Highrise "does all the hard work" parsing emails

Rimm-Kaufman Group, a search marketing and web effectiveness agency, recently published a post at its blog called "Effective Websites: Forwarding Email As Convenient Means To Enter Data." Part of the post discusses how easy it is to use the Highrise dropbox to send emails to Highrise.

With Highrise, you blind-carbon copy a special drop box, something like dropbox@999999997.rkg.highrisehq.com. Again the app does all the hard work, determining who you are from the dropbox subdomain, parsing the email to determine where to file it it the CRM system, and associating the message with the right people and companies and dates.

Forwarding an email is really simple. Bccing an email is really simple.

If I had to visit [TripIt and Highrise] to type in my data, I would not use them. But because using them is so easy, I’m now a fan of both.

Learn more about how Highrise and email are best friends.

Going from "hi" to Highrise

Sometimes it's the little things in life. Etienne Segonzac sent us an email explaining one reason she likes Highrise: She gets to just type "hi" when forwarding emails to the app.

I know it's kind of silly but I just like my little story. See, my Highrise dropbox is under the name "Highrise". So every time I forward an email to my account I just type hi ! Mail completes the rest... It just feels great, I can manage the biggest part of my work with an application as simple as "hi". :)

For more on how to do this, check out the Highrise and email page at HighriseHQ.com.

Any little thing like this that you like in a 37signals product? Let us know.

How to use an Access Database and VBA to work with Highrise (or other apps)

Garry Robinson wrote an article detailing how to use Microsoft Access to query and update web sites [Database Journal]. The application he uses in the demo is Highrise. Why? Because he loves Highrise:

In this article, I am going to describe how you can use an Access Database and VBA to manipulate a Web 2 application called Highrise, a customer relationship management (CRM) tool from the highly successful Web2 company, 37Signals. Why pick this online product? The main reason is that I love using it, it has a well-written Application Programming Interface (API) and it is free for your first two hundred contacts. Why might this be relevant and interesting to you, the reader? Because you will be performing these tasks on a database that is hidden behind the security of a website, something that has always been beyond the abilities of Access.

The reason I love Highrise, is that it orders my people specific tasks (e-mailing/calling) into a wonderful list of fuzzy dates comprising today, tomorrow, this week, next week, and later and fuses that with specific dates and times like 12-june-08 4pm (see the sample task list in figure 1). Highrise also keeps track of names, addresses, correspondence relating to people and companies in quite a versatile environment. Anyway, the functionality of the website is not important, what is important is that you can interact with the data in the Highrise website through the API by posting and retrieving XML. This allows you to extend the feature list of the online application and it allows you to merge information on a website with other applications on your desktop. More than likely this is going to be a Microsoft Access database if you are reading this article.

Read the whole article to learn more about using an Access Database and VBA to work with a web app.

Related:
What GR-FX, experts at Microsoft Access and Office, likes about Basecamp
ThickToast lets you view Basecamp data in an Access database

New Highrise screencasts: Send email to a person page, create tasks via email, and import Outlook contacts

From Signal vs. Noise: We recently added a few new Highrise demo videos. Two of them show you how you can use your personal Highrise Dropbox email address and the last one walks you through the process of importing Outlook Express contacts into Highrise...

1. Send an email to a person page.
This video shows how you can use your dropbox to send an email to a person page in Highrise.

2. Create tasks via email.
This video shows you how to create a task by sending (or forwarding) an email to Highrise.

3. Get contacts out of Outlook and into Highrise.
Highrise lets you import contacts from a vCard file, Basecamp, Outlook, or ACT! This video shows you how to get contacts from Outlook Express into Highrise.

New Highrise Feature: File view

Last night we launched a new Highrise feature called File view. Here's a video showing you what it does and how it works. We hope you like it. Thanks again for your continued support.

Computerworld: Don't miss out on Highrise

Computerworld.com published a list of 11 sites not to miss. On the list: Highrise.

Highrise keeps track of your relationship with your customers, providing a place to track and share their contact information, background notes and records of interactions.

Highrise is an online CRM tool. Basically, it's an easy-to-use database for contacts, reminders and notes. Because it's online, you can share it across your company or team anywhere there is access to a browser.

Highrise offers a free account for up to two users that can store 250 contacts, a Max account at $149 per month for unlimited users and 50,000 contacts, and several levels in between. You can even forward e-mails to a drop box associated with your account, and Highrise adds it as a note on the sender's or recipient's contact page, along with any attached files.

See the full list.

[Case Study] Chi-Town Daily News uses Highrise to manage newsroom

In "No Casual Operation: Inside a Citizen Journalism Newsroom" [Poynter.org], Geoff Dougherty, Editor of Chi-Town Daily News, talks about using Highrise to manage his newsroom.

Managing three dozen inexperienced journalists who work remotely to cover a city like Chicago is no easy task. We've had to think carefully about developing procedures to make sure that people and stories don't fall through the cracks.

A big part of that system is Highrise, Web-based software that was designed for customer-relationship management. It has turned out to be unexpectedly well-suited to managing a newsroom.

While many volunteer-driven organizations run on a casual, catch-as-catch-can basis, we needed to keep everyone in our office updated on what our volunteers were doing -- who was looking for a story, who was supposed to be filing this week, and who needed a phone call to make sure they were still on board.

Highrise enables us to collect contact details on our volunteers in one location, assign the volunteer to an editor, track stories to completion and send automated reminders when deadlines are missed.

When a prospective volunteer contacts Frank, he schedules a meeting to explain how the program works, sets the volunteer up with a username on our content management system, finds out what she's interested in covering, and assigns her to one of our two editors. He also tags volunteers by neighborhood in Highrise, which makes it easy for us to match writers with breaking news or other coverage opportunities.

Frank creates a Highrise task for the editor, who then follows up with a phone call or e-mail suggesting a couple of story possibilities to the writer. We've found that covering a meeting is a great first assignment for our volunteers, most of whom have no prior journalism experience or training.

Because the meetings occur at a fixed time and location, they eliminate the possibility of procrastination. The meetings, and the resulting stories, follow a predictable format, so we can provide some tips and and examples to the writer before she arrives at the meeting.

