Ok, if you read these things of mine, you know I tend to take a sarcastic tone with things, pulling in randomness that may seem outlandish at time…not this time.
I’m all business now. Why? Well, around early September last year we put together a few key initiatives in the Product department that I’d like to share. I’ll keep it brief and try to limit the tech speak as much as possible.
Stabilization Initiative
This one was bred from a big spike in usage, in an environment that began to buckle under the increased load. This initiative tackled these key areas:
- Update all servers in every “production” environment.
- Every production environment is made up of 4 individual servers, all performing isolated tasks…a la “divide and conquer”
- Reduce page load time, on average, from ~+5 sec, to < ~2 sec.
- Zero what we call, “blocker”, bugs in PlanPlus Online.
Mobile
We knew our existing mobile offering was out of date. We re-tooled the UI to bring it up to snuff with a more modern look and feel, and also folded more of the web-based functionality into the mobile environment.
There were some +’s and -‘s with this effort, however one issue we are currently working to address is some sporadic latency while using the mobile app. We are fully aware that certain tasks can take a long time to complete, and we are working on cleaning that up ASAP.
Updated Outlook Integration
Our Outlook Connector (OLC) solution was developed a few years ago, and as such did not support newer versions of Outlook. I’m happy to say that we have recently finished OLC-3.0 which supports all versions up to 2013, as well as Outlook installations operating in an Exchange.
A key new feature with 3.0 is the ability to pull attached files from emails, and attach those files to the note in PlanPlus Online. Very slick.
Through these initiatives PlanPlus has made enormous leaps forward in form and functionality. We’re not stopping. Product@PlanPlus has a goal to get PlanPlus Online to a point of fluid usability for all our users whether only using the Calendar and Task List, or planning Projects and managing Opportunities.
More than anything we want to begin engaging with our users. More than simply the “what”, we are interested in the “how”. How do you use PlanPlus Online? How can we make the interface an intuitive landscape where planning your day, your activities and organization is a digital bliss.
Expect more communication from our department, and me especially, in the coming weeks and months. What’s more, I urge you to reach out to us for updates on what we have in R&D, and in active development. You can email, or check out our site atproduct.planplusonline.com.
Along those lines, we recently published a 5 question survey. It should take you less than 60 seconds to complete if you have a minute to give us some feedback.
Best,
Brian Garstka
Director of Product Management
