Let's Talk About Files: Collaboration, Versioning and Approval (plus more!)

August 2, 2021 • Peter Sanchez • Updates

Wow we have been so bad about updating our progress the last several months. Not to worry though, we've been hard at work and pushing out updates all year long; including some long asked for features.

Here are some of the things that were released since our last announcement.

Major #

These are some of the bigger features or changes we've rolled out.

Files: A whole lotta love #

Your Files section got essentially rebuilt. Previously Files was pretty much storage, search, sharing, etc. All the things you expect on AnyHow based on how everything else works.

However more and more you all were asking for better collaboration on files you have stored in the system. So here's what we did:

  • File detail. Simply click any file and it will now open a full detail view, complete with discussions, versions, approval history, etc. More below.
  • Full collaboration. You can now have full discussions inside a file's detail view. The discussions supports replies shown inline as well. Now you can provide feedback directly in each unique file instance.
  • Versions. Files now supports unlimited versions of each file. Just open the detail view and drag and drop your new version. This is perfect to provide updates based on the feedback provided inline.
  • Approvals. Allow a version to be approved and once approved no new versions will be allowed to be uploaded. This is perfect for allowing clients or project managers to approve an asset. Yes, you can also remove approval if things change for whatever reason.
  • Full history. All version additions, approvals, comments, etc. will be displayed in chronological order. Showing a full history of your file.
  • Version Sharing. You already could share files with people outside of your AnyHow organization but we took it one step further. You can now share specific versions with outside people as well.

File detail view
File detail view

As you can see we did a lot overhauling on Files. We hope you enjoy it and that it helps your workflow just a little - or alotta - bit.

Search Boosts #

We've added some improvements to search across the board. Both in UI, looks and functionality.

Now main search results are brighter, terms are actively highlighted in initial results (not just on the full results page), and there is additional ability to drill down to specific items.

When searching through tags you can now limit by result type using prefixes. For instance, say you have "Acme Inc." as a client, you also have a few projects ("Acme Webdesign", "Acme Marketing", "Acme Content Research", etc.), and you probably have some teams setup for each project to easily group all employees assigned to them. Now searching for a tag by using "Acme" turns up a whole bunch of results to sift through.

If you just want for instance, the Client Acme Inc, you can now search with "c:acme". The prefix "c:" will filter specifically for clients. You can use the following prefixes:

  • Clients: "c:"
  • Employees: "e:"
  • Projects: "p:"
  • Teams: "t:"

Pretty straight forward and a small little hack that will help you get your job done and on your way just that little bit faster.

Wiki Design Updates #

The wiki was a little confusing because it didn't have any built in navigation. People were forced to include code snippets to generate navigation links. Now this is fine for a certain group of people but pretty annoying for others. We decided to make it easy and build in navigation automatically.

The wiki will now have the navigation down the left section and has expandable menus. You can still customize things in the article itself and all the existing snippets will continue to work as before. We just think these little tweaks will help make the wiki be easier to use for everyone.

Minor and Bugs #

There are quite a bit of minor improvements and some bug fixes as well. We will list the bigger items here:

  • Updated frequency options for notification preferences.
  • Ability to save discussion posts as drafts.
  • Included automations when cloning a project.
  • Accept partial payment value of $0 (ie, when needing to completely write off an invoice)
  • Show only active employees when searching.
  • Added quick filter options in employee listing section.
  • Updated styling on all select boxes throughout application.
  • Added full support for emojis in discussions.
  • Free tool to create invoices without requiring an AnyHow account.
  • Improved wiki link parser engine to stop creating links when it's not appropriate.
  • Automation logs will now display in an organized way. Previously it was essentially a data dump.
  • Various UI fixes for desktop, tablet, and mobile displays.
  • Fixed bug where incorrect default values were given when adding an existing employee to a new project.
  • Edge case causing server errors when saving timesheet.
  • Fixed issue where comments would use default profile image even when the account has a custom profile image for the current organization.
  • General speed and functionality improvements.

Wrapping Up #

While we've been hard at work we've definitely been slacking off on the updates. Apologies for that. Hopefully our ongoing improvements help make up for it.

As always if you have any issues please or requests just head to the [support page][support] and let us know. We're here to help.

[support]: https://anyhowhq.com/support/ "AnyHow Support"

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