Adding Hyperlinks to Tasks

New features are continuing to roll out for IntelliGantt for Basecamp, IntelliGantt for Google and IntelliGantt for Facebook. You'll see a steady stream of new column types that become available over the next few months, but first we have not a column type but a bit of metadata-- associating web hyperlinks with tasks. With this feature you can frame the context of your task with links to SharePoint documents, YouTube videos or PDF files on your internal network.

First select the task you wish to add the hyperlink to. Here we will select 'Change 2'.

Click the '+' button since we will be adding a hyperlink. What will popup is our 'super add' dialog that lets you add both new tasks and hyperlinks using the current selection as a point of reference. Note that 'Change 2' is bounded above and below. The 'Add Task Above' boundary lets you add a sibling task or a child of a sibling task above, depending if you click the left or right '+' button. The 'Add Task Below' boundary lets you add a sibling task or a child task below, depending if you click the left or right '+'.

But we are focusing on hyperlinks in this post. For that please note the 'Add Web Link' area consisting of two text boxes, two buttons ('+' and '-') and a dropdown select box. This is a multi-function control that lets you add hyperlinks by typing in the title and the link (or more likely pasting the link) and then either hitting the 'enter' key or clicking the '+' button. When this happens the title/link pairing is added to the list of hyperlinks for the selected task.

You can immediately view the hyperlink you just added in the dropdown .

You can use this dropdown to select any of the hyperlinks associated with a task. If you don't like one, simply remove it by clicking the '-' button. When you dismiss the add dialog you will now see a paperclip next to the task in the task list. When you see this paperclip it means the task has one or more hyperlinks associated with it.

To see all the hyperlinks associated with a task, simply click on the paperclip or, if using a tablet, touch the paperclip with your finger. A dialog appears listing all the hyperlinks for the task.

Each hyperlink has the actual link, the title supplied when creating the hyperlink and, if you're running the IntelliGantt project manager tool (as seen in these screenshots) the ability to remove the link by clicking the '-'. You'll most likely click the 'link', though, and see a new tab open up with the url.

IntelliGantt Integration with Facebook Send

Facebook has done a fantastic job creating easy ways to send messages about a web page. You've probably seen the 'Like' or 'Send' icons on web pages encouraging user interaction and communication. Since it just so happens IntelliGanttt is all about enhancing interaction and communication too, we took a look at how it could apply to project management.

IntelliGantt for Facebook can pack a lot of information on a single page, so sending a Facebook message about the entire page didn't seem very helpful. However, IntelliGantt also keeps track of what task is currently selected. The ability to send a message about a specific task has value. What's better is that the Facebook Send button let's you select the recipients-- a list of Facebook users or groups. Combined with Facebooks instant messaging platform, now you can push a message to people who have important information about a task. Users who receive this message can simply click on it and be taken to the identified task. Now that is useful. Here's how it works.

You start with a project of course. (Note: I'm using our 'full screen' URL here rather than the URL that embeds IntelliGantt within Facebook. I'll touch on this more in another blog post.)

Great, we've opened IntelliGantt for Facebook and selected a project to view. But where is the send button we mentioned? Good question. We made it contextual for you. Since we are sending a link to the task in the message, you must first select a task.

We have selected the task 'Notifications'. Now the 'Send' button appears in the upper right of the window. IntelliGantt has set the context of the send button to be associated with the 'Notifications' task. Now let's click the button.

You're probably already familiar with Facebook's send message popup, but here are the interesting pieces:

• A To: field to direct the message. This isn't a blast to all your contacts, this will be a targetted message.
• A Message: field to address whatever needs addressing about the associated task.
• A link to the task. This is generated for you by IntelliGantt. When your recipients receive your message they simply click on automatically go to IntelliGantt within Facebook and watch as the right project and task is selected for them.

When all is said and done, your message recipients will see this:

The same application with the same project and task selected so everyone is looking at the same thing. And, maybe best of all, the Facebook messenger window open and ready for more instant communication with the person you need.

Add IntelliGantt to a Facebook Page

As someone who has gnashed their teeth on traditional software installs for many years, it's a pleasure to introduce just how quick and painless it can be these days. For example, if you would like to add IntelliGantt for Facebook to any page you administer, simply click the '+' button.

