Island Web Works

This post is part of a MIGTurbo CRM 2 series that will highlight the key improvements and features in the new product that we’ll be running over the next few months. You can also follow our Twitter account @migturbo for regular updates on progress.

When we blogged about the new client/server model of MIGTurbo CRM 2, we gave a hint as to how we see users interacting with the product. This post discussed how the database server was “hidden” behind the MIGTurbo application server. But if the user cannot connect to the MIGTurbo database directly, how can they use MIGTurbo?

MIGTurbo CRM 2 brings with it a comprehensive API for extending the product both at the server level, and at the client-level. Using this API, we can provide secure access to MIGTurbo data using nothing more than a server URI, a username and a password. We’re going to include two “clients” out of the box.

MIGTurbo CRM 2.0 Silverlight Client

The MIGTurbo CRM product demands a rich user interface that is a pleasure to use, as it is often the key component on a user’s desktop. We were keen on retaining a web user interface, but we didn’t want to find ourselves working around the complexities of web pages and utilitising toolkits that were stretching the web experience to its limit. We developed a number of mock-ups using web page-based user interfaces but felt that we still lacked the killer customisation and user-driven experience we required. Until we created a mock-up in Microsoft Silverlight.

Microsoft Silverlight is a rich internet application (RIA) platform that allows development of web experiences that combines the mashing together of web data and technologies and a rich user experience. While it is implemented in much the same way as Adobe Flash, it is actually a richer and more comprehensive platform. Silverlight brings with it a subset of the .NET Framework, building on existing APIs such as WCF and WPF. Much of the code between server and client can be shared, and using the Microsoft stack, we were able to create an attractive and extensible user interface on business data. We’ve remained loyal to our user interface, too, as you’ll see in upcoming screenshots.

Using Silverlight, it is also possible to “install” MIGTurbo locally. This “out of browser” experience creates an icon in your Start Menu that behaves in most ways as if the software was installed locally on your own machine. This reduces the gap to the server, but it is important to note that MIGTurbo will continue to run in all the major browsers on the Windows platform (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, etc.) and also the Apple Mac platform.

Silverlight remains amongst the most secure application platforms available on the internet today. It also is not standing still. The upcoming release of Silverlight 4 promises interoperability with desktop applications, webcams and more. Rumours abound of Silverlight appearing on mobile devices being announced in the MIX10 event from the newly rebranded Windows Phone to Symbian devices. If you’re in doubt, check these trends out for people investigating Silverlight as opposed to ASP.NET on Google.

MIGTurbo CRM 2.0 Office Client

Not all users will need to use MIGTurbo for their day-to-day work. And not all users work in a web browser silo to fulfil their function. That is why MIGTurbo CRM 2.0 will extend the successful Outlook Toolbar add-on to provide more functionality direct from Microsoft Office.

Users of our Outlook Toolbar have seen how integrating with MIGTurbo and MIGTurbo DocuMentor has made their job dealing with items in their inbox much easier, especially when relating communication back to clients, respondants and candidates. We’re building on this functionality to dig deeper into MIGTurbo, providing features from across the product including any plug-ins. The MIGTurbo toolbar will appear in Microsoft Outlook and will also soon appear in Microsoft Word and Excel. You won’t be far from MIGTurbo, whatever your role may be.

This is possible using the MIGTurbo CRM 2 API. We’re already starting to hear expressions of interest on how our clients can utilise this API for themselves to extend our existing user interfaces and build entirely new ones for their own specific purposes. The API is secure and uses the Microsoft stack so will be readily portable onto desktop, web and portable devices.

These posts discuss features of MIGTurbo CRM 2. While we have every confidence that these features will appear and work as discussed, these blog posts do not represent a final product specification. We will release final product specifications at launch.

Nathan MIGTurbo CRM 2 MIGTurbo 2.0, MIGTurbo Outlook Toolbar, Silverlight, User Experience (UX)

This post is part of a MIGTurbo CRM 2 series that will highlight the key improvements and features in the new product that we’ll be running over the next few months. You can also follow our Twitter account @migturbo for regular updates on progress.

Over the past year, we’ve been hard at work developing the new evolution of our key business intelligence product, MIGTurbo 2.0. MIGTurbo is a successful CRM product running in many client sites both on and off the island. During its lifetime, we’ve come to understand what our users want and how they work. One aspect we have come to learn is how users configure their servers.

