Jan 10, 2012
Important SpringConnect 2012 Security Update
Each year, we all make resolutions to better ourselves. For SpringAhead, part of our New Year’s resolution is to provide the best data security and data encryption with QuickBooks. Essentially, your security settings will be updated to the newest industry standard.
To accomplish this, the new release requires a new certificate to be created in all desktop versions of QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online accounts. This change only takes a moment and provides numerous benefits.
Remember: To create a new certificate in QuickBooks make sure you’re logged in as the administrator or do the update with your QuickBooks administrator.
Here’s a few answers to questions you may have:
How strong is the new encryption?
The new certificate you will be installing is 2048-bit SSL encryption, which is the best of breed encryption available. For more information, click here
Do I need to do anything?
Only if you are using a desktop version of QuickBooks or QuickBooks Online. Videos and guides for the respective editions are posted below
What do I need to do?
Simply open SpringConnect on your computer and you should be prompted for a new version. Once updated, click Synchronize. You will also need to have your administrator present to create the new certificate. If your’re having any issues installing the update, the direct link for SpringConnect is www.getspringconnect.com
Let’s get updated! Videos and Documentation:
QuickBooks Update Guide QuickBooks Online Update Guide
Whom should I contact if I need help?
SpringAhead’s team is here to help! Feel free to shoot us an email at support@springahead.com or give us a call at 888-874-1118, ext. 2. If you’d like help with the certificate update, please ensure you have administrator rights or have your administrator present.
Can I wait?
Your existing certificate will remain valid through February 1st. After that date, if you use QuickBooks Online, you will need the new certificate before you can transfer data between QBOE and SpringAhead.
Category: Accounting, Events, New Features
Tags: Integration, New Features, QBOE, QuickBooks, Security, Timesheets, Web Timecards, Web Timesheets
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Oct 26, 2011
IN-PRODUCT NOTIFICATIONS
We’ve improved in-product notifications to keep you better informed. You’ll now see important messages, including new and planned updates, in the Login and Settings pages. General announcements, such as planned downtime, will be posted on the Login page for everyone to see. Administrator-specific messages will be shown on the Settings page. Once you’ve read the message, click the “X” to close the notification and we won’t show it to you again.
Category: New Features
Tags: Administrative Settings, New Features, Notifications
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Oct 25, 2011
New Features in October Release
Advanced Search and Filtering
Need to know who is not set up with login information yet? Prefer to search by letters of the alphabet? The new search functions can help you with these questions and more. You’ll find the new search filter options built into the quick-search field:
To turn off a filter, simply click on the “X” next to the filter name:
Enjoy!
Tips for setting up new people
We’ve added a couple of new tools to help you identify and set up new people fast. First off, you’ll note that the setup status of each person is now visible in the Last Login column.
You can sort the Last Login column by clicking on the header:
You can also target specific setup stages using the filter function:
Using this filtered list really sets things up nicely to use the Mass Update function to complete setups and send login information:
We hope this helps and let us know if you have additional recommendations.
If you’re setting up several people at the same time, remember to use our Mass Update feature to change settings and send login information.
If you see people in your People list who don’t need to log in to SpringAhead, use Mass Update to deactivate them. This will keep things tidy and won’t affect your accounting system. Start by sorting by Last Login to quickly see who have never logged into the system. Place a check mark on the people who won’t be using the system and use the Mass Update feature to deactivate them. Their records will be moved to the Inactive/Archived list where you can always retrieve them later.
The updates go live on Wednesday, October 26, 2011. As always, feel free to leave any comments or suggestions and vote for features in SpringAhead Voice (http://feedback.springahead.com).
Category: New Features
Tags: New Features
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Sep 9, 2011
Mass Update Enhancement
We’re pleased to announce a series of enhancements to the Mass Update feature that has been such a critical time saver for so many of you. The first enhancement we’ll explore is the ability to add multiple people to multiple projects. Many of you manage an ever changing list of projects and assigning people to each project can be laborious. The new Mass Update feature helps you by allowing you to select multiple projects and add all the right people to those projects with a minimum of effort. Here’s a screenshot of the feature at work:
Getting to this feature is easy. Start by selecting the projects to update from your project list. Click Mass Update and select Add People. You’ll see your list of people. Sort and select as appropriate then click Apply when done.
