Introducing our new Copper Community. THE place to add your requests, suggestions, issues, and praise for the web’s best project management software. Help make it better! Spread the word.

http://community.copperproject.com

– Ben Prendergast

We’re excited to announce that all of our plans are now under a single build, for the first time in Copper history!

This means that from our Standard product at $29/mth, you now have access to the web’s best project management and collaboration tool. Standard offers the best 5-user PM tool, with interactive gantt charts, resource time management, stopwatches and task comments that drive automated timesheets, billings, and our improved file upload function.

In addition, we’ve been super busy, adding a new file upload feature, improving UI workflows, and have even more planned over the coming weeks.

4.03 Tweaks/Fixes (rolled out 2nd Dec 2009):
- Fixed Projects/Contacts Tab
- Language Token fixes in Projects
- Removed Est/Act/Comp column to declutter project view
- Fixed issue with Springboard Activity Tab not filtering by year
- Now sections remember how a user had them (open/close them, they stay open closed!)
- Fixed New Event on Calendar
- Fixes to Multilanguage in Gantt (Finally! Copper is about 99.999% Translatable now)
More to come in 4.04 – in dev now.

Now there’s no excuse! Come on board and see how Copper can improve your studio/business productivity instantly. If you have any questions or queries, please get in touch!

– Ben Prendergast

For the full email see http://www.copperproject.com/mailouts/2009/09/

Version 4.01 Features and Fixes are here!

• Page optimization and Quicker UI. Enjoy quick-fire editing/saving/deleting/sorting of tasks and comments in the Projects and Springboard views. And we’ve sped up all pages in some cases by 700%!!!.
  Here is the challenge: Create a new project with 10 tasks in under 30 seconds. 32 seconds is the record!
• Formatting options. Set your own header, logo, and login image options for your Copper
• Rollup Project Details. You can now roll up project details for neater project presentation
• Bug fixes! Yes, we’ve fixed a number of annoying little glitches, and we’re happy to announce 4.01 is here

Our Annual Survey is back! Complete it here to go into the draw for an iPhone 3GS.

Every year we undertake a survey to understand our customers, products, and services a little better. The results from this survey directly affect which new features we develop, how much we charge, and generally where we direct our next 12 months of effort. It is a crucial step in making Copper and other products as good as they can be.

Being crucial for us, we offer a prize to the most honest answer. Why most honest? Because we can’t afford to have anything other than total honesty from our customers, so in the past the most frank feedback has won, and at other times the most inspired idea has secured the booty!

So, if you’d like to help us shape Copper by having your opinion heard within the hallowed halls of Copper HQ, and would like to go into the running for an iPhone 3GS 8gb, click here to complete our 10 minute survey.

Click here to take the Survey. It only takes 5-10 minutes, and really really really helps us out a lot.

– Ben Prendergast

Just a quick note to let everyone know that from July we have our new version 4.0 available in Corporate-level, priced at $99/mth or $999 server install. We’ve also updated our Enterprise accounts to include UNLIMITED users, so if you’re looking for an unlimited user plan we have one available via http://www.copperproject.com/buy/

Also, we often get emails asking us how Copper compares to tools like Basecamp, Active Collab, Remember the milk, Things, MS Project and even, ehem, Excel! Honestly, I believe every tool has its place, and we know that a number of customers use these tools alongside Copper (Basecamp and MS Project for instance). I personally used Things for a little bit (before we built our own internal iPhone conduit to Copper – Stay tuned for that!) and obviously I keep an eye on what the others are doing (without letting it affect our singular mission, i.e. providing you with great project management software). But let me be clear on where Copper stands…

The push for oversimplified software comes at a cost. For instance running multiple different software products can be more confusing than the simple solution they represent, and quite often you install these tools and despite the hype they _just_ don’t get you to where you need to be. Sometimes that one little feature that you wish you had just isn’t in that product, and so after one or two weeks you find you (or worse, your team) navigates away from the product. Open source represents the opposite problem, too many features, no singular vision, and an interface that only a mother (i.e. Linus Torvald) could love.

Project Management ISN’T task management. It’s broader than that. It’s tasks, people, time, effort. Manage those things and you manage a project. Create a bunch of to-dos and you’re pushing paper.

