Capsule

New in Capsule: Pictures from Social Networks

With so many businesses now using social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn, we've been looking for ways to include the information from these social network profiles inside Capsule. With our latest update to Capsule, pictures from these profiles can be pulled into contacts in Capsule. When you add a social profile such as a twitter account, LinkedIn or Facebook profile to a contact, Capsule will check to see if the profile has a picture, and if so automatically display it when viewing the contact. Capsule also checks for a gravatar which is a picture associated with an email address, so in many cases Capsule can grab a picture for a contact using just the email address.

To see it in action, add a social network profile to one of your contacts. Here's an example for Phillip, my co-founder here at Zestia.

And here's the resulting mugshot in Capsule:

We've also taken the opportunity to revamp the contact panel a little which you can see in the screenshot above. Rather than displaying the URL for a social network profile we show an icon which you can hover over to see the URL/account or click through to see the full profile.

Finally, we noticed a lot of users weren't aware that Capsule integrated with Twitter to show recent tweets (and now profile pictures) right inside a contact's page in Capsule. To make this more intuitive we updated the add new contact page to default the twitter input field. You can leave it blank or change it to another network, but hopefully this makes it clearer that you can add a twitter profile amongst other social network profiles to your Capsule contacts.

Quick contact preview

We’ve had lots of feedback from our users asking for a quick way to view email addresses and phone numbers of contacts on the case and opportunity screens. Until now to view the contact details required clicking through to the contacts page.  So now we have added a contact preview. To view the preview hover your mouse over the contact card next to the name of the contact to see phone numbers, emails and addresses.

New in Capsule: calendar view and task categories

We greatly value suggestions from our users in making Capsule the best CRM around for small businesses.  Some of the more popular suggestions on our uservoice forum have been to add a calendar view of your tasks in Capsule.  A related suggestion has been to show your Capsule tasks in your favourite calendaring apps such as iCal on the Mac, Outlook Calendar and Google Calendar.

Over the weekend we rolled out the new calendar view and the iCal feed.  You can see how the screen looks below.  We also introduced task categories so that when you add a task to Capsule you can give it additional context such as it’s a Meeting or a Milestone or you need to Follow-up.  We think this is a useful productivity improvement to the tasks functionality in Capsule.

We’ve added a default set of categories to all Capsule accounts which you’re welcome to edit and extend.

Opportunities & Cases now with more flexibility

Custom fields and Data Tags have been a very popular feature for contacts in Javelin with good reason.  By adding your own custom fields you can adapt Javelin to better suit your business. Now the same feature is available to Opportunities and Cases.

As a simple example to demonstrate the power of this feature, let’s say I’d like to use Javelin to keep track of my client projects.  First I configure a new Data Tag called Web Project and add fields for start date, planned end date and planned budget.

Now when I apply the Web Project tag to a case, Javelin prompts me to enter the new information and when I’m looking at the case in Javelin I can see the Web Project information I’ve entered alongside other case information.

Finally, it’s easy to use the new fields to add conditions to lists that are created in Javelin.  For example, I can create a lists of projects due in due by February adding the following condition:

Hopefully this demonstrates the power of the custom fields and Data Tag functionality and has given you some ideas for your own.  If you’ve got an interesting use of this functionality that you’d like to share with the Javelin community then we’d love to hear about it.

Internet Explorer is officially square

We’ve been introducing rounded corners into the Javelin user interface recently.  Rounded corners and curves are nice and they provide us with a simple way to keep Javelin looking fresh, or at least it should have been simple.  As any web designer will tell you in words I can’t print here, Internet Explorer is a party pooper.

We’ve looked into using the many hacks for round corners in Internet Explorer and we tried a couple but they all have their issues which leads us to this position:

So instead of spending our days making Internet Explorer fit a round hole we’ve left it square.  In Firefox, Safari and Chrome you’ll get some rounded corner love:

And in Internet Explorer you’ll see square:

And another example:

I’m not on a crusade to change your web browser.  The beauty of web applications is you get to choose your operating system and browser, but if you are using Internet Explorer and want to consider an alternative then Mashable did a browser round up recently.

FreshBooks Integration

Javelin now integrates with FreshBooks. FreshBooks is a great way for you to track time and invoice your customers. When you use Javelin with FreshBooks you'll get the complete view of your relationships including notes and files you've added, emails to and from the contact, tasks that need to be done, sales opportunities, along side invoices from FreshBooks.

Integration is easy, simply enter your FreshBooks account API details into your Professional Edition of Javelin. Javelin automatically imports your customers from FreshBooks and you're ready to go. Here's a summary of what you get:

• When viewing a contact in Javelin, you'll see a summary of invoices and outstanding amounts from FreshBooks
• Contacts can be exported from Javelin into FreshBooks so that you can start invoicing them
• Amend invoices and view contacts in FreshBooks by clicking through from the contact in Javelin
• Updates to contact details such as addresses in Javelin are automatically synchronised to FreshBooks so you only need to make the update in one place

Capsule API for Developers

We're pleased to announce the Capsule API is now available. Developers can use the API to access Javelin whether you're planning on creating a clever add-on you want to share with the community or hooking in one of your internal applications. The API is implemented using XML or JSON over plain old HTTPS allowing developers to use existing tools and languages.

The API closely follows RESTful principles with every resource like person, opportunity or tag having its own URL. Resources can be manipulated using standard REST commands GET (view), POST (create), PUT (update) and DELETE. For more details and to get started visit our API guide.