Category: New Features
Tags: New Features
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Sep 2, 2011
September Release Announcement
Hi Everyone,
We are proud to introduce a major advance in Settings administration. You rely on us to provide the most powerful suite of Settings and our goal is to match power with clarity. Let’s review the key changes in this release so you can get started fast:
The Settings Homepage
This page recaps all of your key settings in a single place. Red and green color coding call your attention to key data. Clickable Switches also allow you to activate and deactivate features with ease. In combination there is less checkbox clutter and more focus on what you want to see.
Friendly Language
The next major change you’ll note is simpler language. For example, your team is now addressed as People instead of Users. As you venture deeper into the settings, you’ll note the use of plain English language throughout. Technobabble is on its way out.
Immediate Search
Click on either People or Projects and you’ll see the search box above your lists. Start typing and SpringAhead immediately refines your list of results.
Tabs
Click on a Person or Project to review their details and you’ll see tabs for each major settings area. It’s faster and easier than all-in-one lists.
Thank you for taking the time to familiarize yourself with the new settings. We hope you enjoy the new advances!
Category: Accounting, Company News, Events, New Features, SaaS
Tags: Company Event, Events, New Features, Productivity, SaaS, time tracking, Web Timecards, Web Timesheets
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Aug 28, 2011
Weekend Feature Enhancements
Happy Monday,
Over the weekend, we updated the site to include a batch of administrative enhancements that many of you have asked for. Here is the rundown:
- New custom text export options: If you count on SpringAhead to automatically populate your invoice and expense descriptions, we added new options for customizing the text. We also now support the Payment Memo field for bills. Check our our updated support article by accessing support.springahead.com and search for Wildcards.
- ADP users, you can now export each person’s standard pay rate for both overtime and regular time types
- If you prefer to export data to a text file, we added the following field options to the Payables export: salaried employee hours, employee type, bill rate and custom text. If you’d like to use the custom text options, email us at support.springahead.com and we’ll show you how it works.
Enjoy and keep the feedback coming.
Category: New Features
Tags: New Features
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Aug 12, 2011
Find features faster with our simplified layout
You count on SpringAhead to simplify back-office chores. Our upcoming release on September 7, 2011 makes managing those chores even easier with our new settings layout. When you open the record for a Person or Project, you’ll see that all of our features are now organized in easy-to-access tabs:
Under each tab you’ll find short, manageable function lists with plain-English instructions. If you’d like to get started with the new features before September 7, let us know and we’ll be glad to help you onto the new platform.
Category: New Features
Tags: New Features
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Aug 10, 2011
Major Upgrade Announcement
On September 7, 2011 we will release a batch of new settings that will streamline your administrative experience. These changes are based directly on your feedback and we will be discussing each feature in depth prior to the release date so keep checking your email and our blog for the latest news.
The first thing you’ll notice in the release is that your people and project lists are easier to manage. Each list is now sortable by column, and you can see how many people and tasks are on each project without having to drill in. Here is a screenshot of the new project list:
We’ve also added a quick search field that instantly filters your lists as you type. This will make finding people and projects easier than ever. So whether you’re searching by first name, last name, job or subjob, you’ll find it fast.
Category: New Features
Tags: New Features
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Apr 21, 2011
The Future of Business Is Kid Stuff
A few weeks ago, I asked my little sister, a high school junior, if she needed help studying for her AP exams. Focused on her laptop screen, she said no, and that she was doing just fine. I peeked in over her shoulder and was amazed at how these kids were working together.
She was working with her classmates on Google Docs. The entire study group was contributing, flooding a communal page with notes in real time while discussing the material in live chat. It was teamwork at its finest. What they were accomplishing remotely in only a few minutes would have taken hours, possibly days of email coordination just to set up when I was a student. Where was this stuff when I was in business school? More importantly, why isn’t this stuff applied universally in business? By the time my sister’s class enters the workforce, it has to be. They’ll expect it.
