Something we've wanted to do for a long time is to simplify the process of invoicing timesheet entries and expensses. Well this week we made some big improvements in this area.  You can now add expenses and timesheet entries to an invoice right from the invoice form.  Let's check it out.

To add either an expense item or timesheet entry, click one of the buttons right above the invoice item section of the form as shown below. We'll start by adding some expense items to our invoice.

Including expenses in an invoice

After clicking the Select expenses button, a dialog window will appear that allows you to search your expenses for the ones you wish to invoice.

You can use the auto-suggest search box or search by date range. We're going to do a text search on Computer and see what comes up.

Ok, we found a few expenses and are now going to select the ones we want to include in the invoice. After we're done making our selections, we can either do another search or click the Add selected items button in the bottom left to add the expenses to our invoice.

You'll notice that adding expenses will automatically change the Type column to Product by default. If the expense is a service, you can certainly change the Type column to reflect that.

Including timesheet entries in an invoice

Selecting timesheet entries is almost exactly the same except that you can only search by date range.  You must first select a client and project in the invoice form before selecting timesheet entries.

If any timesheet entries are found in your date range search, you can then select them to be included in the invoice. Click the Add selected items button to include the timesheet entries.

And there you go. No more flipping back and forth between an invoice and your timesheet page to see exactly what it is you need to invoice.

Thanks for reading.

Did you know ... you can sync your CreativePro Office calendar to any calendar application that can read an iCalendar feed.  As an example, I'll show you how to sync your CPO calendar to your Google calendar.

First, go to your calendar page inside of CreativePro Office. In the right-hand column, look for the Export Options header and click the iCal link. You should see a popup like the one below containing your iCalendar feed URL.

Copy the link shown in the popup window.  Now login to your Google calendar account.  In the left-hand column, look for the Other Calendars header and click the Add link at the bottom.

Next, click the Add by URL link. This will allow you to enter the iCal feed URL you copied from your CPO calendar. A dialog window like the one below will pop up.

Once you've pasted the feed URL into the box provided and clicked the Add Calendar button, Google will parse your iCal feed and display your CPO events in the calendar.

NOTE: Google will often take several minutes to parse the iCal feed and display the events. Also, Google waits about 6 hours before attempting to read the iCal feed again. So if you post an event in CPO, don't be surprised if it takes quite awhile to appear in your Google calendar.

Thanks for reading.

A few users have wondered what happened to project notes in CreativePro Office 2.  Version 1 users will remember the rather minimal notes feature that allowed you to attach random notes to a project - simple, almost too simple.  Here's the version 1 note entry form...

Just a plain ol' textbox with a Save button.  And once you saved a note...

...you really didn't have any way to edit the darn thing.  If you made a mistake well, delete and start over.

With CPO 2 we decided to amp up this feature a bit starting with a slimmed down WYSIWYG editor so you can add bullets, indentation, and simple font changes.  Links are activated automatically if the link text begins with http:// or https://.

We also thought it would be nice to let your clients see some of your project notes so we added a checkbox that allows you to do just that. 

Finally, the finished note complete with creator avatar, date and time stamp, visible to client indicator, and an Edit button!  The Edit | Delete button group appears as you hover over a note.

Moving ahead we plan to allow file attachments to notes as well.  We hope you like the new project note feature in CPO 2.

Thanks for reading.

Hi! I hope everyone has been enjoying the holiday season, had a happy and safe New Year and that things are going along well with CPO.

We have been busily working on rebuilding CreativePro so that we can add on new features that users have been requesting.  However, we have noticed that CPO is often times creeping along at a slugs pace, which makes development almost impossible.  We know that users are experiencing the same slugishness.  

So, CPO will be moving from its current hosting provider to a much more robust, dedicated server at Slicehost!  This move will not only alleviate the slow user experience but will allow us to implement some exciting new features such as emailing tasks and other information to your CPO account.  

Important Stuff:  We are planning this migration on the weekend of Jan 10 and 11.  We cannot guarantee service for these 2 days.  However, we intend to have CPO up and running again Monday morning, Jan 12.

Thank you again for the continued positive input from our dedicated users.   Your communication is what makes CPO improve.

Update 1/12/09:  While we were able to build a new host server for CPO on Slicehost this past week, we did not have time to move the site files and user data.  We will be moving site files and user data to the new host on the weekend of Jan. 17, 18. CPO will be down for these 2 days. Thanks again for your patience.