A brand-new ActiveCollab is finally here! Bigger and better in just about every way possible, with a whole slew of awesome new and enhanced features.
It’s been over a decade since the first version of ActiveCollab came out. What began as a humble two-person venture, soon grew beyond our wildest dreams to become a staple of project management around the world, used by teams and companies of all backgrounds and sizes - from large teams in international corporations to small startups, and everything in between. No matter what professional hurdles our users faced, ActiveCollab helped them to overcome each issue with efficiency so their ventures could flourish.
Since then, the app has gone through many iterations and gotten numerous new features and capabilities. But through all these changes, one thing has always remained the same: our mission - to help YOU make Real Work happen.
In order to decide which additions we should focus on including in New ActiveCollab, we turned to you, our beloved users, to determine the features you were most excited about. New ActiveCollab has been a product of continuous improvement over the past year, and all of the new features and upgrades are the result of long-term iteration, careful planning, and constant communication with our customers.
In true project management fashion, New ActiveCollab is the collaborative creation of dozens of people - designers, developers, marketing, customer care - all of us brought something special and uniquely ours to the mix, both with our skills and our perspectives. Because of this, we can safely say that ActiveCollab is not only the finest, best-looking, most powerful ActiveCollab yet, but also without a doubt - the most personal.
The redesigned look of the app - a fresh, sleek design based on the latest user experience principles - is the first thing that will catch your eye, but there are many significant changes and improvements all across the board. Here's a list of six most substantial ones:
1. Task Dependencies With Automatic Rescheduling
It is with great pleasure that we present to you the biggest and most important - not to mention by far the most requested - feature of New ActiveCollab: Task Dependencies with automatic rescheduling. This is a real game-changer, since it allows ActiveCollab to be used in entirely new ways. With this feature, you can set child tasks to be dependent on parent tasks, which greatly expands the possibilities of project management. This enables you to have a much greater degree of control over your tasks - when and in which order they will be completed.
Thanks to this addition, tasks will no longer be done out of sequence, which solves many issues and eliminates confusion over the exact turn in which they have to be completed. We’ve all experienced times when projects would grind to a halt due to people not being able to proceed with their own work until another segment was done. With Task Dependencies, you will always know when a task is supposed to be completed, and what tasks need to be finished before and after it - in a precise, orderly hierarchy that leaves no room for doubt.
One of the most thrilling things about this new system is that if you move the date of parent tasks, their child tasks will automatically adjust their dates along with them. Task Dependencies also take weekends and days off into account, so you won’t have to waste any time ticking those off manually - New ActiveCollab does it for you.
2. Since Your Last Visit
Sometimes, for one reason or another, days can go by with us not visiting ActiveCollab. All those tasks and projects we are involved in continued to make progress in our absence. Typically, when we return from our time off, we would spend a lot of time just trying to pinpoint everything that happened while we were away. Project Managers would also have to take some time from their usual schedules to make sure we’re caught up with our tasks and understand what’s been done while we were away.
Recognizing this, we implemented the Since Your Last Visit feature, which highlights all the changes that were made to tasks since you visited the app. These new comments are separated by a divider and are colored a delicate pale yellow to make them visually stand out from the old ones.
Because of this, users won’t have to waste time sorting new information from the old, and management can take it easy knowing that their job has been made easier thanks to ActiveCollab.
3. Reactions
Collaboration is all about communication, and with ActiveCollab's Reactions - communicating has never been easier. Often, all you really need to do to get the conversation moving in the right direction is a simple thumbs up. Taking a cue from the fast-paced and to the point communication of social media sites, now, instead of typing out an entire reply, you can use one of our seven reactions. These were specifically selected to encompass the reactions that users get the most out of: thumbs up, smiley face, clapping hands, heart, party popper, thinking face, and thumbs down reactions.
When you hover your cursor over any comment, an icon will appear to indicate that you can select a reaction (or more, if you so choose). Of course, any person that receives a reaction to their comment will immediately get a notification to inform them of this, keeping the channels of communication free and flowing.
4. Live Comments
Another element that eases and enhances communication in our app is the ActiveCollab Live Comments feature. Having more than one user comment at the same time is a common occurrence, and the problem used to be that they would need to refresh the page to see those new comments. This resulted in confusion and extra busywork on the part of the user. Now, all the comments - as well as who is writing them - are visible in real time, which means that users will no longer find themselves talking (or, more accurately - typing) over each other all at once.
5. Improved Attachment Navigation
This useful addition is aimed at cutting down the time spent interacting with attachments. Before, if you had numerous attachments, you would have to go through them one by one - exiting and reentering the attachment navigation window each time. This was an unwieldy and time-consuming activity, and that is why we improved the Attachment Navigation.
Thanks to this change, you can now scroll through all the attachments in a project using the left and right arrow keys, or by clicking on the left and right icon buttons. These attachments are sorted chronologically, with the newest file showing first.
6. A Brand New Look & Feel
Our design team worked tirelessly on ways to fix and improve the design - making dozens of usability refinements which make the app easier to use, resulting in a new look and feel. Because of this, New ActiveCollab is smooth to use and beautiful to look at. Customization options evolved to the next level, with several new themes to choose from and complement your work style preferences.
More than simply a mere visual redesign - this is an evolution of ActiveCollab. A modern, fluid app that’s a joy to behold and a pleasure to use.
Take The New ActiveCollab Out For a Spin
No matter if you are a long-time user, or are completely new to the world of project management, New ActiveCollab is the way to go. With a plethora of brand-new and exciting features, ActiveCollab is now better than ever before, and is so much more than just a Project Management Tool - it’s the gateway to your Real Work.
Let us know what you think about the New ActiveCollab, and if you still haven’t had the chance to see it in action - try out ActiveCollab for a completely free 14-day trial, and experience the power, versatility, and beauty of New ActiveCollab firsthand.