A Higher Standard
Expectations of software are changing. Social software has changed the way we communicate with our networks. Real time collaboration and teamwork are technological realities that are redefining how we work and do business. Delivering instant results and immediate rewards is a good start, but for software to be truly efficient, it has to be intuitive. If my sister’s study group needs an instruction manual to use your application, you’ve already lost. When software fails to work exactly how customers want it to work, word travels fast.
Referral Society
The social connectivity of the customer base changes much more than the speed of business—it changes how quickly we’re judged and consequently, how we sell. The hit-making marketing formulas of the past that relied on scarcity of options no longer apply. It was once possible to force feed product to the masses simply by monopolizing aisle space, but that’s impossible now because virtual shelves are endless, offering unlimited choice and filters that allow consumers to shop based on relevance. Pushing your wares is futile. You have to draw people in by creating something they want to use.
We’re living in a referral society where customer satisfaction is key and you need to create customer evangelists. You’re never performing for a single customer, you’re performing for that customer’s tribe. Favorable online and word-of-mouth reviews can bring in more revenue than the best direct sales campaign. Conversely, an unflattering blog post or tweet can spark overnight migration. You may be the darling for now, but irrelevance can happen in an instant. The difference between being yesterday’s My Space and tomorrow’s Facebook is how you approach feature design.
Companies that successfully engage their customers as active participants in a collaborative design process are best positioned for longevity. It’s about meeting real world needs, and the easiest way to ensure you’re always creating relevant features is talking to your customers regularly. Don’t just address them, start a conversation and listen. Invite feedback.
Collaborative Customer Service
Open communication is essential in maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction. At SpringAhead, we thrive on feedback and are implementing systems to harness it to improve the way we serve our customers. Any customer can post suggestions for improvements to existing features or new features they’d like to see added. The entire customer community is allotted a handful of votes that they can use to move the suggestions they like up the priority list. But this is just a start.
We never want our customers to feel like they’re dealing with corporate middlemen. We prefer working without a curtain and take great pride in providing one-to-one customer service with a human touch. If a customer contacts us with an issue or suggestion for a specific feature, we make sure to include the engineer that coded the feature in the dialogue. By facilitating and encouraging ongoing two-way communication, the customer’s evolving needs will always be addressed in a timely manner and the engineers have the unfiltered insight they need to design intuition into every feature and update. It’s our way of ensuring SpringAhead is software our customers want to use because it works exactly how they expect it to.
The Next Generation
When I compare how my sister’s study group works to how my friends at large companies work, it makes me wonder. At what point do we adults develop such a high tolerance for software that doesn’t make our lives easier? Sure, Google Docs has its minor issues, but it’s a collaboration and teamwork friendly application that in the end, frees people up to get more done in less time. The same can’t be said for the majority of today’s enterprise-level workplace applications. Many of these behemoth back office “solutions” are collaboration deficient and end up creating more busy work. The slow moving software giants that snub the merits of social software won’t be able to rely on scarcity of options to maintain their share for much longer. Nimble up and comers are tapping into the lessons of social software and are developing features that will make the next generation’s workforce feel right at home.
Category: Company News
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Mar 13, 2011
Virtual Software is now SpringAhead
We started the company with a clear vision in mind – a smarter and faster way to work that saves time and frees you from administrative chores so you can focus on making a real difference.
A few months ago, we conducted a brand review to measure how effectively we were communicating this vision. We agreed it was time to explore a new identity, one that articulated our values and beliefs on every page, in every image and word. We reviewed layout, navigation, content, and finally, name. We didn’t want a label that simply described what we make or what we do, we wanted a brand that expressed why we do it.
We speed up and simplify the busy work so you can get back to doing the job you love. Everything we create is designed to give you the time you need to deliver better results, reach goals ahead of schedule and grow the business efficiently. We believe staying the course isn’t good enough. We believe you can achieve more, exceed expectations and SpringAhead. We hope you like the new look.
A quick heads up to our customers:
● Your LOGIN ID and PASSWORD have not changed.
● LOGIN URL will change on 4/3/11, please remember to bookmark it.