Read the whole interview with Gunter to find out how Wrike helped his company to save 25% of time spent on routine project communication tasks and to organize effective project collaboration with numerous external partners distributed all over Europe.
Many of our customers use Wrike’s API to build their own integrations to optimize their team’s unique workflow. Now there’s an alternate method for customization: Google extensions. This tool enables you to quickly add any functionality to the Google Chrome browser. Today we want to share a great example of this type of customization created by one of our customers, Imbibe.Many of our customers use Wrike’s API to build their own integrations to optimize their team’s unique workflow. Now there’s an alternate method for customization: Google extensions. This tool enables you to quickly add any functionality to the Google Chrome browser. Today we want to share a great example of this type of customization created by one of our customers, Imbibe. Imbibe challenge Each time they start a new project, they need to log a number of specific parameters about the customer’s business. They previously did this by manually typing data into the task description or by attaching a Microsoft Word template to the task. This standard operation wasn’t efficient, and the team was looking for a solution to optimize it. How custom task templates work With the help of Google extensions, the Imbibe team has solved this problem and saved hours on entering project info. The extension enables users to add any custom elements to Wrike, so the team used this opportunity to attach the template project forms to tasks for their salespersons. Now each time someone on the team opens a task in the Google Chrome browser, they see the “Select templates” button right under the task details. Depending on the stage of work, the person can choose one of the four active templates: “New project”, “Call report”, “New product requirements”, or “Product commercialization”. For example, let’s say a salesperson is creating a new project with a new customer. In this case, he or she chooses the “New Project Brief” form and quickly enters the key parameters of the new project into the corresponding fields, such as beverage flavor (natural, natural and artificial, artificial), sweetener system (natural or artificial), color, etc. This saves the sales department hours per week on processing important data! Creating a Google extension Do you use Google Chrome and want to create the same thing in your workspace, too? Then, this adorable example with kittens and puppies provided by Google will give you a clearer idea of how this extension works. If you are familiar with computer technologies (HTML, CSS, or JavaScript), you can easily create html and manifest files for the extension by yourself. Or, you can follow the Imbibe team example. “We’ve found a freelancer at Elance, and he did everything very fast. We only needed to prepare the templates for him,” shares Laura Klibanow, Opportunity manager at Imbibe. After the extension files are ready, each team member needs to upload them to their browser. You can do this by going to the menu in the upper-right corner of your browser, choose Settings, and then select the “Extensions” section. Don’t forget to tick the box for developer mode. Then, simply click on the “Load unpacked extension” button, choose the corresponding directory, and hit “OK”. After you restart your browser, you can enjoy the new functionality! “Wrike provides a great solution for Imbibe’s project management and an alternative solution to a traditional CRM software. One of the reasons I think Wrike has been such an effective tool for our company is that we developed an internal procedure for how all Wrike tasks must be formatted. I would recommend other users to do the same; the detailed instruction for how tasks must be utilized keeps the system very organized and makes it much easier to navigate- especially if you have lots of customers and projects. For example, we created a comprehensive internal manual on exactly how to write different types of tasks in Wrike- from what the title needs to be, exactly what information must be included, etc. It keeps the data organized and provides a much more for efficient workflow.” Laura Klibanow, Opportunity Manager at Imbibe
Update 12/16/2014: We are happy to announce the release of our API v.3 with better functionality and feature support for developers. Unfortunately, this update means the integration with GitHub is no longer supported. You can still use Zapier to connect Wrike with GitHub. If you have any questions, please contact our Support team. Many software teams use services such as Github for collaborative coding. These services are a great help when it comes to sharing code repositories, collaborating on them together, and syncing developers’ efforts. However, project managers of teams using Github often don’t have special tools for keeping projects on track and reporting the progress. LiveNinja solved this problem with a single ninja throwing star: they combined Github’s social coding environment with Wrike’s strong project management features. With the help of Wrike’s API, they now automatically transfer every task they create in Github to Wrike, allowing them to organize their work in a more productive way. Let’s take a look at their smart solution! Two Tools, One Up-to-Date Picture LiveNinja builds and maintains a platform that allows users to find experts in any field - everything from cooking to law to graphic design. Despite daily stand-up meetings, maintaining transparency with a growing team soon became a real pain. Team members couldn’t quickly review up-to-date plans and couldn’t always keep track of current priorities in ever-growing Github task lists. Besides, there was no smooth way to sort overdue tasks or tasks completed during a certain time period. “At some point we realized that instead of a clear project picture, we just had a daunting list of never-ending issues,” says Emilio Cueto, Chief Technology Officer at LiveNinja. To get their work more organized, the team started using Wrike as it had all the features they needed. And in order to avoid the redundancy of logging tasks in both tools, they used the Wrike API to unite both tools. Now whenever someone creates a new task, adds a comment or completes the task at Github, the changes are automatically reflected in Wrike. How LiveNinja Benefits from the Integration Here’s how LiveNinja’s project management changed for the better after integrating Wrike and Github: 1. Easy prioritization of bugs and urgent issues Prior to integration, every new bug that was added to the already sizable list of bugs (each one needing to be fixed right away!) got labeled “Urgent,” “Priority,” or “Critical.” The list of all these urgent bugs had grown too big to handle in a standard list format within Github. After integration, LiveNinja now tags all issues according to their importance in Wrike (e.g. with standard labels P0, P1, and P2), and then prioritizes each list. This way, they have a clear understanding of which bug to tackle next. 2. Instant access to an up-to-date roadmap Wrike’s interactive timeline is irreplaceable for planning new features and important milestones. While the team’s manager creates dependencies between related tasks and quickly adjusts current plans, Wrike ensures the team is automatically notified about all changes. 3. Comprehensive insight into the team’s progress Custom reports are a great time saver for Emilio Cueto. They enable him to sort any data he needs for evaluating the team’s progress in mere seconds using filters such as: completion date, particular team member, or tag (e.g. browser version, particular feature, etc.). Suddenly, LiveNinja could look at their task list and Gantt charts and quickly find answers to questions such as: “Will this next release be on-time?” or “When is it feasible to start planning that new feature we have been talking about?” In a nutshell, the integration allowed developers and project managers to enjoy the best of both worlds: the code collaboration platform of Github and the project management tools of Wrike. Get the Code If the integration code sounds interesting to you, you can get the files here. LiveNinja is open to any improvements to the code suggested by other Wrike users. And if you decide to use it, don’t forget to send a thank-you tweet or a Facebook message mentioning #LiveNinjaDotCom. Thanks, LiveNinja, for sharing your code with the Wrike community and helping to make life better for other Github and Wrike users!
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