And because we're familiar with what usually goes on at those meetings, we're in a good position to spot accuracy problems in stories about them.

Many of our story ideas are drawn from an online civic calendar we created to keep track of the thousands of Local School Council meetings, community policing gatherings and other neighborhood events that occur in Chicago every year. The calendar is searchable by address, so it's easy for editors and writers to find upcoming events in a particular neighborhood.

Once we've talked over the story with the writer, we use Highrise to track deadlines and progress. Highrise allows us to automatically store e-mails to our writers with their other details, so we can instantly pull up someone's profile and see what he's working on and what kind of progress he's making.

Our system also allows us to follow up with writers who, for whatever reason, have missed a deadline or disappeared from view. After two or three attempts at contact, editors assign the writer back to Frank, who follows up to find out if the volunteer is still interested in working with us.

As we fine-tune this system and expand our volunteer network to cover the rest of Chicago, we're looking to sharpen our ability to respond to breaking news.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

Highrise tasks revamp and improvements

This weekend we launched a major revamp and set of improvements to the Highrise tasks feature.

Setting tasks with dates/times is significantly faster

Clicking the "Set date/time" link results in an instant display of a calendar. Previously it would take a couple seconds to display the calendar. It's a subtle change, but we think you'll love the speed increase. It really makes setting dated/timed tasks a whole lot more pleasant.

iCalendar feed for dated/timed tasks

By very popular request we now provide an iCalendar feed to your dated/timed tasks. If a task has an expressly set date/time (April 9, 3pm, for example) it will be included in the feed. General events (this week, next week, later) will not appear in the feed. You can access your own iCalendar feed by clicking the Tasks tab and clicking on the "Subscribe to your iCalendar task feed" link at the bottom of the screen.

New tasks calendar layout

We've redesigned the tasks calendar layout. You'll see this if you click the "Set date/time" link. It's cleaner, clearer, and generally modernized. We think you'll like the changes.

Auto email/sms reminders for untimed "Today" and "Tomorrow" events

Prior to this update, events marked Today or Tomorrow without specific times didn't send email/sms reminders. The result was missed tasks. So now, if you don't set a specific time for an event, and you mark it "Today" or "Tomorrow" Highrise will automatically remind you. Today reminders are sent 3 hours from when you create the task. Tomorrow reminders are sent at noon.

We hope you enjoy the improvements

We're really thrilled about these improvements. We hope you find these changes as useful as we do. Thanks again for your continued support!

Mailplane now lets you send all outgoing email to Highrise dropbox

Mailplane, a Gmail client for Mac OS X, just got a new feature that had been requested by Highrise users: Auto-BCC. When turned on, all outgoing email is sent to Highrise.

If you are a Highrise user, this new setting may be important for you. It allows you to send all outgoing email to the Highrise dropbox email address. Inside Highrise, the email gets automatically attached to the right person or Highrise creates a new person on the fly. See the Highrise email page for more information.

Note: Every Gmail account has its own Auto-BCC setting but this feature works in Gmail 2 only.

New Highrise Feature: Advanced search

Last night we launched a new feature a lot of people have been asking for. Now you can search contacts by city, state, zip/postal, and phone.

Click the contacts tab then click the "search by city, state, zip, or phone" link under the search field.

Then you'll see these additional fields:

Enter your search term(s) and you're all set. Now, next time you head to San Diego on business, you can find all your contacts who live in San Diego. Or, if you want to find all the contacts you have in the near-north Chicago suburbs you can search by area code 847.

We hope you find this useful! Thanks for your continued support.

Script lets you export a Highrise note to an HTML file

This Ruby script, created by Ross Belmont, lets you export a Highrise note to an HTML file.

Highrise has become the definitive repository for everything I do at work. It’s a perfect tool to track the whirlwind of activity and action items that make up day-to-day work.

After getting into the rhythm of using it for a while, I noticed that I often needed to share a note that I’d captured with my boss or another team member. In the past, I had occasionally used Writeboard to bang out these types of notes, exporting them to HTML and sending them as e-mail attachments if need be. After the third or fourth time, wheels started to turn in my head.

So, I wrote a simple Ruby script to combine the two concepts and export a Highrise note to an HTML file. To use it, you’ll need to do the following:

1. Download the script and edit it to include your Highrise account info (URL and API key).
2. Install the Ruby BlueCloth gem…this step can be tricky.
3. (Optional) Create a shell script to launch the Ruby file and pass it the command line parameter.

...I’m happy that the Highrise API is so easy to use and I can build my own workaround.

Thanks Ross.

Online Tech Tips publishes overview of 37signals products

Online Tech Tips just published an overview of 37signals products and calls them "an excellent starting point" for small business owners who want to get organized.

37signals.com offers robust programs at affordable prices. Small business owners will be able to compete with larger companies and increase employee work productivity. Using each one of the previous tools will almost guarantee that a small business can organize itself with ease. Working with the simple interface of each application and user friendly features makes this suite of applications great tools.

The post also offers up a quick summary of 37signals products:

Basecamp will help you to manage multiple projects with customers or team members. Setting restrictions for users will take just a few moments. The interface is completely simple and easy to operate. Touching base with the latest changes with business projects won’t be such a hassle anymore...

Highrise is a great way to organize customer contact information. Having instant access to a customer’s contact information and contact history will save you from mismanaging important data. Instead of trying to remember your last conversation with a customer, you will be able to refer to the details within this program...

Backpack will let you conveniently create your own business intranet. Now employees will have access to the latest changes going on in the company. Setting up a business calendar for all to see will also provide an organized way of reminding employees of upcoming events...

Campfire provides its users with real time chatting capability. Waiting for email responses can sometimes be time consuming. Using real time instant messaging not only gets the job done faster, but it will allow you to communicated better with remote employees...

Read the whole piece for more.

New Highrise Feature: Bulk Delete

Last night we pushed a new feature that makes it possible to delete multiple contacts at once.

To delete multiple people at once:

1. Click the Contacts tab.
2. Click the checkboxes in front of the people you want to delete.
3. Click the red "Delete these contacts" link that appears in a yellow bar at the top and bottom of the list.
4. Confirm or cancel the deletion on the next screen.

