There’s been some discussion, too, about altering our pricing plans, at least for that Public BETA, and at least for the first 50 accounts opened.  Our intention is to make the pricing so attractive that it makes the sign-up a very easy decision to make for an SMB.

Team Solution Software is the ultimate CRM solution for any small business needing to: Allow team members to easily and securely communicate with each other, access and share all client information, store and share files, manage appointments and events on a shared calendar, and in all ways work within a Team-Oriented Environment. It’s one of the most powerful web-based business management tools available today, affordably priced for the small business market.

News, now, will be weekly, until the Public BETA is ready for market.

The latter is something about which we know a great deal. We’re a mixed staff of in-house and telecommuting staff, and have been for years. Team Solution Software was designed and inteded specifically for small companies like ours as a means of keeping everyone, no matter where, on the same page all the time. All that is needed for that is a computer and an Internet connection, and otherwise, we can work together from anywhere.

Many companies have downsized or are about to, and TSS, when released in commercial version, will enable those companies to stay together.  The rise in telecommuting positions, and the number of web sites devoted to the telecommuter (like http://telesaur.com), tells us there is a growing market for SaaS models just like TSS.

We’re getting close, and we continue to use TSS daily in our business. Check back for the next progress report, and before the summer is out, you’ll find Team Solutions Software ready for business.

Wikipedia.org is a free online encyclopedia, and the world’s most popular Wiki. All of the content on Wikipedia.org is submitted, maintained, and checked for accuracy by the global internet community. I decided to research a personal Wiki using Wikipedia, I first came across the Wiki software page which then led me to the List of wiki software page.

I decided on using a PHP based Wiki solution, and found TigerWiki on the List of wiki software page. The time between the initial download, installation and customization of TigerWiki was less than 25 minutes. I was floored at how easy it was to get it up and running. Although the english documentation for TigerWiki wasn’t that great, it proved to be extremely easy to use.

The customization of TigerWiki was the easiest I have ever seen. TigerWiki uses variables encapsulated with an open squiggly bracket “{” and a closing squiggly bracket “}”. Taking the variables from the existing TigerWiki template and putting them into a new TSS template took no more than 2 minutes.

Pre-Customization This is TigerWiki prior to customization, I had added some test content just to see what it looked like.

Post-Customization This is TigerWiki two minutes after adding the test content. Fully customized with the TSS theme.

Feel free to check out the Wiki, we’re adding lots of new content so keep checking back.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We’ve had some new companies sign up as beta testers, this time all in the States, including a medium sized business in Boston.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed that account will require a personal consultation, preferably when the Red Sox are playing at Fenway Park.  Hey, I wonder what the Home Town Team uses for their CRM needs, now that I think of it.

The main difference between the two will be the tracking of and accountability for resolution of citizen compaints. Let’s say a complaint about a pothole in the road, or a broken street light, or a drainage issue on a clogged catch basin, comes into the Town Manager’s office, either by phone or by letter. The phone call would be logged into TSS, or the letter would be scanned and uploaded to TSS’s shared document storage feature, and the Town Manager’s office assigns the Task to the appropriate Department Head, along with the phone call log or the scanned document. The system would begin monitoring that Task, the Department Head would record the action steps taken to resolve the complaint, including the Department Staff Member to whom that resolution task was assigned. The Staff Member does his thing, enters the steps taken in the Task Manager, and passes it back up to his or her Department Head. The Department Head, in turn, passes it back to the Town Manager’s Office, reports it as completed, and the record is archived (as opposed to purged).

Each TSS account will have an Administrative Control Panel, overseen in the municipal version, most likely, by the Town Manager. Permission levels can be assigned throughout the list of users of the account in the form of Read Only, Read and Write, and Delete. This would ensure that as a Task was passed down the chain of command, each level on the way down would have ever more restrictive permissions. A Staff Member, for instance, would be able to read a task passed down, but perhaps not be permitted to Edit (Write Permission) it, and could only pass it back up the chain without having the ability to Delete it. These System Protections would enhance accountability for Task Completions, and make Process Auditing that much easier for municipalities.

This is only one aspect of the TSS system for municipalities, and the commercial version will have a similar but slightly different Task Management Flow, equally effective for the private sector. Screen shots will come as each component of the system is completed, so check back in the near future as we start adding those shots to the Tour section of the web site.

We also posted the site on Blue Dot, and “dotted” it. This site is a network allowing users to find, share and send web content to family and friends, and is led by experienced developers from the Seattle, WA area. It’s been mentioned on Tech Crunch, CNET and other important industry blogs, and is just about one year old. We “dotted” it yesterday morning, and noticed in this morning’s traffic stats that visitors found us through it.

We’re continuing to reach out through networking sites, and with each step taken, traffic has resulted. We’re not surprised – - we just want to share all of our results with you as we move toward the beta release later this month, and eventually V1.0 in August.