Alright, who are we kidding — we went into stealth mode months ago and there is a very good reason for that. The Giggle blog posts, newsletters, etc have slowed to a crawl (our last one was in November … I believe) and I’m betting many of you are chomping at the bit to know what we’ve been up to. The good news is that you won’t have to wait too much longer!
The GigBooks development team has been working tirelessly to bring you the new version of GigBooks called “Refreshed”. We won’t lie … it has been a challenge every step of the way. First, we had to decide how best to proceed in developing GigBooks and there were many difficult decisions to be made. At the beginning of 2009, we were no longer happy with our development partner and therefore brought everything in house in order to have complete control over how GigBooks was being developed.
The next major initiative related to the existing code base which was not where we wanted it to be. We had to decide whether to begin gradually rewriting GigBooks one module at a time in order to finally have an application that was as nimble and maintainable as it should have been in the first place OR scrap the entire thing (including all the time and money we spent over a year and half) in favor of starting over. As with any important decision, both options had significant pros and cons that were weighed carefully.
At this point we had established an internal development team at our headquarters in Erie, PA and ultimately decided to begin the process of rewriting from the ground up. This decision afforded us several awesome advantages:
We free ourselves entirely from the limitations of a code base that wasn’t properly designed in the first place so that we can be as innovative and creative as those of you that use GigBooks on a day to day basis.
The focus of the rewrite would be placed on usability and user experience — the things our members were telling us they wanted to see changed the most. We could do anything we want in order to make GigBooks the most intuitive business management tool for creative and service based businesses.
Once released, we can continue to quickly and regularly release new features and functionality aimed squarely at streamlining the things you do on a day to day basis.
Peace of mind that GigBooks can continue growing and enhancing the application that many have come to rely on to run their businesses.
And so we set out on a mission to begin anew and I am happy to say development is moving along superbly! We will gradually begin releasing GigBooks Refreshed in the next couple months. We are currently working on a plan for launching the new application that includes a transition period where current members will be migrated over to the new platform. More information will be shared as we finalize the details.
Here is what you can expect at the launch of GigBooks Refreshed:
A greatly improved user interface/experience based on direct feedback from all of you over the last year and a half. We have brought on a talented group of web application designers and I am certain you will be pleased with the results!
The #1 request by members and prospective members alike has been related to the GigBooks calendar. We heard you loud and clear. For photographers, GigBooks Refreshed will launch as the only studio management application to provide native support for true bidirectional, web based synchronization with your external calendars such as iCal, iPhone, Google Calendar, Outlook, etc. Lots of other great Calendar related functionality will be available as well!
Restructured modules that are designed to be simpler and more intuitive. For example, Leads, Contacts and Clients from the original system have been merged into a single module tentatively called Relationships and the functionality has been expanded to allow for management of Vendors, Employees, Subcontractors, Partners and any other type of relationship you might establish with a person or organization in the course of running your business.
The Pricelists area of GigBooks is being completely reworked and rethought so as to allow for quick and easy setup of products/services/credits, packages and the pricing of each of those items.
Invoicing is being augmented with a brand new Estimates feature that will tie into Agreement generation and brings the entire process of quoting, contracting and billing clients full circle.
Favorite features such as electronic signatures through EchoSign still exist and are also being enhanced with new functionality.
Ultimately, Jobs/Projects (whatever you want to call them) will utilize a new workflow engine.
Mass emails will become a reality.
New integrations with other innovative software companies will be possible.
We are extremely excited about the future of GigBooks and are in a better position to serve your business management needs than ever before. Continue watching your email and the Giggle blog for more details!
The new GigBooks calendar is almost ready for primetime! Not only will the new calendar sport a super sweet, clean interface — it also provides the latest and greatest in member requested functionality. You can have multiple, color coded calendars, share calendars with other GigBooks members, sync your non-GigBooks calendar software with your GigBooks calendars via ICS feeds and even import your non-GigBooks calendars into GigBooks via ICS feeds. All this and much more is coming this month!!
To get a taste of the ICS feed capabilities, check out the fully synchronized iCal calendar below:
iCal synched w/GigBooks
Mobile devices can sync with the GigBooks calendar too! Check out the iPhone screenshot below:
We will be performing maintenance on our servers this Saturday, July 11th between the hours of 10P and 12A EST. There may be a 15 minute period where the GigBooks site and application is unavailable. We appreciate your patience during this scheduled downtime. Thanks and have a great weekend!
It is with great pleasure that GigBooks welcomes Jamie Weiss of Jamie Weiss Photography as our newest staff member. It is likely most of you will eventually have the wonderful experience of dealing with Jamie during the course of your relationship with GigBooks as she is taking on the role of Member Services Consultant for Photographers. Feel free to say high to Jamie by emailing her @ jamieweiss at gigbooks dot com (sorry for the cryptic address, but we’re trying to preserve her inbox from the inevitable SPAM associated with posting an email address on the internet).