We hope you find this new feature useful. Thanks for your continued support.

Highrise: Improved import review and deletion

Last night we pushed a new Highrise feature that makes managing previous imports easier. This was an often requested feature.

Prior to this update, you were only able to review and undo your previous import. Now you're able to review your last five imports and delete any one of those imports. This is especially helpful if you imported the wrong people or the data imported wasn't what you intended.

To get here, click the Contacts tab then the "Recently imported" filter.

Note: The imports listed are your imports. If someone else imported contacts you won't see them listed. They'll see their imports and you'll see your imports.

We hope you find this new import review/delete functionality useful. Thanks for your continued support.

College senior uses Highrise to manage his job hunt

Bill D'Alessandro wrote us an email titled "How I use Highrise":

Hey 37Signals,

I wanted to drop you a line to let you know how much Highrise has helped me out. I think it's a somewhat unique use.

I'm a senior in college, which means job hunting is priority number one. I've interviewed at countless companies, multiple rounds of interviews at each one. Through it all, I've amassed a huge stack of business cards. I was finding it impossible to remember who was who - and had no way to keep track of those little personal tidbits ("John is a huge Giants fan", etc).

Highrise has been the answer to my prayers. I took an hour or two and typed all those business cards into Highrise, and now everyone is searchable, and organized by company. I have all their contact information right there. In addition, the email dropbox feature lets me keep track of all my communications with them, so I can remember what I've said to whom. I also keep notes on people to help me remember them - "Steve looks like Ronald Regan", "Rich loves the Saints", etc.

Now that I've finally landed a job, I use Highrise to keep track of all my professional networking - who has connections at which company that might be able to help me land that next job down the road.

Thanks again for making my life easier,
- Bill

Contest for developers to mashup their voice-application Lypp with Highrise

From Signal vs. Noise:

Gaboogie is organizing a contest for developers to mashup their voice-application Lypp with Highrise. There are some cool prizes up for grabs including a $3,000 Apple gift certificate for number #1 and free service from Lypp and Highrise.

They got some cool ideas to get you going, like "Integrated Conference Calling within Highrise, Scheduled Calls, Click to Call Contacts in Highrise, Call-back Task links, just to name a few". Get programming!

How Basecamp and Highrise unite MatrixStore's remote team

MatrixStore is software that "turns low-cost disk into a safe place to store your digital assets." MatrixStore's developers recently detailed how Basecamp and Highrise are real lifesavers for its remote team.

We’ve been using a couple of outstanding tools that have streamlined the release of MatrixStore 2.0 and our new web presence. Basecamp and Highrise from 37signals.

We moved our development center from Brussels to the UK during the final months leading up to launch which meant the team was split between the two centers. Basecamp particularly was a lifesaver. The ability to have a central place for discussions, files and to-do’s where the guys could collaborate on new ideas or find the information they needed was invaluable. It slashed the email deluge and kept us productive in a very important phase of our development process.

One unexpected advantage was collaborating with our partners and suppliers. With Nick and Dominic who designed our new site based in Cornwall, our Motion Graphics guy Ben in SOHO, London, me just out of London and the rest of the team in Wales (and Spain and Belgium and …) we found Basecamp’s ability to invite external teams into parts of the project really useful.

Latterly I’ve been relying more on Highrise keeping track of all the interactions and to-do’s with customers, prospects and partners. The ability to cc a copy of an important email directly onto the recipients Highrise record rocks. And all with a web-based interface that I’m sure even Stevie J would approve. Highly recommended.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

The Weekly Review offers tips on using GTD with Highrise

Knowledge worker Chris Bowler recently shared how he uses Highrise with GTD (GTD is the popular shorthand for "Getting Things Done", the work-life management system and book by David Allen):

Since I have not been able to find a really good desktop task management application for Windows, I have tried quite a few web apps to fit this need. I’ve spent a good bit of time with a few and took a quick look at some others. I finally decided to go with Highrise from 37signals. It is not a perfect tool for GTD (does that even exist?), but it fits quite easily into my workflow and how I manage my tasks.

Chris massages Highrise by entering each project as a person:

The key with any GTD setup is to make sure your tool fits your working style. So far, Highrise works for me...You add each project as a person. That’s it.

Then add the different tasks for each project. Each project will now have it’s own page where you can add tasks, notes, tags and summary information about the project. Each of these pages also has a timeline summary of activities that have occurred.

FYI, here's how Tasks look/work:

Script to import Salesforce data into Highrise

In "Salesforce to Highrise conversion successful," Highrise Forum member mikesax offers up a conversion script that takes a Salesforce offline backup (what you get when you close down your account or you request it) and converts it to an Outlook-style CSV file that you can import into Highrise.

I just converted an organization from Salesforce to Highrise. I have the same feeling after cleaning up my office… no clutter, much cleaner, peaceful, and more productive – thank you 37signals!

Note: The script only converts contacts and accounts, no opportunities, cases, etc. Those could be imported using the Highrise API. The code requires Ruby and the FasterCSV gem.

New 1-minute Highrise videos: Introduction, Tasks, and Cases

Explaining Highrise can be a challenge since it's a contact manager, address book, simple CRM, and task manager all rolled together. You really need to see it in action to get it. To that end, we've been busy cranking out some videos that show the power and ease of use of Highrise. Check 'em out:

Highrise introduction video
The HighriseHQ.com home page now features a 1-minute introduction video (upper right of screen). It's a quick, "aha" clip showing how to use the product. (It also features some nifty zooming and panning courtesy of Camtasia.)

Click to go to HighriseHQ.com and watch intro video.

Highrise Tasks video
We also posted a brief video tour of Highrise Tasks. This video, which is linked from the Tasks blank slate page, focuses on how you can use tasks to get things done.

Click to watch Tasks video.

Highrise Cases video
Lastly, we've also added a tour of Highrise Cases. Cases help you keep related notes, files, images, and people together on one screen. This video also doubles as a blank-slate introduction.

Click to watch Cases video.

More videos coming soon. Stay tuned.

