Do you have a weekly status meeting? Do you have to regularly create sales reports? Or maybe you issue monthly newsletters? In these and thousands of other cases, you will be pleased with the new recurring tasks feature available in Wrike. Now, when you create or edit a task, you can check a box to turn the task from a one-time event to a recurring event.

The recurring tasks feature is great addition to other scheduling options, like customized work days, intraday tasks and task dependencies in Wrike.  Automatic scheduling of recurring tasks will help you reduce time spent on daily planning and result in more realistic plans.

Once the “recurring” box is checked in the task edit form, you will see a pop-up dialog that lets you set up the frequency of your task or event.



For example, if you want to schedule the design of a weekly newsletter due every Monday, you select the “Weekly” button, set it to reoccur every week and check the box called Monday. Then you set the duration of the task recurrence by entering the start day as next Monday, for instance, and the end day as one month later.



After you save the changes to the task, a series of tasks will be added to your Wrike workspace. The tasks will differ by date and title.  A number (starting from 1) will be added to the end of each task title in the series. In our example, we will see  four tasks: “designing weekly newsletter 1,” “designing weekly newsletter 2,” “designing weekly newsletter 3” and “designing weekly newsletter 4” with the corresponding due dates on December 21, December 28, January 4 and January 11. Your recurring tasks are marked up with a special icon in the task list, as well as on the timeline:



When necessary, you can edit the series of tasks by updating the recurrence pattern, or edit an individual task by changing its title, date, description, etc. If you change the due date of an individual task and later update the recurrence pattern, the due date of the individual task will be updated as well. Say you reschedule the task called “designing weekly newsletter4” from January 11 to January 12 and then update the recurrence pattern so that  the task is due each Wednesday, instead of each Monday, the “designing weekly newsletter4” task will be rescheduled for Wednesday, January 13.  

Many of you know that Wrike recently became available in Spanish. Initially, the language of your Wrike interface depended on the domain where you signed up: at www.wrike.com (English) or at www.wrike.es (Spanish). Now we have added the ability to change the language of your Wrike workspace easily.

First, the language option is now available on every page of Wrike’s Web site (see the top right corner of the Web page).



Additionally, you can customize the language of your Wrike workspace and the language of e-mail notifications that you receive from Wrike by using the “My profile” tab (2) that is in the "Account" section (1). Once you switch the language (3) under your personal profile, do not forget to save the changes (4), so that they come into effect!



Each user can individually set the desired language because the settings are personal and do not affect the entire account.

As you know, Wrike has a keyboard-friendly navigation that makes it easy for you to create and update tasks.

Today, we added a new shortcut for creating tasks inline: “C”. You simply click the right pane with the task list (1), hit “C” on your keyboard, and a new task is created (2). Then, you enter the task title (required), due date and the responsible person (optional) and hit “Enter.”
 


Why is this shortcut so special? It works well for Mac users!
 
As before, you can create tasks by hitting “insert” on your PCs.

In the best Wrike traditions, we keep bringing the convenience of using your favorite desktop software to the Web. A couple of weeks ago, we introduced a right-click context menu for the folders tree. Now we are introducing drag-and-drop for folders.

1) To move a folder:

Left-click on the folder, hold the mouse button and pull the folder to the place where you want to see it.



2) To include a subfolder in several folders: hold CTRL.

If you want one subfolder to be included in many folders, hold the “ctrl” key while doing the previous operation. The subfolder will stay where it was before the drag-and-drop, and it also will be included in the new place where you dropped it.



Tip to remember: When you put something in a shared folder, it automatically becomes shared as well. For example, if you move a project folder to a folder shared with your client, your client will see the project folder and underlying tasks.

We have a lot of customers in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia, and our own team is also quite diverse. Since we launched in States, we started with a U.S. date format for creating tasks via email, but we always got a lot of requests to make it international. As you know, we are always keen to implement your requests. Wrike now supports the international date format where the day goes first and the month goes second, like 31/12/2008.

By default, the date format is set as MM/DD/YYYY. However, account administrators can easily edit the setting to DD/MM/YYYY for all users in their accounts. The administrator needs to sign in to Wrike, go to “Account”->“Account Management,” choose the format that suits  his or her team best (1) and click the “Update” button (2). The changes affect all users in the account.



If two different customers of Wrike with different date settings collaborate on a task via e-mail, the date format of the task author takes prevalence in Wrike.

By the way, in the next six months we will have a limited number (15) of country reseller openings. If you know somebody who deserves to become a local Wrike reseller, drop us a note.

The brilliance of Wrike is in its ability to help people manage a wide range of activities. Some Wrike users work 24/7 to get their projects delivered as soon as possible. Others work from 9 to 5 on business days only. So that every team can plan its projects in accordance with its work schedule, we have introduced customization of working days.

If you want to change the Monday to Friday schedule for your account, then the administrator needs to sign in, go to “Account”->“Account Management,” change working days (1) and hit the “Update” button (2). The settings are effective for all users in the account and can be set by the account administrator. The changes will affect all tasks created in the future by all users in the account. To avoid potential confusion, existing tasks will not be automatically rescheduled. When you change an existing task, the new settings will come into effect.