For these reasons we stay focussed on offering a single web-based solution, that is elegantly simple, yet feature-rich enough for you to stay focussed on the project, and therefore profitable. Yes, we charge for it, no we’re not in the business of offering free software, but you can rest assured knowing there is continued development, support, and passion, for a fantastic product.

With the release of Corporate v4.0 we’re finally getting a worldbeating product into the hands of those with smaller budgets, and we thank you all so much for your continued support.

Drop me a line at ben@elementsoftware.com if you have any questions. Take care. Ben.

– Ben Prendergast

Hi  Everyone! I’m delighted to announce the arrival of our long awaited Version 4, available for immediate purchase or demo at the following:

TO DEMO: visit http://www.copperproject.com/demo/
TO PURCHASE: visit http://www.copperproject.com/buy/

SO, WHATS NEW? IN A NUTSHELL   ()    <— nutshell:

- Completely reworked engine, making transitions/edits/saves/searches faster than ever.
- Copper now offers all information with intuitive drill downs and merged screens providing 40% fewer clicks/screens
- A completely reworked UI including AJAX view/edit states, lightbox confirmations, drag/drop reordering
- New Files function: Includes upload progress and pulldown ease across Project and Springboard modules.
- New Budgets section: Now you have a list of items from tasks, out of scope items, and the ability to create new once-off items, which can then be checked and pushed to an invoice.
- New Stopwatch Timer. Set this in the Springboard or Projects section and it is shown in header for quick updating
- Improved Gantt: Now drop down tasks to allocate/manage resourcing, edge-aware scrolling, and more
- Email integration: You can now cc your Copper and the email will be stored against the specified project.
- Better language support (German, Spanish, French). All text items are now tokens.

CHANGES TO HEADER, NAV, DASH, LOGIN, PROFILE, SEARCH
- New Header design incorporating Stopwatch/Profile/Search/Breadcrumbs/Titles/Login/Help
- Profile includes recent history, Hrs logged today/week
- Search results now in real-time Ajax, quicker calls, with drop down dash.
- New Logo and BG can be adjusted via Admin (Themes to come)
- Stopwatch function     There are 3 states.  1) user has never used a timer. this displays their name in the top right, and some of the links are gone. 2) users most recent timer is running. when they log in, its running in the top  3) users most recent timer is paused. when they log in, its paused at the top and they can hit resume

CHANGES TO SPRINGBOARD
- Now much simpler, mirrors how Project Springboard works, with dropdown tasks and resource management
- Ajax task comments, including edit/delete
- Stopwatch action on Tasks (Creates Egg timer in header if none exists, rolls out to allow comment add)
- ‘Activity’ Tab: Shows pages visited, hours logged, files downloaded, group member stopwatches.
- New File upload from Springboard

CHANGES TO PROJECTS
- A merged UI, better handling of resources, budgets, timelines, contacts, hierarchies, permissions
-  New UI for Project View, showing project List, open a project to go directly to task/tab
- Merged Tasks and project screen, drop down tasks, grab task name to drag and indent via AJAX.
- Permission change: if you have read access you can copy the project to make a new one
- Import MS Project imports hierarchy
- Current date as title in the JS mini calendar (click date to select)
- New Budget Tab
- The budget tab shows tasks, out of scope items (checked as such and shown as subitems for a task within the budget tab), and new line items for any additional things the user wants to charge (tangibles/rooms etc). It shows Cost/Charge pricing. User Charge rates and Tax rates to come. A new invoice can be then created. Users can choose items and amount to invoice. Once invoiced for the tally for each item will be updated.
- New Email Tab
- New Gantt Timeline:Click anywhere in the row to select the row (currently you have to click in the named area).If tasks are selected, dragging the end date out changes all of them as a group.An entire project can be rolled up.When dragging reaches left or right point of timeline area can it scroll (two speeds)?New Dependency becomes Add/Remove Dependency. Roll over and click existing dependency to delete.Tasks can now be expanded to show/manage resources, right on the gantt.
- Mini lines inside the timelineThe thin black line currently represents the same thing as the solid colour (estimated effort). Can you please change it so that the thin black line represents committed hours for that task.
- Better handling of no start/end date, in Allocator, Timeline, Resource Timeline (Assume S/F is same as S|F)
- Text labels pulled from PHP, the same way the other labels on the html side do?