A key trend that has developed in the last 5 years is virtualisation. Virtualisation allows companies to extract more efficiency out of their existing hardware platform by creating virtual instances of servers running on the same physical hardware. If implemented well, this can result in benefits such as:

• efficiencies in leveraging under-used CPU cycles by planning and scheduling server activity accordingly
• separating server processes to provide a layer of protection from configuration issues when processes compete for finite resources
• provides redundancy and an additional backup strategy to maximise uptime and reduce maintenance costs

Having virtualisation in mind when working on MIGTurbo 2.0, we were able to re-architect MIGTurbo to work well within both virtualised and existing physical environments. A key change we have made to this new version is to extract the “engine” of MIGTurbo from an IIS-hosted application to a self-contained server process. This allows MIGTurbo to operate independently of IIS and its configuration for its core operation, and providing a host for autonomous activities such as workflow, caching, index building and security services.

A key benefit for us is that as MIGTurbo develops, we can decide whether features are user-oriented, or system-oriented. System-oriented features such as security indexes can be built and maintained on the server at no cost to the user’s experience.

This positions MIGTurbo in the ideal position for businesses of just about any size. From a one-man business with a server in the corner to an organisation with thousands of users across different sites, MIGTurbo has a deployment model that will work.

The diagram below illustrates a typical “top-end” installation.

MIGTurbo Server deployment

The diagram shows three servers managing the MIGTurbo installation. These can be independent physical boxes, some or all of them could be virtualised on a single box, or different processes can be brought on to the same box as required by the company and available on the existing infrastructure. The Web Server continues to be the “point of contact” for MIGTurbo users who will fire up their browsers in the usual manner to interact with the software. Using the new API, new user interface clients can be created which interact with the web server or directly with the MIGTurbo server engine itself, for added performance.

A final benefit to this is that it moves the sensitive raw data further away from the end user. In a security conscious organisation, firewalls can be implemented between each server to maximise the security of the SQL Server databases used to store business critical and highly sensitive data. We’ve also used secure communications between the client and various components of MIGTurbo to further increase security. The diagram below shows that MIGTurbo maintains a secure database even when deployed over the internet using a DMZ configuration:

MIGTurbo working within a DMZ firewall

Moving the MIGTurbo engine out of IIS also allows us to provide additional functionality that would otherwise have been difficult from within the security-restricted context of IIS. Services such as instrumentation using Windows Performance Monitors can be created to allow real-time monitoring of MIGTurbo performance along with other functions that require deeper interaction with the operating system. Configuration is also made easier as IIS dependencies are reduced to only those services required to support the user interface.

Profiling MIGTurbo using Windows Performance Monitor

We believe that this change will form an important platform to allow us to take MIGTurbo to a new level. MIGTurbo has been growing with your business since v1.8, now it can grow with your IT hardware policy to maximise performance for individual users.

These posts discuss features of MIGTurbo CRM 2. While we have every confidence that these features will appear and work as discussed, these blog posts do not represent a final product specification. We will release final product specifications at launch.

Nathan MIGTurbo, MIGTurbo CRM 2 MIGTurbo 2.0, Virtualisation

Yesterday saw the Isle of Man section of the British Computing Society host a talk by Gabriel Karawani on Sharepoint and the benefits it can bring as a Document Management  solution. The BCS regularly host events such as this, which range from soft-skills to harder, technical topics. Overall, a wide mix that should suit most tastes.

As a regular attendee, I was keen to invite Charles down to the presentation to see how other people implement and use Microsoft SharePoint.

The presentation consisted of a fair chunk of marketing-speak, with a brief case-study thrown in. I found it interesting when Gabriel (the presenter) asserted that most people spend a lot of their day interacting with Microsoft Outlook. To this end, he demonstrated SharePoint as an add-on to the standard Outlook interface.

The question is, do people use Outlook because it is a reliable and effective interface for working with other applications such as document management, client management, etc., or because as Outlook is a de-facto business standard which leaves them feeling as if they no have other choice? The interface that was demonstrated felt a little clunky as a result.

What became clear from the presentation is that utilising SharePoint is hardly a case of  ”turn it on and go”. The product represents the foundations of what you could accomplish, given sufficient time and allocation of IT resources whether internally or externally.

When you put it alongside other, more feature complete, systems we deal with such as our own DocuMentor product which comes as part of MIGTurbo CRM, or the Laserfiche Document management solution, it becomes clear that businesses don’t necessarily work the way Microsoft think they do - or should. Nor do they have the resources required to “complete” the job.

