Julian101.comThoughts, Lessons, Business Tips from ProWorkflow.com’s Serial Entrepreneur - Project Management Software

Our development team have been working on an integration module between our ProWorkflow application  (www.proworkflow.com) and XERO (www.xero.com). ProWorkflow is web based project management software and XERO is web based accounting software. Both operate under a SaaS (Software As A Service) model. The aim is to transfer invoices from ProWorkflow to XERO and update the invoice status from XERO back into ProWorkflow.

We’ve recently been working on a QuickBooks (http://quickbooks.intuit.com) integration to do virtually the same function. Whilst QuickBooks is a great application and has high adoption, I have to be honest and say the integration wasn’t that easy. It’s taken about 2 months and we’re nearly there but keep encountering small, odd complexities. It should be ready very soon though.

Going back to XERO though, this is a whole different game. I personally signed up and have been going thorough the solution. It’s looking very promising and QuickBooks should be watching their backs - XERO are doing a nice job of reinventing accounting. There are pro’s and cons to a web based approach, just like there are to a client side app, but personally I prefer web based and portable.

On the API front though, it took weeks to suss out QuickBooks, but our developer had integration with XERO sorted within a few hours with data moving back and forth. He told us it was a piece of cake. So I wanted to say a big thumbs up to the dev team at XERO for the really easy API - It’s much appreciated!  Here’s a comment from our developer:

“Working with the XERO Network API was a great experience because of its simplicity in the integration compared to some other Accounting packages around.

I am very impressed with the guys at XERO on how they have created their Network API that allows partners to integrate smoothly without any problems. It basically requires a simple line of code to transfer to and from XERO. Out of all my experience in integration with outside applications, XERO is one of my favourites!

Great Stuff!!” - Vishal (Senior Developer)

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
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We’ve been curious to try some print advertising for www.proworkflow.com - our web based project management software, just to see the effect from a marketing perspective. We recently purchased a full page ad in July 2008’s Startup Mag - A spin off from the guys at www.start-up.co.nz/. Make sure you check out their website - they’re doing a great job promoting local businesses.

I’ve copied the full-page graphic of the ad and placed it below, I’ve also noted the increase in account stats from the time we got the data for the magazine ad to now. It’s kind of an odd thing to put ever changing stats in a print ad - but we thought it was an interesting piece of content to ad to lend further product credibility.

Managed Through ProWorkflow

Note: Current numbers as at 23rd July 2008

Interesting to see the gain? It’s great validation for the team that people are definitely using the ProWorkflow tool for their project management. Oh well! Back to work, just thought this worth sharing…

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
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We have recently started upgrading all existing subscription accounts to the latest version of ProWorkflow Version 6.0. We have also changed our trials system over to using the latest version of the code.

For trial users nothing will seem new because this is the first time they’ve seen the system, but for subscription account customers there are so many little changes that you can become blind to any noticeable differences.

Lets go through some of the biggest and coolest new features/changes…

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