Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:
Highrise
A collection of Highrise tips and tricks
A list of tips to help you be more productive in Highrise.
Highrise now has custom fields!
For example, you can add a custom field called “Referred by” to keep track of who referred a customer to you. Or “Spouse’s name” so you’ll never forget the name of the husband or wife of one of your contacts. Or maybe a field called “University” to keep track of which college someone went to. Or maybe you just want to keep track of a “Customer ID”. Custom fields make it all possible.
New in Highrise: Infinite scrolling
Browsing activity about your Highrise Contacts, Cases and Deals is now much faster and more fun. You can just scroll through activity streams to see everything—no need to click ‘next page’. When you reach the end of the page, Highrise automatically loads any additional items.
Lead Trainer at 435 Digital uses Highrise to keep track of class registrations
“I need to keep track of the emails I get from all over, with questions about dates and prices and the like…Highrise has been great for helping me stay organized and now, as we grow our staff, my colleagues as well.”
London web agency: “Highrise Deals are great for building up a picture of cash flow for the coming months”
“Tags may be something you see all over the web, but don’t underestimate their power in the context of a CRM. Make sure you get all users to conform to the same tagging system, this means that when you need to find an expert in SEO or a list of your previous clients, you’ll be able to get them in the click of a button.”
PCTechTalk.com takes a detailed look at Highrise
“If you’ve ever thought that you’d like a better solution for managing your customer info, definitely give Highrise a try.”
Basecamp
More control over to-do permissions in Basecamp
“Now, if you restrict somebody’s permission to only ‘Messages & Files’, they will no longer be able to check off to-do items. You will have to give people ‘plus To-dos’ access in order to allow them to check off items. By default, anyone you invite has full access (messages and files, to-dos and milestones). It’s up to you if you’d like to restrict their permission after they are invited.”
New in Basecamp: Share files with your Free plan
By popular demand we’ve added 10 MB of file storage to every Free Basecamp account! Now you can share files, documents, images, and designs with your clients or team.
New in Basecamp: Faster time entry
Before this change, entering time in Basecamp projects required navigating three pull-down menus to select the month, day and year. It was slow and required too many clicks. Those pull-downs are now replaced by a single field that shows the full date in plain text. Clicking the field pops up a small calendar—choose the day with just a click.
How a UK-based web design firm uses git for version control and hooks it up to Basecamp for time tracking
“Tracking todos in Basecamp is easy (especially with the new mobile webapp), but when it comes to logging time against an item, you have to save and commit your work, then log the time, then move onto the next thing. This might not seem like much, but the fewer steps you need to take to achieve something, the more likely you are to adopt it as a habit and make it work. We integrated our git hook with Basecamp’s todos using their API, taking our machine code and logging it as time spent on Basecamp.”
A tutorial on using Basecamp to manage IT or software development projects
Abhishek Desai wrote up a basic tutorial on how to do project management using Basecamp, especially in an IT or software development company.
Add a Basecamp login box to your own site
A customer asks: “Can I add a Basecamp login box to my own website?” Answer: Yes.
Google Chrome plugin brings autosave to Basecamp
Autosave for Basecamp is a Google Chrome plugin created by digital-telepathy that saves your progress when writing posts in Basecamp in case something unexpected happens.
How Erskine Design uses Basecamp’s To-Do lists to create “The Project Backlog”
“We create a to-do list in Basecamp called the Project Backlog: this is where we write everything down that needs to be remembered and isn’t actionable by a specific person in the near future (more on what to do in that case soon).”
Cruise company: “All projects, meetings and ideas are now discussed in Basecamp”
“The secret to getting Basecamp to work in large organizations is to start small. As time goes by, the value becomes very clear.” As online sales increase, the management is becoming more interested in our web activities. We have created accounts for each of the management and they can now view exactly where their budgets are being spent!”
Peak brings Basecamp to BlackBerry
Peak is a third-party tool that brings Basecamp to the BlackBerry.
Nomad brings Basecamp to the BlackBerry PlayBook
“Optimized for the PlayBook, Nomad provides easy access to all your Basecamp projects in a simple native application.” You can access one project for free or use the Pro Version (unlimited access) for $9.99.
Backpack
Eldercare companies improve efficiency with 37signals tools
“My tip for other customers: For teams who aren’t used to using collaborative tools it can be a challenge to switch the mindset and get less email-dependent. Over time, though, people will see the benefits and develop new habits. Do a little demo for everyone and explain how the tools will make life easier. One of the great things about these tools is that they are pretty intuitive, so you don’t need any major training and the learning curve is minimal, but it helps to explain what the purpose and benefits are.”
Bringing Aristotle and Stephen King together at a Backpack page
Fun idea for a Backpack page: a collection of your favorite quotations. You can even make it public and share it with the whole world.
Campfire
Hubot, GitHub’s valiant Campfire bot, expands his capabilities
“Hubot, our valiant Campfire bot, has continued to grow in complexity. A tiny list of his (current) capabilities: unlock the door to our office, print out a list of the people currently in the office based on their wifi presence, find an apartment in the area to rent, etc.
Multiple products
Paying in advance
If you’d prefer to simplify your billing, you can pay for 37signals products in one lump sum. We’ll then pull from that credit instead of charging your card every month. We’ll email you when your balance runs low so you can recharge it.
Books
How Getting Real and REWORK helped Sketch Lab creator build a web app
“When I got to the part about “scratching your own itch”, I thought about how I was looking for a user interface sketching tool for a while. I knew about a few, like Balsamiq Mockups, but they were all too complicated, and sketches are supposed to be simple, so you need a simple app to allow you to focus on the big picture and ignore the details. I decided I would create my own UI sketching tool using Getting Real’s approach.”
How Droplist’s creator made his best-selling app using REWORK ideas
Droplist is a simple to-do list App which Andrew McKinney released a couple of weeks ago. Since then, it has taken off and become one of the top selling to-do list apps and is ranked in the top 25-50 in the Productivity category. Here, McKinney explains how 37signals ideas helped him create the product.
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