Jamie Relaxing in the Sun:-)
Jamie Doing What She Does Best
Jamie comes to us with years of experience as a photographer and also as a GigBooks member. In fact, it was Jamie’s love of the GigBooks application and desire to get involved beyond her own use of GigBooks that resulted in her becoming a member of the team. On a not so distant trip to the Knoxville PUG, where she is the PUG leader, Jamie offered to take on a position with GigBooks and utilize her marketing background to help us continue to grow the GigBooks family. Alas, her offer was too good to refuse and we flew her into Erie, PA the first week of June for training.
We know Jamie will be a huge asset for GigBooks and look forward to her involvement in growing GigBooks to help photographers manage and build their own businesses!
We are working on on adding a brand new calendar to the GigBooks application and thought our very patient, loyal members might like to see what it is going to look like. That’s what this post is all about!
The new calendar will allow each GigBooks member to have as many calendars as they like and they will be color coded to make it easy to see what each appointment is all about. GigBooks members will also be able to share their calendars with other GigBooks members (both within their own account and with other members they don’t share an account with). In addition, the calendar will allow for the use of Internet of ICS Calendar Feeds — meaning members will be able to pull their non-GigBooks calendars into GigBooks and see their GigBooks calendars in popular calendar applications such as iCal, Outlook, Google Calendar, etc!! These features have been a long time coming, but we know you’re going to appreciate the hard work we have put into them.
Just a quick note that the EchoSign service will be unavailable on April 18th between 7PM and 7:30PM (EST). This is due to a scheduled maintenance period so EchoSign can upgrade their storage servers.
It has been a lot of work (notably because of one particular merchant processor and a very complicated integration), but we are excited to introduce the new GigBooks Integrated Payment Processing features! Many of you have been waiting for this to rollout and as of today it is here. You may now configure GigBooks to process live credit card payments via your own merchant account. We currently support QuickBooks Merchant Service, Authorize.net and PayPal Website Payments Pro accounts.
Setting GigBooks up to process your credit card payments is simple. First, navigate to the Setup tab and locate the Payment section under Administration Setup. Next, choose the type of merchant account you would like to link to GigBooks and follow the instructions for completing the integration. In the case of QuickBooks Merchant Service you will need to click a link and login to your QuickBooks Merchant Service account and provide authorization for GigBooks to process transactions on your behalf. Both Authorize.net and PayPal Website Payments Pro will require you to enter some details related to your account with them into GigBooks so we can process transactions on your behalf. We have provided a few screenshots below:
Once you have successfully configured your merchant account to process transactions within GigBooks — all that is left is to begin processing them! Simply go to the Receive Payments page and complete the form along with providing your Client’s credit card details and you’re finished.
You may also notice we have enhanced the Payments form and made it even eaiser to apply payments to your Invoices. You will now find an Enter Payment button below any list of Invoices in GigBooks. Simply check the box next to the Invoice(s) you would like to enter a payment for and click the Enter Payment button to begin creating the payment. It’s that easy.
Don’t forget to check out these other exciting features too!
Search as you Type (instead of )
You can now Search as you Type in many fields throughout GigBooks. Instead of having to use the Magnifying Glass icon you can begin typing the name of the Lead, Contact, Client, Event or other supported record type into the field and a list will begin to populate directly below the field. Choose the name you are looking for and it will be added to the form. This decreases the number of steps required to locate and associate records with a form in GigBooks and will save you lots of time! When searching for a person in GigBooks you can search for either the first or last name. Please let us know how you like this new feature and we may extend it to other areas of the application.
The Plus Icon
We have also launched the Plus Icon throughout GigBooks. Wherever you see the Plus Icon you can click it and immediately enter a new record for that field in a popup window. We have activated the Plus Icon for drop down menus such as Event Type, Lead Source, etc and also for Clients & Contacts where applicable. For most of you, this means that as you’re entering a new Lead or Event into GigBooks and come to the Lead Source field and find that the option you need isn’t setup in the system yet — you can immediately add it by clicking the Plus Icon. This saves you from having to leave the form you already entered information on in order to navigate Setup to add the Lead Source (or any other record type supported by the Plus Icon). We think you’ll find the Plus Icon to be very useful and would love your feedback!
You voted and we’re listening. The results of the first ever GigBooks New Feature Poll were loud and clear! As soon as we release the new Estimates, Invoicing & Payment system (it has turned out even better than we had planned and is well worth the delay — you’ll see!) — we will begin work on the Calendar & Task Synchronization system (57% of votes) which will allow you to sync your GigBooks calendar and tasks with popular calendar applications such as iCal, Outlook and Google Calendar. Following Calendar & Task Synchronization, we will launch Mass Emails, Workflow Automation and the Client Portal as per your votes!
You can expect these exciting new features to launch as they are completed in the coming 2 – 6 weeks barring any development snafus. Your feedback is extremely important to us so please continue lettings us know how we’re doing and what you would like to see added to GigBooks!
Today has been crazy! Our office building is brand new which means we are having an open house! Business people from all over Pennsylvania have been through our offices and news crews were all over the building. A segment for WSEE (CBS) was filmed in Justin and Amanda’s office this morning.
GigBooks, Giggle | Justin Kifer | 
February 9, 2010 4:18 PM | 
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