We’ve had a number of discussions within the office about the MIGTurbo experience, and where it should lie. Should we leverage the existing power and user experience built around the Microsoft Outlook/Exchange product, or develop a product alongside it that itself would form the hub of a user’s day? The answer is a mix of these. What is key, however, is being able to draw on our experience with working with businesses to facilitate a working procedure that mirrors their business processes and requirements.

In moving forward, we’re certainly going to maintain our focus on the MIGTurbo CRM product as being the force mejeure behind many of our client’s businesses, but we will keep a keen eye on what infrastructure is already within the business, such as Microsoft Exchange for working with scheduling and communications and Microsoft SharePoint when working with documents. It seems to be a logical move to be able to provide users with the option of combining MIGTurbo with their existing infrastructure, which may have its own eco-system of plug-ins and processes essential to the business. MIGTurbo CRM 2 is certainly going to be an exciting product.

Nathan MIGTurbo Document Management, DocuMentor, Exchange, LaserFiche, MIGTurbo 2.0, Outlook, SharePoint

Like it or not, the social media era is upon us and now users have got bored of sharing photos, playing FarmVille and poking each other, businesses are starting to get in on the act. Facebook is not just a site for wasting time, but is fast becoming a way for companies to interact with their followers.

I was asked today why companies take the time and effort to create Facebook Pages when they have perfectly good web sites. The answer is simple: Engagement with your clients.

Building a community around your brand or company is difficult. Building that community on your own web site which people may not know about is even harder. That’s why major companies like Microsoft, Red Bull, Harley Davison and VW turn to Facebook to engage with users, because the Facebook Community is already huge.

Creating a presence on Facebook is pretty simple and involves going through a short procedure to generate an initial page. You can then add content such as news discussions, photos, videos and any other content Facebook supports.

The next step is to market your Facebook presence. You can add badges to your existing online presences such as your web-site, and also add links to your out-going emails, press-releases and marketing material.

As users discover you, they can become “Fans” of your page and participate in discussions on your page. As a company, you can push out marketing messages, news and invite discussion that you find interesting to these users. For example, the cut-out from my own feed on the right shows Wimbledon and The University of Salford engaging with me as a user. By becoming a Fan, I have “opted in”, which makes me to be a very viable target for marketing.

Another reason is that even if you have the best site in the world, users do forget about your site - it’s natural. Facebook marketing is an ideal way to remind users of your activity. I no longer forget about what happens at Wimbledon except for two weeks and I’m still interested in what is happening at my old University even though I left it … well, I’m not saying how long ago!

Using your Facebook channel effectively can be challenging, particularly when identifying what benefit your Facebook and social media activity is having on your bottom line.

If you want to combine your web-site with Facebook as a marketing channel give us a call and we’ll help you navigate the minefield. Or, you can join me and the rest of the island’s Social Media Club every Third Thursday at Paparazzi at 12.30pm (held by Strive PR) where we help introduce people to the benefits of social media and chat about the hottest trends.

Nathan Social Media Facebook, Social Media

As Charles alluded to in his last post, MIGTurbo 2.0 is coming on apace, with no lack of focus on maintaining its high levels of usability. We’ve been thrashing a number of ideas around in various forms to try and come up with a system for Securing data with the flexibility required by regulatory and legislative requirements but without losing usability and comprehension. We hope to post more on how this is going in the next few days, including some of the first screenshots from our new product.

The “other” big product announcement you may have heard about is the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) of Windows 7 by Microsoft. Windows 7 is what many see as what Vista should have been and has been widely accepted and praised as being an outstanding improvement not only on Windows XP, but also Windows Vista. Microsoft really seem to have pulled it out of the bag this time, with one user claiming to have installed it on a 266MHz Pentium II with 96Mb of RAM. If you’re already using Windows 7 in its Release Candidate or if you’re lucky enough to have a copy of the RTM, try these Keyboard Shortcuts which really open up usability when working with windows on your desktop. Some of them will also work in Vista. Try them out, you’ll be surprised what you didn’t know. Our favourite? Windows+Shift+Left/Right to move windows between monitors.

