Today we launched a new Highrise feature that makes it a lot faster and easier to file a note or email under a case or deal. This new feature will save you clicks and time — especially when filing a lot of notes/emails one after another.

One thing that I note related to this new feature is that it appears that you must be in Excerpt view in order for the new feature to work. I was trying to do this from the List view and it doesn’t seem to work from within that view. I have queried the guys at 37signals about this and I’ll update any information that they provide.

We’ve got an additional gift, prize, present, or whatever you wish to call it. We’re going to give it away at then end of July as well. As I mentioned in the post this morning, what we’re giving away is made by the fine folks out in Cupertino, CA, Apple, Inc. Drumroll please…

We’re giving away a 1GB iPod shuffle. After all, everybody could use one more iPod in their lives, right?

So here’s how to get entered into the drawing for the 1GB iPod shuffle. Simply become a fan of DDS on the DDS Facebook page. Already a fan? Then you’re already entered. Not a fan yet? Better hurry, there’s only four and a half days left to be eligible for this drawing.

If not, do it, NOW! There are only 5 days left till we draw the four (4) winners of a DDS Web Presence Development Package.

So far, response has been great. We have 112 eligible followers and that number is growing daily.

We’ve also decided to give away one more awesome prize. A little hint, it’s made by a company out of Cupertino, CA called Apple, Inc. We’ll be announcing this prize and how to win it on our blog today at 1:30 P.M. EST.

1. Within your Email client, navigate to the culprit email. (That would be the one that you sent without bcc’ing your Highrise Dropbox and it should be located in your SENT folder).
2. After locating that email, hit the Forward button in preparation to forward it on to your Highrise Dropbox.
3. Before you forward the email to your Highrise Dropbox, you’ll want to go and change the From information. At present, it should show that the email was from You. You’ll want to edit this so that the email shows From the Contact or Company you wish to link it to in Highrise. Here’s how:
4. Email currently shows this information: From: Me <me@mail.com>
5. Edit this information to show the Contact name and email address that is in the Contact record in Highrise, ie: From: First Last <firstlast@mail.com>
6. Once you have edited the From information, make sure that you have entered the forwarding address to go to your Highrise Dropbox.
7. Hit the send button and then check your Highrise Dashboard. You should see the email there, linked to the Contact or Company that you specified in step 5.

Highrise is an amazingly efficient and easy to use Client Relationship Management application that is completely web based. Click the Highrise graphic above to explore Highrise in a little more depth and find out how to get your 30 day free trial. We offer Highrise Implementation and Consulting services so feel free to call on us if you need assistance.

Helpful relevant links for this post: Highrise, CRM (Client Relationship Management), Highrise Consulting Rates

]]> http://digidsolutions.com/2009/07/23/forgot-to-bcc-your-highrise-dropbox-no-problem/feed/ 0 http://digidsolutions.com/2009/07/09/were-movingto-the-cloud-digidsolutionscom-a-little-background/ http://digidsolutions.com/2009/07/09/were-movingto-the-cloud-digidsolutionscom-a-little-background/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:00:21 +0000 Jarrod Skeggs http://digidsolutions.com/?p=855

So, you’ve heard by now that we’re moving…to the cloud. Throughout this series of blog posts we’ll be explaining and sharing our entire experience with you. This post should really frame everything and give you an overall perspective on why we’ve decided to make this move.

A little background

Our move to the cloud really began in late 2008. During our end of year review and planning one of our biggest topics of discussion was our website and blog. At that time, we were using a very capable WYSIWYG, (What You See is What You Get), Website design software package called Rapid Weaver. We chose Rapid Weaver as our Website design software shortly after we began business. Our primary reasoning for making this choice was the WYSIWYG feature because at that time, we knew just enough HTML and CSS to be dangerous. Rapid Weaver had the ability to create a blog page and we initially used that feature until we quickly realized how inconvenient it was to use. Essentially, every time we wanted to add a new blog post, we had to open up the software, draft the blog, and then re-publish the changes to the website. While this is not a huge deal if you only have one person blogging, it is quite inconvenient when there are multiple authors.

In an attempt to make it easier for both me and Kevin to blog at will, we opened a Typepad account, largely because it was web based and either of us could access it from a web browser (and because Kevin really liked the iPhone interface). Our dilemma with that however was that we had a fairly static website at one web address and our blog located at a completely different web address. So, if we got traffic to our website, people didn’t have access to our blog content, and if we got traffic to our blog, people didn’t get a lot of the important information they were looking for about our company. Plus, we were paying a monthly fee for Typepad as well as paying a monthly hosting fee for our website.

So, to bring this back around to the subject at hand, we discovered and began investigating the WordPress platform late last year. Both Kevin and I had heard about WordPress in the past, but had never really given it much consideration because we thought that it was quite similar to Typepad. What we learned was that WordPress is quite possibly the most innovative Content Management System platform in the world. As we began to investigate and learn more about WordPress, we realized that it was exactly what we had been looking for when we started our business three years ago. We realized that WordPress had become much more than a blogging engine, and could function as our Hub on the web and be a central place where our clients and prospects can connect with us.

In the next post, I’ll be giving you some examples of how we are utilizing WordPress as our Hub.

In case you didn’t hear, you can win one (1) of four (4) Web Presence Development Packages that we are giving away by simply following us on Twitter. If you haven’t done so, go there now and follow us. The drawing for the Web Presence Development Packages takes place on August 1, 2009.

We’re moving…to the cloud. You’ve probably heard of the cloud, but just in case you haven’t here’s how Wikipedia explains it:

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the “cloud” that supports them.

Another term that is often used interchangeably with the cloud is Software as a Service, or SaaS. Essentially, the software lives in the cloud, on someone else’s technology infrastructure, and it is accessed over the internet with a web browser. Simply put, by moving to the cloud, DDS won’t have to continue to invest our hard earned capital in Server ownership and maintenance. Instead, we’ll be paying a monthly subscription fee for the Software as a Service (SaaS) that we utilize.

Since we began business, a little more than 3 years ago, we’ve utilized some very good desktop applications that have helped us run every aspect of our business. Many of these desktop applications connect back to a Server side application running on our Macintosh OS X Server. These applications have included Daylite, Billings, and MYOB Account Edge, to name a few. They are top notch and they have served us very well.

As great as these applications have been, we’ve concluded that moving to the cloud is what will help DDS continue to to bring our Clients the best service and value in the long term. There have been many factors that have impacted our decision and we’ll be sharing those and chronicling our move to the cloud experience here on our blog. It is our hope that by documenting our experience here that we can help you and your company make a determination about whether such a move is right for you and, if so, hopefully you can learn some best practices. You might even learn a few things that you shouldn’t do.

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for us along the way, please leave us some comments. We’d really like to engage as many of our readers as possible during this process.