Messages is not working

It would also appear quick edit does not work.

Hi iadagraca,

Thanks for reporting these issues.

1. Messages – The button is what’s broken, so we’ll issue a patch for this as soon as possible.
2. Could you provide a step by step? Or at least tell us how many users you add before it disappears?
3. Which box?
4. Thanks!
5. Quick Edit for what? There are multiple areas quick edit options appear.

Thanks again!

https://i59.tinypic.com/hv5cvk.jpg

https://i61.tinypic.com/207t7r8.jpg

here are two images showing the problem with the “New project” box. Simply expanding the description box is enough.

and i mean quick edit for projects.

Ah, I see. Okay, thanks we’ll add this to the bugs list. We’re going to integrate auto-increasing of height to that box as well so you don’t have to drag it larger but, instead, it will increase in height automatically as you type.

Great, i really like this plugin and we’ll be using it a lot over the coming months.

I’ll keep posting any issues i encounter!

Is there any system in place to be notified as to when the “Quick Edit” and “Messages” bugs will be fixed?

I am more than willing to pay for a version of a Project Manager WordPress plugin that is fully functional. Your “Project Manager by TPC” plugin has all of the functionality I need, except with the “Messages” function not working, I don’t see a way to track the specific work done on the project.

I want to be able to look at a project and see the history of work done, and the “Messages” function seems to be the answer. (I realize the “Activity” button shows a general explanation of what has happened on the project, but I need details of what was actually done.)

Note: I really like the tab sorting where completed and pending projects can be viewed. But I am curious as to how you intended the “Publish” button to be used, especially in contrast to the “Pending” button. Can you elaborate?

Of course, my need is immediate for a Project Manager plugin. Please let me know if making a “donation” will allow you to work on this plugin right away.

I have searched for a solution to a web based project manager for many hours, and your plugin is by far the closest solution I have found without incurring monthly fees. If contacting you directly is an option to helping the project move forward, please let me know how to do that.

Thank you very much!

Hi @richest.

– Messages will be fixed in the next couple of days.
– Quick Edit – We don’t have an ETA on this yet. Probably won’t be soon unless you wanted to fund that development. I could get back to you with a quote on that within about 1 day if you do.

That’s encouraging to hear that you’d be happy to contribute financially. That’s *huge* for development. We’re discussing setting prices associated with various features that we’d like to develop so as we get donations you can donate to specific features and see how close we are to reaching the funding goal for that.

– History – So you find Activity inadequate in what sense? Theoretically it’s suppose to show you a timeline of activity including, literally, every task completed. But we don’t use it, ourselves, hardly ever so we’re “all ears” for suggestions!

– Publish should probably be renamed to “Open” or “Currrent” projects. Pending is for projects that are yet to begin (say a custom says “I want to proceed with project ABC” but they haven’t paid you for it. Or maybe a project got delayed for a month.
– Donations towards something specific absolutely allow us to devote time to specific things. Of course, we have to have enough donations to fund whatever the request is. So if you want to request something specific we can publish a donation goal, even if it’s only $50 for an hour or two of development, then once that’s reached we can build it out.

Glad to hear this is meeting your needs!!

Thank you for responding so quickly to my query, especially considering it is a holiday weekend. Very impressive!

Here are my responses to your comments:

1)Glad to hear that the “Messages” function may be fixed within a few days. That will give me that change to further test your plugin.

2)In regards to the “Quick Edit” function, I am not clear on what it is designed to access since it is not currently working. I am presuming that it allows the user access to editing some of the key elements of the “Project”, similar to the WordPress quick edit of Pages and Posts. Since I currently can edit all of the elements of a project by clicking on the project title, the “Quick Edit” function may not be a priority.

3)In regards to the “Activity” function, it does a great job of summarizing what type of activity has happened on the project. What I am hoping the “Messages” function will allow me do to is give detail as to what was done.

For example, “Contacted Sales Rep John Smith, 4/19/14 via telephone. John said he would process our request on Monday 4/21/14 and email confirmation to me.” If the “Messages” function is working, I believe your design of the “Activity” tab does not need to be modified, as it serves a useful function of a quick review of when the latest action has occurred.

4)Thank you for your explanation of how your concept uses the “Published” and “Pending” tabs.

An explanation of what I am trying to track may help clarify what I am looking for. I am a bookkeeper for a large naturals foods store, with hundreds of vendors. Most of our vendors guarantee their products, so when one of our customers returns something, we have to submit a credit request to the vendor.

Within our store, the credit requests are submitted by our receiving manager and several department managers. We also have credit requests due to product damaged in shipping to us. Our receiving manager requests credit on these damages.

I then manually track all of their requests, since the credit memos created by our vendors come to me to process. Any old credit requests have to go back to the manager who initially requested the credit. Right now, this is all done on paper, with paper forms and endless headaches.

Within your plugin, I want to treat each credit request as a project. Often times, we have to follow up on a credit request, as most of our vendors are not very good at promptly responding to our requests. If we did not track the credit requests, we would be losing lots of money in credits which never came through.

Being able to see at a glance all outstanding credit requests and what action has already been taken on each will greatly enhance our ability to process all of the credits needed, with the necessary follow up contact.

