As promised, we’re going to do a series of posts covering the functionality and experience of some of the features coming in Goplan 2. We start off this series (we intend to make it bi-weekly) by talking about our issue tracking system.

We rebuilt out ticketing system from the ground up to prepare it for our new tagging, attachment and filtering systems (which we will cover in one of the upcoming previews). Apart from filtering tickets with “open, closed, mine” (which gives you open tickets, closed tickets and tickets assigned to you respectively), you’ll be able to filter tickets by tag. This allows you to tag tickets using functionality “buckets” (like design, development, layout) and filter them to find things you can work on.

We also added a couple of features that some of our ticket-intensive users asked for, like closing reasons (now you can close a ticket and mark it as “won’t fix” or “duplicate”) and better priorities. We also simplified the priority/severity issue by removing severity entirely. This makes it much simpler to actually create and log issues without having to wonder what both severity and priority mean - they quite mean you’ll solve the tickets in the same order.

As you can probably guess by the screenshots above, there were quite a few cosmetic changes since the last time we gave you a glance of our UI. We’ll talk more about the interface in a future post and cover some of the reasons for these updates, but the first thing you’ll probably notice is that our contextual navigation (in this Ticket example, the ticket navigation) has been moved to the sidebar. This is the same for all screens, and makes it much easier to get to where you want to go.

The screenshots also hint at a couple of new things, so click each if you want to see them in full size. On the next update, coming on monday, we’ll talk about our revamped tasks and milestones! Have a great weekened!

Since you might not visit Goplan’s support page at GetSatisfaction often, I’m copying my answer (written a few minutes ago) to a post by Chris Basey (thanks for posting, Chris!) about the status of Goplan 2. In this topic over at Get Satisfaction, Chris asks if we have abandoned Goplan 2 and why we haven’t been updating our blog often with news about it. Here is my answer, transcribed from the topic at Get Satisfaction:

Chris, we haven’t abandoned Goplan 2. There’s people using the beta, and we’re working day in and day out (it’s 3:30AM where I am, and I’m working on it). I definitely understand your frustration and I am sorry if we’re letting you down with the lack of posts about what’s coming.

However it is only because we have so much going on right now that we’d rather work on it now, and talk about it when we really have something special to show a wider audience. Now, since that doesn’t mean much considering how long you’ve all been waiting, here’s what we’re going to do to remedy this situation:

• We’ll post updated screenshots from the application to both ask for feedback and give you a sense of how the product is shaping.
• We’ll do (at least) bi-weekly status updates, starting tomorrow, about how things are going. I’m not just saying this, we’ll really do it.
• We’ll work towards having a free open beta of Goplan2 running in a few weeks. To be completely honest, I don’t think we’re ready for all the people who want in just yet - but we’re getting there quickly.

All this being said, I do want to apologize if you feel like we haven’t been communicating as effectively as we could. We’ll make it up to everybody in the next few days and weeks, and rest assured, we’re making sure Goplan 2 is worth the wait.

Final thoughts

I know we haven’t been delivering as we promised. Many of you are looking for updates and the assurance that Goplan 2 is coming in fast. We’ll make it up to you, starting right now. If there’s anything, apart from what I already said we will do (the bi-weekly status updates, more screenshots and a public beta), that you believe we should be doing, let us know - through the comments here, or at GetSatisfaction. Your feedback is really important to us, particularly now that we’re getting close to the new version.

16:03 GMT: Engine Yard appears to be having problems (here’s their status page with information on this issue) with the cluster that hosts Goplan, so we’re experiencing a few minutes of downtime while they find and fix the problem. No data has been lost on our end, so rest assured everything will be back to normal real soon. We’ll keep this post updated (and our Twitter account) until this problem is fixed. Sorry about the inconvenience - we’re also taking the necessary measures to be sure this doesn’t happen again.

Update 16:18 GMT: Seems like things are slowly getting back to normal. Requests are taking a little longer than usual while Engine Yard takes care of the issue on their gateway. We’re almost there.

Update 16:32 GMT: Our tests show that things should be back to normal for everyone. Again, we’re sorry about the inconvenience and hope we didn’t cause much trouble. We weren’t down for long (Goplan was inacessible for around 13 minutes), but we realize that accessing the application is important to you, so we’re making sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

One week has passed since our first peek at how we’re implementing Company Spaces on Goplan 2, so we might as well give you more updates on how things are progressing. Many of you have been emailing to ask about our expected release date for the new version - we have good news for you guys. We’re rolling out the beta phase for Goplan 2 during November and we’re hoping to launch shortly after that (our plan is for the final release in early January). Scroll down for more info on the beta and progress.

Last week one of our users, Jared, posted a spot on comparison between Goplan (as it is today) and Basecamp on Getsatisfaction. I took that opportunity to go into a little bit more detail about some of the things he pointed out that are different between the two products and what’s changing on Goplan 2. You should definitely go have a look if you want a bit more detail on what’s coming.

Do keep in mind, however, that while there are things about the upcoming release that will get us closer to competitor products, we’re also working on things that are drastically different, so picking a solution for project management will still be a matter of getting the right fit. We want to be sure we’re the best fit for you all, though.

Getting into the Goplan 2 beta

We’ll be inviting a few of our users to join the Goplan 2 beta during November. We’re then going to slowly expand the number of users on the beta to be sure everything works right and scales right. We’ll have more details on how the beta will work when we get a bit closer, but if you want to be involved, feel free to drop us an email and ask - we’ll get you on the list.