kalmstrom.com supports Windows 7

Congratulations to Microsoft who released their new operating system Windows 7 this week! All our kalmstrom.com products are of course compatible with both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions, and also with the server counterpart Windows Server 2008 R2. In comparison with the adaptation to Vista this one has been fairly easy, and I think the transfer from Vista to Windows 7 will go rather smoothly for the common user too. (We heard some complaints when Vista was introduced!)

I guess you have read reviews on this latest operating system, and maybe also tried it, so I will only say that I have used the Beta version since this spring and like it. My greatest worry was that my old software would not work with Win7. All developers are not as quick in making their products compatible as kalmstrom.com! However, Microsoft has solved this problem elegantly by offering a compatibility troubleshooter.
I just had to right click the installer and tell which OS the software worked with, and the problem was almost always solved. In one case I have to run the program as administrator, even though I am logged in as administrator, but I can live with that.

The image you see to the right is given by Microsoft to products that support both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and I am sure you recognize it from the home pages of all kalmstrom.com products, as they have been there for a while. Now our technicians have already started with next challenge ‒ to make all our applications compatible with Office 2010!

Kate Kalmstrom
Sales, kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

TimeCard for Outlook gets a New Look

TimeCard, the kalmstrom.com add-in that makes it possible to report time and expenses from within the Outlook Calendar, has been updated with several improvements. All customers who update and use Outlook 2007 will see at once that TimeCard has a new look, as the dropdowns have been moved to the ribbon. This gives the appointment a nicer look, don't you think?

The new version also have other improvements and some ways to stop users from making fools of themselves! Now it is impossible to mess with the data by setting a whole day appointment to more than 24 hours or a lunch meeting to more than 7! For a full list, refer to the TimeCard revisions page.
As usual kalmstrom.com Support Customers have the right to free upgrades.
Are you not a TimeCard customer yet? Welcome to try the full version of TimeCard for 30 days without any obligations. We have both a Single and a Workgroup version.

kalmstrom.com Gets Stronger Presence at Technorati

I feel so proud today, because I have been invited to be a guest writer at one of the world’s most important blog portals, Technorati. This blog has of course been present at Technorati before, but now I hope more readers will find my texts useful ‒ and maybe also entertaining!

My first article was published today and tells a bit about how the kalmstrom.com team uses Skype chats to communicate efficiently even though we live in different countries. Welcome to read and comment the article at Technorati!

kalmstrom.com software at the French Office Marketplace

Products from kalmstrom.com are of course recommended by Microsoft. For a long time our applications have been represented at Office Marketplace in different countries, but we are not satisfied  yet. We started applying at the English speaking sites, and now we are represented and rated at all those sites. Next step was
Sweden, Germany, Spain, Mexico and French Canada, and most of our products are now up on those sites too. But not all, because it takes very long and is not an easy process. Therefore we are happy to announce that Calendar Browser, HelpDesk OSP, OLAP Reporting Tool, Public Folder HelpDesk and TimeCard are now represented at the French Office Marketplace also. Calendar Browser and HelpDesk OSP even have had time to get five star ratings! Welcome to rate the product you use by clicking the linked product name above. It will take you to
the Ratings page, where we have gathered all the Marketplaces for that product. Many and high ratings for our products will increase the interest for them, which will benefit us all!

New QA in the kalmstrom.com team

The kalmstrom.com team is happy to welcome a new QA Engineer, Dina Romanova from Russia. In September our earlier QA, Saurabh Verma, moved to a lead QA position at Mindtree, and we took the opportunity to bring this talented woman into the group and thus also expanding our language coverage.

After taking a bachelor's degree at Novosibirsk State University, which is considered one of the best universities in Russia, Dina has worked with testing a couple of years and earned good experience. She has also continued her studies at Institute of Informatics Systems, Programming chair, and in June she will defend her master's degree. Dina's hobby is figure skating. Her parents in law live in the USA, and she likes to visit them.

Dina is going through our products one by one, and she has already given us valued input on TimeCard, HelpDesk OSP and Calendar Browser. You will all benefit from it eventually, as the improved products are released. Dina will soon start helping us with support and online chat. Her English is excellent, but you may of course also write to her in Russian. We wish Saurabh all the best and feel confident that this change will be good for all parties.

Kate Kalmstrom
Sales, kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

More Alternatives for Product Manuals

The manuals for the kalmstrom.com products are very much used and necessary for a deeper understanding of how the software works. So far we have supplied them only as Word files, and the reason for that was that we wanted customers to have a possibility of easily changing the text and adapt it for their needs.

