Topic: How are you using Highrise? / Thank you for Deals!

The new Deals feature solves some workflow problems for me wonderfully! Thanks for adding this!

It does however, impact how I use basecamp. Since my projects are tightly linked to customers, Highrise is a better place for my own project and bid related data (instead of basecamp). I now will only need basecamp for managing work with my employees and for customers interested in using it on projects.

For managing tasks and my own info relating to hourly work or bid projects, the Deals tab in Highrise is perfect!

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / Inaccurate search

I am trying to devise a way to easily recall items I’ve bid by tagging with @bid in a reponse to a comment on an email I’ve sent into Highrise. I would also use this tag in elsewhere in regular notes (not emails sent in). However, I find that the search in Highrise is inaccurate. I have one item tagged @bid and I get all kinds of results that includes the word bid. It seems that it does not recognize @bid as a whole search phrase, or it just ignores the symbol.

Anyone run into this and find a workaround?

Simple tagging would be the answer but this is not a request for new features; instead just a request to make an existing one work more accurately.

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / Searches results will find completed tasks but not active ones??

I’ve been using context tags in my tasks. One in particular is ”@HOT” for things I need to move on before others (since there’s no other way to assign priority). Anyway, I was using the search and plugged in @HOT and got search results that included several completed tasks that had that context tag in it. I had forgotten that the search isn’t supposed to even include tasks, but it appears it does now on a limited basis.

I have many active tasks marked with my ”@HOT” context tag, but the search doesn’t find any of those. This seems like a bug, doesn’t it? If anything, it should find the active ones and not the completed ones, right? That would be my preference.

Does anyone else experience this?

Topic: Feature Requests / Contact Tasks Show Up Under Company Tasks

I too would find this really useful.

Topic: Miscellaneous / Search or list by Task Category?

Love this idea – filtering task list by category. Also love the ability to search tasks; completed or not.

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / ical feed for tasks - updates how often?

Thanks – good to know!

Topic: Feature Requests / Persistent links & search throughout Highrise

It would be great if there was a dedicated section of the sidebar throughout every area of highrise that had a set of features always available.

- search (for everything)
- add company
- add contact
- add task (... and allow assigning to a contact via the person or company name using ajax auto-fill)

We almost have this on the main dashboard page, but that goes away as soon as you click into any other section.

It would be great to have instant access to these commonly used functions everywhere. For example: when I’m viewing tasks, it would be great to search for a contact right from that page or add a contact or company. I realize the contact section, which has these functions is only one click away, but when you live in Highrise every day like I do, it quickly becomes a bothersome “speed bump”.

Topic: Feature Requests / iCal Feed, What a great Idea.

Ditto on Jake’s request. It would be great if “this week” and “next week” tasks showed up on the Friday of those indicated weeks.

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / ical feed for tasks - updates how often?

I’ve recently tried using the ical feed for tasks in my Google Calendar. It sets up easily enough, but updated information doesn’t seem to be updated in my google calendar view. I’ve made some additions and changes to my tasks hours ago, and those changes still aren’t reflected in Google calendar.

How often does the feed updates filter down into my calendar?
Is there a way I can control the frequency of updates for tasks viewed with the ical feed?

Topic: Highrise API / iCal sync not working ...

jsvantner (and all other IE users out there) -

IE has a terrible behavior called “friendly error reporting”, which is turned on by default. It actually prevents you from seeing the real error message, and typically displays the internal 500 error, which no developer can do anything with. If you turn off this friendly error reporting, IE will show the real error message, and that’s what they really need.

In IE, go to Tools > Internet Options, then to the advanced tab and scroll down to the second group of check boxes and look for one that says “show friendly HTTP error messages”. Make sure that box is not checked. If it is, then remove it by clicking it. Save your changes by clicking OK. The next time you repeat the problem, you’ll get the actual error message, which in many cases will provide the filename and maybe even a line of code that is causing the problem. At least then it will be something other than this nebulous 500 error which means nothing.

Topic: Feature Requests / Textile formatting

Nothing fancy is needed, but for me simple things like numbered or un-numbered lists would be really helpful. Bolding text would be nice too. I can’t imagine why you guys hate it so much. How or why is it a mess as you say Jason?

Topic: Feature Requests / Visibility of other people in a company

I like how I can see all contacts in a company when viewing the company (top level) record, but you can’t get this information any other way. When viewing any one of the contacts in a company, I think it would be great to have a list of the other contacts for the company on the right side bar. Otherwise, you have to go back to the company main page to see other contacts for the organization.

Topic: Feature Requests / show tasks for all people in a company

Good one! +1

Topic: Miscellaneous / Frustrated and confused with 37 Signals products...

First of all let me start by saying I’m an everyday user and subscriber to Highrise and Basecamp, and I use the free versions of Backpack and campfire. In short, I’m a fan….

