Saving Time with Wrike's API: Distribion's Experience of Integrating Wrike with Accounting App
Many restaurants let you choose the mix of ingredients you want to get in your sandwich, so that the snack perfectly suits your taste. The same is true for project management software. The more freedom you have to combine it with other business apps you use, the better it suits your workflow. One of our clients, Distribion, Inc., sets a successful example of how to integrate Wrike with other tools your team is already using, such as accounting and ticket management systems, with the help of API. Many restaurants let you choose the mix of ingredients you want to get in your sandwich, so that the snack perfectly suits your taste. The same is true for project management software. The more freedom you have to combine it with other business apps you use, the better it suits your workflow. One of our clients, Distribion, Inc., sets a successful example of how to integrate Wrike with other tools your team is already using, such as accounting and ticket management systems, with the help of API. Pulling time logs from Wrike into the accounting app Distribion captures project revenue on a time allocation basis. That’s why it’s highly important to know the exact number of hours spent on a certain task or project. Previously, employees had to enter time in both Wrike and their accounting system separately. That was very inconvenient and time-consuming. The integration with Wrike’s time-tracker was a simple solution that freed them from the load of such double work. Thanks to hourly API calls, all time logs a user makes in Wrike automatically get into the accounting system. And that is it! The data is ready for further processing. Syncing project names between the apps Distribion’s accounting app automatically generates a number for every invoice that may consist of payments for several tasks. So for correct billing, it is crucial to see what tasks are related to each invoice’s number. That’s easy with Wrike! The team just puts an invoice number into a folder’s name so all tasks in this folder get this appropriate tag. You can also find useful information in the Wrike invoicing guide. “Our folder structure defines what phase of development a task is in, what the task type is (defect, feature, etc.) and what particular job it’s included in,” says Michael Noblitt, VP of Operations at Distribion, Inc. This lets everyone on the team find the tasks that they need in mere seconds. Converting tickets into tasks automatically Distribion felt that the integration with the accounting app brought great improvements, so the team decided to bridge their ticket management app with Wrike, as well. Now when a client puts a ticket in, an e-mail is instantly sent to Wrike. Once Wrike receives it, it automatically converts the message into a new task. Thus, the team knows that no action item will be lost in the depth of their ticket management app, and it can put it on their schedule immediately. Evaluating Distribion’s overall experience with the integration, Michael Noblitt concludes: “Wrike’s API’s are well-designed and thoroughly documented. Our integration with Wrike has led to significant project cost reductions and enhanced transparency, giving us an ROI in less than 3 months.” How do you use Wrike’s API potential? What particular tools did you plug into Wrike?
Android Mobile App Updated with New, More Intuitive Layout
With mobile devices so crucial for getting work done, updating Wrike’s mobile app for Android™ has been a high priority in our product roadmap. Today, we’re proud to announce the fruits of several months of labor. The updated Android app is available in the Google Play store right now to make working on-the-go much more convenient.
Creating Online Documents in Wrike? It's Easy with Google Docs Built-in!
Ok, this is a very simple feature, but we know that it will bring some of you a substantial productivity gain. Wrike gives you the opportunity to collaborate on your project-related files online directly from your workspace and without attachments. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome online document management in Wrike’s award-winning project management software with Google Docs built-in! Starting on April 14, those of you who have a Google account will be able to create and automatically share online documents, spreadsheets and presentations directly from your Wrike workspace. If you are already familiar with Google Docs, you will certainly appreciate the ability to link the tasks in your favorite project management software to your online files effortlessly, with no need to coordinate your data in two disconnected systems. To see the power and simplicity of Wrike’s new feature in action, go to your workspace and click on the “Files” tab of any task. You’ll see two new links, one for creating an online document and another for starting an online spreadsheet. As soon as you pick a name for your newly created online file, you’re taken to your Google Docs account, where you can edit your document. You also can upload your existing files to share them with your team members online. After you save the file in Google Docs, a link to this item appears in your task in Wrike. From this moment, your team members who also have Google accounts can access the file from their Wrike workspaces, change it and download it to their computers. It’s that simple! But just imagine how much more productive your team work will become with no need to manage project-related data in two separate applications. Now you can organize your project files directly from Wrike!
