blog

Service interrupted

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:27:24 +0100

Yesterday we experienced an issue with our domain name temporarily for 10 minutes that pushed out the incorrect server address. This spread across all the DNS servers worldwide. We fixed the issue immediately but due to the nature of how DNS servers work, they can take anything from 10 minutes to 24 hours to empty their caches and get the correct value. This means that some customers are getting 'not found' error in their browser as their ISP's DNS server has yet to refresh their cache.

They will refresh in the next 24 hours. You can empty your cache in your browsers as some versions do cache this value locally on your machine.

No one likes to air their dirty laundry in public, but we feel it is important to let anyone know what has happened over this weekend. Sorry about this - please contact us at enquires@glasscubes.com if you still have additional issues after 24 hours.

Backing up files from your account

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:16:12 +0100

As you know already we take great care in backing up all you data and files daily to a separate datacenter so that in the worst case scenario we can always recover your data and files. However there's nothing like peace of mind and some of you have asked for a backup tool, so you can backup locally to your computer or server.

With that in mind we've made available a simple tool for backing up all files on your account. This will also backup any whiteboards you've created and save these as html files.

To get started download the tool from here:

Windows

Download: click here

To install: Double click the exe and follow the instructions. For Windows 7 users - please right click on the file and 'Run as Administrator'

Mac:

Download: click here

To install: Open the file and drag into your Application folder.

Either from the "Start' under windows or 'Applications' launch the Glasscubes backup Tool and you will see:

Then you need to copy and paste your Backup Key in the the Backup key field. You can find this key by logging into your Glasscubes account and going to 'Admin area' -> 'Account'.

Then select a folder/directory on your machine for the Backup location - this is where all files will be downloaded to.

Then start the process off - click on the large green icon. It will then start downloading all the files on the account.As

As always get in touch at enquiries@glasscubes.com if you have any questions.

Intermittent Slowness

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:45:23 +0200

Hi everyone,

we wanted to write a short post just to let you know whats been happening the last week. No one likes to talk about their own bad news, but we feel its important to keep you in the loop as to why and whats happening.

We recently did an upgrade to apply extra security to the platform, and one of the elements has been causing intermittent problems - we're still looking into the root cause but we confident we know the reason - we are just testing some elements to prove the result. The second item has come from a database issue - now this is come from the fact that we are just growing and the amount of data we now index is in the millions. We're now day by day identifying slow aspects and addressing them. This should take no longer than a week to find and solve all slow aspects.

Finally we've also put in place some extra monitoring so we can react quicker. Sorry for any inconvience - this is the first time since we launch 3 years ago that we've had such a sustained intermittment slowness (a week) however we returning to normal service in the next day or so. We working around the clock (and weekend!) to get this sorted.

Real-time Feeds - better online collaboration

Fri, 20 May 2011 16:52:09 +0200

When it comes to online collaborating, sharing files, etc its good to keep abreast of who else on your account is doing what so you can keep an overview of everything happening in your organization. Of course we have the Activity feeds in Glasscubes that gives you a snapshot of everything that has been happening.

Real-time

From this weekend on Glasscubes the feeds are real-time - this means if you have the dashboard page open in your browser (either the main dashboard or Workspace dashboard) and people are doing things on your account - these will automatically appear in your feed. If you are familiar with Twitter or Facebook it behaves in the same way. Anything tha'ts happened across you account in the last 60 seconds will appear automatically. We also update the title of the browser tab so you can see even if you're looking at another site. Its a great online collaboration tool, which makes for more succesfull online project management.

You can see here that 2 items have happened while this page has been open - you simply click on the red area and they will instantly appear in your feed without refreshing.

You can also see here this is also reflected in your browser tab

Here you can see there's been 1 update since you've been looking at Google.

New Workspace view

Previously you had 3 different views :

Chronological
Compact
Workspace

We realised that the 'Workspace' view wasn't working to well in terms of how it displayed information to you. We wanted it to be able to group items by workspace - this is really useful if your workspaces represent projects. However if there was a lot of updates you couldn't really get a feel for what was happening.

So what have done?

We've merged the Compact and Workspace together. This means the workspaces are listed with the number of updates next to it as before with the Compact view. However now you can click on the number of updates and it will instantly display the updates that have happened in the Workspace. This makes it much more efficient and easy for you to understand what's been happening.

