Now you can add tasks and projects to your CreativePro Office account by email! Here's how you do it...

Entering tasks by email (task@CreativeProOffice.com)

1. Send an email to task@CreativeProOffice.com from the email address you use to login to your account.
2. The email Subject will be the task title.
3. You can assign team members to the task by adding them to the CC list.
4. Edit the task parameters by using the codes below.  Make sure you add these BEFORE your task description and put a RETURN after each line.  All of these codes are optional.

• P: or Project: = The name of the project to which to want the task assigned.
• DS: or Date Start: = The start date for the task.
• DE: or Date End: = The end date of the task.
• T: or Tags: = Tags for this task.
• PR: or Priority: Task priority (1, 2, 3, or 4).
• H: or Hours: Number of hours allocated for the task.

Anything written after the task codes will be automatically included in the task description. A picture is worth...well, you know.  Check it out.

Entering projects by email (project@CreativeProOffice.com)

Adding projects by email is about the same as adding tasks except you send your project email to project@CreativeProOffice.com. Project codes are slightly different from task codes

• P: or Project: = The title of the project.
• C: or Client: = Name of the client for this project.
• DS: or Date Start: = The start date for the project.
• DE: or Date End: = The end date of the project.
• T: or Tags: = Tags for this project.
• S: or Status: Project status. (0: not started, 1: in progress, 2: completed, 3: on hold, 4: overdue)
• L: or Link: Website URL for this project.

So that's it! We hope you find that adding tasks by email is simple and quick.  This feature makes it easy to turn any email sent to you into a task as well. Just forward the email to task@CreativeProOffice.com, add you task codes, and send. In the near future, we'll work on allowing tasks and projects to accept file attachments through email as well.

Thanks for reading!

Now you can reorder tasks simply by dragging them around and dropping them where you want.  You can reorder tasks within a milestone or move tasks from one milestone to another - it works the same either way.  We hope this makes organizing your tasks a little bit easier.

NOTE: Currently you cannot reorder milestones...we're still working on this feature.

Sharing files with your clients has been a glaring omision in the CreativePro Office feature set ... until now! Last week we rolled out some good stuff that allows you to share certain files with your clients and get their feedback messages. Let's check it out.

We'll assume that you already know how to attach files to a project.  Once you have some files attached to a project, you can click on a file to share it with the client.  Shared files will display the little   icon.

Clicking on the magnifier (view) button will display the file view panel for that file as shown below. The file view panel contains some information about the file, a download button, and an image if the file is a PNG, GIF, JPEG, etc.

There is also a message box so you can send messages about the file to your client and team members.

If you send your client a message concerning a file, they will be notifed the next time they log into their account. They will also receive an email containing the message. Clicking on the little disk icon to the right of the message will open up the file view panel for that file.

Clients now have a new tab on their dashboard for Files.  To view their files, they first select a project from the drop-down list.

Your clients can view and comment on a file the same way that account owners and team members can.

When a client comments on a file, you will receive an email message and also be notified when you log in as shown below.

Currently, clients cannot upload new files but this is a feature we would like to add very soon. We hope you find the file sharing feature useful and easy to use.

Thanks for reading!

Perhaps the most requested feature over the years for CPO has been project templates.  Well now you have the ability to copy milestones, tasks, notes, files, team members, and contacts from one project to another by creating a template from a project. 

Project templates are useful for quickly setting up projects that have similar assets and requirements. For example, if you build a lot of Wordpress websites, you will likely have very similar milestones and tasks from one project to the next. You might want to assign the same team members to the project and its tasks. Also, you might have the same contract documents or image asset files that are attached to each of these projects. 

Creating a template from one project and then using it to quickly copy assets to each of your new projects will save a lot of time. Here's how it all works.

First select a project that will serve as the template for future projects.  Go into the project detail view as shown below. Click the down arrow to the left of the project title and click the Create Template link.

A dialog window will show up that allows you to enter a Template name and Description and select which project items will be copied to a future project using this template. Click the Save button to save the template.

Now, when you create a new project you can select one of your templates and all of your project assets will be copied to the new project.

To manage your templates after they have been created, click on the Project templates tab. From there you can edit and delete any templates that you have created.

That's it! We hope this new feature will save you a lot of time setting up your projects from here on out.  Thanks for reading.

We just made your invoice PDF's a little prettier and a lot easier to use.  Check out the sample below or download the actual sample PDF here.

• Your business and client addresses are positioned to be visible in a 2-window envelope as shown below.
• The word 'Invoice', the amount due, and date due are clearly visible above the first fold of the invoice. Also, the dark line acts as a guide for more accurate folding.
• Totals, discounts, and taxes are more clearly displayed and easier to read.
• Your company contact information is displayed in the footer of each invoice page.

