The Capsule Blog

Turn on/off Capsule for Google Apps users

If you have a paid google apps account you now have the possibility to choose which of your users that can see and use the Capsule gmail gadget or not. If you for example have a lot of google apps users but only a few of them user Capsule, why not turn off the gadget for the rest of your users. The gadget will only be there for the relevant users and won't cause confusion for the rest of your google apps users.

What you have to do as administrator of your google apps domain is the following:

• Go to your google apps dashboard
• Select the Organisations & users tab
• Click the Add sub-organization button at the top right
• Add a sub-organization with an appropriate name ('Capsule Users' for example)
• Go back to the list with all your users and move the users that need access to Capsule to the Capsule Users sub-organization
• You move a user by ticking the box next to the user name and then using the Move to menu at the top to move the user to a different sub-organization
• Once you have moved all the users to the correct sub-organization you can edit the application access
• You will find your newly created sub-organization on the left hand side
• Click the Capsule Users sub-organization and then go to the Services tab
• Now you can override the inherited services access and turn on or off any services you would like, including Capsule CRM

Google has written a blog post about how this all works, you can find it here

New Capsule Support Portal

We have updated the Capsule support portal. It now includes full content search and it can be accessed from the support link on our main site.

For those who haven't used the support portal, it includes a range of help articles and instructions for using Capsule. It's a good place to start if you're ever unsure of anything.

View the support portal

Quote Roller integrates with Capsule

The team at Quote Roller have integrated with Capsule to make it easy to send great looking proposals to your Capsule contacts. Check out their video to find out more about how Quote Roller can help with your sales process.

Quote Roller - create and send proposals in 15 minutes from Quote Roller on Vimeo.

Navigation refresh

We’ve rolled out an update to the Capsule navigation bar. Along with a fresh look for the icons and styling, the new navigation bar improves the way the navigation elements work.

With ever increasing screen resolutions we wanted a design that took advantage of the available screen space.  Over 90% of our users have a screen resolution that exceeds 1024x768.  In the previous design the number of recently accessed records that showed across the top was fixed to 5 links.  In the new design this section expands and contracts to show as many recently accessed records as you’ve got space for.

In the previous design the search box sat below the navigation bar in the page header.  The new design unifies the search with other navigation links in the navigation bar.

And finally, the “more” menu has been removed and replaced with the name of the logged in user which also acts as a drop down menu to provide links to user preferences, help and logout.

The new design:

As before, the color of the navigation bar is customisable so that you can match Capsule with your brand if you wish.  Here’s an example in blue:

The old design for comparison:

We’ve taken advantage of a number of CSS3 features in the new design such as transitions and the usual rounded corners and shadows. To get the full experience be sure to use a browser that supports the latest web standards such as Chrome, Firefox or Safari rather than Internet Explorer.

Control who can export

One of the popular requests we’ve had from customers is control over which users can do a full export of contacts.  A number of customers have told us they’ve spent years building up their customer database and so they feel it should be possible to prevent some or all of their users from exporting a copy to keep for themselves.

It’s now possible to control which users can export contacts, opportunities and cases to CSV or vCard file.  When adding or updating a user, the following option will appear:

If the right to export is removed from an administrator then the administrator will not be able to assign the right to other users.

Speedy date entry

We've recently updated Capsule to make it easy to enter dates, such as entering a due date for a task, or the expected close date for an opportunity, or for a custom fields that you've defined. The old date input did a fine job of selecting an upcoming date from a calendar but it prevented direct input of a date, so in situations where you knew the specific date you had to click through the calendar to find it. The new date input allows both options. You can key the date directly into the field if you know it, or you can pick a date from the calendar as before:

We hope you find this makes date entry speedier and more enjoyable.

Launch of Capsule Mobile

We're pleased to announce the launch of Capsule Mobile for the following devices:

• iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4
• Android phones running Android 2.1+ such as Motorola Droid X, Motorola Droid 2, HTC Evo, Samsung Galaxy S
• BlackBerry phones running BlackBerry OS 6 such as BlackBerry Bold and Torch

We're sticking with the beta label on Capsule Mobile for now. It's had extensive testing over the past 6 weeks with help from a small group of beta testers and the feedback has been very encouraging. We figure it's time to open the beta up to all users since we know how popular the mobile application has been on our uservoice forums!

Getting it

Enter the the following URL into the browser on your phone to install Capsule Mobile:
https://[your-account].capsulecrm.com/m

Be sure to replace the [your-account] bit with the relevant part from your Capsule account URL. You'll be prompted to enter your username and password and a pop-up message will ask your permission to allow additional storage space to be used on your phone. It may take several minutes for your contacts to be downloaded to your phone. Note that the application will only run on the default webkit browser. It won't run on Opera or Firefox.