Preview Your Files Before Downloading with Our Box View Integration
Providing a smooth and efficient content collaboration experience is one of the top priorities in our product development. With this in mind, we integrated Wrike with several popular file sharing tools, introduced live text collaboration, and much more. Today, we're happy to announce one more prominent enhancement: you can enjoy instant previews of all your docs attached to tasks without downloading them! We implemented this new functionality with the help of Box View, a new technology that was officially announced by Box today. Thanks to our integration, you no longer have to immediately download any files to your computer when you want to view them. Now, they can be previewed right in the task where they reside. No matter what computer you're on and what software you have installed - just a browser is enough to open all attached .pdf, .doc, .docx, .ppt, and .pptx files. Instant file access means you can comment on the latest uploads as soon as they appear in your workspace. And if you decide that you want to make edits directly to the document, you can still download and save it to your computer from the preview screen. Content technology has been updating and improving faster than ever before. In the consumer world, we have Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, and a never-ending list of new apps that allow us to share and access photos and videos with a few finger swipes. At work, Wrike delivers similar speed to the project and task management space with real-time collaborative editing, push messaging, and Office integration. But Wrike always looks for opportunities to raise the bar, and by implementing Box View we will take your document collaboration to the next level. The new view combines the superior experience Wrike demands with HTML5 and high-fidelity viewing technology. And it works for all attachments, not only the ones uploaded directly from Box. The use of HTML5 technology means three things for Box View: (1) it loads lightning fast using small file sizes while maintaining image quality, (2) it works on all modern browsers without extra downloads, and (3) it looks great on any device at any size. "With their continuous investment into security and infrastructure, Box View delivers on two values indispensable to Wrike: enterprise-grade service and excellent user experience. As a Box partner, this is great news," comments Andrew Filev, our CEO. "With very little development effort, Wrike can deliver the latest, greatest content viewing experience across web and mobile, and expand upon it with more real-time collaboration capabilities. We can continue to provide improved content sharing for improved productivity. It's transforming how companies spread information inside and outside their organizations." We're excited to present to you docs without downloads. It's instant and it's revolutionizing content collaboration. Take a peek and let us know what you think! We're beginning to steadily release the new view for all Premium and Enterprise accounts, but if you're eager to try it right away, contact our Support team.
How to Market Your App Successfully (Work Management Roundup)
Welcome back to the weekly Work Management Roundup, where we grab the week's best articles concerning work, productivity, entrepreneurship, and startups and hopefully inspire you to work smarter and be more successful. This week, we take a special look at startups in general and app developers in particular, with three meaty articles on finding app success. Read on! Life and Death in the App Store (The Verge): An eye opening story about how an app startup has to struggle not just with plummeting app sales but with customer fatigue. The average person spends 80% of their time on mobile using only 3 apps. So successfully selling a new mobile app right now is like hitting the lottery. 10 Killer App Store Marketing Tips (Slideshare): Despite the 1.5 million apps currently available to consumers, there are ways to increase customers and drive down the cost of user acquisition. This deck by StoreMaven examines a year's worth of data from leading developers worldwide such as Kabam, Zynga & Google, for these 10 solid tips on app store marketing. Facebook viral marketing: When and why do apps “jump the shark?” (Andrew Chen): Growth hacker Andrew Chen shares a technical discussion on how your app can go from success to epic failure. It delves into user acquisition, "virality," network saturation, and user retention. And it's got a downloadable spreadsheet. Motivating Millennials Takes More than Flexible Work Policies (Harvard Business Review): While having flexible work schedules is critical to attracting millennials to your organization, you have to go further to keep them engaged. Here are 5 tips to engage more with this demographic. How to Win at Medium (Medium): If you're blogging on the Medium platform, bookmark this blog post now. It presents a complete series of tips and tricks for writing your posts and making them both more readable and more visually appealing. Want to show your remote colleagues some love? Find fun ways to liven up conference calls and get to know each other. Just because you’re not all in the same physical location, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy team bonding activities. #Wrike See more tips for including your remote team in your activities in this blog post: -------->>>> http://bit.ly/RemoteTips A photo posted by Wrike (@wriketeam) on Mar 14, 2016 at 3:40pm PDT More Work Management Reads Think About This: Some of the Best Things Lazy People Do (Conversation Agent) BYOD continues to add challenges for IT leaders (Computerworld Hong Kong) The Tricky Business of Conversion Optimization (Huffpost Business) Go Try This: 5 Methods of Collecting Project Requirements (PM Tips) The 8 Slack Communities Every Marketer Must Join (Klear) Improve Your Critical Thinking With This Five-Step Process (Lifehacker) Browse Productivity Works on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your laptop or mobile, then you'll enjoy our magazine on productivity tips. Check out Productivity Works or click on the widget below: View my Flipboard Magazine.