So, moving forward, if the “Messages” function is fixed, that will give me the ability to fully test the plugin. Other requests, in their order of priority, would include:

1)Ability to attach a file (PDF for example) to each project, such as a document listing what products on the specific project we need credit for. Our managers often fill out a form when they are on the floor or in receiving, then contact the vendor via email or phone relaying the information from the form. I could scan the form into a PDF and attach it to each request.

2)Ability to add something like a “Category” to each project, with the purpose of reviewing projects by “Category”. I would use this by putting each Vendor in as a separate “Category”, so I could look at all of the outstanding credit requests from a specific vendor.

3)Ability to change the “Tab” descriptions, and the associated quick action links within the project listing from an admin page, giving “Tabs” within the overview as such as: “Contact”, “Pending”, “Completed”, “Archived” and “Trash”. This would be a useful feature for anyone using your plugin, as the tabs could be customized to suite their business.

These requests seem straight forward to me and would greatly enhance your plugin. Can you quote me a price for each of the 3 requests listed above and well as a time frame for how soon you would be able to work on the requests once payment is received?

Looking forward to a great plugin to facilitate our needs!

Hey Rich,

Our pleasure. Technically our support hours are M-F 9-4 PDT but it’s not uncommon we respond outside those times.

Thanks for explaining how you operate. I have a few thoughts to share:

1. CRM – The functionality you’re describing is commonly found in CRM (custom relationship management) tools. We hear is referred to as “Actions” most commonly. An Action would be “Email” or “Phone Call”. It’s something we do all the time in fact and have plans to, more fully, integrate a CRM Plugin in a number of ways.

Currently, though, we use PauPress CRM. Though it’s not likely to be the CRM we integrate with because they have integrated the beginning of a contact form and even ecommerce system. Which is way beyond what we feel a CRM tool should be.

HOWEVER, their lead developer is a good friend of ours now. And they provide phenominal support and feedback. And the application is extremely powerful. We provided them our feedback to some things we felt were confusing or could be design (UI/UX) better and they were extremely responsive and mostly receptive. They shared with us details about a major overhaul in future releases that might keep us on board with them but for the moment we’re undecided.

On the other hand, we used to use WP CRM and had a great experience and no real problems with it. However, it wasn’t capable of advanced searches like “IF the User is a Potential Customer AND the User hasn’t been contacted in the last week THEN don’t show them.” – and when we tried to submit patches they didn’t have a public repo for the open source code and their support was extremely unresponsive (though friendly and polite when they did).

It’s most likely that we’ll fork WP-CRM so if you want to check that out I think it will be of benefit to you.

2. Quick Edit – This hasn’t really been scoped out or developed at all. But yes; it will probably allow you to edit the Title, Description, Contributors and Category/Tags (not currently introduced but will be very soon so they can be used for filtering).

3. Messages – All the Messages section is is just a thread, like a forum post or an email thread. There’s not, currently, anything special about it so I don’y think that would be an efficient way for you to manage your order process. You definitely need some sort of specialized application (probably more the CRM arena than project management but we could probably fit it in).

– However you CAN attach a PDF.
– We CAN extend Projects to use Categories and Filtering – probably 3-10 hours of time – I’ll get a more accurate estimate later.
– We can definitely introduce more Statuses (those tabs you mentioned: Published, Pending, etc…) – also 3-10 hours and I can get a more accurate estimate

We could begin work within a couple of days from payment. Please visit our website and send a message to us through the contact form with your email address and phone and I (Spencer) can give you a call on Monday to discuss.

I looked at some the CRM options you spoke of, and on the surface, it looks like there are numerous options that I would not use, seemingly give the CRM’s a steep learning curve. I will test WP-CRM, but I am not sure how long it will take to figure out how to use it.

Right now, I want to test your plugin with the “Messages” function working, so I can get a better picture of what the capabilities and limitations are.

I think you are saying the within the “Messages” function, a file can be attached. If so, that particular “Wish List” item would be covered.

I definitely want the Category feature added, so I will leave my contact information through your website.

Can you tell me how I can find out when the “Messages” function will be fixed? Do I just keep checking the status of the plugin within my WordPress dashboard for a notification that an update is available, or is there any other process (email notification) that is available?

Thank you Spencer for taking the time to help me with my questions.

As a follow-up to the CRM options, it looks like CRM will track all contact with a specific customer, but I didn’t see within each customer, how to create new “threads” that can be tracked as in process or completed.

That is why I think your “Project Manager” plugin will work well for us.

Thanks!

@richest could you send us an email to [email protected]? We wanted to discuss your requests a bit more.

@everyone! We’re just about to release the newest version today with tons of improvements.

And we’ve started development on the time tracker that will integrate with WP Invoice!

I utilized your contact form on your website, https://www.theportlandcompany.com/, last Sunday evening (4/20/14).

This is the “Contact” tab that shows up at the bottom of your web pages.

I assumed you got delayed in getting back with me.

Did you get the contact request from last Sunday evening?

Thanks

Hey Rich, looks like it got buried somehow! We found it and replied. Thanks!

This issue is now fixed in 1.0.2 which was released on Friday.