The summer is over, and so is the time without updates. For starters, we are improving the comments and adding two new integrations - Google Calendar and Zendesk.
Markdown in comments
We improved the comments a great deal in this release. You can now use Markdown syntax in the same way as in the description. Bold, italic, code, tables, link, and even images can now be added to your comment.
Attachments in comments
Somewhat self-explanatory this one, yup you can attach an image or a doc, a cat gif, whatever you can attach to the task now can be attached to the comments as well. Great for deliverables and annotated images of problems.
Saving unpublished comments
Now with markdown support, it makes sense to save that comment if you accidentally close the task while writing it. You can write a long comment without worrying.
💬Did we miss something? Let us know how you want us to improve comments even further in the comments below.
Google Calendar
Choose a project or link all tasks assigned to you to an existing or a new Google Calendar.
Whichever you choose, tasks with due dates now show in your Google Calendar. A useful and frequently requested feature.
To activate it for all tasks assigned to you go to your profile settings.
To activate it for all tasks with due dates in a specific project, go to that project settings > features.
Zendesk
As part of our effort to integrate Ora with the top support systems out there, we picked Zendesk to be the first one as most frequently requested and popular. There a lot of reasons one might have to want to integrate Ora with Zendesk. Here is what we made possible followed by how you can use that.
- You can link Zendesk tickets to Ora tasks from Zendesk
- You can create new Ora tasks from Zendesk
- You can search and link a ticket from within Ora task
- You can see all linked tasks and their current status in the ticket
- You can see all linked tickets their current status in the task
- You can see the number of linked tickets on each task in list and kanban view
- You can see comments from the linked ticket in Ora task
- You can see comments from Ora task in Zendesk ticket
Example Use Cases
Create a dev task - Let's say for example that your login page has been reported to be broken. The support agent can create an Ora card of type bug without ever leaving Zendesk. He can then link similar tickets to this task. At one point he can write a note in zendesk to ask when this is going to be fixed. On the other side, the dev team can see this new bug, get to work and eventually reply to the support agent by writing a comment in Ora.
Feature requests - You receive a lot of requests in Zendesk for new features. You also have this features in your Ora project. With the new integration, you can now link all those tickets to cards in Ora. Linked tickets allow you to see how many requests each feature has, which should help you when you are prioritizing what to do next. It also makes it possible to quickly jump to each request so that you can make feel the need of the user better. It's one thing to now the 2 words name of the feature and completely different if you have read all 90 support tickets for that feature.
Admin Reports
A minor change but a significant improvement. Organization admins can now see reports for projects that they are not participating. No longer are you needed to join all of those projects just so that you can see some time tracking reports.
Other Improvements
- Observers can now add attachments
- Public members and observers can be mentioned
What's next?
Ora 2 beta, is coming in 1-2 weeks. We are excited! 🎉