CHANGES TO CLIENTS
- New UI for Client View, Client List, based on style guide
- Added Actions to expanded Client [Breakdown, Timeline, Contacts, Files, Billing, Emails, Delete]

CHANGES TO CALENDAR
- better client/project/resource filters, more useful event planning, resource availability mgmt)
- Overhauled Calendar view, all now drag drop AJAX
- Open any item in Ajax window, click through to edit.
- Event management to come.
- New filters now shown in dash
- New availability overlay is held in calendar, availability wizard switched on in calendar (set all master/tweaked availability for users here)
- iCal Sync This Calendar (based on filtered state) to come
- User can select any other user in their group (unless calendar not shared in profile, must be set in admin)

CHANGES TO FILES
- Tighter UI, now relational to tasks.
- New uploader to allow for upload progress bar (finally!)
- File Versioning Default On in config.php
- Multiple folders, open file to reveal actions/view, folder actions
- Deny Files module hides files tab/section in clients/projects/task screen, Write allows upload of files to tasks
- The General files tab is dropped and we now have a hierarchical structure in the files views across Copper. We have a General Files folder available to anyone with at least Read access to Files

CHANGES TO CONTACTS
- Tighter CRM features, relate to client/event.
-  New UI as per v4.0 Style Guide, with Ajax pulldowns
- Ability to add Events to a contact to come (4.1)
- Ability to add comments to a contact in this view (rather than having to go to the related task) to come (4.1)
- Ability to have Contacts to be related to client or their own company (4.1)

CHANGES TO REPORTS
- Implementation of new UI
- Export to XML, PDF, XLS for any report
- Sorry guys, this was the one area we had big plans for, but will have to wait until next version for major enhancement.

CHANGES TO ADMIN
- Clean up UI components/links.
- Add settings:
- Simple|Advanced Resourcing coming soon (in Task will just have +- format, no resource timeline, no avail.)
- Add IM field to user form
- Made ‘User is a resource’ default to on.
- Add appearance options, options for Header look/feel, Nav, and override logo/bg colour.
- Force https setting, includes email notifications links.

STUFF TO COME:
Highlight items that are unviewed.
Import ACT/LDIF files.
Add Springboard Dash: Filters, and Graph (can choose Saved Reports, then params)
Gantt Timeline: Add auto-shifting tasks checkbox.
Admin: In User view, show last 10 places with date/time stamp, current stopwatch
Calendar: Google Cal integration. Investigate and report on possibilities.
If calendar set to Sunday/Monday show different template (affects mini-cal)

We do apologise for the delay in this release, however we’re hoping to recoup the significant expense and continue improving the web’s best project management software!

Enjoy!

– Ben Prendergast

Hello All!

We are immensely proud to announce that today we are launching the v4.0 beta of Copper Project, which is available for all to see, test, break(!), and enjoy.

We’re in the process of preparing the new website, introductory email, listing of new features, new tour and screenshots, and yes, we’re already planning 4.1, which will contain features that we just couldn’t add this time around.

For now though, I’d like to introduce you all to the next generation of project management.

http://c4.tfgdev.com.au
user: admin
password: admin

While there are still some changes to come over the coming weeks, this will be available for sale in Enterprise edition format only ($2999 or $199/mth hosted) by the end of the week.

Please submit any bugs, issues, along with bullet point list of how to replicate and screenshot (if possible) to info@copperproject.com.

If you would like to purchase an Enterprise license and gain access to this beta, visit http://www.copperproject.com/buy/ and purchase the $2999 Enterprise license.

On behalf of Travis and Myself and the rest of the Element Software crew, we thank you all so much for your patience, as I’m sure you’ll see, it has been worth it!

With the utmost respect and thanks to those that helped,
Ben Prendergast
CEO
Element Software

– Ben Prendergast

Thats right folks, on the rarest of occasions we go hat-in-hand to you the good folk of Copper-land, with the promise of super efficient organization, wrapped in the endearing love of a good software developer. I’m talking about a good old fashioned discount, namely on all of our licenses.

So if you’ve been wondering what kind of joy you could bring to yourself, your business, or your business denizens (staff), look no further than a Copper license and be the envy of all. You’ll not just be installing a world leading project management sofware, you’ll be installing goodwill, cheer, and higher profits in this our winter of economic earnest.