This will send the browser to Facebook's 'Add Tab' dialog where you can choose which of your pages to add IntelliGantt to. Right now IntelliGantt isn't page aware, but in the future we will make it so only projects relevant to the Facebook page IntelliGantt is running within will be visible or selected.

Speaking of pages, we just created an IntelliGantt Facebook Page you can join as another source of information. Let us know if you have any questions. We're in the process of rolling out sample usages now.

Project Management with Facebook

What's the most important thing about managing a project? Building the perfect schedule of tasks or the interpersonal communication necessary to execute that schedule? We hear time and time again how important notifications are to give everyone situational awareness. Email is good, but lacks the immediacy an instant message. It's important to let people know as soon as possible when they've been assigned a task and even more powerful to let people know when their task is ready. We've seen this trend over the years with our products, whether they be running in Groove, MS Project or SharePoint. Today we'd like to offer one more option-- IntelliGantt for Facebook.

Why Facebook as infrastructure for project management? Because after the technical aspects of laying out a schedule and allocating resources, the real issue is keeping people engaged on whatever device they are running and by any means necessary! Facebook just so happens to be the world's greatest social network so the synergy is incredibly appealing. We believe Facebook can be an excellent platform for both your business and personal projects-- especially as these two worlds continue to merge. Prepare yourself for the first screenshot of IntelliGantt for Facebook!

OK, while this screenshot looks a little underwhelming, what it demonstrates is very powerful-- robust user authentication. IntelliGantt for Facebook works with Facebook's user authentication system to make sure a user is indeed who they say they are. Even more importantly, it makes sure the people you invite to the project are who they say they are as well. Given that over 1 billion people (and growing) use Facebook, there's an excellent chance the people you need to collaborate on a project are already there. No need to import from Notes to SharePoint via Active Directory anymore.

Just click on the configuration 'cog' right next to PEOPLE and all your Facebook friends appear. We know not everyone will be participating in your projects, so select the folks you want to work with. Once selected, they are available to assign to tasks in the plans you create.

Now what happens when you assign a person to a task? It would be nice to let people know about these things, right? Here's where the value of the Facebook infrastructure begines to shine.

Again at first glance this screenshot looks terribly normal. However, notice the lower left of the picture. Facebook let's you know that a task has been assigned to you. IntelliGantt taps into Facebooks incredibly rich notification system in order to make this assignment very visible. Even better, it will appear on any dekstop, laptop or tablet you use Facebook with. Plus, it's a 'push' notification in that, if you have Facebook up and running, you will receive these notifications moments after the assignment as occurred with visual and audio queues.

Another great time to use Facebook's notification system is when a task assigned to you is ready to work. This is done by building upon a staple of traditional project management-- the task dependency. Basically if someone completes a predecessor task, IntelliGantt will see if anyone is assigned to its successor and, if so, send out a notification that the task is ready for you. When they click on the Facebook notification the user will be swiftly carried to the waiting task.

This is a great example of the synergy between project management and social applications. We will be looking for more exiting ways to use Facebook notifications and messaging in the future to aid in project management communication. Of course, a project manager would also like to have powerful tools at their disposal to plan and react. Things like multi-level undo, multiple assignments, multiple task dependencies, side-by-side swimlane comparisons for resource loading and more. We will be outlining these in a series of posts as well.

IntelliGantt in Facebook

Is it too late to proclaim the World Wide Web as a Brave New World? Probably. But that doesn't mean you still can't enjoy all the new things you can accomplish with the latest HTML and web services. Because we crafted our new IntelliGantt application to be pure HTML5+Javascript, not only can it run on multiple devices, but also within multiple containers as well. What's a container? Anything that wraps a web page and provides an environment. For example, Facebook.

We are just putting the finishing touches on a Facebook integration that not only uses their identification services, but can reside within Facebook itself as a page. To date Facebook is probably better known for offering games this way, but we think a project management solution can greatly benefit from a social platform as well.

Here is the requisite screenshot:

We will have more real soon, but if your curious, you can visit the IntelliGantt app page on Facebook and see it in action.