Finally it's time for another monthly update. Well, with a little delay.
Those of you who are getting the fancy e-mails might remember I wrote we had a slight setback due to one of the main characters in the developer team leaving to pursue his own dreams (and nobody can blame him for that).
But it doesn't mean we have been sitting on our asses, nor that the whole concept is now destroyed. People leave, other people come. This is why for bigger projects it is better if you put your faith in a company and not a freelance programmer (hm, which could be projected to the translation industry too... anyway).
So, here are some GAMMA (not even Beta) previews of what can be expected - approximately. There are still changes to come, so take this lightly, please.
Let's start with the menu:
You might notice that the menu is not filled in completely. It's because this is just a placeholder. It was created so that you can get the general idea on the "look-and-feel" of it.
You have the "Favorites" menu on the top - which can be editable, and does what it name says: You can put your favourite menu points there. The ones that you use the most. We're also thinking of creating a different type of "Favorites" shortcuts, once we decide about it I will let you know.
The rest of the menu is pretty straight forward. Projects, Clients, Vendors, Reports, Finances... all the usual suspects.
Projects menu: we are still contemplating whether to create a list of open (big) projects here, so that you can have a quicker overview, and can add components much faster. Remember that our setup is that NOT everything is a project. Projects, in our case, are these big packages of long-ish tasks, and what other TMS systems like to call projects, we call components.
Why is this good for you? Well, if you get more similar projects from the same team each month (say, 15-20 tasks for a same end client, etc) then it makes a lot of sense not to enter ALL the data all the time. Our "grouping" is doing exactly that. Watch the following project entry video to see what I am talking about.
Some basic explanations:
- TLC - this will probably be renamed to LSP, it's the company that sends you the work
- End Client - pretty obvious, right? If your client is actually an End Client you can leave the LSP (TLC) field empty
- Component Root - this is the first "grouping" that we like to use. In some cases, if it's a huge project you can put the "sub-project" name in it (for example, LG Monitors), or like in this example below, we're using the actual "task grouping" system, putting all "Reviews" under one "umbrella". All this will play a major role when we get to the part where we create complex, super-cool reports.
- Ignore the "end date" fields, those won't be there in the end product (they will just show when something was set to finished)
Let's see it all in action:
Remember, if you are only adding a new component for an existing project, the thing will be much faster. Which was our goal from the first place.
Have you noticed the three buttons on the right side of the "Component Client Volumes" screen? Those represent Workflow steps. In this case, Translation - Editing - Review. You can of course create your own workflows and pick them up for each component you create, and then also decide which steps to show or not (or show them all). It's particularly useful when you are working with bigger projects with a lot of workflow steps. They will be shown as a separate group of vendors in the particular component screen.
Finally, here's the project list, where you can mark your tasks complete - in which case once we get to that point - they will be removed from this list. Right now it only shows the basic functionality of the button. Don't worry, when we start using it it will work.
Okay. So this is what we have been working on. Actually, we are still work on it, so you might expect something different when the actual thing goes live.
I know this might seem a little messy - it's because it's just a very basic setup for the purpose of getting a general idea. Once we go live and we start entering the projects normally, it will all get back to its appropriate place.
All I ask is a little bit more patience. Originally, we were aiming for middle of April, end April to have a working system (basic data + project entry), but due to the setback that I talked about at the beginning of this post, we had to reschedule. So all will be moved for one month (end of May), with my great desire to actually have it by mid May.
Which is almost here. Seconds away...
Thanks for reading, and as always, if you have questions, drop me a mail or write it in the comments below.
Cheers for now, see you in a month.
Oh, if you want to check the previous posts on our progress, click this link.
And if you want to join the Early Adopters Club, now is the best time to do so.
