Happy new year! 2009 was a great year for Aero and 2010 is off to a great start. Aero 9 is a new release we are going to be rolling out during the second half of February. Its primary focus is performance and we have a great story to tell. We've significantly improved speed across much of the system; you'll notice it most when you are looking at pages that list information in spreadsheets... for those pages we were able to really speed things up.
October, 2009
Okay, we didn't spend the entire summer working on 3 projects... Aero 8.2 is a new release that includes many powerful new features. It includes enhancements to Aero's graphical user interface as well as enhancements to time slips, financials, media buying, financials (one-click to send invoices and POs via email, Revision Notes, etc.) and a few new reports. The Alert Processor has been redesigned with improved features and performance; which is just what you wanted - even more timely alerts.. 8.2 will be available in mid-October.
August, 2009
We spent the summer working on three projects: First, Aero needed a nice new home...page - you're looking at it right now! We added an online support request page and online sign up to make it easier for new users to come aboard. Once we redid the Aero site, we decided to spruce up the Aero header with a new User Interface. You'll notice lots of subtle but super-useful enhancements including a new toolbar and search function. the toolbar lets you create new jobs, contacts, etc. with a single click. The new search function lets you search for a client, job or file from any page and go right to it without any additional clicks. Finally, we added the Media Buying Option (we call it the MBO) to Aero. The MBO adds the same buying and planning features found in MarketingPilot AMS.
May, 2009
This past Spring we were busy writing an Estimating function that enables users to prepare estimates for clients and prospects. Aero's new Estimating function will also track estimates versus actual costs, revenue and time spent. You can even create estimate templates to save time and ensure that you don't miss any items. We also added some nice features in Accounting include descriptions for all transactions to make them easier to identify. We spent a lot of time improving the CRM functions to make it faster and more powerful, and we added a number of 'sales' features including call logging and opportunity management. We separated out the Client Management from prospect/new business development functions.
October, 2008
This summer and fall we revamped the Job dashboard to make it faster and easier to use. The idea was to minimize the amount of clicks needed to setup and execute a Job. You'll notice the new Notes panel which enables users who use Notes heavily to bring them to the front page of the Dashboard (before they were on a tab). You'll start seeing a number of 'one click' buttons in various places. the idea is to move some of the most heavily used functions to the forefront.... for example, instead of opening a Job and clicking on the Time Slips tab and then clicking on the new button, you can now click on a Job in the Job listing page and click on the new Time Slip button. We upgraded the text editor which is very heavily used to enable users to edit on the fly (without opening the editor page) and to operate faster.
August, 2008
We spent the Spring and Summer revamping digital asset management. We were able to add most of the new features we had hoped for as well as a bevy of accounting enhancements. Our two favorite new digital asset management features are web folders and editing in place. Web folders enables users to open digital asset files using Windows Explorer or Goliath on the Mac and work with them as if they were on a local shared drive. It basically turns Aero and all its files into a giant shared drive. Editing-in-place is even more cool. It lets you open files in MarketingPilot - from where-ever you are - and edit them as if they were on your hard drive... no uploading, downloading, etc. So you can work with a client or colleague, change the file, click Save and everyone is on the same page. It does have a few limitations: it only works with applications that support the underlying technology we use called WebDav. Fortunately Microsoft Office supports it just fine.
May, 2008
We spent the early part of the year adding mark up features to digital asset management and home page widgets. The mark up function enable you to upload a file - virtually any file type - and add comments, lines, arrows, circles, squares, etc. to mark it up. The mark up function is great for editing and you can send a marked up file to Acrobat with all its comments. The new home page widgets bring some of the most heavily used functions such as Jobs and Time Slips to your home page so that you see them when you login and use the system. A neat feature adds the widgets to a 'docking' toolbar that slides out and back while you are on any page. So if you are working on a job and suddenly want to look at your time slips, you can click on the docking toolbar's 'handle' and slide it out and back without closing the job.