We really hope you like the new changes! Thanks for reading.

Over the weekend we rolled out a nice little update. Now you can have a custom subdomain associated with your CreativePro Office account like mycompany.mycpohq.com.  Here's how you make that happen.

Click on the Office Settings icon in the upper-right.  On the first screen for Company Information, look for the field labeled Your account web address.

Enter your desired subdomain, no spaces or special characters allowed.  If the subdomain is reserved or already taken by another customer, you will be notified and asked to select another one.

After you've selected a subdomain and clicked Save, you can find your account login screen by entering your-subdomain.mycpohq.com. The login screen that both you and your clients will see looks something like this ...

If you have uploaded a low-res logo, it will appear at the top of your new login box.  We think this addition helps our customers give a more professional presentation to their clients and team members.  We hope you like it!

At long last we finally have an update package for the self-hosted version available. 

You can download the update ZIP file here!

We decided to abandon the in-app auto-update process because it simply didn't work for enough customers. So, here are some quick instructions to get you started.  Be sure to also read the instruction PDF included in the ZIP file.

1. Download and upzip the files somewhere on your computer.
2. Copy all of the files to the CPO installation on your server. This update is big so there are many files - please make sure all the files get transferred to the correct directories or else things will not work well.
3. Open up the file database updates/cpo_updates_2.0.0.2.sql and execute the handful of SQL commands on the CPO database.

Hopefully your update goes smoothly but if not, please shoot us an email if you run into trouble.

CreativePro Office has been around, in one form or another, since 2003.  Back then the state-of-the-art for timesheet data entry was the typical week grid that looks something like this...

"Hey, that looks just like the timesheet I use on CPO version 2!" Yup, you're right.  The point is, as CPO has gone through numerous upgrades and revisions, the timesheet has remained pretty old school and it's time for a change.  Here's why.

The old timesheet user interface (UI) has 1 advantage ... it allows for quick data entry for 1 week IF it is the only place in the system to enter timesheet data AND hours are the only data you're entering.  Anthing more complex and the UI begins to fall apart.  For example, there's no place to view comments without clicking on a comment bubble and the design just looks cramped.

You also run into trouble when introducing other means of entering timesheet data such as the job timer or the up-and-coming mobile app and desktop app (more on these in another post - later).  It quickly becomes unclear how to render the timesheet rows with multiple entry points. If I enter hours and comments through the timesheet UI for a given project/task/day and then enter more hours/comments through the job timer for the same project/task/day, how should that be shown?  Two lines in the UI or combine the 2 entries into 1 line?  It gets confusing fast.

Lastly, as many of our users have noticed, the code is just buggy. Comment popups don't close when you think they should, timesheet rows don't always delete, etc.  This is due to a cludgy and ugly codebase that has not changed a whole lot in about 7 years. 

It's Time for a Change

This coming Friday we'll be rolling out the new-and-improved timesheet UI.  It may take a bit of getting used to, but ultimately I think it will be more intuitive, relatively bug free, and simpler to maintain.  Let's take a look...

Hopefully, the first thing you notice is a cleaner look and more 'breathing room' in the design.  Other than that, the most fundamental change is the shift from project/task focused entry to day focused entry.  In other words, instead of selecting a Project/Task and entering all your weekly hours for that combination, you select a Day and enter whatever project/task/hours you worked for that day. 

I don't know about you but for me, this shift just fits better with my daily routine. The clutter reduction and increase in visible data helps me see what I've done day-to-day with a lot more clarity.

Data Entry

Data entry for this new UI look like this...

Weekly Summary Views

We understand that a whole-week view is essential as well so we have kept the weekly grid view - it's available when you click the Grid view button.

Also, along the right-hand column you will see a bar chart of hours worked, giving a kind of at-a-glance understanding of the week.  Down the road we will include charts to show hours worked per project/task/client as well.

We believe the new timesheet user interface will be a lot more friendly, informative, and stable.  Look for this to be rolled out by Friday, Feb. 11th and we hope you like it!

This coming weekend (Feb. 12, 13) CreativePro Office will most likely experience some downtime as we upgrade our server capacity.  We've had a lot of new users sign up over the past couple of months and we're hoping to speed things up a bit.

Thanks!

Task notifications by email are now available within CreativePro Office.  To activate, simply click on the Settings icon in the upper-right, then click the Email tab.  Now look for the checkbox labelled 'Receive email notifications when ... My tasks are overdue or coming due.' Check that box, click the Save button, and you'll begin receiving email reminders.

Two different notifications are sent out for overdue tasks and tasks with approaching deadlines. You'll begin receiving overdue notifications once per week for overdue tasks (more frequently if you have many overdue tasks). You'll receive upcoming notifications once a day if you have any tasks that are due within about 1 week or less.