Wrike's API Helps a Marketing Team Create Custom Reports Automatically
Northcutt’s team of inbound marketing experts takes care of several simultaneous projects for each of its multiple clients. No wonder they need to collect and analyze large amounts of data on a daily basis. But fortunately, Wrike's API made marketing efficiency much easier for them! Before adopting Wrike, Northcutt used Base?amp without much success. According to Corey Northcutt, the team’s project manager, it seemed to slow the team down even more, instead of making it easier to work on several ongoing projects at the same time. What the team was looking for was an easy way to track the status of each campaign and to report on the progress to the clients easily. Now, with Wrike’s help, they have a complete overview of tasks in the pipeline for each client. But the main key to success turned out to be Wrike’s API, which saved them more than five hours of work per week on creating reports. Since the team needed to get detailed information on the progress in each area of work, Wrike’s API helped them to retrieve this data from each folder automatically. Here are more details of how they achieved such great results. Pulling custom data with Wrike’s API. First, Corey Northcutt created folders to indicate each area of inbound marketing: Building external links, creating social media content, website optimization, etc. The integration they built with Wrike’s API automatically pulls the data from each folder into the special Google Drive spreadsheets. By looking at the spreadsheets, the project manager instantly sees the number of tasks assigned to each team member in each area of work, as well as the percentage of completed goals and the number of days left until the end of the current project. There are separate tables for active, backlogged, completed and deferred tasks. Whenever the task is updated in Wrike, the new data automatically gets updated in the corresponding table cell. Since the updates are collected in real time, team members are always sure that the table data is up-to-date. This way, Northcutt's team creates detailed and accurate monthly reports for clients much faster than ever. Additionally, Corey Northcutt set up custom widgets with tasks of each stage on his dashboard. As a result, with every login, Corey Northcutt instantly sees all current marketing initiatives at each stage and the people who are responsible for them. If some of the assignments become overdue, they are highlighted in red at the top of the list, so it's easy to quickly track them and adjust the deadlines appropriately. What about your team? Have you considered using Wrike’s API to integrate it with your favorite tools and optimize your work? Then let us know in comments! “Wrike succeeded at simplifying some of our really complex problems. It allowed me to manage tasks via simple task lists and a Gantt chart while letting all the complex organization happen in our reports. We also now use the Wrike API to help generate our monthly digest summaries for reporting, which is a better alternative than paying for a solution that wasted someone's time by forcing them to manually re-compile data by hand each month.” —Corey Northcutt, CEO at Northcutt
Announcing Wrike Integration with Microsoft Teams
Today, we’re proud to announce Wrike's integration with Teams. We’ve worked with Microsoft to deliver powerful Wrike features and functions through the Teams chat interface. Teams users can now create tasks and manage projects, which keeps communication within the context of work and collaboration within Office 365.
Wrike for Hangouts Chat: Get More Done in the Context of Conversations
With Wrike for Hangouts Chat, teams can quickly get work into Wrike, where it can be better managed, tracked, and reported on, as well as seamlessly collaborate on Wrike projects in Chat, enabling them to get more work done while staying in the context of conversations.
