July 14, 2010 at 14:59Your qTrack mail
We recently released an update that allows you to create your own qTrack mailboxes to receive incoming mail.
Let me remind you that qTrack is an online service for managing projects and tasks, distributed according to the SaaS model, which differs from traditional trackers in its tight integration with mail. By the way, the basic features of qTrack are provided free of charge without any time limit.
To better understand the essence of the new features, I’ll talk a little about the concept of the service and the existing capabilities for working with mail. Very often, when managing a project, relations with the customer (requirements management) live a separate life (in the mail) from managing tasks (in the tracker). This leads to duplication and distortion of information, double work and simply loss of calls from the client and questions to him. Therefore, the qTrack concept is to combine the Customer and the Contractor. And that is why qTrack is closely integrated with mail, allowing participants (especially the Customer) to work with the service using their regular mail, without even having to go to the qTrack interface.
Creating a task in qTrack does not differ from creating a letter (subject, to whom, task text, attachment), and, just like when working with mail, you do not need to register the user in advance to set up a task. It is enough to simply indicate his e-mail. The recipient will receive a letter (and not the qTrack, but the address of the author of the task) will be indicated as the sender) with the text of the task and a link to qTrack (by clicking on which the user will already be authorized on qTrack, because the link contains a hash from the authorization data). But the recipient of the task does not have to log into the system - you can simply reply to the letter and the answer will join the ticket (tickets we call a discussion task, similar to technical support systems). This forms a discussion thread to which any number of participants can join. Naturally,
The next opportunity is to create a ticket by letter, i.e. a user registered in the system can write to mail@qtrack.ru and a ticket will be created (for example, make a forward of a message that came to regular mail to continue solving the problem in qTrack and with the involvement of colleagues).
But before it was not possible to send letters to qTrack, for example, letters from clients with error messages. To do this, we made it possible to create our mailboxes on qTrack (of the form mymail@myaccount.qtrack.ru). For incoming letters to the mailbox, you can configure the rules, and depending on the sender, attach the letter (created ticket) to the project and assign a person in charge. Moreover, such boxes can be created as many as you want. Naturally, you can configure a redirect from corporate mailboxes and give clients addresses on your domain.
Thus, you can organize the reception and analysis of the company's incoming mail. The most typical example is the organization of technical support. You can send all mail from the support@myacompany.com mailbox (or from the form on the website) to qTrack and distribute incoming requests between specialists, and the manager will be able to track whether all requests have been answered, how many requests are received from each employee, etc. Or the same scheme for the sales team. And it is possible for each project manager to make a box and completely correspond through qTrack.
We will be glad to constructive comments and suggestions for the development of the service. I will also be happy to answer questions about our project.
Denis Mitrofanov, qTrack project manager
www.qtrack.ru
Let me remind you that qTrack is an online service for managing projects and tasks, distributed according to the SaaS model, which differs from traditional trackers in its tight integration with mail. By the way, the basic features of qTrack are provided free of charge without any time limit.
To better understand the essence of the new features, I’ll talk a little about the concept of the service and the existing capabilities for working with mail. Very often, when managing a project, relations with the customer (requirements management) live a separate life (in the mail) from managing tasks (in the tracker). This leads to duplication and distortion of information, double work and simply loss of calls from the client and questions to him. Therefore, the qTrack concept is to combine the Customer and the Contractor. And that is why qTrack is closely integrated with mail, allowing participants (especially the Customer) to work with the service using their regular mail, without even having to go to the qTrack interface.
Creating a task in qTrack does not differ from creating a letter (subject, to whom, task text, attachment), and, just like when working with mail, you do not need to register the user in advance to set up a task. It is enough to simply indicate his e-mail. The recipient will receive a letter (and not the qTrack, but the address of the author of the task) will be indicated as the sender) with the text of the task and a link to qTrack (by clicking on which the user will already be authorized on qTrack, because the link contains a hash from the authorization data). But the recipient of the task does not have to log into the system - you can simply reply to the letter and the answer will join the ticket (tickets we call a discussion task, similar to technical support systems). This forms a discussion thread to which any number of participants can join. Naturally,
The next opportunity is to create a ticket by letter, i.e. a user registered in the system can write to mail@qtrack.ru and a ticket will be created (for example, make a forward of a message that came to regular mail to continue solving the problem in qTrack and with the involvement of colleagues).
But before it was not possible to send letters to qTrack, for example, letters from clients with error messages. To do this, we made it possible to create our mailboxes on qTrack (of the form mymail@myaccount.qtrack.ru). For incoming letters to the mailbox, you can configure the rules, and depending on the sender, attach the letter (created ticket) to the project and assign a person in charge. Moreover, such boxes can be created as many as you want. Naturally, you can configure a redirect from corporate mailboxes and give clients addresses on your domain.
Thus, you can organize the reception and analysis of the company's incoming mail. The most typical example is the organization of technical support. You can send all mail from the support@myacompany.com mailbox (or from the form on the website) to qTrack and distribute incoming requests between specialists, and the manager will be able to track whether all requests have been answered, how many requests are received from each employee, etc. Or the same scheme for the sales team. And it is possible for each project manager to make a box and completely correspond through qTrack.
We will be glad to constructive comments and suggestions for the development of the service. I will also be happy to answer questions about our project.
Denis Mitrofanov, qTrack project manager
www.qtrack.ru