We sincerely hope you likes these changes.

Thumbnail view for files - document management online.

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:44:38 +0200

We glad to announce that we now have a thumbnail view of all images in the document file section. You simply need to select 'thumbnail' from the 'View' drop down as highlighted with the green arrow:

We hope you find this useful for your central document management online.

We've also updated the cog icon popup next to files and folders as there was some confusion about downloading, moving and deleting files if you have multiple files/folders selected making online collaboration a little more easy.

Now when you have files selected and you select 'Download' - rather than just downloading the file the cog icon is next to, it will download everything that you have selected. The same applies to the Move and Delete.

We hope this clears up any confusion caused.

Micro messaging now in online project management

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:58:03 +0200

We've changed the default Workspace dashboard to include a micro message/blog field just like you have in Facebook and Twitter. This is great for sharing information with Glasscubes online project management

This means you can share whatever is on your mind or infomation with your colleagues in a familiar fashion. These will appear directly in your activity feeds for the workspace. And you can comment directly in the feed.

We've also added the ability to email information directly to this feed, so you can share info whilst out on the road. You can also now recieve daily emails of the activity feed if you wish. Finally, if you are the workspace owner you can now customize the dashboard page, by removing panels such as the weekly view or member list.

This will be available from next week and we hope you find this useful for your online collaboration.

Share folders online - better document management online

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:19:41 +0100

From today you can collaborate with other people using 'online shared folders'.

This means that any folder that you have in Glasscubes can now, at click of a mouse, be shared to the outside world. This is really handy if you have a set of files you want to share with some one, but don't want to download them and attach them to an email. Or they are too big, or better still you want to present them in a professional manner with your logo etc.

So how does it work? Simply find the folder you want to share and select 'Share this folder' from the pop-up menu that appears when you hover over the cog icon to the left of the folder name:

You'll then be presented with the pop-up you get when you share a file:

Here you can either email someone directly or copy the Link to the folder - you can then post this in Twitter, facebook, an email or blog post.

Who you share this link with can then click on it and immediately view the contents of the folder:

Note: If you have applied security to files or folders, we take the security level of the person who creates the share. So they can only share items they have access to.

Files

Don't forget you can also share files in the exact same manner as described above for better document management online, by selecting the 'Share this file' from the pop-up menu when you move your mouse over the cog icon next to the file name. It's also possible to do when looking at the file details/preview page.

Multiple File and Folder Download

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:59:45 +0100

From today you can now download multiple files and folders at once.

Simply go to the file list and select the files (and folders) you want to download then click on the 'Download' button:

Thats it! you'll then start downloading a zip file with all the files and folders inside.

You can now also Share or Download a file directly from the file list. Just hover over the cog icon on the left of a file and select what you want from the menu:

We currently working on the ability to share a whole folder rather than having to attach multiple files to an email. This should be live by the end of this week, but I'll write another post about that.

We hope you find this new functionality useful.

User Groups in Glasscubes

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:59:15 +0100

This weekend we are making available across all accounts the ability to create User Groups. What are user groups? Its a convenient way of grouping users together so that you can select a group of people with a single click when sending a notification or adding them to a Workspace. Groups can be anything you want from an internal team, or an external company. So how does it work? - first go to the 'Admin area' then 'User security', scroll down to just under the list of users and you will see this now:

We've created a single group already for you which contains all the people in your organization (excluding the external users). You can delete this if you want, its just their for your convenience. So here you can manage your groups, by adding or removing them as you see fit. To get started enter a new group name and then click on 'Add new group' - in this example I'm creating a group called 'Accounts team':

Now select the users from the drop down list that you want to be part of the group. Then click on 'Add the selected person(s) to this group' link:

There you can see that I've added 3 people to this group (I've hidden their emails in this example). Once you're done adding (or removing) members simply click on 'Ok I'm done, close this'. Now when you want to notify anyone of anything this group will now appear at the top of the list:

We hope you find this new feature useful!

Better Password Control

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:47:44 +0100

This weekend we are updating how the passwords are managed in your account.

