Well, the week has been event-filled with Team Solution Software.  We’ve been using the system here for more than a week now, and our notes are filled with thoughts on both functionality and interface. Mostly interface, though - - let’s move this over there, let’s make this feature a little more prominent on the page, that sort of stuff.  We’ve had a couple of locales, and staffs of up to 10, using it along with us, and the lists have been entered in Mantis, our tracking system for WRTBD (work remaining to be done), with the appropriate tasks sent to the right desks.

We’re going back to programming work now to attack the functionality task list; and, we’re going back to the production desk for the interface adjustments.  If we are diligent and earnest in our work, we should have a public Beta just after Labor Day.  We’ve had a few more companies sign up for public Beta testing, too, so there will be more than two and half dozen companies involved in that process.

We’ve also been mapping out the schemes for an invoicing component to integrate with the time tracking features in TSS, and have decided that will be one of the top additions to the system in its next iteration.  There are some interesting possibilities with a couple of open source invoicing systems we’ve reviewed, as well as the possibility we will  develop one of our own.  One of the partners in the management of TSS is a CPA, after all, so we have a very valuable in-house resource on that score.

Getting closer.

We’ve been using our Team Solution Software account for daily messaging and shared calendar this week, and so far we like what we see.  We’ve entered a few new projects, and assigned tasks, including the continued private beta testing of the system.  We’ve been logging in and logging out each day, using the “Take a Break” and “Lunch Break” features that automatically log a user in and out, and time tracking tasks to completion.  We’ve also been using the shared calendar for appointments all week.

In short, we’ve been using it as though it were already our Team and Project Management system, and it has been performing well.  Our account has nine users, and everyone has taken turns with their own task assignments.  Next week, our programmers will take the list we’ve been developing all week and attack the tasks assigned, and move this system along to public beta in the very near future.

We’re wrapping up a tough week (mostly due to a 90% finished beta) with a rainy friday and a server move.  Early this morning the move from our testing environment to our main server occured, and pre-beta testing will now begin and continue for the next week.  Coming up next is the Clients and Contact section, here’s the first of 3 screenshots:

This will be the top part of a client view page, with related contact notes, files, product and services, billing data and notes.  Below this will be a listing of Projects assigned to this particular client.

The Team Solution Software system has been moved, we’re pleased to say.  We chose PostgreSQL as the most appropriate data base for TSS, and installed that on the permanent server Tuesday.  PostgreSQL is an enterprise class,  powerful, open source relational database system. It has more than 15 years of active development and a proven architecture that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, data integrity, and correctness.  As such, we deemed it the DB of choice for our system.

Following its installation, we moved Team Solution Software from the development platform to the permanent server, and have been verifying file validity since.  While there remains some loose ends on the Clients and Contacts section of the system, all other components are in place.  We’ll resume our testing once we’re certain of file integrity following the move, and will begin on interface modifications next week based upon our initial review and testing reported on earlier.

While technically we remain at Alpha, it’s sort of post-Alpha, pre-private Beta at the moment.  While we had hoped to be at private Beta by August 15, we’re going to miss that internal milestone by probably 10 days, maybe 14, and we’ve actually caused that delay ourselves by adding in some features not part of the original system design.

It’s getting even more exciting now around here.  We’ve a little ways to go, still, but we’re on the steep downside of software development now, and come September, we’ll be out in the sunshine with our public Beta.

We’ve been playing with Team Solution Software this week, passing messages back and forth among our team members, adding appointments and meetings to our shared calendar, uploading and sharing files, documents and images, time tracking our activities, and generally taking the system out for a test drive.  It’s getting excellent mileage, and our testing as been uneventful.

In the development of a web-based management system like Team Solution Software, there’s something of a time disconnect between the interface design and the functionality.  The design comes first, and is, therefore, very virtual - - it’s all in the abstract because the screens are purely images with just a little bit of HTML and simple navigation.  There’s no functionality behind it. At the Alpha stage in software development, the interfaces come alive as they are joined by the functionality.

Thus, review and testing at the Alpha is both of the functionality (programming) and the interface (design).  We’re finding the functionality to be pretty solid so far; the revisions and tweaks we’re making are in the design and the interface.  We’ll be at Private Beta before the week is out, and we’ll be reaching out to those who signed up to play with the system pre-Public Beta in a few days.

It’s an exciting time in our office, and we’re having fun.

It’s a hot Friday afternoon here at the TSS headquarters and work continues on the TSS Alpha. Today the development team needed a mockup of the Calendar Reminder system and we were all too happy to oblige. Once a reminder is set and the date/time passes the user is reminded with an attention grabbing fading popup that allows them to confirm or “snooze” the reminder (ensuring it will pop again before the event date).

Here’s a screenshot of the Calendar Reminder complete with an “alarming” graphic.

The Calendar is done, and development is working with Projects now.  Yesterday we revised the design mockups to integrate the “add project” functionality inline.  I think it came out rather slick, although development needs to make it fly before we pass final judgement.

We’re officially late now as it is August 01, but we’re still pleased with the overall progress and are looking forward to finalizing the Beta for a private go around.

Here’s a shot of the new Add Project interface and some more of the Projects screen.