We would love to hear ideas you have on how you plan to use the API. Drop us a note at .

Javelin Affiliate Program

A number of you have been recommending Javelin to your clients, associates and even random fellow Twitter users.  We are very grateful for this support and we’d like to say a big thank you for bringing customers to us.

In return we are launching an affiliate program where you can earn money for referrals.  The Javelin Affiliate Program is a revenue share between you, the affiliate, and us.  You’ll receive 20% of our revenues from a referred customer for the life of their account. 

The sign-up process for the affiliate program is easy and we’ve kept the program as simple as possible.  There’s no fee or other obligation in joining.  To get started, visit the affiliate program overview.

We’d love to hear how you get on, and feel free to drop us any questions on our support email address .

Email Marketing with MailChimp

Javelin CRM now integrates with MailChimp for email marketing, and it's available in both the free and professional editions of Javelin. Here's a quick video showing how it's done.

See the MailChimp site for more information on their email designer, templates and campaign management tools.

Faster searching

Javelin users have been asking for a quicker way to search for contacts.  Previously the only way was to click through to the people and organizations page.  So to make searching quicker we’ve added a search box that’s available from every page in Javelin.  It’s implemented as a live search so it returns results as you type.

Here’s a short screencast (without sound) showing the new search in action:

search from Javelin on Vimeo.

Announcing Xero and KashFlow Integration

Today we’ve made it easier for small businesses to better manage their customers by integrating the best CRM with the best online accounting systems, Xero and KashFlow.  CRM and accounting are both important functions for most small businesses.  CRM provides the tools to manage relationships with prospective and existing customers, and accounting systems provide the tools to manage your financial success. 

Typically these systems have been disconnected, so when updating a customer in your CRM you have to duplicate that change in the accounting system.  Of course, in practise time is tight and the these systems often drift out of date.  Equally important, you want to see everything you know about a customer in one place.  The CRM provides the customer dashboard, so why would you want to switch to the accounting system to see what’s been invoiced and what’s overdue?

By integrating Javelin with these accounting systems we’ve fixed the problem.  Now all information including invoicing and overdues is available from customer view in Javelin, and updates to customers are automatically applied to the accounting system so you only need update the customer in one place.  This is a big step forward for small business in getting better value out of CRM and accounting.

The following screencast demonstrates how you can get started easily and start benefiting from an integrated solution.  The screencast shows Xero in action and we’ve done exactly the same for KashFlow too.

The KashFlow version of the screenflow is available here.

To find out more about Xero and to sign-up for a free 30-day trial, visit www.xero.com

To find out more about KashFlow and to sign-up for a free 60-day trial, visit www.kashflow.co.uk.  KashFlow are kindly offering Javelin customers £2/month off KashFlow when you sign-up using promo code JAVELIN01

Sign up for a free, no obligation 30-day trail of our Professional Edition to get started.

The value of integrated solutions for small business

Javelin is days away from an upgrade where we are moving into a significantly new world for our Javelin users.  We have integrated Javelin with two online accounting systems.

Why have we done this?  One of the criticisms of CRM’s is the difficulty of maintaining accurate data.  If you are not actively updating the information, no matter the quality of the CRM solution, it will fall into disrepair.  Rubbish in, rubbish out.

I know this from personal experience.  I am in a part-time buy-to-let partnership and we use an accounting package, a landlord system, and a bunch of excel spreadsheets. We have to key the bank details into the accounting system, we have to duplicate the contacts, and we have stopped using the landlord system for anything other than letters and the core contact details – even though the system offers much more.

The good news is that we have integrated the best CRM, Javelin, with the best accounting packages so you manage your data more easily.  What a transformation from when these systems were disconnected.  Accounting information is on the same page as all the other information about the customer – at a glance you can see the invoice status on the customer record, along with last contact dates, history of contacts and any pipeline business.  So if you are chasing an outstanding invoice you can see the value of new business alongside the outstanding invoice before making the call to the customer.  There are also some cool features like moving between systems being as simple as a click-of-a-button.

Personally, I hope other service providers will understand this need and start providing integrated solutions for their users.  It is time for small business to get the benefits of SaaS well beyond discussions around a lower cost threshold and much reduced IT support.  I am proud that we are leading the way in providing a service that is truly beneficial to you.

Javelin features preview: Customise your contacts

With custom fields you can easily extend and customise Javelin to suit your business. Checkout this screen cast for a quick introduction.

Javelin features preview: Track your way to success

Javelin will be launching soon and in preparation we will be providing a preview of Javelin functions via our blog.  First up, we are previewing Tracks.

Tracks are a neat feature in Javelin that provides a simple way to manage repetitive processes.  In business we find often find processes that do, or perhaps should! follow the same steps each time.  For example:

• following through on a sales opportunity
• managing a customer support query
• issuing a monthly customer invoice
• end of period accounting procedures

Tracks establish a pre-defined series of steps.  It could be as simple as a pre-defined to-do list that you tick off when steps are completed:

Tracks become more powerful by including rules that control the sequence and timing of each step:

Once defined, a track is available to embed in a Javelin Opportunity or Case.  We’re confident businesses will find novel ways to use this function.  Do you have processes in your business that would benefit from a more structured approach?  We’d love to hear about it.

Register for our Beta now if you would like to see Tracks in action.