Microsoft and Wrike Integrate to Enhance Team Productivity
Today, we're happy to announce Wrike's new integrations with Microsoft as part of our mission to provide our users with easy collaboration, increased time-savings, and visibility into work. Microsoft provides customers a platform to create and publish a wide spectrum of content — from spreadsheets to documents and everything in between. Wrike provides users a system for organizing work — from individual tasks to discussions and deadlines. Together, Microsoft and Wrike enhance your creativity and productivity, providing a collaborative experience that is seamless. In the first phase, Wrike users now have the ability to upload their documents and presentations into Wrike using the Add-in for Office 365 right from within Word and PowerPoint. You no longer need to switch windows/tabs and search for your files. Simply add your files to Wrike right from the favorite Office apps you use everyday. In addition to Wrike’s Add-in for Office 365, the second phase of the integration supports any files stored in OneDrive for Business. The Microsoft integration will allow you to easily attach your business files directly to Wrike tasks and gives you access to the most up-to-date version from one central location. Check out this feature in Wrike Labs! The final phase enables Enterprise users to integrate their Microsoft Azure Active Directory or Office 365 account to log into Wrike and interact with tasks directly via Single Sign-On. Azure Active Directory is the world’s largest access and identity management solution. Wrike’s integration with Azure AD allows IT administrators to easily perform access and identity management tasks to secure company data and documents stored within Wrike. Wrike’s Integrations with Microsoft are available for all Wrike subscriptions. Ready to give them a try? Download them here: Add-in for Office 365 Active Directory & SSO If you’re not a Wrike user yet, begin a Free Trial. More great integrations are coming soon, so stayed tuned. Subscribe to our blog to stay up-to-date with all the latest product news.
Wrike's Gantt Chart Goes Mobile! The Beta Version is Already in Your iPhone and Android Apps
Have you already checked out the latest version of Wrike’s app on your smartphone? If not, then it’s high time to have a look at it ;-) There is an awesome, must-see update: the dynamic mobile Gantt chart is now available in beta. Have you already checked out the latest version of Wrike’s app on your smartphone? If not, then it’s high time to have a look at it ;-) There is an awesome, must-see update: the dynamic mobile Gantt chart is now available in beta. The new mobile Gantt chart enables you to quickly browse your project plans on the go and… adjust the plans with a tap! Just like in the web version, you can drag task bars to reschedule the tasks.Don’t waste a second and give it a try now! In case you don’t have Wrike's app on your smartphone yet, install it from the App Store or Google Play right now. It’s free for all Wrike users. P.S. By the way, now you can also set when you’d like to receive push notifications on your smartphone from Wrike’s app (go to Settings->Preferences->Notifications).
Enjoy Powerful, Integrated File Sharing With Microsoft SharePoint and Wrike
The key to success moving forward is choosing digital collaboration solutions that integrate with your organization’s most essential tools. With SharePoint and Wrike, you can enjoy effective file sharing and collaboration.
Wrike Goes Tablet with the Release of iPad App
We’re dedicated to making your project management and collaboration in Wrike as comfortable as possible, and we’re taking another major step to achieve that. We’re happy to announce the news that many of you were looking forward to. Wrike’s FREE project management app for iPad is available on iTunes now! So, if you rely on Apple gadgets in your business, this might be a very special update for you. The interface of Wrike’s native iPad app is neatly adjusted for your favorite tablet. You can view, create and edit tasks as easily as you do using Wrike on your PC or Mac. Whenever a change occurs in your project plans and priorities, you can make the necessary edits to your plans with just a few taps in the fast and friendly interface of the app. For instance, your client calls you and says he needs some documents a.s.a.p., not next week as planned. Even though you’re in a café at this moment, you can adjust your schedule in Wrike and communicate the changes to your peers right way. With Wrike project management software on iPad, it will take seconds. You can simultaneously reschedule several tasks for today! So, before you even get back to your office, the team is working on the assignment. Download Wrike’s iPad app on iTunes now to always stay on track and save time managing your projects anywhere you are! We’ll be glad to know your impressions, so if you have any feedback, comment on this post.