Save $10 when you sign up for Highrise
If you haven't signed up for Highrise yet, here's an extra incentive: Pick a pay plan and enter HRSVN in the coupon code field on checkout and you'll save $10 on your first month.

Smallbiztechnology.com recommends Highrise

Smallbiztechnology.com calls Highrise a new CRM entrant you should highly consider.

It's feature rich and I recommend you give it a spin for your own business.

Remember, Microsoft Outlook is NOT CRM. If your business is growing but your collaboration and communication tools are not, you're not maximizing technology as much as you can.

One of the neat features about Highrise is that you can attach emails related to someone by sending the email to a special Highrise email account. It's pretty neat.

Learn more about Highrise and email work together.

Use Fluid to get your 37signals web apps on your Mac OS X Leopard desktop

Fluid lets you run any webapp as a separate Mac desktop application if you've got Leopard.

Are you a Gmail, Facebook, Campfire or (Insert Your Favorite Webapp Here) fanatic? Do you have 20 or more browser tabs open at all times? Are you tired of some random site or Flash ad crashing your browser and causing you to lose your (say) Google Spreadsheets data in another tab?

If so, Site Specific Browsers (SSBs) provide a great solution for your webapp woes. Using Fluid, you can create SSBs to run each of your favorite webapps as a separate desktop application. Fluid gives any webapp a home on your Mac OS X desktop complete with Dock icon, standard menu bar, and logical separation from your other web browsing activity...

How does it work?

Fluid itself is a very small application. When launched, Fluid displays a small window where you specify the URL of a webapp you'd like to run in a Site Specific Browser. Provide an application name, click 'Create' and you'll be prompted to launch the new native Mac app you've just created.

Use Fluid to run YouTube, GTalk, Flickr, Basecamp, Delicious, .Mac webmail, or any other webapp as a separate Mac desktop application.

Here are high res logos for Basecamp, Backpack, Campfire and Highrise to use with Fluid.

(If you're not on OS X, Prism does something similar for Windows and Linux powered by the Mozilla engine).

Use Highrise cases to track internal staff

CRM Applications Go Internal talks about using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to recruit and retain top IT talent. One of the tools mentioned: Highrise.

Some enterprises are already on the bandwagon. "We use our CRM software quite successfully to track our staff as well as our customers," confides Jeff Pelletier, owner and executive producer of Basetwo Media Inc., one of Canada's leading video production companies, based in Vancouver, BC. "'Highrise,' by 37signals, has an option to create 'cases.' We use these 'cases' to keep notes on sick days, days off and any personal or performance issues that may arise. Access to these files is restricted to management who can then comment in the message threads if there are any ongoing issues."

Cases are the perfect way to group information within Highrise. You can keep related notes, files, images, and people together on one screen. Here's a look at how cases work:

Related: Basetwo Media uses Basecamp as a sales tool [Product Blog]

Highrise is the #1 must-have tech tools for the wired mediator in 2008

Mediator Tech is a blog that "helps mediators learn about and use technology to build thriving practices." It just listed 10 must-have tech tools for the wired mediator in 2008 and #1 on the list is Highrise.

Every ADR practice needs an effective client relationship management (CRM) tool to track clients and projects from first contact to end of contract. The trouble is that most CRM software is overkill for a small business and the long lists of features are dizzying and overwhelming. Enter 37signals' Highrise, a web-based client communications and tracking service. There are few bells and whistles and it does what it does very well. When I was first experimenting with Highrise a year or so ago, I read a review that suggested the more I used it, the more I'd understand and like it. I was skeptical at first that Highrise would do what I needed, but the review was right on the money.

Thanks Mediator Tech!

Knickers, the lingerie weblog, uses 37signals products to manage its team

Danae Shell, Editor of Knickers, the lingerie weblog, wrote to us about how her team uses 37signals products.

I thought you might be interested in how I use Highrise, Backpack and Campfire to manage my lingerie weblog and related businesses.

I'm the editor of Knickers, the lingerie weblog and work with another writer and my business partner. The logistics of organising and keeping in touch between the three of us were a nightmare at first - two of us are in Scotland and our writer is in the States, and both Katie and Alison aren't tech saavy and react with suspicion to any new technology I turn them onto. I needed a way to capture their work and keep it organised, so I slowly started introducing 37S tools to them - we started with Backpack for writing business plans and doing research, then moved into Highrise to keep a "collective inbox" and mailing list, then finally to Campfire to generally stay in touch.

Backpack
Backpack has been a fantastic way to quickly capture and organise information without any overheads - Alison and I will sit on the phone and chat about our ideas, then will look up prices, etc., and paste them into Backpack. We both edit the page as we talk, and at the end of the call we've captured a ton of research and ideas. It's a great way to store and share research in a structured format without e-mailing files back and forth.

Knickers keeps a to-do list in Backpack.

Highrise and 37signals "set the standard for web 2.0 apps"

We're pleased to announce that Highrise is one of Lifehack.org's 11 Top New Web Apps of 2007:

Highrise: From the good folks at 37signals comes Highrise, an enterprise-grade contact manager and customer relations manager. 37signals sets the standard for web 2.0 apps, so you know it’s good: clean design, a highly functional interface, and interconnectivity with other 37signals apps.

You can see what all the fuss is about at HighriseHQ.com.

How marketing consultant Jon Moss and his clients rely on Highrise

Jon Moss is a photographer and marketing consultant who uses both Basecamp and Highrise with his clients. He answered some questions about how Highrise helps him and his clients...

—

Tell us about what you do.
I'm a freelance marketing consultant, just setup after working 11 years for a big healthcare corporate. I've been using both Basecamp and Highrise since last year, and find them invaluable in my day to day life. It is great to be able to finally use them properly with my new clients!

My first major contract is for a high end watch and diamond jewellery business called Ian Blowers Jewellers. Whilst they are a very successful, small, family business, one of the key areas they needed improvement was customer data and communication. This is where Highrise fitted in perfectly! As well as working with customer information, I am also looking after their rebranding, new websites and also general marketing, so Basecamp is the perfect tool for keeping people within the business up to date with what is going on, and what needs to be done.