You will now have the ability to give a period whereby all users must change their password. For example you can set this to 90 days, so that every 3 months each user on your account will need to change their password. The benefit for you if your security policy requires it is that it limits the ability for someone to give a password (by mistake) to someone else and this getting 'out in the wild'. Its generally good security policy to enforce this. However not everyone wants the hassle, so you can have it either way in Glasscubes.

If you go to the 'Admin settings' in your account, then to 'User security' you now have at the bottom of the list of user this:

Here you can set the number of every 'x' days users will need to change their password. If you set it to zero then users do not need to keep changing their password.

We've also added a second field their where you can specify the minimum length in characters that the password needs to be. By default when you change a password it needs to have at least 1 number, 1 character, 5 characters long, and cannot be the same as the last password.

We hope this complements your security requirements and make using Glasscubes for your online collaboration that bit more safer whether working with online project management or document management online.

Updated Workspace navigation

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:13:05 +0100

We've just recently updated the the way you can navigate Workspaces with Glasscubes in an effort to make your navigation around your account more quick and easy thus reducing the number of clicks to get where you want to be.

With the default lists of Workspaces on your Dashbaord you can now expand each workspace and view all the Workspace modules within.

This means for example you can jump to the Calendar or list of Tasks without having to navigate the usual way. You can also quickly see who has access to any given Workspace by expanding 'People' - you can click on their name to get their details.

Finally if you have any folders within the workspace you can navigate through them quickly.

We hope you find this useful.

Get notifications when someone views your file

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:07:15 +0100

We've recently added a small feature to the file detail area within Glasscubes.

Have you wanted to send a sales proposal or invoice to someone and wondered if they have open and viewed the file?

Well you can do that now in Glasscubes - simply click the checkbox 'Notifiy me by email when someone views this file' , now click on the 'Share this file' button copy the web address/URL and put it in an email.

Now when sending out an email rather than adding an attachment you can use this with the Share link and get notified!

Summary of updates

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 09:12:00 +0100

So this is a quick summary of all the updates that went out this week - there's been quite a few changes:

New user management and permissions

Now you have unlimited users, and how you add and remove users has changed - you also have finer control on permissions within a Workspaces. To read more on this have a look at this.

File Approvals

We've introduced the ability to get other users to approval a given document or file. Its very easy to use and much better than sending out emails to everyone. To find out more have a look here.

Easy file sharing

We've updated hoe you can share a file in Glasscubes - it's a small change but we think is will help you lots. Have a look at the post about it here.

How to add users and creating Workspaces

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:28:00 +0100

So the big change today is the user management within Glasscubes. So how has it changed?

No external users anymore
Unlimited users
New workspace permissions
Folder permissions (on Max accounts)

So firstly - there is no limit on the amount of users you can add to your account now - why? well we simply didn't want to limit your ability to collaborate with anyone. By having unlimited users you can collaborate with anyone that you need to.

External users are not needed anymore: now when you add a person to a workspace - they only have access to that workspace. Simple as that! If you want them to have access to another workspace, simply go to that workspace and add them there. (Of course existing external users still have access).

So lets start at the beginning: Lets create a workspace by clicking on the 'Create new workspace' button on the main workspace tab:

Simply enter the name you wish to give the workspace, and optionaly you can add a short description so people know what the workspace is for. Click on the 'Next' button:

Here you can select features you want to have in the workspace. You'll notice that we've added a new 'People' tab - this gives everyone in the workspace to see who is a member, and is also where (if you are the workspace owner) you can add or remove people. Now we'll click on 'Create Workspace, and then add some people' button:

You can now add people to the workspace by clicking on the 'Give someone access to this workspace' button:

(I've cropped the above image so you can see it better).

Now simply follow the 3 steps:

Choose the person(s) from the drop down list or add their email ('Add someone new')
Select the permission they have in the workspace. You now have 3 options: Workspace Owner - this gives them the same rights as what you have with the workspace - the ability to add users, change the settings, and delete the workspace. Contributor - Gives them read and write access to the workspace (they can upload file, comment , etc). And finally you have Reader - this gives them just read access to the workspace. Don't worry you can change these at anytime later.
Add a person message to the invite - you can also get Glasscubes to send you a copy of the email that gets sent out by ticking the checkbox

When adding someone new by clicking on 'Add someone new' you are presented with:

Here you can enter a email address, or a list of email addresses (comma or semicolon seperated). Alternatively clicking on 'Add from my address book' link you can import contacts from Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and more.