Wrike's iPhone App Available on iTunes!
“I love Wrike’s iPhone app! It has a clean and logical user interface. I really like the favorites folder feature, since I have hundreds of folders!” This is what John Burry, an independent mobile consultant and a user of Wrike project management software, told us about Wrike’s iPhone app after he tried it in action. John, thank you for your kind words! Want to see what made John so happy? You’ve been waiting for this to happen, and the day has come – Wrike’s iPhone app is now available on iTunes! You can get it right now FOR FREE and run the app on your iPhone or iPod touch with iOS of version 3.1.2 and higher. Get the project management app now and collaborate on your projects in a train, an exhibition hall or even your car, stuck in traffic jam, as efficiently as you do when you use Wrike in the office!
Welcome Wrike's Native Apps for iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry!
You’ve already had a quick spy preview of Wrike’s native apps for your favorite mobile devices – iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry. Now we’re happy to reveal the apps in full glory – smart, pretty and FREE! The apps enable you to stay on top of your projects, regardless of your location. When you have access to your tasks while you’re on the move, you are able to quickly respond to the changes that arise in your schedule. Using Wrike on your iPhone, iPad or BlackBerry, you can create and delegate new assignments, manage them, easily adjust your schedule and discuss issues with your colleagues. All of this in a fast and handy interface, so you just need a couple of taps to access all the necessary project data. Today, Wrike’s project management apps for iPhone and iPad are already available for FREE download on iTunes. Wrike’s BlackBerry app will appear at BlackBerry App World shortly. Meanwhile, you can download it from our Web site by following these links from your device: OS versions 4.5-4.7, OS versions 4.7 and higher.
Wrike’s iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry Apps Spy Shots
The apps are almost ready! We’re putting our final touch on them. So what should you expect from Wrike’s iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry versions? The answer is: huge time savings, a personal productivity boost and 24/7, easy access to your project data from your favorite device. Meanwhile, you can enjoy this “spy” preview of Wrike’s long-expected mobile apps. All the juicy details are coming very soon!
Energize Your Project Management in Wrike with Google Wave
Are You Ready to Wave with Wrike? Whether you already using Google Wave, or just thinking of giving it a try, we’ve got fabulous news for you! Starting on February 3, you’ll be able to boost your project management productivity in Wrike by adding Google Wave collaboration feature set to your project management tool. Wrike is the first project management software that allows you to manage your projects directly from Google’s communication platform. Wrike’s Google Wave integration will allow you to seamlessly turn your waves into tasks, set due dates, update your project schedule and add your Wave discussions as comments to tasks in Wrike! This instant collaboration combination is a breakthrough in the project management space and an outstanding achievement in team productivity. Give it a try, and you’ll see why. To start managing your projects in Wrike from Google Wave is as easy as 1,2,3. Just add a new contact, [email protected], to your Wave (1). Then create a new wave and add Wrike to it (2). This new wave will be your Wrike task. Immediately, Wrike will respond with a request to connect your Wave account to your Wrike account. (That will appear in a separate wave) (3). Once you follow the link, Wrike will recognize you and create your task in your workspace. To share your new task with your team members, add them to the same wave. Those who have already been registered in Wrike will be recognized by the system. All the comments (or “blips” in Google Wave’s terminology) that you and your colleagues add to your task wave will be automatically turned into comments in the task discussion in Wrike. All the changes you make to the main wave content will be added to the task description, as well. The next time you discuss a project-related task with your team members in Google Wave, simply add Wrike ([email protected]) to your wave, and let your project management software keep track of all the changes. Moreover, you can set due dates for your tasks, place them in the right folders and update your project schedule directly from the Wave. When you create a new task, you can use the wave titles just like e-mail subjects to place your task into the appropriate folder and set the correct due date. For example, if you need to create a task called “update our Web site” in the “ourwebsite.com” folder, and if you want to set the due date to February 18, you simply need to put ourwebsite.com :: update our Web site by 02/18 in the wave title, and don’t forget to add Wrike to your newly created wave. Wrike will recognize the familiar subject, place your task right where you want it to be and set the due date. Your timeline in Wrike will be updated automatically. It’s a significant productivity advantage that you and your whole team will benefit from when using Wrike with Google Wave. Note: At the moment, Google Wave API has a number of limitations that restrict Wrike’s integration functionalities. Hardworking Google developers promise to get rid of these limitations soon. Update: Google has released the updated API and now all the limitations are eliminated. Updates in Wrike's functionality are coming soon. Stay tuned!
