BatchBook Blog
Archive for the “Our Users are So Smart” Category
One of my favorite new tasks here at BatchBlue is to take over the writing of the Our Users Are So Smart series of blog posts. My predecessor in this role started this series back in June of 2008 to highlight some of the great ideas and use cases that we receive from our users.
At BatchBlue we recognize (and love) that each person who chooses our software uses it in a unique way, often in scenarios we didn’t anticipate. It’s a testament to their innovation that they take the flexibility and features that are a part of BatchBook to carefully craft a workflow and environment that fits their needs.
They have also contributed some great feature requests, many of which we have implemented in to BatchBook. Here are some of my favorites
In August of 2008, Adam wrote about the addition of our Auto-BCC to BatchBox option. It seems our Forum User Dean was enjoying the convenience of our BatchBox email forwarding but suggested that it would also be great if email links from within BatchBook would automatically add the BatchBox forwarding address to your BCC field. Consider it done!
One of the handiest features of using BatchBook in a team environment is the ability to add comments to contacts and communications. What a great way to keep conversations happening. You can thank user Paul, also from our forums, for suggesting this one.
Often times, the best suggestions aren’t for huge features or changes but rather for the little things that just make your work easier. Such is the case with user Alex who really wanted to be able to easily convert an individual to a company. Just one email from him was enough to get this on our radar and implemented soon after.
A lot of our favorite suggestions have come from our User Forums so I want to take a second to remind you that we’ve just recently upgraded our systems to make them even easier to use. Feel free to jump in with your questions, comments and other feedback. We’ve got a whole section just for Feature Requests just waiting for your great ideas on how we can make BatchBook work even better for you.
And while our old forums have been retired, they are still a great resource because of all of the user feedback we’ve received there.
We hope you’ll join us in our new discussion area, or send us an email to support@batchblue.com with your ideas – we’re waiting to see how smart you are.
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Tags: batchbook, feedback, user forums
Here at BatchBlue we like to think of SuperTags as working similarly to the tags you are all probably familiar with, but with the extra benefit of having some really nifty super powers – namely the ability to handle any type of custom data you can throw at them.
When I started using BatchBook back in October 2007, I knew the killer feature for me was going to be SuperTags. Over the years I’ve used them to handle all sorts of data related to my contacts and clients, everything from important dates to their software licensing information.
I’ve been learning that not only are BatchBook SuperTags great at capturing client information, they can also be a great fit for storing information about me and the stuff that I need to keep track of.
Recently I had some trouble with the monitor for my computer. It’s been repaired under warranty before and I knew it was still covered so I began to gather the information I needed to call in for service:
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A visit to the manufacturer web site for the phone number.
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A search on the vendor site for a copy of the original invoice to verify warranty terms.
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A quick crawl around the desk for the serial number.
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A search in my email for the details of the last service call.
While I was running through this silly series of steps, many of which I had already done once in the past, it occurred to me that all of this info could be stored quite easily in BatchBook.
So I created a shiny new “warranty” SuperTag with custom fields for the product name, model number, serial number, place of purchase, date of purchase, and warranty expiration date.
Now when I get a new product, I can tag a company record with my new Warranty SuperTag and fill in all the juicy details. I can even print or scan a copy of the original invoice to a PDF file and uploaded it to the record so I will always have it easily available.
If I ever do need to call or arrange for service, I have all the details I need with just a quick search. I can also use the communications feature to log the call and capture details like ticket numbers and mailing instructions. Logging each call and each step of the return or repair process documents the experience should I have any trouble or if I ever need to revisit it in the future.
Taking advantage of the features built in to BatchBook has helped me tremendously in not only keeping track of the people that are important to me but a lot of other information as well. Some creative thinking about SuperTags has proven to open up a whole new world of possibilities.
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Tags: batchbook
If you haven’t been hanging out in the BatchBook Developers Forum, you might not have heard about our recent API updates. We’ve overhauled the API to make it even easier for programmers to integrate their applications with BatchBook. Just as importantly, the documentation for the API. Check it out at http://developer.batchblue.com/.
BatchBook has had an API for some time now, but these updates really make it ready for prime time. While this news only directly affects programmers, we’ll all benefit from the resulting integrations between BatchBook and other awesome tools. A recent post on ProgrammableWeb extolled the business case for APIs, and we’ve been supporting the same ideas via the Small Business Web.
As usual, this update to BatchBook wouldn’t have been as good without the involvement of some of our awesome users. Several folks in the Developers Forum have been giving great feedback and helping other developers get started with the API. I’d like to especially recognize Andrew Flusche and guedalia, who have been contributing sample PHP code for other users to use freely. Thanks again, guys!
We’re really excited to see what great things you all will build with the BatchBook API. I hope to see you in the Developers Forum if you have any questions or just want to show off what you’re working on.
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Tags: api, developers, forums
Last week, I posted about our recent flurry of updates to BatchBook. After a weekend to play with some of the new changes, there’s one I really love. It’s the List widget on the Dashboard.
And we love to give props where props are due. So, yet again, that was a recommendation that came from the forums. In this case, forum user Barbara Ballard asked:
Inspired by the Marketing dashboard widget … I created “Barbara’s list”. It’s all current clients, alumni, leads, projects assigned to me. It’s who I should be thinking about this week, who I should pay attention to. … Now I want it on my dashboard.
We had been talking about doing a saved search widget. But when Barbara recommended putting Lists on the Dashboard, an bell went off in my head. First of all, Lists are already part of BatchBook. This would put something on the Dashboard that just about everybody is already using in their account. Nothing new to learn. Instant gratification. Secondly, a saved search is best handled as a list anyway. That way it will always update, always be accessible, always be exportable, etc.
It was the perfect solution.
Thank you, Barbara, for your excellent recommendation!
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Tags: Customer Service, lists, Our Users are So Smart
I love getting neat BatchBook usage tips from our users. This happened again over the weekend as Andrew shared with us (via the BatchBook Forums) how he’s using FireFox 3’s “Awesome Bar” to quickly search for contacts in BatchBook.
Now that I have all my data in BatchBook, I wanted a quick way to pull up a contact. Thanks to Firefox and the Delicious.com extension, I have it!
(If you don’t know, Delicious.com is a great bookmarking application. It handles all my bookmarks. And there’s a handy Firefox extension.)
Be sure you have the Delicious extension installed. Then you can right click in the BB contact search box (upper right of any BB screen). Select “Add a keyword for this search in Delicious.” Then you can fill out the bookmark details and enter a keyword that will invoke the search.
Now I can search my contacts directly from the Firefox Awesome Bar. I just type “bb smith” and hit enter. Voila!
So, in summary, entering “bb darowski” into the address bar would automatically run a BatchBook search for “darowski” and take you to the results. Nifty! I immediately set this up and found it super useful. I then realized you don’t even need the Delicious extension to set it up.
Here’s how you can set this up for yourself:
Step 1: Right click (or control+click) on the search field in BatchBook. Choose “Add a Keyword for this Search”.
Step 2: Name your search and give it a shortcut (I’m using “bb”).
Step 3: Enter your search string. Entering “bb darowski” searches BatchBook for “darowski”.
Step 4: View your results.
Great tip, Andrew! Thanks for sharing!
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Tags: awesome bar, delicious, firefox, Our Users are So Smart, search
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