How do you (or your clients) use Highrise and why do you like it?
They have implemented Highrise within the business, so every new customer is now logged into Highrise when they are taking details on the phone. This includes, normal contact details, but also items that they have bought, items they want and also misc details like partners name, likes and dislikes.

CSV2vCard helps import contacts from Excel into Highrise

Highrise imports contacts from Outlook and ACT but not Excel. But there's a way around this: You can save Excel spreadsheets as CSV files (or get a CSV file from another unsupported source) and use CSV2vCard to make vCards, which Highrise accepts.

At Importing from Excel [Highrise Customer Forum], Jeremy C. posted a link to CSV2vCard:

PC users and Mac users both have a better way than going through Outlook or Address book:

There’s a free, generic CSV to vcard conversion tool here: CSV2vCard

This tool allows you to map your contact categories to a bulk vcard fields, which HR happily accepts…you can even map random variables to “notes”. The only issue you’ll have is that for some reason it replaces commas with a &/ combo.

Thanks for the tip Jeremy.

Related: Highrise Help: Import/Export

Snooth uses Highrise to run the world's most comprehensive wine database

The Highrise fans over at Snooth run the world's most comprehensive wine database, featuring millions of reviews and hundreds of thousands of wines. Snooth offers both casual and aspiring wine drinkers personalized wine recommendations, ratings & reviews, as well as a wine information search tool that connects users to the websites of wineries around the world.

Snooth's public relations manager Natalya Murakhver answered some questions about how the team uses Highrise.

—

How do you use Highrise and why do you like it?
Snooth has a multi-location team (New York, Boston and Belgrade) and Highrise allows simple multi-user access. Highrise contains all our company contacts - each tagged. We cc the dropbox on all (well, most) correspondence so copies are electronically filed by contact. This is a big, and unexpected, feature for us as it makes finding the odd email simple. Highrise also makes it simple to oversee the flow of information across the whole organization.

Which features do you use most?
Dashboard, tags, and contacts.

What did you use before and why did you switch?
We used rolodexes (Snooth is a young company and this is the first such tool we’ve used). However, in previous jobs we’ve used Outlook, Filemaker Pro, and Act. We switched to make it easier to share contacts amongst the entire team, across the three locations.

New in Highrise: Inline editing of notes and emails

Here's a new feature that will make editing and deleting Highrise notes and emails a lot faster: Inline editing.

Now when you hover over a note or an email in expanded view you'll see an "edit and trashcan" link appear to the left of the note. Clicking "Edit" will allow you to edit the note or email inline. This saves two page reloads and a good 10 seconds of back and forth.

Here's what it looks like after you've clicked edit

You'll see that you didn't have to leave the page to edit the note. It's a big time saver.

Watch a movie for the full effect

Watch this 20 second quicktime movie of inline editing to see how it all works together.

We hope you find this improvement as useful as we do. Thanks again for your continued support!

Laughing Giant has an “ahh” moment with Highrise

Laughing Giant, a creative media company based in Portland, Oregon, says Highrise is "working beautifully as an online contact manager."

We’ve been experimenting with Highrise from 37signals for a customer relationship management/address book tool online. The boys at 37signals are adept at creating simple-yet-powerful Web productivity tools. I’ve personally been creating and sharing a few contacts in cases, adding followup tasks, and it’s remarkably easy. All of the notetaking I used to do in the “Notes” field of Outlook contacts or my Apple Address Book, I can do instead in date-stamped entries associated to that person — and I can search to find them anywhere, and tag them as well.

The “ahh” moment Today, I entered a contact from a few years back who called me out of the blue, and when I finished the entry, I realized I wanted her on my iPhone address book too. So I click the “vCard” link, and the vCard file downloaded from Highrise to my computer, and then opened Address Book and added it! Now when I plug in my iPhone, it will automatically sync and put her in. Excellent and thoughtful step from the Highrise team to integrate so well. This makes a no-brainer deciding where to add new contacts.

The vCard link makes it easy to add contacts elsewhere.

New Highrise features: Quickcard, rename tags, bulk import delete, and more

Last night we pushed a few major improvements and new features for Highrise:

Quickcard

You'll now see a little contact card icon next to a person's name in the task list (tasks tab or the Dashboard). Hovering over that icon will reveal that person's contact information. You used to have to go to someone's page to see their contact info. Now you can just hover over the little card without having to leave the current screen you're on. We may implement the Quickcard feature in other places as well, but we thought starting with the task list would be a first good step.

Bulk import delete

You can now delete your last import. Just click the Contacts tab and look for the "Last Imported" filter. Click that and you'll see everyone from the last import you performed. A single click removes everyone. This is great for botched imports or for general mistakes that can happen when you import a large number of people. NOTE: You'll only see this link for future imports -- an import you made before this feature was launched will not be visible.

Rename a tag

This was a top request. You can now rename a tag. Click any tag then click the red "Rename tag" link in the blue header on the tag page. You can then rename the tag. The new tag will be applied to everyone who had the old tag.

Add contacts to a case without having to write a note about them

You can now add someone (or a company) to a case even if you didn't write a note about them. Just go into a case. click the "Add/remove" link in the "Contacts in this case" sidebar section. You can then search through your contacts and add someone. You can also remove them later if you'd like.

We really hope you like the Highrise improvements and new features. Thanks for your continued support!

Highrise refinements and improvements

Last night we pushed a series of refinements and improvements to Highrise we think you’ll like. They're little things, but they make a big difference.

1. The daily digest email that lists your tasks for the day now includes contact information. So, if you have a task about John Doe, John Doe’s contact information will be included in the email as well. This means you can print out your daily task email and have your tasks and all related contact information on a single page.

2. We’ve added a “Skype” option to the phone number data type. Skype numbers are automatically linked up in the contact information sidebar. Clicking a Skype number will dial the number if you have Skype installed on your computer.

3. You can now enter the “About this person” text as part of the new person creation process. You’ll see the field when you click the “Add contact information” link.

4. You can reveal more of the “About this person” text in the sidebar without having to go to a separate page. Just click the “Read more” link and 600 characters will be revealed. If there’s more text after that, clicking “Read more” again will take you to the complete text on another page.