The Big Mobile News Is Coming Up!
This surprise is going to be BIG! It’s really hard to hold the news, but here’s what we are happy to share right now: Wrike project management software is going mobile with the upcoming release of iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry apps! Just imagine yourself in a café or an airport lounge with real-time access to your projects and tasks directly from your favorite mobile device. Isn’t it great to find out that soon you’ll be able to stay connected to your team wherever you are? We’ll make sure to make mobile project management easy for you with Wrike’s shiny and handy new mobile apps. We’ll keep you posted on the news, so stay tuned!
New Integration with IBM Connections Presented at IBM Connect in Orlando
This week, the Wrike team is taking part in IBM Connect conference that is held January 27-31 in Orlando, FL, under the motto “Get social. Do business.” We’re proud to let you know about the main reason we’re there: we’ve announced our integration with IBM Connections, the leading social software platform for businesses. This morning, our CEO showcased the new integration at the keynote session of the conference in front of 4,000+ attendees.This week, the Wrike team is taking part in IBM Connect conference that is held January 27-31 in Orlando, FL, under the motto “Get social. Do business.” We’re proud to let you know about the main reason we’re there: We’ve announced our integration with IBM Connections, the leading social software platform for businesses. This morning, our CEO showcased the new integration at the keynote session of the conference in front of 4,000+ attendees. Here's Andrew’s first-hand comment about the exciting news right from the event floor: “The distributed workforce is quickly expanding, so mobility is a No. 1 priority for CIOs these days. One of the core ideas behind our integration with IBM Connections is to make the management of mobile workers better, while making them more productive.” “Making work management software inherently social brings a wealth of benefits, from smooth collaboration to real-time visibility, into the work status. Embraced by Connections, the OpenSocial standard glues enterprise social platforms together, providing a fluid user experience and adding to our connected work graph vision.” So, how exactly does the integration work, and what does it bring to mobile workers? Wrike’s extensive task management features are provided as an embedded experience right in the IBM Connections interface. This will help employees get a clear overview of their responsibilities, focus on the priorities and distribute their efforts between assignments. With Wrike’s real-time project updates embedded right into the newsfeed, visibility into work progress is increased for the whole team. So even if colleagues are working from different offices, cities or countries, they will be able to keep up with the progress, while the management gets a clear picture of the current work status across all projects. Wrike’s Gantt chart, workload view and other features for project management also are accessible in IBM Connections. They will help managers and teams accurately plan and execute those plans, whether they are small task lists or large-scale projects.
Get More Done With Our Updates to Wrike for Microsoft Teams
Along with Microsoft’s announcement of updates to Teams, we’re happy to also announce that we’ve added more capabilities to our integration, expanding your access to and making it easier for you to collaborate on Wrike tasks, right in Teams.