Staying with Microsoft, there’s been a widely publicised outpouring of grief resentment over the continued use of their old Internet Explorer 6 browser. Twitter and various other sources have mounted a number of campaigns to try and encourage users to ditch the IE6 browser in favour of more modern versions such as IE 7 or 8. IE 6 has been the bane of web developer’s lives, with its quirky rendering mechanism and requirements for bad practices in order to force web pages to work as the designer intended. We’d all like to see it pass on, but reality will see that there are many reasons why the browser will hang around for a few more years yet, not least of which is Microsoft’s commitment to support the operating system it shipped with till 2014. Persuading users who are visiting YouTube, Orkut or other sites which are now actively eschewing the IE6 browser is one thing, but persuading corporate IT departments to move away from IE6 is quite another. Coupled with the requirements of IE7 being Windows XP or later, existing Windows 2000 users don’t even have the choice. As such, IE6 continues to represent a sizeable chunk of browser traffic.

In the office, the debate continues about the benefits or otherwise of Office 2007’s new ribbon interface, an interface that has been extended to the rest of the Office suite of products in the 2010 Technical Preview. The detractors have a very valid point in that it significantly reduces usability for users who just want to “get the job done” as they have been trained. My own discussions on Twitter this week highlighted the other side of the argument, which is that maintaining legacy user-interfaces is detrimental to innovation.

Twitter conversation with @alexdegroot

It would be nice to achieve a happy medium, much like the Lotus 1-2-3 emulation mode previously in Excel to try and entice old-school Lotus 1-2-3 users over to the product. I guess when it comes to migrating users who have already “bought in” to your product it becomes a less viable feature proposition. Two of the guys on the Office development team at Microsoft have built a site dedicated to soliciting user feedback, cunningly titled “Make Office Better“. As most users in businesses spend most of their time in Microsoft Office, it’s perhaps an opportunity to drive the future of the product from the “grass-roots”. (It’s also got a great logo.)

Nathan Friday Feeling Internet Explorer 6, MIGTurbo 2.0, Office 2007, Office 2010, Windows 7

Our 5th Friday Feeling shares some of the things that have given us pause for thought this last week.

So you’d have to have been living on Mars not to have known that Michael Jackson died recently. As with Elvis, John Lennon and Princess Diana, the world has gone crazy with news, gossip, rumour and outright lies. The difference this time is the 24 hour news channels and Social Media-effect. #MichaelJackson content has been widely published on various internet platforms including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace to name but three. Watching Sky News and BBC News Channel stumble through their various “Breaking News” items around his death has been equally uncomfortable. It seems Google were also made to feel uncomfortable with the speed of the spreading of the news around the Internet. Indeed, they saw the sudden queries for Michael Jackson as a possible attack on their extensive infrastructure.

Charlie Hamilton, a fellow regular at the Isle of Man Social Media Club, shared a link she found on Google regarding how a web site may be unwittingly the victim of “black hat SEO”. Search Engine Optimisation is an inexact science and respectable web development companies will always recommend you create well designed, written and promoted web sites as being the best way to achieve a high Page Rank in Google. So-called “black hat” optimisation is where a web site employs tricks and cheats to try and circumvent Google’s checks and balances. It turns out that if a site linking to your site has traits of being “black hat”, your own site may be penalised as being an accessory-to-the-fact. Always a good reason to check people who want to link to your site.

Finally, if you’ve ever wondered what Web 2.0 actually means … or meant, an article by Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle might just clarify it for you. Tim and John look back over the last 5 years of “Web 2.0″ to see how the web recovered from the dotcom-crash to become an essential marketing and networking platform. New data providers such as SmartPhones combine with “crowdsourcing” to produce highly accurate data such as virtual state outlines within Flickr, Google can predict the flu-epidemic within the United States and Microsoft can create 3-dimensional imagery based on users’ photographs of common landmarks.

That last article is a long one, but well worth the read. Will keep you entertained for the weekend.

Nathan Friday Feeling Google, John Battelle, SEO, Tim O'Reilly, Web 2.0

It’s Wimbledon and my favourite time of the year where my two favourite world of tennis and technology collide. IBM, the technology partners of all the Grand Slams including Wimbledon, always do a fantastic job of managing the vast amounts of statistics generated by the tournaments. This Wimbledon is no exception with integration into Social Media using Facebook and Twitter and the introduction of an iPhone application. Also interesting are the smaller innovations which occur on the outside of the core technology, such as meta-data attached to landmarks which are used to full effect by the new Google Android phone. Imagine the possibilities of local-based meta-data in CRM, giving you an extra level of detail on client and support sites. BBC Digital Planet showcase this feature as well as provide a sneak look inside the tech hub of the Wimbledon broadcast centre.