Once you've added the person to the workspace the list is updated:

Here you can see information like when they last logged in to Glasscubes and their permission to this workspace. You can change their permission anytime by clicking on the 'Change their permission' link.

If you are an Admin on the account - you can manage all the users , workspaces and permissions on the same page by going to the 'Admin area' and selecting 'Security' tab.

Coffee break, File tab, and Connect

If you use the Coffee break feature, File tab, or Connect within Glasscubes you can give users individual permissions to use these areas. Simply go to the 'Admin area' and selecting 'Security' tab.

Here you can manage all the workspace users and permissions, but also the Coffee break, File tab, and Connect area - Just expand the one you are interested in and add or remove users.

Who has the right to create Workspaces?

Once again - in the Security tab under 'Admin area' you can select which users have the right to create a workspace. By default only Administrators can create workspaces.

Folder permissions

If you have a Max or Enterprise account, not only can you set fine permissions on documents, you can now set permissions on folders. Simple select 'Edit permissions' when you hover your mouse over the folder

You can then edit and set permissions as you would a file.

Easy file sharing for improved document management online

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:12:00 +0100

We've updated the way you can share files that you upload to Glasscubes. At the moment, you either need to be a member of the workspace or you use the 'Share this File' button in the tool box when clicking on a file in a workspace, which emails out directly a link.

However sometimes you want to send an email, or share a file on twitter, facebook or a blog. We've made this much more simple - you can still get Glasscubes to email the link or you just use the link as you see fit.

So to see this new functionality works - upload a file (or go to an existing file), and click on the 'Share this file' button:

and you will be present with this popup:

Here you simply copy the direct link and use as you wish. Of course you can get Glasscubes to send an email by using the form on that popup - just enter the email address(s) and write your message - Glasscubes can send you a copy of the email if you tick the checkbox.

This link is 'unlisted' so anyone you share the link with will have access to the file - there's no signing in, or add members - try it yourself by opening the link in a new window/browser.

An advantage that you have using Glasscubes for this rather than email for better online collaboration is that at anytime you can revoke the link from working and no one can get access anymore using that link. When you send a file out via email the problem is that it can be forwarded to anyone which is out of your control - if you use this to will help you keep control.

To revoke the link simply click on the 'remove' link:

Document management online just got more simple - we hope you find this useful.

Better online collaboration with Document Approval

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:21:00 +0100

Today a great new feature is available on all Glasscubes accounts that will help your online collaboration better and increase the document management online tools - the ability to get a document (or any file) approved by a set of people. we're confident you'll find this a much better way to get that all important file approved by your manager, team or client when working in a project rather than sending out an email with a file attached - we feel this is much better way of collaborating online. It keeps track of who's approved, who has yet to approve the file - it even handles tricky situations when someone has approved a version but you've updated a newer version of the document.

So how does it work? If you click on a file that you have uploaded you get the screen that allows you to do many things with that document, such as the preview, lock, edit, etc. On the right there is a new tool area called 'Approvals':

Here you can see the new area. At the moment there are no approvers for this file, so first thing to do is click on the 'Add Approver'

Use the drop down list to select the people you want to read the document and approve for you. Then click on 'Add'

Here you can see that I've added Geoffrey and John to approve my document. They will automatically be sent an email informing them that they need to approve your document. As well as the email; when they next look at their dashboard they will be notified they have a document to approve:

Also under tasks you see this as well.

When they click on the link they will go directly to the document where they can read it, and click on the appropriate link (Reject or Approve):

Clicking on 'Approve':

You can at any time go to the document to see who has yet to approve, rejected or approved your file:

Here we can see that John rejected my file but Wayne approved it! At this point you could update the file based on John's comments and Glasscubes will prompt you if you want everyone to re-approve the new document.

So we hope you find this new feature very useful with your online project management or you general online collaboration - and help you cut down on your email traffic.

Christmas update

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 08:51:00 +0100

We're rolling out a new major update at Christmas and it brings some new exciting features. We'll go into details about each one when they become live in the coming 2 weeks but I wanted to give you some information now so you know what to expect

Unlimited users

Yes thats right - no more limits on the amount of users you can add to your account. We also spent some time working on making it much more easy to add people - there is no more differientation between users and 'external' users - you simply go to a worksoace add anyone you want to give access to. We've also make it simple to give people different permissions within a workspace - i.e. you can add someone as a reader and they can only read files, documents, discussions etc - they cannot actually add anything.

