When we launched SharedStatus in February of 2009 we felt we had a very good application that helped people manage their teams. As we set about getting people to try out SharedStatus and convert many of them to customers we found that something was wrong. While SharedStatus was good, we wanted it to be great. While it was easy to use it needed to be much simpler. Though we iterated over SharedStatus several times it became clear that we needed to do something dramatic if we wanted it to be a great application.

We cut out the features that people weren't using to make SharedStatus less complicated. We added a few simple features that should have been there in the first place. We completely revamped the user interface, making it cleaner, expanding the white space and adding dynamic pages that helped the application become more responsive.

We became so obsessed with focusing our attention on SharedStatus we changed the name of our company to SharedStatus LLC.

The result of that work is now available. I present to you the new SharedStatus.

What can SharedStatus do for you?

Glad you asked! You need to get things done, to complete projects, to manage your team, to report to your managers and clients what is happening. SharedStatus makes all of that easy, whether your team is in the same office or spread around the world. You can create projects, add people to them with a few clicks and start collaborating. Create tasks for people on your team and know when they have accepted...

SharedStatus messages and comments use the Textile markup language for formatting. Textile is a lightweight markup language designed to be easily read by anyone. When you enter text with Textile markup SharedStatus will present it to you as nicely formatted XHTML. Here are some examples of how you can make it work for you.

To change a font to bold, italics, underline (or any combination of those attributes), surround the text with the correct marker:

bold = * (asterisk)
italics = _ (underscore)
underline = + (plus)
strikethrough = - (dash)

Examples:

some *bold* text = some bold text
some _italicized_ text = some italicized text
some *_bold and italicized_* text = some bold and italicized text

Another common thing to do in messages is to include bulleted (or numbered) lists. This is easy by including the proper markers:

Bulleted Lists

Textile Markup:
* bullet 1
* bullet 2
* bullet 3

Appears As:

• bullet 1
• bullet 2
• bullet 3

Numbered Lists

Textile Markup:
# item 1
# item 2
# item 3

Appears As:

1. item 1
2. item 2
3. item 3

Finally, you can include a link in your message by simply entering the address:

www.sharedstatus.com = www.sharedstatus.com

When Textile detects a web address (or email address) it automatically hyperlinks it for you much like modern word processors do. Sometimes though you want to embed a link within a line of text. You do that by surrounding the link text in quotes, adding a colon and entering the address. Here is an example:

Some "project management software":sharedstatus.com...

Last night (March 2, 2011) we updated our project chat rooms to include some great new features:

Updated User Interface
We have optimized the chat room view to be easier to read, with a much wider message area and cleaner view of who is currently in the room.

Transcript Search
You can now search your entire project transcript historygoing back to the day you started your projectto search for key terms in your chat.

Calendar Browse
Looking to see what was said on Wednesday, January 12, 2011? You can quickly select a day from the transcript history and jump into what was said on that day.

The SharedStatus chat rooms are a powerful way to keep your team in touch throughout the day and with these new features you can feel confident that anything you discuss can be referenced in the future. Chat rooms are available to all SharedStatus users with Basic or higher level accounts.

We have just done a major update to our web site to make our product offering clearer and also to provide a little more information about us as a company. Please take a moment to check it out!

In addition to the web site refresh we have also added a new offer to our Free accounts. Sign up for a Free account and we'll give you 1GB of file storage and project chat rooms for 15 days. Try out the file storage and chat features - if you like them you can always upgrade to one of our paid accounts and make it permanent. 

If you decide not to upgrade your files will remain in your projects but you won't be able to add any additional files and you will not be able to access the chat rooms any longer. As always, if you've got questions, we've got answers. Just ask!