Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Free OTM trial now expanded

The free OTM trial terms have also been upgraded to enable longer evaluation periods for those who need them to decide on a project management platform. A three month evaluation period is now available instead of the previous 30 days. This will facilitate better acquaintance with the features of the OTM environment for those with long decision processes or busy daily routines. Up to 5 projects can be managed in the trial period, allowing critical project scenarios to be evaluated thoroughly. Any number of users (project manager logins) can be set up during the trial period, so the evaluation can involve all potential users in a team or organization.

Those who have evaluated the software in the past are welcome to have a "second look" at the many new features which have been introduced in recent months, such as greater customizability of standard texts, more client interface languages, sophisticated invoicing options, additional archiving options, greater legal security with online proposal acceptance and more. Just contact LSP.net with your request, and your old trial account will be re-activated for another three month evaluation.

For contacting LSP.net with your request, please click here

Saturday, January 15, 2011

_changelog OTM Update 4.0 – 2011-01-17

1) Saving line item templates and importing line item lists
Line item lists include the service, possibly the language pair, service-specific text blocks, rates, areas of specialization, etc., without references to files and quantities.
They are imported into current projects from other projects or templates which have been saved especially for this purpose. A saved template can be used as a “price list”.
(a) >Line items: line item lists are imported into current projects from other projects or from saved templates.
(b) >Manage templates: naming, renaming, deleting and releasing line item lists
(c) >Project management >Line item summary: saving a line item list as a template for use by other project managers in the same organization. (PM users with administrative or supervisory rights always see all of a company’s templates.)

2) Web interface for mobile access
Access is now possible via iPhone. Running OTM in the smartphone browsers enables you to handle basic administrative tasks for project management:
- View project requests and assign them for processing
- Block project management
- Read e-mail
- Read reports
- View customer profiles

3) “Copy file” function
>File repository
>Project documents
>Customer documents
It’s now easier to copy a file from one area to another. You can choose to save the file copy directly in the >File repository, >Project documents or >Customer documents.

4) >Project documents function upgraded
Additional information, functions and sorting options

5) Select user interface display time zone
Schedules and deadlines will be shown in the user interface for project managers and resources in the time zone selected by the user.

6) Date entry in ISO format
Dates and times (for example for deadlines) are now entered using the ISO format: YYYY-DD-MM hh:mm

7) Shortcut to the project summary
On the overview pages and the project summary box, an icon now appears before the project number. Clicking it takes you directly to the project summary without the need to use the dropdown menu for navigation.

8) >Job file functions now use AJAX
It is no longer necessary to refresh pages manually after changes are made, such as evaluating a results file or accepting a delivery file. The changed information is displayed immediately.

9) Warning if the default deadline for jobs is changed
If jobs are already saved in a project, after a project manager changes the default job deadline a warning appears indicating that jobs previously created are not automatically updated and may require manual attention.

10) >Order >Generate invoice function updated
The page for generating invoices (as well as payment requests, partial invoices and credit notes) was redesigned. An HTML preview of the PDF document is now included, and an editable e-mail message is now shown if the document is to be sent by e-mail.

11) Differentiated display of first and last names
It is not clear in all languages what the first and last name of a person is, for example when the name consists of more than two words altogether. Now last names are indicated by the use of bold type.

12) Delivery of certified documents
As of OTM 4.0 resources can no longer be searched globally by the criterion of being court-appointed. Instead, it is determined based on the service and language pair whether the criterion for the delivery of certified documents is relevant.
Since there is no uniform rules that apply internationally to this issue and the legal situation cannot be generalized, an additional query is made for qualifications and the agency which granted authorization.
Current resources who were listed as being sworn will be requested to provide more specific information when they log in to their service pages.

13) >Bookkeeping – Display of the posted amount instead of the remaining amount

Outgoing invoices which follow a payment request which has been settled will no longer show the unpaid amount remaining as “0” but instead will indicate the posted amount in the bookkeeping overviews.

14) Wizard for quantity unit differences between items in a quotation and the corresponding jobs
If a project uses quantity units for a job given to a resource that differ from those used in the quote or invoice for the customer, OTM offers assistance in conversion using factors or allows other amounts to be input manually.

15) Various other minor improvements were implemented.