Google Chrome has already won the hearts of thousands of early adopters. Chrome has  a number of innovative features that  Google says were developed to solve several serious problems related to browsing the Web. If you are one of the Web-workers who have already chosen Chrome as a primary browser, do not deprive yourself the pleasure of adding your favorite project management software to your bookmarks. Wrike works perfectly in Chrome, just as it does in other highly popular web-browsers, such as Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox 3, and Safari 3. 

First of all, what is RSS? It is an abbreviation that stands for Really Simple Syndication — a format for delivering regularly changing Web content. Many news-related sites, blogs and other online publishers syndicate their content’s updates in the form of RSS feeds to help you keep track of newly published information.

How does RSS help you to be more productive?

The benefit of RSS is the aggregation of content from multiple online sources in one place. RSS makes life easier for people who regularly use the Web. You easily stay informed by receiving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You keep your privacy because, with RSS, you don’t have to subscribe to each site's e-mail newsletter. You save a lot of time because you do not need to visit each of your favorite sites individually.

How can you save time following your project’s progress with Wrike’s RSS feature?

You can use Wrike’s RSS feeds with Wrike’s e-mail to-do lists or instead of them, if you find it more convenient.  Wrike’s RSS feature is a perfect complement to on-site update notifications that you see in the upper left-hand corner of your workspace. RSS might be especially helpful when you are out of the office because you will still get relevant and up-to-date information about your team’s progress for you to read in your own time.  This information will be available with your smart phone, BlackBerry, iPhone or other mobile device.

How can I use RSS?

You need to have special software called an "RSS reader." It can be either Web-based or desktop-based. There’s a handy list of RSS readers in Wikipedia. Google Reader or Bloglines are very popular. Besides, you may already have one in your browser, if you use Fire Fox, Internet Explorer 7 or Safari.

To get updates from people you are collaborating with via RSS, you just need to click on the blue RSS icon in the upper right-hand corner of your workspace.



This will allow you to stay in the loop without having to stay logged on to wrike.com all the time. All the messages will be chronologically listed in your RSS reader. When new information is added to a task, you get an update with a link to the renewed task instantly.

With little helpers, like Wrike’s RSS feeds, you become more productive and manage your projects more efficiently.

By default, when you CC an e-mail to wrike@wrike.com, the task is instantly created in Wrike and shared with the e-mail recipient. You and the email recipient can work on the task together. If one of you updates the task, the other person become instantly aware of the task progress, thanks to email notifications.

If the recipient is not a Wrike user yet, he or she gets an automatic invitation to Wrike. It is very convenient because you are freed from the additional job of inviting people on your own. Wrike does it for you.

Our users love this feature, especially when they want to show the progress of the task associated with the client’s projects. You just need to CC an e-mail with a task to a client, so that he or she can view the progress.

However, some users were slightly worried that some clients might find this feature unnecessary. After multiple customer requests, we have introduced a way to create a task from an e-mail while turning off the feature that would invite the recipients to Wrike and share the task with them.

For example, you may want to keep track of a lead with the help of Wrike without inviting the client to share the task.  So you simply send an answer to a client’s request for proposal and BCC the e-mail to wrike@wrike.com. The task is created in Wrike and is not shared with the client.


Certainly, when necessary, you can easily invite the client to join Wrike, so he or she can keep track of the project progress. To do so, simply type the person’s e-mail in the “shared with” field. Read more about how to share a task and how to share a folder. 

The drag-and-drop function has been released to help you quickly move your tasks from one folder to another. Just click on a task, hold the mouse button and pull the task to the appropriate folder. Once you release the mouse button, the task is placed in the selected folder. As previously, you can simply click the “Edit task” link and type the appropriate folder title in the field “Included in.”

1) Move a task with the drag-n-drop feature.
To move your task, you simply click on the task bar and pull it to the appropriate folder. In the picture we are moving the task “discuss the trends session with B.L.” from the “Agenda” folder to the “Applicants” folder.



2) Include a task into several folders with the drag-n-drop feature: hold CTRL.
The same way, you can include a task in several folders. Instead of clicking the “Edit task” link and then enumerating folders “Agenda, Applicants” and separating them with commas in the “Included in” field, you simply click on the task bar and pull it to the appropriate folder holding CTRL on your keyboard. The task will be also included into the chosen folder.



It’s very easy to organize you tasks with the drag-n-drop feature now. More importantly, the drag-n-drop feature works with the Wrike’s usual perks like sharing and automatic notifications.

Automatic sharing.
Once you move a task to the “Applicants” folder shared with Mary and John, the task automatically becomes shared with them as well.

Automatic notifications.
Mary and John receive automatic notifications about the changes according to the notification type chosen by them. The responsible party of the task is always notified about the changes via e-mail. Therefore you don’t need to explain to him or her the details. Your associates always stay on the same page with you.