However, several customers has asked for a .pfd version, so now we offer that alternative too. Now, when you click a Manual link, you will be directed to the product's manual page. There you can either download the manual in the format you prefer or open it and read it online.

When a new feature is added to a product, the manual is updated at the same time as the new version is released. The manuals are also updated at other times, for example when a support question makes us understand that something needs to be explained further. Therefore, we recommend support customers to always upgrade their manuals when they upgrade the product.

We try to update the slideshows as often as the manuals. For the demonstrations it is more difficult since a remake takes longer time than an update of written text and screen shots. So even if the demonstrations are very good complements, for the most extensive documentation, use the manual!

Kate Kalmstrom
Sales, kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

A Way to Conquer the World

Unicode is a standard that allows computers to represent text expressed in most of the world's writing systems in a consistent way. As this standard is used in the Microsoft products we build on, it is possible for kalmstrom.com to make products that can be used all over the world and by users with different kinds of alphabets. It might be difficult for us to test on languages where we cannot understand the characters, but if a user points out problems we can quickly do something about them thanks to the Unicode standard.

This was the case when a TimeCard customer with users all over the world told us about problems with TimeCard in Greek, ελληνικά, and Hebrew, עברית. As this was a Premium Trusted Support Customer they were entitled to extra rapid support, and we could give them an update on the second day. But even for a regular Support Customer this fix should not take long, so please tell us if you have problems in some languages. Now the new version is published for all.

As a not very technical person interested in languages, I think this Unicode standard is fantastic. And as Sales manager, I am of course thrilled over the possibility to spread the kalmstrom.com products over the world!

Kate Kalmstrom
Sales

PF HelpDesk update on customer requests

The kalmstrom.com team has been busy these last days, and several updates have been released. The most important one is the PF HelpDesk update, which gives users some good enhancements that customers have asked for and that we have decided to add.

Our sponsor Standard & Poor's has invested in a new feature for ticket history in the ticket body or subfolders: an alert to the responsible staff when a new e-mail is added. Earlier there was no way to determine that the ticket or subfolder had been updated, except to open it. Now an e-mail can be sent automatically to the Responsible. In Outlook 2007 a follow up flag is also shown on the ticket. A new template for the notifcation is added under the Templates tab in the PF HelpDesk settings.

This alert feature becomes even more powerful as it is combined with a request from another customer: that the Open Ticket button should work also on e-mails to the Responsible. The Responsible just have to select the notification e-mail and click the Open Ticket button ‒ and the correct ticket is shown.

Several other small but useful additions make PF HelpDesk an even more interesting application for issue tracking inside Outlook. For a full list, refer to the Revisions page. Support customers have the right to upgrade for free, and remember that we listen extra carefully to our support customers. Sometimes we have to ask for sponsorships for the development, but even if you cannot afford that your suggestions are always welcome.

Our helpdesk product for SharePoint/Office Live has also been updated this week, and so has SP Attach, the application that changes Outlook's standard behavior for attached files. These are only smaller updates to fix bugs that have been reported to us. Thanks for pointing them out and giving us a chance to make our products better!

Kate Kalmstrom
Sales

kalmstrom.com developer Microsoft Certified

Today the kalmstrom.com team has reason to celebrate. We congratulate our developer Jayant Rimza, who has passed the exams for MCTS certification. Jayant is now a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, expert in implementing, building, troubleshooting, and debugging Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Application Development Foundation. He is also a master of Web-Based Client Development.

We were not surprised when Jayant managed these papers with very high scores, because he has shown excellent technical problem-solving skills in the work with our products. Many of you already benefit from them, even though you might not be aware of it!  We are happy to have this clever guy in the kalmstrom.com team.

E-mail threading for HelpDesk OSP

The technicians of the kalmstrom.com team ‒ CTO Bahrur Ipham, QA Engineer Saurabh Verma and developer Jayant Rimza ‒ have once again shown their excellence, this time by adding an e-mail threading feature to HelpDesk OSP. The work has not been easy and it has required much time, but now we are proud to present version 2 of our issue tracking software for Outlook and SharePoint or Office Live. The new and much awaited e-mail thread means that you don't have to create a new ticket for each e-mail. Instead the new part of each e-mail about the same case will be added to the first ticket in chronological order, which makes the conversation very easy to follow. All attachments are of course included.

If you want to use the e-mail threading there are some settings that has to be defined. We have described them in the updated manual, section, 12.4. They are also presented in a faq.

Welcome to try HelpDesk OSP V2! And if you already use HelpDesk OSP, I recommend you to upgrade your installation to enjoy this new feature.

Kate Kalmstrom
Sales, kalmstrom.com Business Solutions