We hope you find these tweaks useful. We're working on some more stuff we think you’ll like. Stay tuned and thanks again for your continued support.

New Highrise feature: Public tasks

Last night we launched one of the top feature requests: “Public Tasks”. Just a note: “Public” doesn’t mean everyone on the web, it means all the users in your Highrise account.

Before

Prior to the launching this new feature, the only person who could see a task was the person it was assigned to (the assignee) and/or the person who assigned it (the assignor). If you weren’t one of those two people then you wouldn’t be able to see it. You basically couldn’t see what other people had on their plate—you could only see what you had on yours.

After

Now you’ll find a checkbox when creating/editing a task that says “Let everyone see this task.” Checking this box makes the task visible to everyone in your Highrise account. So if you have a task to get done, and it’s not private in nature, you may want to check the “Let everyone see this task” so everyone else can see what’s on your plate. It’s entirely up to you.

You’ll see that “Let everyone see this task” is checked in this example. Once I save this task anyone will be able to see it. Unchecking it would make the task private (only visible to you).

New and Improved Tasks tab

When you visit the Tasks tab you’ll see a pulldown right after “Tasks for” in the light blue header. You can pick someone’s name from that list and see all the public tasks they’ve been assigned. If you click the “Completed” link in that same header you’ll also be able to see the public tasks that person has created.

Highrise and Backpack are "essential tools for the online bootstrapper"

Backpack and Highrise are essential tools for the online bootstrapper, according to the Bootstrapping Blog.

This is our first list of tools we believe every bootstrapper should have in their toolbox. If you are an online business owner or a freelance designer / developer you will enjoy these tools. You can also get a lot out of these tools for offline tasks as well...

Backpack - WOW. If I was without this tool, I do not know what I would do. This website is great, and best of all, FREE! (there are pay plans available also, but the free plan has worked out very well for me). If you need to keep track of tasks, to-do lists, messages, files and a calendar that can send reminders to your email or cell. If you need to be more organized, this is the tool for you. A+ from us!

Highrise - This is another project from 37signals that exceeds all of our expectations. If you need to keep track of who you talk to, what you said, and what to do next, Highrise is the product for you. I personally use this tool daily for all of my clients, and any business contacts I meet along the way. The Free plan offers you no file storage, and only 250 contacts but if you are on a small scale, this is perfect to test it out, start using it, and once you get to the point of growing your contact list larger, you can upgrade (paid accounts are $12.00 per month for 500 contacts all the way up to $149.00 for 50,000 contacts and 50GB of file space and CampFire for free.

The post also lists a bunch of other helpful tools. The whole blog seems quite thoughtful too. If you are looking for advice on how to bootstrap your business, check it out.

nContxt lets you access your Highrise contacts from your mobile phone

nContxt lets you access Highrise contacts from your mobile phone.

Highrise helps you remember who you talk to, what was said, what to do next, who to call back, when to follow-up, and more. nContxt lets you do all of this from your mobile phone.

Here's a tour. For more details, check out this post at Activist Nerd which has a bunch of screenshots with explanatory captions.

nContxt is a mobile interface for 37signals‘ Highrise contact manager. It works on iPhones. It works on Windows Mobile phones, non-smartphones. It works on any phone with a web browsers. It’s free for the first week, and then $5/month.

As you’d expect, the phone numbers are nice and clickable (we are on a mobile :-)) , as are the email addresses and websites.

Using the SimpleHighrise PHP API, nContxt generates compact, XHTML Strict pages that render flawlessly on mobile browsers. This is an answer to the call for a mobile version of Highrise.

After logging in, you can search your contacts (people and companies). You also see a list of upcoming tasks and their associated party.

Fuego founder uses Highrise to de-clutter inbox and centralize notes/tasks

Scott Hurff, founder of Fuego ("a newsletter for classy, trendy guys"), recently upgraded from a free to a Solo Highrise account, the first time he's ever shelled out cash for a web app.

Highrise rocks because it’s the perfect place for me to keep all the notes I used to keep on people locked away in Word notebooks. Now they’re attached directly to the person and searchable.

We followed up with Scott to learn more about how he uses Highrise and to see his account in action.

How do you use Highrise and why do you like it?
I use Highrise to de-clutter my inbox, as well as to centralize tasking and notes on both projects and contacts.  While I'm an avid Treo customer, I found that using my phone to work just got too cumbersome — and since I live and task mostly through email, it became a natural catalyst to my workflow.  

Additionally, I keep loads of notes on projects, contacts, advice people give me, etc. — and it gets too hard to sort, search and mobilize the information if it's buried in Word notebooks. 

New Highrise feature: Streamlined "edit contact" flow

Last night we pushed an update that streamlines the "edit contact" process in Highrise.

Before the update uploading a photo, editing contact information, and changing permissions was a 3-tab multi-click process. Now you can make all these changes on a single tab called "Contact and Permissions."

Here's what it looks like:

To upload a new photo for someone just click the "Change" link under the photo:

You'll be asked to select the photo on your hard drive, the photo will be uploaded, and you'll be dropped right back on the "Contact and Permissions" screen to make whatever other changes you'd like.

When you're done, just click the "Save this person" button at the bottom.

Cutting a few clicks out of this process will save you a fair bit of time -- especially if you're adding/editing people often. We hope you find the change as useful as we do.

Thanks for your continued support.

Mobile productivity with Basecamp and Highrise on the iPhone

J. Matthew Buchanan of MyMacPractice, a site about simplifying your professional practice by switching to the Mac, talks about how he uses Basecamp and Highrise on the iPhone:

The iPhone changes all of that. Browsing is a pleasure and text entry is easy and comfortable. I use Highrise and Basecamp from 37signals to manage the majority of my practice, and Safari dances through both of these sites with ease, allowing me to review and edit information from anywhere. I feel the iPhone - and specifically its web features - have finally allowed me to gain some mobile productivity.

Check out the full post on his site.

New Highrise feature: Dates to remember

By very popular demand we bring you a new feature in Highrise: “dates to remember.”

The dates to remember feature lets you keep track of important dates for each contact. You can add their birthday, anniversary, date hired, date fired, date granted a promotion, or whatever other date you want.