How do you get access to this discount I hear you ask? Easy.

When purchasing a license via http://www.copperproject.com/buy simply enter the coupon code ‘silverly‘ and enjoy 20% off that license, until November 30th 2008. This offer will not be available on the 1st December, nor is it available on subscriptions, otherwise our accountant will have us out on our ear!

Love,
The Element Software discount fairies.

– Ben Prendergast

As we move into the final stages of development, we’re truly excited by the direction version 4 has taken. To date we’ve spent countless hours working over and over (and over!) the specification, starting with some core objectives for the release, working toward mini objectives for each module, then setting a three-page specification in stone, before even taking on a single screen!

As you can see from the screens below, there is still a level of sophistication, however we’re attempting to make Copper as simple as ever for customers. These shots probably don’t do the product justice, we’ll unvieling a usable demo to Enterprise Inner Circle customers soon.

Given the significant expenditure, we’ll be releasing this product as an Enterprise version in December, and depending on traction we’re hoping to roll it out to all customers in 2nd Qtr 2009. Of course if you’d like early access to the product the best option is to purchase or upgrade to an Enterprise license via http://www.copperproject.com/buy/

Shown here is the current iteration of the Springboard, the Files, and Contacts. Not shown here is 90% of the awesomeness just over the coding horizon. Much love from us to all those who continue to support a great product. What else would you like to see?

– Ben Prendergast

Hello all,

We’ve been busy beavers working on this next version of copper, but I can tell you we are now at iteration 8 of our designs. In case you were wondering (and even if you weren’t), that equates to around 22 pages per iteration (including spec and screen designs), and every page is reviewed for around two hours before the next iteration.

So, in total we’ve reviewed 176 discrete designs over 352 hours, and have consumed somewhere in the vicinity of 200 Caffe Latte’s. The current archive of designs in paper form is an inch thick, and the digital design mockup is 17mb. While that sounds like a lot, the result is a design footprint that is actually reducing in size! Which of course means we’re on track to providing you with the quickest, cleanest, most intuitive online project management software ever produced. Big claims, we know. Big clams, too.

Some of the major changes? Highly integrated AJAX elements to keep clicks/page-loads to a minimum, user-preferences on all views, three fantastic new functions for finding/contributing to project information, vastly improved springboard/projects view, gantt timeline, permissions system, file managment, and a positively inspired new reports module and budgeting infrastructure.

And it looks amazing on iPhone too, we have one mockup cut to DHTML already (thanks to newfound godsend designer Jonathan Nicol) and it is _the business_. Onward and upward for us, but I just wanted to shout out and say thanks for your support, and keep flying the Copper flag while we march to the finish line.

– Ben Prendergast

This week we continue with design and development of the next version, and we’ve also started on a minor update for the current version.

However, a few opportunities have come up to simplify the next version by potentially removing features. Well, not so much removing features, rather removing redundancies that exist within the software.

So, we have a few questions that we wanted to throw out there to the customer base so that we can make better decisions about these key changes. We’re really looking for an economy of movement/function in this version.

So here are seven quick questions, you can reply via the comments here, or by emailing info@copperproject.com

1. How does your company use Files? Do you view the files tab in clients? Do you view it in Projects? Do you only upload files that relate to tasks?
2. How does your company use Contacts? Are you using the related contact feature in the task commentary?
3. Would you prefer the Project and Task % complete to be automatically based on hours Estimated vs Logged, or continue as a subjective % estimation on each update?
4. How many resources would you typically have on a task? and what’s your max resources on any task?
5. Do you have a single charge rate, charge rate for each client, charge rate for each role, charge rate for each user, or charge rate for each project?
6. Describe your ultimate report, think laterally, what would you most like to know about your business?
7. In general, what is the most time consuming thing you do with Copper? Don’t solve the problem with ‘it would be nice if’, rather, just tell us in words what you spend the most time doing.

Please shoot through your thoughts via email or by commenting on this post, it all helps. Version 4.0 is shaping up to be an amazing piece of software, we know you’re going to love it. And yes, if you’re keen on contributing or want an amazing discount there are still spots available in the Inner Circle.

Until next week.

– Ben Prendergast