Posted on

New email features!

After the sudden influx of users (we got over 1200 new users from Mashable alone) it was high time to write some more
features. So here goes:

1. Add tasks via email

When you want to add a task on the go it’s easy to just send an email from your phone.

  1. Go to settings, and check the box “Allow task creation via email”.
  2. Send an email to addtask@a.thymer.com (or simply task@a.thymer.com). You have to use the email address you set in your profile (otherwise we don’t know to which account to add the new task)
  3. A new task is created using the subject line from the email. That’s it.

You can still use tags. So if your subject line of the email is “@jeremy @server Upgrade web server @important @tomorrow” then Jeremy will know he has to upgrade the server, that it’s an urgent task, with a deadline tomorrow. Nifty!

2. Email notifications

But what if Jeremey doesn’t check Thymer every day? It would be even better if Thymer would also email Jeremy. So that’s what this feature is about: email notifications.

It’s really easy. You check the box “Email me at team activity” on the settings page and hit Apply. From then on you’ll be emailed by Thymer whenever a team member comments on a task, completes one or adds a new one.

That’s it. Thanks everybody for trying Thymer and all the detailed feedback!

Posted on

Private Beta

launch

In the past few weeks we’ve ironed out all the major issues in Thymer, and we’ve made a bunch of improvements based on the feedback we’ve received from the first private beta users.

Having ran all out of excuses we’re sending out invites to Thymer to all those who signed up on the splash page. Check your inbox — an invite might be waiting there for you already! We also noticed that a lot of people wanted to show Thymer to friends and colleagues, so this beta round we’re adding 3 extra Beta Keys to every invitation email, so you can give them away to others who want to give Thymer a try.

Haven’t signed up for the Beta yet? No problem — if you sign up today (but only today) we’ll send you an invite right away!

So what’s next?

We have a lot of ideas on how Thymer can still be improved, so new features are always on the way. We make new features available as soon as they’re finished, so you can expect several new features every week. If you subscribe to the blog you can follow the evolution of Thymer first hand — you’ll be the first to read about the changes and additions we make and why we designed them that way.

We’re also working on a subscription model for Thymer. We’ll be blogging about pricing for small teams and business accounts soon. Don’t worry, there will always be a free version too!

Enjoy your Beta account, and if you have any questions or comments, you know where to find us.

Posted on

What are those flags ‘D’, ‘!’, ‘$’ and ‘w’ for?

We’ve received a tremendous amount of feedback in the last couple of days. Lots of questions, bug reports and feature requests. Thanks everybody! In the next couple of days we’re going to highlight a few features of Thymer that have raised some questions.

Today’s topic is about the buttons to the very right of every task that look like this Discuss Flag, Priority Flag, Billable Flag, and Waiting For Flag. This post explains what the buttons do and what they’re good for.

The first thing I should mention is that the flags don’t actually do anything. If you click on a flag it lights up, and it stays lit until you click it again. That’s pretty much it. We think this is a really simple way to quickly add some more details to tasks, without having to click around a lot or fill in additional forms.

The flag discuss Discuss Flag

The discuss flag can be used to indicate to other people in your team that the task should be discussed first. Suppose you see in the task list that Bob is going to design a web page, but you remember that you’ve built something similar a few months back, and you think some of the work can be reused. So you can add a comment to the task with a link to the previous work, and flag the Discuss Flag so Bob knows that there’s something to discuss. Bob can then decide whether to look into it, to ignore it, or to discuss it with you. The point is that by simply clicking on Discuss Flag the person responsible for the task knows there’s something to discuss and can react accordingly.

The flag important Important Flag

The important flag should be pretty self-explanatory. If something is important you don’t want to forget it, and a red box draws your attention to it. Especially if you make the schedule for your week every Sunday night (or Monday morning[1]) you won’t miss anything with a big Important Flag next to it.

The flag billable Billable Flag

The billable flag is to make it easy for people to keep track of their billable hours. You can create reports that only contain billable tasks, so you can be sure your grocery list won’t show up on the bill to your client.

The flag waiting for Waiting For Flag

The waiting-for flag is probably the most important flag: it tells you that you’re waiting for somebody else to take action. Because it’s really easy to lose track of what other people have (or should have) done the visual reminder is really helpful.

Perhaps you’re expecting a letter, an email or a phone call, or waiting for somebody else to finish another task. If you take a minute every week to make a schedule you’ll immediately notice when something is amiss. (The supplies still haven’t arrived? Better pick up the phone before we’re all out!)

Up next

In the next few days we’re going to highlight some more features of Thymer, talk about a few new features and more. So watch this space.

  1. Later, in another post…. how we use Thymer for the weekly review.