How it works
In the sidebar on a person’s page you’ll see:

Click “Add dates” and you’ll see:

You can pick a standard date type (birthday, anniversary, etc) from the pulldown or select “Other” and you can add your own. Pick the date, the year (“every year” if it repeats like a birthday), and, if you want, set a task a week before the date.

You can add as many dates as you’d like. Here’s an example of three dates added for one person:

When you go back to the person’s page, the sidebar looks like:

And there you have it! We’re real excited about it and we hope you find it useful. Thanks for the suggestion, BTW – this feature was based on customer requests. Try out Highrise today to see it in action.

Greatascent aims to bring Highrise straight into your Mac

Greatascent, in private beta, is a simple application to bring Highrise straight into your Mac.

The app's main features:

• Integeration with Address Book, Mail, iCal and Safari
• Offline database so you can access your data anywhere
• Syncronization with iPods and iPhones or .Mac so you don't need your computer any more to see today's task list.

Sounds promising! It's still in private beta but if you'd like to have access, send an email to simon [at] 5xm [dot] org.

New Highrise feature: Filter by multiple tags

Tonight we added one of the top feature requests to Highrise: Selecting multiple tags. Now you can filter your contacts and related notes by more than one filter. For example, selecting "Lead" and "2007" and "Design" will show you your contacts that match all three tags.

Here's how it works:

First you select a single tag:

The tag you clicked will be selected (bold). Then you'll see a "Multiple tags" link in the top right corner of the tag section:

Click the "Multiple tags" link. Then click another tag:

You can click as many tags as you want. The results are shown as the intersection of all the tags selected. It's "Investor" and "VC" not "Investor" or "VC"

The left side of the screen will reflect the tags you selected:

If you ever want to clear the selected tags and start over just click the red "Start over" link in the top right corner of the tag section once you've selected more than one tag.

We hope you find multiple tag selection useful. Thanks for your continued support.

Tag tab and streams in Highrise

Tags in Highrise are now accessible through the dedicated Tag tab and we've added streams that let you see all the notes from people tagged with a certain tag. This is a great way to get an overview of all the communication you've had with, say, "Leads" or people in "Marketing". Tags now have their own permanent pages as well and will show up as tabs when you access them. Enjoy.

Networking, "Never Eat Alone," and Highrise

Never Eat Alone (And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time) is a book about establishing a strong network of relationships to help improve your business. Publishers Weekly says, "[The author's] clear and well-articulated steps for getting access, getting close and staying close make for a substantial leg up."

Highrise customers have taken notice too. A recent thread at the Highrise Forum: "Never Eat Alone: Highrise's Companion Book?" There, Ray writes, "It’s as if the book was written to accompany the launch of Highrise. It’s remarkable...The more I read this book, the more I think of inspiring uses for Highrise."

Laura R concurs, "I had the same thoughts while reading Never Eat Alone (which I LOVED by the way and was very different from what I expected). The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking has this guy discovered highrise yet? It definitely inspired me to take better notes about people and conversations and add them to highrise immediatly."

After the jump: some quotes from the book along with Ray's commentary.

Highrise hits 2,000,000

Highrise was released less than five months ago and today turned 2,000,000. Huh? Collectively, our Highrise customers have entered over 2 million contacts entered into their accounts. We're thrilled to see such rapid uptake and thank everyone for their continued support.

Remember, Highrise makes it easy to import from Basecamp, Outlook, ACT, and vCard, so why not bring your contacts into Highrise and keep track of who you talk to, what was said, and what to do next.

Highrise or Backpack as alternatives for lightweight project management

Basecamp delivers major project management mojo which means it may be overkill for some. In that case, consider using Highrise or Backpack as alternatives for lightweight project management.

In a recent forum post, customers discussed how they use Highrise as a Project Management tool.

Brnbrks wrote:

If you don’t have any need for time tracking or client extranet, then Highrise works great as a project management tool. I’ve signed up with the Highrise “plus” account that has unlimited number of cases. Cases are thought of as “Projects”.

Everything is in one place...instead of going back and forth from Basecamp to Highrise.

You can assign tasks to people, enter notes. Need a Writeboard...no worries, just enter the writeboard URL into the notes section.

Gobstopper replied:

I’m using Cases for simple project management too, and am getting more and more at ease with it. It may be that they weren’t intended that way (hence some gripes) but HR are just going to have to go with the flow.

Being able to create a case from within a Company is very neat, which allows a sequence like:

• Get incoming order
• Go to relevant company
• Paste order as note
• Attach to case >> Create new case >> Cut/paste order number
• Order fulfillment can then be managed as a Case with tasks, notes, emails, people etc attached as required.

Works great.

Highrise cases can be used for simple project management.

In a different thread, Laura R wrote about how she uses Highrise as a new business system and then uses Backpack to manage projects:

I signed up for basecamp and while I really like all the functionality I don’t need most of it. I’m a one-man show and my projects are pretty simple...So what I’m trying out now is using highrise as my contacts/leads/new business system and once I have a client create a page and calendar for them in backpack. I can use the backpack page for the task lists that I need and it gives me a calendar option.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

Recently added and viewed contacts for Highrise

Highrise now has two new ways of viewing your contacts. With "Recently added", you can keep a tab on contacts added by other members of your team or quickly access contacts you just added yourself. With "Recently viewed", you can see the last 50 contacts you've accessed — similar to the last 4 contacts you see as tabs. Both views are available from the Contacts section. Enjoy.

Highrise tames no-name voicemails

The title of a recent post at the Highrise Customer Forum: "HR reduces blood pressure, prolongs active life."

I actually think it’s benefited my health, by clumping everything together in a nice simple sort of organic/intuitive way so I can keep all the plates spinning without getting stressed : ).

In the thread, Cindy describes how she handles voicemails with no names in Highrise: She uses "Phone Call" for the name:

I had the best thing happen yesterday. Usually when I get a voicemail about my home business, I’m grabbing scraps of paper or backs of envelopes. Sometimes they say a name that I can’t understand or don’t leave a name at all. Yesterday, I pulled up Highrise, put in Phone Call for the name (I could add the date if there is more than one) because I didn’t have her name, I put in everything that she said in her message. When she called back later, I didn’t have to go search for the paper or try to remember everything, I had the notes right in front of me. It was great. A real life saver.