However, I’m frustrated with the family of 37 Signals products and how much overlap there is. Some of the features needed badly by one product are added to another, and in my opinion not added where they would be most useful. For instance, what is the logic in building in a great calendar to Backpack when it is desperately needed and would be better utilized in Highrise? Furthermore, why is project management kept separate from contact management when the two are so closely related? I’m subscribing to and using these great products because they are useful and help me manage my business, but I long for the day when some of these things can converge.

For me, bringing it all together into one package would be the killer app for me – Highrise, with all the great aspects of basecamp project management and the killer calendar from the recently updated Backpack. Like a Highrise with add-on features which changes the subscription level.

I’ve read the 37 Signals book “Getting Real” and I’m a strong believer in the simplicity of this approach, but the multiple product overlap scheme seems to only really make sense when it comes to revenue.

Am I off base here in my thinking?

Topic: Feature Requests / Basecamp

I’m really excited for 37S’s new product – HighCamp. It is Highrise with Basecamp merged, replacing or melding with the Cases in Highrise. The interface could have a “hemp-ish” look to it. :-) Seriously though, I would love to have one place to manage contacts and projects all in the same place. I haven’t used cases that much yet, but are they “Basecampy” enough for me to use Cases instead?

Fiscally, I can see how it’s better to have people to subscribing to two apps instead of one, but functionally I bet it would all have been different if 37S had envisioned both apps at the same time way back when…

Topic: Feature Requests / Make a unified search

Yes yes! Me too. I hate having to go into the contacts section to search for a contact when I’m viewing tasks. And, it’s a pain to have two different, separated searches for the same app. Who thought this was a good idea?

Topic: Feature Requests / Address and Phone Search

I was surprised to find out that I am not able to search for contacts all from the same city or area code. To me, this seems like a no-brainer. Maybe 37S people don’t actually use Highrise for contact management…. The search tab searches only emails, notes and comments. I would love to hear what the logic was on creating such a limited search.

37S – please consider expanding the search to cover at least all the address fields and the phone fields.

Topic: Feature Requests / Feed from Tasks

+1! – this would be a huge benefit.

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / Cannot add more contacts to an existing company

Today, for whatever reason, I am unable to add additional contacts to an existing company. The form appears as it always has, but when I add the new contact info (by clicking “add a person” under the “People in this company” header), it creates a duplicate company record instead of just adding a contact to the existing company.

I know this feature used to work as expected because I’ve used it many times. Anyone else having this issue? It’s kind of an urgent bug.

Topic: Feature Requests / iCal access to Highrise Tasks

Oooh, this is a good one! Then, I could have my tasks show up in Google Calendar. This would be really useful!

Topic: Feature Requests / Keyboard shortcuts for common activities

I vote for adding keyboard shortcuts for common activities in Highrise (new contact, new company, new task, etc.). I use them all the time in Gmail and they make using the interface so much more efficient. Remember The Milk uses this type of functionality too. I think it’s a no-brainer for a killer app like Highrise!

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / Hitting return when searching

+1 on having support for more keyboard shortcuts! I use the keyboard shortcuts all the time with Gmail and they are extremely helpful and fast.

Topic: Feature Requests / Delete Company - and optionally all its Contacts

That would be difficult to do, since your data appears differently on HR than it does on Outlook or other contact managers. Contacts from the same company in Outlook aren’t nested under the company name. They all appear as distinctly individual contacts. That’s one of the things I like about HR – the grouping of contacts within a company. When you start using HR, you can’t really know what to expect. It’s a completely different story when you’re looking at the system with your own data. I would never have thought my data needed to be cleaned up had I not seen it so clearly within HR.

A check box (defaulted to un-checked) to make this sort of thing optional is plenty easy enough to understand in my opinion. And, if you throw in a warning dialog, it would even make it clearer. Beyond this though, if someone still doesn’t get it and deletes too much of their own info accidentally, then so be it. I think it’s a bad idea to hinder functionality like this in order to protect the kind of user who would do this in the first place. HR also already has tools in place to make it easy to correct things like this (import tool with duplicate checking, etc.).

Topic: Tips & Tricks / Searching tasks?

This is a good workaround, but it would be nice if tasks where included in the search feature linked from the tab on the top bar/right margin (next to Account).

Topic: Feature Requests / Delete Company - and optionally all its Contacts

I’m finding that as I clean out my database to remove contacts and companies that have gone out of business, that I have to 1) delete the contacts, and 2) then delete the company. I also tried deleting the company first, thinking that I might be able to remove all people from that company at the same time.

I have a bunch of records where there is only one contact from a company, and it would be very helpful to be able to remove both the company record and the contact at the same time; saving a step. In situations where you’re removing a company that no longer exists or you just don’t do business with anymore, this would be really beneficial.