to build with our API, we built (and are now releasing as open source) a timetracking dashboard widget for your mac. It lets you use our timetracking functionality remotely, so definitely give it a go if you’re interested. If you’re a developer, feel free to look under the hood for inspiration on how you can use the Goplan API. You can download and install this widget by clicking here. Have fun! And do submit bug reports if you find any.

A few weeks ago we finally revealed we were working on it, 2 weeks ago we asked for your input, last week we talked about launching it, and today we deliver. Time tracking functionality is now live on all servers and is included with every plan - even if you’re on a free account.

Here’s how time-tracking works

At the bottom of every page, you’ll see something new - your status and time bar. This bar will not only take the place of the old “Update your status” button (which was on the top of every page on Goplan), it will also help you keep track of how much time you actually spend working on specific tasks. You start by clicking your status, and the UI guides you through either updating your status or tracking a task. You click it again to stop and start something else. It’s that easy.

Those are the very basics. We do some smart stuff under the hood too, though. If you’re viewing a specific task or ticket and click your status, Goplan will automatically suggest a task name and title and start tracking the time you are working on it. If you’re on the task list or the ticket list screens you can have the same behavior by clicking the new clock icons next to each task or ticket.

Reports, rates, time sheet cards

It wouldn’t make sense to just track time without having reporting tools, so we built those too. Goplan lets you setup hourly rates for each of your team members and generates time sheets based on this information. These time sheets give you and your team mates a good idea of where time and money are being spent in your projects. Time tracking reports are available from your project dashboard (check the new “Time tracking” item on the sidebar, next to Milestones).

At this point, we let you export time sheets in CSV so you can import them into your favorite app. We’re working on other clever ways to integrate Goplan with the existing tools for invoicing so keep an eye out for that (we’ll blog about that soon).

A few necessary remarks

You can’t expect to build the perfect solution for everyone, so we’re definitely looking for your feedback on how timetracking on Goplan 2 works and ways it can improve - we’re sure there’s lots. So go take the new functionality for a spin - we hope you like it!

As you may know if you’ve been following our recent posts, we’ve been working (first in secret, now not so much) on bringing Time Tracking into Goplan. And while we’ve kept moderately quiet about it until now, we have good news. Time Tracking on Goplan 2 is launching next monday, and more importantly, it’s going to be available on all our plans for no added cost.

We’ve been getting huge amounts of feedback since we first launched the new version of Goplan (for which we’re extremely grateful) and one of the most requested features has been Time Tracking. So we’re really excited about finally being able to say “it’s done, and it’s coming on monday”.

A few extra thoughts on features and updates

We’d like to make an extra comment about the way we’re managing Goplan’s development. We’re huge believers that you shouldn’t coast along once you get a number people using your application - something we often see other products do. As such, we have been keeping a backlog of feature requests and improvements that we’ve been tackling week after week (as we’ve mentioned before). We’re really proud of where Goplan is going, and we hope you are too. As always, we welcome your feedback and thoughts on the product or its features. If there’s a reason why we’re working on this product, that reason is you guys.

Time tracking. So essential for project managers and teams around the world that we get several emails a day asking us to implement it. And, as we announced two days ago, we are! Time tracking is coming to Goplan soon, but before we roll out the new functionality we want to make sure it makes sense for the majority of our users. So, we’re collecting feedback from people who typically track time in their projects, either in order to bill clients or just to keep tabs on what is happening and how long each thing takes.

Do you use an application for time tracking, or plain old paper sheets? If you use an application, is it online or a desktop app? Do you do track it in real-time, or create a report every day/week/month? Does your organization have one person who keeps tabs on how long someone takes to do something, or does each person do it for themselves?

We’d love to hear from you. If you have any thoughts or requests on time-tracking, please leave a comment, or send us an email to support at goplanapp.com. Thanks!

Note: Love those wallpapers? We do too! They’re the work of Mike Stimpson, who totally rocks at taking photos of toys. Check his Flickr set for high-resolution versions of these photos.