Shehaal chimed in talking about how Highrise helps him deal with customer service and support departments:

I mainly use HR for personal use to track conversations/emails/etc with customer service and support departments of various companies I have an account with. I definitely agree with gobstopper, it’s been such a huge benefit to be able to pull up notes on previous phone calls and say “hang on, that’s not what I was told last time”. Got me out of the woods more than once! :)

Chime in at the Highrise Customer Forum category "How are you using Highrise?"

OpenID screencast features Basecamp and Highrise

If you're still wondering exactly what OpenID is or how it works with apps like Basecamp and Highrise, check out ScreenCastsOnline's free, 15 minute screencast about OpenID.

The video includes a section that demonstrates how to obtain an OpenID (using MyOpenID as a provider) and then shows how to use it to access both Basecamp and Highrise.

It also shows the new Open Bar in action. If you've got both a Basecamp and Highrise account (or multiple accounts in either), you really oughta get onboard the OpenID train. It makes navigating between your accounts way smooth.

Related: About OpenID section at 37signals.com.

Switching to OpenID is easy

Have you caught OpenID fever yet? It's the secret sauce behind the new 37signals Open Bar.

Our Why OpenID? page sums up the advantages nicely (e.g. remember just one username/password instead of dozens, getting one is easy, etc.)

We've also created step-by-step guides showing you how to set up Basecamp & OpenID and Highrise & OpenID. These guides will make your login switch a breeze.

Once you go OpenID, you'll never go back.

A script that emails log files to your Highrise dropbox for easy backup checkup

Ross Belmont has rigged up a backup solution using the UNIX philosophy of employing many small tools, each perfectly suited for its job.

One of the tools he uses is Highrise. He has the script e-mail the contents of the log file to his Highrise Dropbox so he can access it easily. "So far, this has worked without a hitch, and I feel much better having my files backed up everyday," he says.

Here's why he chose to incorporate Highrise into his system:

Growl is cool, but it didn’t provide much in the way of detail as to what happened with the script. I kinda wanted to see a log of what happened, except I didn’t feel like managing log files. I was really looking to get the log info via RSS, and for that I had to post it to the web somewhere. Highrise solves all these issues, and the default Dashboard view is great in the way it highlights the latest info. (After all, I really don’t care about yesterday’s backup after today.) My script e-mails the contents of the log file to my Highrise Dropbox, which was really easy to do with just a few lines of Ruby code.

Read Automated backup to Strongspace with rsync, Automator, and Highrise for full details. Or cut to the chase and download this file to check out the scripts.

Related: Ross also wrote some code to create Backpack reminders via e-mail/SMS.

The 37signals Open Bar

The 37signals Open Bar lets you quickly switch between accounts. It originally came to Basecamp. Now the Open Bar includes your Highrise accounts too. So you can get single sign-on for both Basecamp and Highrise accounts (next up: Backpack). Log into any one of your accounts and you’re logged into all your accounts. Learn how to set it up. (It just takes a minute per account.)

Pastor uses Highrise to keep track of interactions with his congregation

Rev. Andrew Conard, Pastor of Congregational Care at The United Methodist Church, writes in: "I have found Highrise to be an excellent way to keep track of interactions that I have with members and visitors to the congregation both in the hospital, in appointments, at worship and around town. Highrise has become an integral part of my task of providing the best possible care for each person."

We asked him to tell us more...

The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection has a unique model for Congregational Care called the Pastorates. A Pastorate is a community within our church family that is led by a Congregational Care pastor. The Pastorate has been designed to encourage every person in our church family to identify with a specific “primary care pastor” to help ensure that great pastoral care is received. I am the pastor for the N-R Pastorate - all those in the congregation with last names beginning with N-R. Currently this group consists of approximately 2000 individuals.

Highrise has transformed the way that I am able to care for the congregation. No longer do I have to worry about someone "falling through the cracks." I am able to log all my interactions - email, phone, appointments in one place and create a reminder for appropriate follow up. Thanks Highrise and 37signals!

Below are some screenshots and descriptions that Rev. Conard sent in to show us how he uses Highrise (click for larger versions).

Tags - Hospital: Tags have allowed me to bring up all the individuals with whom I have had a particular interaction. This screen shot is for people whom I have visited in the hospital and may need follow up care.

Contact: Ongoing Interactions: This is an individual with whom I have been in contact with for various reasons. The task reminders help me to keep up to date on the next time that I need to contact this individual.

StartupNation reviews Highrise

Nikole Gipps at StartupNation just published her review of Highrise.

Picture this: You are the typical startup, with partners in different locations and on different schedules while you are trying to launch your next big idea. A vendor calls you in California, looking for your partner in New York to get a final sign-off on a prototype. Your partner is no where to be found, and the vendor needs an answer in the next hour.

What do you do? This is where an online contact manager comes in handy. With Highrise, a new product from the developers at 37signals, you can log into your account, look at the case page, and realize that your partner made a note stating that the final prototype was approved that morning. A couple of clicks, a short read, and your vendor can get started making your widgets!

Need another example? Currently I have 1,556 e-mails in my company inbox. This doesn't even count towards the average of a few hundred e-mails I have in each of my 30 current client inboxes. So when a client calls and I need to find the paper trail of our last conversation ... well, you can imagine it takes me a while. Having a paper trail presented to me with an easy graphical interface and categorization for all of my contact communications streamlines this process greatly.

She ends the review by saying "Overall, I would say that our production efficiency and my personal organizational habbits have greatly improved in the past month." We're glad Highrise is helping, Nikole!

Using iPhone & Highrise to email tasks quickly

Highrise allows you to create tasks via email. The iPhone (and most smart phones, for that matter) allow you to send email. This is a great fit so we've posted details about how to set up your Address Book and iPhone to make this process as easy as possible. Check it out: iPhone & Highrise: A quick email-a-task tip [Signal vs. Noise].

Related: Tips on integrating Highrise with your iPhone (or any phone that syncs with Address Book) [Product Blog]