There is a fine line between providing enough functionality to be useful, and adding so much that whatever you’re working on becomes unwieldy and difficult to use. So when one of our festivals asked for some “project management” to be added, we had to really work to produce something simple. There’s a million different project management solutions out there already and we’re not looking to make anything different or special. In fact, calling it “project management” software is kind of stretching the truth, when what we’ve actually built is a To-do system (we can’t call it tasks because of our new, and quite different, Bespoke Task system).

The To-do system is a simple checklist with a few added features. Instantly accessible from anywhere within the site, it’s for when you spot something that needs work but you don’t have the time to sort it now, or to write those things that might get overlooked if they’re not written down. It can:

• set due dates and priorities
• set the task for multiple people, automatically send them emails about the task and send you an email when it’s complete
• set reminder emails to go out at specified times
• write and send notes between users for specific tasks

It doesn’t do time-lines, resource allocation or gantt charts; for this sort of functionality you’ll need a big project management program (to work in conjunction with the festival system, naturally!). What we do provide is the means to remember stuff, to send small jobs to other team members and to collaborate on bigger jobs, all with the intention of keeping you on top of your event.

There’s a video below showing you the To-do system in action. I’m afraid that there’s no explanatory dialogue to go with it, it’s late and we need to get started with the next bit of development tomorrow. But it should show you enough so that you too can see how useful it will become…

It doesn’t really matter how sophisticated the system gets, we know that we will never be able to cater for every demand from every festival. We can, however, design our software with the flexibility to deal with most requirements. The addition of our Bespoke Tasks functionality will make most demands possible.

Bespoke Tasks are user-defined functions that we can embed into the framework of the system, track their progress and, ultimately, make the system fit your way of working. For instance, you may want to check that each performer has provided a MySpace link. Creating the task, selecting which part of the site it appears and then ensuring that no performer is overlooked is a straightforward and painless process.

You can see how it works by watching this quick video:

The addition of Bespoke Tasks provides a more comprehensive working environment and, in conjunction with our new To-do function, we can now offer greater flexibility and better tracking of what needs to be done.

As mentioned in passing earlier, we’ve just moved everything over to new hardware, still provided by the outstanding guys at media temple, but now with a little more oomph under the bonnet. In the process we had to upgrade the code to play nicely in its new home, so thought it worthwhile to look at some critical areas at the same time. The new language module meant we had to go over everything line-by-line anyway, so it was as good a time as any to do a little spring cleaning. And, with new hardware and a new service domain, we could to pull things apart and glue ‘em back together without affecting anyone else.

Here’s a list of what we’ve done in the past few weeks…

• restructured the navigation to resolve some historical UX stuff that’s needed sorting for ages
• improved the process for managing accommodation rooms, to provide the  ability to mass change/delete, plus a one-step process for the creation of a “place” with multiple rooms
• introduced the ability to schedule sound-checks for performers
• added additional layers of security – can’t have too many!
• rebuilt the currency handling
• rewrote the system for handling the automatic emails the system sends, both with an eye towards enabling different languages and to allow each festival to tailor them for their event
• completely rewrote the way that fees are managed by the database so now festivals can book an artist to perform more than once and have a separate fee for each performance. (Alternatively, the previous option is still available – where there’s one fee for each artist, no matter how many performances they are scheduled to do)
• changed how deposits (due to performers) are managed, enabling multiple deposits for a single performer and automatic notification of relevant staff when deposits become due
• provided control over the graphical headers for contract documents and deal memos

Now, after releasing the fairly substantial new language module and resolving the new-home snag list, we’ve our first new client on board and the migration of our existing clients is underway.

Phew.

We’ve finally launched our new language module, enabling us to translate and manage our entire software suite into any language. At the same time we’ve moved our core system over to new hardware and done a lot of tidying behind the scenes to ensure that the next development phase (of which there seems to be a lot!) has all the required structures in place.

The two images above are screen-shots of the same page taken within about a second of each other. And, yes, we’re aware that the Japanese may not be perfect; we’ve used Google translate to show what it’s capable of. A correct Japanese translation will be done soon…