Document Approvals

This means when you create a whiteboard or upload a file or document you can now add people to approve your document. They'll get notified that they need to read and approve (or reject!) your document. Once they approve or reject you document Glasscubes will keep you notified as who has approved or rejected your document.

Quick links

We've improved the way you can now share files that are uploaded to workspaces. You can now get a quick web address to the file and share it will anyone you want - whether by email, twitter or white dove! ;-)

I'll write more about each of these improvements when they are live in a couple of weeks.

Mobile phone access -true online project management

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:31:00 +0200

I'm really happy to let you know that the mobile version of Glasscubes is now available to everyone. We wanted to make this mobile interface light and simple and to give you access to the key things you need when on the road to help your online project management. We also wanted to make it available to as many phone types as possible. So with this in mind we didn't create a specific 'app' for a specific phone (ie iPhone app, etc) - instead we've created a specific web interface that you can access on any mobile phone that has a web browser. So no matter what phone you have you can access Glasscubes when you're on the move.

So how to access it? Simply enter the normal web address in the phone's browser that you normally do on your computer. ie http://yourcompany.glasscubes.com

Alternatively you can also use the shorter address http://m.glasscubes.com

Here's a couple of screen shots using an iPhone ehancing your online project management

So we hope you find this addition useful.

Up and coming dashboard

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:29:00 +0200

Hi, we are always striving to make Glasscubes better and more useful to you. We've been looking and talking to you to understand how you been using Glasscubes day to day in your business and also what you would like to see.

Workspaces are the heart of Glasscubes and we've got a lot of new refinements that you will see in the coming 2 to 3 months and I wanted to share with you something that will be available from next week.

We've completely redesigned and simplified the main Dashboard in Glasscubes - we're a great believer in 'less is more' here at Glasscubes. Currently there is a lot of items on the main Dashboard which is great for getting a very complete overview but also performing tasks such as announcements etc. However 90% of the time when you log in you've got something in mind; i.e. find a document, open a task, etc. So we've slimmed down the dashboard to just 2 main elements.

First is the new Workspace panel:

We list all your workspaces that you are a member of so you can quickly access the relevant Workspace quick as possible with just a single click. We've also included any folders that you might have set up within the Workspace so you can quickly navigate to any given folder to retrieve a document you're after. We think this simple change will help you get about more quickly.

Second we've re-worked the activity feed. Now there are 3 views available: 'Standard, Compact, Time'.

Time - is the current default chronological order of things happening across the Workspaces.

Standard - groups all the items by workspace, so you can quick see what happened in any given workspace quickly. We feel this is a much better way of understanding whats happening on your account.

Compact - as the name suggests, this gives a very compact list of all the workspaces and the number of updates thats happening within the workspaces. This is useful if you have many Workspaces setup.

So this will be available from next week - we hope you like it. As always we value your opinion so please email us at enquirires@glasscubes.com with your comments once you've been using a little while. We've also made the old dashboard available to you if you prefer that - simply go to your profile and at the bottom you can set with dashboard you want under Preferences.

Finally whats next? much better user management and enhance communication within workspaces.

Document management online - Google Docs in Glasscubes

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:30:00 +0200

As of today we've made live our integration with Google documents. This means that you can link to Google documents right within your Glasscubes account, so no matter what files you need to reference and work together on , whether its an Excel file, Google document, images etc - your online collaboration just got better within Glasscubes!. So how does it work? There's now a new button in the Tool bar under documents:

Document Management Online

For the first time you do this , you'll be redirected back to your Google account and asked if you give Glasscubes permission to access the documents, once you have done that you'll be redirected Glasscubes and the below pop woll be displayed with all your documents. (Please note there's a warning message that we'll get ironed out in the next couple of days.)

Then simply click on the document you want; you can select more than one document if you want simply by click on it (to de-select just click it again). Then just click the Attach button and you're done!

One thing we'd like to make clear to you is the permissions - we don't change the Google permissions, so please make sure that whoever you share the document with that you have given them permission within Google docs.