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.

You haven’t heard much from us in the last few weeks, so here’s a first quick hint of how the login screen for Goplan 2.0 will look like. We’ve been looking at your feedback (particularly the questions you’ve been leaving at Get Satisfaction) and we know you want us to update our roadmap more often and post more updates, so as we start wrapping up these things, we’ll do posts like these.

On Company spaces

One of the features of Goplan 2.0 – one that we know you’ve been waiting a long time for – is customization. As you know, it’s been in our plans to allow you to customize your own “space” with your company information in order to integrate it with your existing infrastructure. We’re not going to spill all the beans right now (the screenshot gives a few hints too, though), but let’s just say that we’re not just letting you customize logo and colors.

I know a lot of you have been waiting for news about the next iteration of Goplan for quite a long time – we’ve done a poor job of telling you what we’re working on as of late. So to hopefully make all of that better, we’ve just launched our Goplan 2 roadmap. The roadmap has details on everything you can expect from the upcoming version of Goplan.

We’re going to keep the roadmap updated with both our progress as well as sneak peaks at what is coming soon. Naturally we’ll still make blog posts about these changes, but the roadmap should give you a really good idea of what’s going on at any point in time. We’re even considering adding real-time commit information to it, that would give you real-time info about who’s working on what, and what changes are being pushed to the live servers, as well as the new Goplan 2 code-base.

More changes

We’re also changing a few things here and there around the site and blog. We’re discontinuing the forum and moving some of the feedback discussions over to Get Satisfaction, because they provide a really great platform for you guys to suggest features and start discussions about the product. You may also note that we’re solving the domain name mess. We’re going to move everything into the new goplanapp.com domain (you should be seeing this blog on the new domain as well). Pretty soon we’ll move the application from goplan.org into goplanapp.com as well, something we’ve been wanting to do for a while.

So,

Please check the roadmap and see what we’re doing and thinking, and if you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions about Goplan, the upcoming Goplan 2 or ourselves, add them to Get Satisfaction! Thanks, and we’ll be back with posts with extended details on every change to goplan throughout the week.

You were probably missing updates by now – truth is we haven’t been doing a good job in keeping you up to date with what’s going on, and how the new Goplan is coming along. So hopefully this post will make up for that, at least for a little bit until we’re ready to unveil more details about the upcoming updates.

What’s new?

So what is new on Goplan 2, you ask? There’s actual company support (which should make the pain of managing users go away for good), time tracking, better file management and attachments, and a few more things that will be announced soon. We’re hacking away at code and design, so it’s still a bit early to give you a deadline, but we’ll have a better idea in a couple of weeks for sure.

Also, I’m hoping for a full revamp of our design and layout. While the current one has been good, we’ve been finetuning a bunch of processes (many things that have been taking several page loads will be ajaxified). I’ll keep you posted on that process with wireframes and mockups. Keep an eye out.

So, we’ll be doing several blog posts in the upcoming weeks with more details on what’s coming. Keep an eye out, and if you have comments, suggestions or thoughts, do leave them in the comments or email them to our support team. Thanks!

It’s very likely that in the past few weeks you have seen the “Goplan isn’t feeling too well” screen a few times. We want to let you know that while we’re building the new Goplan, we haven’t given up on the current version.

So this issue is fixed, please let us know if you’re still having any issues.

We know it’s been a very long time coming (for a good reason – we’ve been working heavily on the next major iteration of Goplan), but it’s finally here. We just pushed theme support to the live servers, which means that if you head on to your account preferences now, you’ll be able to choose new themes!

There’s only one new theme right now, the long-announced Dark theme in addition to the default green, but there’s a few more themes on the way. We’re also considering the possibility of allowing more customization, so keep an eye out. Enjoy – and again, sorry about the long wait!