Why to Use Google for Work + Wrike: Q&A with Vitalza
Vitalza is a small startup in México in the financial services industry founded in 2015. Their purpose is to improve communities and create synergy by building alliances with universities and associations that will help their clients develop and grow their businesses. We spoke with Bernabé Torre, who runs analytics and technology, about how he uses Google for Work + Wrike as the foundation for their new startup. 1. Tell us about your team and the role it plays in your company. We've been using Wrike for about 6 months, and we're implementing Holacracy management — this means full responsibility for our roles, tasks, and tensions, and the outlining of OKRs for our strategy projects. As part of our Holacracy, I currently have 3 roles: analytics, technologies, and payment gateways. My day-to-day tasks range from support to operations (technologies), creating reports and analyzing information (analytics), and managing as well as looking for more payment gateways. 2. What were the goals that led you to connect Wrike and Google for Work? We are a Google Apps supported company. We use Google Sheets, Docs, and Presentations for our normal day-to-day tasks, Google Drive as our permanent database, and the Google Console for our company users. So a big factor that led us to choose Wrike is that you have almost full compatibility with Google Apps. 3. How have Wrike + Google for Work helped your team reach its goals? Part of our work ethic is that we need to be very transparent, since we are free to assign a task to anyone. Part of this transparency is giving updates, having a record of tasks, and questioning anyone on their progress. So we upload a file to a task from Drive, and then proceed to give a status update in Wrike. It works really well. For our OKRs, we have different projects with important dates and deadlines, and having the tool synchronize with your Google Calendar works perfectly — although having customized Dashboards in Wrike sometimes works even better. Additionally, some of our staff always have Gmail open, so it's way easier for them to reply to a task, give a status update, or even create a task through the Gmail gadget. And last but not least, we use the Wrike Chrome extension to easily create tasks from any webpage. 4. What improvements have you seen since implementing Wrike + Google for Work? It's tricky because we started implementing Wrike and Google Apps simultaneously, right at the birth of our company. At my previous company, we used to have these meetings where we defined projects by writing tasks on Post-its, dividing them by affinity, complementing the tasks, assigning dates and dependencies by hand or sometimes with Microsoft Project. It was all a real pain, and the process took about two sessions of 2-3 hours each. At my current company, we had one OKR meeting a couple of weeks back where we defined the tasks, dependencies, dates, and responsibilities in one session of only 1 hour and 20 minutes! That was crazy considering the size of the project — everyone was very impressed. Your turn: How have you used Wrike + Google for Work to strengthen your business? Share your story in the comments. Wrike also offers a Wrike Google Apps Partner Program for those interested. If you want to learn more about the program, click here.
Google for Work Q&A: FootSteps Marketing
FootSteps Marketing — a digital marketing agency that specializes in providing websites and services to retailers in the hardware, outdoor, or archery industries — took time to share their experience using the integrations between Wrike and Google for Work. Their main focus as a company is partnering with larger organizations to provide affordable marketing solutions for their members and retailers, so they need the right tools in place to help their team work efficiently. This how Google for Work and Wrike have helped them reach success: 1. Tell us about your team and the role it plays in your company. Our initial need for Wrike stemmed from our Marketing Services (MS) department. They work as an external digital marketing agency for many retailers. Currently, we have 5 people on the production team for the MS department. Day-to-day, this team creates email marketing campaigns, social media posts and campaigns, and website landing pages. They also update websites on behalf of our clients. There is a high level of interaction that has to take place between them, as well as a high volume of tasks that need to be filtered through the team. 2. What were the goals that led you to connect Wrike and Google for Work? We work with many retailers in hardware, the outdoor industry, etc., and much of the content we use is repeated in our campaigns. Since not all of our clients participate in the same promotions at the same time, we needed a system that would allow us to keep track of a large volume of similar tasks. Due to the crossover, we needed the ability to segment our tasks by activity, and mass-edit tasks (such as rescheduling, etc.). All of our marketing requests are sent to us via email, so the Wrike Gmail gadget was a critical feature for us to efficiently get these requests into a tasking system. 3. How have Wrike and Google for Work helped your team reach its goals? Since implementing Wrike + Google Apps, we've become much more efficient in our workflows. The ability to create tasks directly from email is the biggest time-saver. To make work easier to track, we have now created a digital marketing plan template for our clients to make selections. Their selections are sent to us in a spreadsheet, which we then directly import into Wrike, rather than manually logging every marketing plan (as we did before). Our web development team is also able to use Wrike to keep track of our web development whiteboard, completely eliminating our prior system of passing around a document. This helps with efficiency, as everything for our teams can be kept in one place. 4. What improvements have you seen since implementing Wrike + Google for Work? Our overall collaboration, organization, and management of tasks has improved drastically. Wrike and Google Apps have helped each department gain transparency into other departments, alleviating the need for more emails or lengthy discussions. Share your story in the comments. How are you using Wrike + Google for Work to gain transparency into your projects? If you're a lover of Wrike + Google for Work, join our Wrike Google Apps Partner Program. You can learn everything you need to know about the program here.