The power of social media has just bitten Microsoft in the backside with regards their next version of Microsoft Outlook 2010. The fixoutlook.org campaign has created a very simple page that creates a viral campaign over Twitter. What’s their beef? The continued lack of web standards in Microsoft Outlook. Although there are no official web standards defined by the W3C (or anyone else) on presenting emails effectively in email clients using XHTML, there is best practice. Without best practice, end-users may not find their email as well formatted as the designer, which can detract from a marketing message. Unfortunately, any degree of movement towards best practice is hampered by Microsoft’s response. This time, it seems, they are not interested in defining the standard themselves. Maybe they were stung by the standards they created alongside Internet Explorer 4 through 6?

Document Management comes in many forms and MIGTurbo provides its own document functionality alongside additional integration into third-party document management systems, such as LaserFiche. Our clients’ use of document management is wide and varied, ranging from a simple archival or audit trail for compliance requirements to paperless offices where forms are scanned and sorted electronically for later access. Before jumping in to investing in a document management solution, it’s well worth stepping back and considering how you will use such a system to its fullest extent within the resources of your business. We found a great article giving 8 things to ask yourself before jumping in to Document Management. Well worth reading, if it looks of interest both ourselves and our technology partners would be happy to help answer any questions you may have.

That’s it for this week, hope you have a good weekend.

Nathan Friday Feeling CRM, Document Management, DocuMentor, IBM, LaserFiche, MIGTurbo, Office 2010, Wimbledon

While we’re already busy testing our Outlook toolbar for MIGTurbo CRM out on the new Windows 7 operating system, the bods at Microsoft are also busy … building pretentious marketing videos for Office 2010.

Have a look at their work so far at http://www.office2010themovie.com/.

While I’m sure you’re just as concerned as me about the “No Return, No Undo” captions, one question remains: Will they backtrack on their ribbon user-interface? They now have two sections of their users that prefer the “classic” menus and toolbars and those that prefer the new ribbon interface (which includes me).

Nathan Response Graphical User Interface (GUI), MIGTurbo Outlook Toolbar, Office 2007, Office 2010, Windows 7

Microsoft have released their latest service pack for Microsoft Office, which includes Microsoft Outlook. The service pack comes with a number of improvements and fixes, including some interesting improvements to Outlook itself including improving start-up and shutdown speeds.

We’ve put our own MIGTurbo CRM Outlook Add-on toolbar through its paces under the new Office 2007 Service Pack 2 and are pleased to say it passes with flying colours!

If you run MIGTurbo from a managed corporate network, your systems administration team will no doubt update your software for you in due course.

For more information about Office 2007 Service Pack 2, visit Microsoft’s Support site:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953195

If you don’t have your installation of Microsoft Office downloading updates using Windows update, you can download the service pack using the link below:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968170

Nathan MIGTurbo MIGTurbo Outlook Toolbar, Office 2007, Outlook

In February we released a new version of the MIGTurbo CRM Toolbar for Microsoft Outlook users. Development of this ‘all new’ version has been undertaken in-house to ensure that we can provide clients direct support and actively incorporate their feedback into the development process.

Since February, we have released a number of updates to the new toolbar based on client feedback of the toolbar “in the wild”.

Change your mind on sending emails when filing

The MIGTurbo CRM Outlook Toolbar seamlessly integrates into your Microsoft Outlook application so that you can choose to file items manually or automatically when you send emails. But what if you have second thoughts on sending an email? If you have your toolbar to file outgoing items, when you are prompted to confirm the filing details you now have an extra button: “Do not File or Send”. This allows you to cancel sending and filing the item, useful for saving blushes later!

Outlook Distribution Lists and Groups expanded

When sending to many people, Outlook provides a useful feature of grouping contacts together. This is ideal for sending to anyone involved in a team. We’ve improved the toolbar to take this into account and “expand” the Distribution List or Group to file against one of its member contacts.

Added Template Fields

We’re very concious of our clients’ security and privacy requirements, particularly when working with recruitment or financial data. To further improve on our extensive security and privacy considerations within MIGTurbo, we’ve also added three additional fields that allow you to include just the To, CC or BCC fields when you’re filing messages away in MIGTurbo. This way any project managers, stakeholders who may be copied in on a message will retain anonymity within MIGTurbo CRM.

If you’re already using the MIGTurbo CRM Outlook Toolbar and want to benefit from these new features, be sure to contact us and we’ll be happy to introduce your organisation to these improvements.

Nathan MIGTurbo MIGTurbo 1.8, MIGTurbo 1.9, MIGTurbo Outlook Toolbar, Outlook