Adding a short cut to your home screen on Android

• Bookmark Capsule in the browser
• Open the bookmarks page
• Long-press the Capsule bookmark
• Select Add to Home screen

Adding a short cut to your home screen on iPhone

Once you've logged into Capsule Mobile you can add a short cut to your home screen by tapping the bookmark button in the middle of the toolbar below the browser and then Add to Home Screen button.

A bit of background on the native vs web app decision

It was clear by August last year when we started looking at a mobile application that we couldn't just focus on the iPhone. The Android has exploded in popularity and the BlackBerry continues to be a popular choice for business users. We spent time looking at options for our mobile application including building native applications for each platform. The obvious drawback is that each of these platforms has its own unique development and deployment environment. The other drawback is lack of control. For example if we had fixes we wanted to release quickly for a native iPhone app we'd need to wait for Apple to review and approve the update.

The great news is that the web browser has rapidly become a potent deployment environment for applications on newer phones especially those using the webkit browser like iPhone, Android, Blackberry 6 and WebOS. It turns out that the webkit browser on the current generation of smart phones is pretty powerful and can offer most of what users have come to expect from native apps.

Here are some of the things to expect from our application:

• Offline storage: Capsule Mobile uses your browser's own internal storage to install a copy of the Capsule contacts onto your phone. You can access and make changes to your contacts even during periods where you are out of network or wifi coverage. Each time the application starts it synchronises any changes you made while offline and retrieves the latest copy of the contacts from the server.
• Responsive UI: When you navigate between screens in Capsule Mobile they are being redrawn by your Phone's web browser using cached information where possible. This gives the application a faster response time than you would traditionally get from a web application get where the screen is redrawn on the web server. This is important on a phone because the phone network speeds fluctuate widely.
• Phone integration: Tapping a phone number will start a call for you. Tapping an email address will open a compose window in your email client and BCC the dropbox automatically. Tapping an address will show you the contacts location on Google Maps.
• Automatic application updates: Each time we release an update to Capsule Mobile your phone will automatically download it. There's no need to update Capsule Mobile manually. You'll always be running with the latest features and fixes. This also means We don't have to wait for approval from another organisation to release an update to Capsule Mobile.

Building a browser based mobile application has been a steep learning curve, particularly with regards to offline storage. However we are very happy with the result and it's reassuring to see other application vendors treading the same path by releasing browser based mobile applications rather than native apps.

Keep in mind this is our first release and we will continue to refine. We hope to add support for opportunities and cases soon.

Windows phone 7 and other devices

Unfortunately Windows phone 7 doesn't support the necessary standards for Capsule Mobile. It's unclear at this stage when or how Microsoft will implement the latest HTML5 standards on their platform. At this stage we don't have any plans to support Windows phone 7 devices.

Devices other than those we've listed above that deploy a recent WebKit browser may work with Capsule Mobile. However we haven't tested on these and so your millage may vary. This includes the likes of the PalmPre. We'd welcome any feedback on experience running Capsule Mobile on WebKit based devices that we haven't listed.

Happy 1st Birthday Google Apps Marketplace

I’ve been reminded that it’s been a year today since the launch of the Google Apps Marketplace which we are proud to be a part of.

2010 was a great year for the Capsule business with annual revenues more than 1000% up on the previous year. The Google Apps Marketplace has been a significant source of new customers driving this growth and has also helped to cement Capsule as a leading CRM for small businesses and sales teams. I’m pleasantly surprised and flattered each time I bump into people in business who mention they’ve come across Capsule or are already a customer, often as a result of seeing us in the Marketplace.

The Marketplace has also introduced Capsule to more corners of the globe. We now have customers in 66 countries so I’m pleased to welcome Greenland, Kuwait, Cyprus and Costa Rica just to name a few additions to the list of countries where customers are using Capsule.

By the way, we are hiring. If you’re a developer or designer based in the North West of England and our jobs sound like your thing we’d love to hear from you. Or if you know someone in North West of England who might be right for the job I’d be very grateful if you could pass on a link.

Easy forms for your website with Wufoo integration

This is a handy new integration for Capsule users who want an easy solution for linking contact forms on a website to Capsule.  Capsule already provides support for building your own website contact forms that integrate with Capsule using HTML. However, the new Wufoo integration provides an easier alternative with no need to get involved with HTML. Wufoo provides drag and drop tools for adding forms to a website along with styling support so that you can match the form to your website style, and validation rules so you can control how the data is captured.