Grab the New Android App: Native, Fast, Tablet-Optimized
Having on-the-go access to your work is mission-critical in today's business environment. That is why easy and accessible mobile project management has always been one of our priorities. After reviewing your feedback, we worked hard to make our app even better for you and your teams. Now it's here and ready for you: Wrike's entirely new native app for Android. And trust us, the results are worth seeing! Featuring a new layout, new navigation and a more intuitive approach, the new Wrike Android app will make your mobile project management experience even more convenient and efficient. The first thing you'll notice is the sharp UI - a familiar sight to those who use Wrike from their computers. In terms of user experience, you'll love its increased speed and stability. Moreover, the new app has been optimized to bring our enhanced user experience right to your tablet. Creating, scheduling, editing, and discussing tasks on the go is a breeze with our new mobile app. For your task-tracking purposes, we present to you the newly released mobile dashboard. With this feature you can now overview the most important tasks in just a couple of seconds. And your old favorites are still at your service. Keep everyone in the loop with push notifications; rely on the interactive mobile Gantt chart to adjust project schedules in a couple of taps; attach files from your phone or tablet, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box; take advantage of the cool mobile-specific ability to snap photos right from your tasks (you'll never lose those ideas scribbled on coffee house napkins again.) Wrike makes mobile project management simple. Our great new app is still in beta. If you love it, don't forget to give us a high-FIVE on Google Play!
Using Google for Work + Wrike: Q&A with Roadside Multimedia
Founded in 1999, Roadside Multimedia started as a small firm offering simple solutions to the complex world of marketing. Through twists, turns, and the occasional hair-pulling, they've come out on top of their game. When they began to struggle with managing projects and flexibility, they turned to Google for Work + Wrike for a streamlined workflow. We spoke to founder Chris Mackey about how the use of both tools has helped them create a system where all projects are managed seamlessly. 1. Tell us about your team and the role it plays in your company. We are a website design and marketing team of around 30 people that primarily focuses on dentists and dental marketing. We’ve been using Wrike for close to 3 years to manage both projects and ongoing monthly marketing budgets. We found that using Wrike, Google Apps, and Batchbook CRM we were able to eliminate using Salesforce — which was both expensive and yet still very frustrating and time consuming to customize to our needs. 2. What were the goals that led you to connect Wrike and Google for Work? We wanted flexibility and the ability to manage many clients and projects at once. We found that most project management software was made for fewer clients and projects. Working with the folders in Wrike and being able to measure work done during different time periods was easy. By using Google spreadsheets and documents, we were able to create a system that could manage our workflow well and improve our communication regarding clients within our team to keep things on track for each project. 3. How have Wrike + Google Apps helped your team reach its goals? Our goals are pretty straightforward: complete a set amount of work each month per client and complete specific projects as sold within a specific budget. All of our work is collaborative. So being able to immediately see the status of a project, communications with the clients, and the time spent on each task has made tracking our progress and success possible. We can work in different parts of the country and different parts of the world and all be on the same page. Priceless! 4. What improvements have you seen since implementing Wrike + Google Apps? Wrike and Google Apps have made project management simple and organized for us. We are able to replicate dynamic systems quickly by using templates, folder organization, and Google spreadsheet calculations. This has eliminated the need for a software programmer, which has saved us thousands of dollars. It has also empowered our project managers with the tools they need to be organized and successful (and happier!). We have eliminated the time that was being wasted searching for information and funneled that directly into productivity for our clients. How are you using Google for Work + Wrike to power your productivity? Share your story in the comments.