Wufoo provide a range of plans from free (for up to 3 forms) through to paid plans that offer extended options.

Full instructions for enabling the integration between Wufoo and Capsule are provided via the Settings > Integration page of your Capsule account.

We hope you find this integration useful and thanks as always to the many Capsule customers who requested the online form builder integration via our uservoice forums.

Capsule contextual gadget for Gmail

One of the projects we've been busy with recently is the development of a Gmail contextual gadget. A Gmail contextual gadget is a gadget that is triggered by clues in Gmail, such as the contents of Subject lines and email messages. For example, Gmail already provides a YouTube contextual gadget. If the body of an email contains a link to a YouTube video, a clickable thumbnail view of the video appears at the bottom of the email.

Rather than replicate the CRM functionality in a small window at the bottom of each email, we've designed the Capsule contextual gadget to improve the workflow around receiving an email and the actions that you need to take as a result.

Here's a summary of Capsule contextual gadget functionality:

• Add new contacts straight into Capsule
• See details you hold about the sender and click through to their page in Capsule
• Store messages in Capsule without using the dropbox
• Create an opportunity or case linked to the email
• File the email under an existing opportunity or case
• Create a follow-up task

If you are already using Capsule and want to take advantage of the gadget you'll need an administrator of your Google Apps domain to grant access to the gadget for the new information required to support the gadget. To do this visit your Google Apps dashboard by following Manage this domain from Gmail. Scroll down to the Service Settings section where you will find Capsule listed and follow the View and grant access link:

Then accept the new data access requirements by following the Grant data access link.

It can take up to 10 minutes for the gadget to propagate through Google's caches and appear in your account so hold tight if it doesn't appear straight away.

Here's just a sample of the positive feedback we've had from users of the gadget:

The gadget is phenomenal. If we had known about this beforehand, we would not have hesitated to use Capsule. It's a gamechanger for our business.

I think Capsule just gave me the excuse I needed to finally ditch Outlook!

This is great productivity tool. Really integrates your email with Capsule

It has by far pushed the use of Capsule here to a higher level due to the simplicity of connecting the emails to the contacts and opportunities.

We hope you find this addition useful. Thanks as always to our beta testers and customers on uservoice for their feedback and suggestions on this.

Zferral integrates with Capsule

The team at zferral have integrated their solution with Capsule.  Simply put, zferral lets you create and manage an affiliate program to promote your products or services through your existing customers or other networks. This can be a very effective sales tool, particularly if you’ve got customers who are fans and can introduce you to new customers.

For more information on how affiliate marketing could help your business, check out zferrals’s website which explains the service and their integration with Capsule in more detail.

One click export

Capsule runs on the battle-tested services from Amazon and we backup your data every hour and regularly test the restore process. So I've got every confidence in our restore capability should we ever need it. However there's nothing like having a copy of your data to hand for the ultimate peace of mind. We're also strongly of the view that customers own their data and should be free to export and move their data to another service. To make this easier, we've added a new one-click export function to Capsule.

The new export function generates a single ZIP file and emails it to you. The zipped file contains CSV files for your contacts, opportunities and cases, including a history of emails and notes. We've chosen to stick with CSV for the export since this is the most portable format for transferring data into another system.

By the way, if you're looking for a CSV file to support mail merging or analysis in spreadsheet I'd suggest using our lists feature. This excludes email and note history which makes the CSV file easier to work with.

We hope you find this feature useful, and many thanks for your votes and feedback on the uservoice suggestion.

More context in the history

The layout of the the contact history in Capsule was designed early on and it’s been long due for a tidy up.  The main problem with the old design is that the sender of an email wasn’t clearly identified. This made it difficult to know if the email was sent by you or by a contact.

The new design shows the sender and recipient(s) of the email so it’s clear whether the email was sent by you to the contact, or was received from a contact.  We’ve also included the contact’s picture alongside each entry in the organisation’s page.  The user and entry date are still displayed, but are given less prominence to make it easy to scan through the information in each entry.  Here’s a preview showing the new design:

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.

System Status page for Capsule

We had a couple of periods earlier in the week where the service was slow for some users. Sorry to those affected.  We are resolving this by adding server capacity, some of which has been put in place and we’ve got more coming.

A number of you asked whether there is system status page for Capsule. We haven’t had one, but as of today we’ve published a System Status page to keep users informed when the service is down or problematic. We’ll post whenever there is an issue or we schedule downtime. We’ve also also published our Pingdom Uptime Report which provides both current status and history of the system availability.

Hope you find this useful, and more importantly, I hope we don’t have to update it too often!