Habit Tracker Launched!

I am excited to tell you that we’ve launched a new habit tracker feature in GoalsOnTrack. There is now a new tab called “Habits” on the main navigation bar. On “Habits” page, you can now add new habits, and track them by placing checkmarks on the weekly calendar. The small icon before the habit name indicates how strong that habit is, based on the number of checks you’ve marked so far.

To form a new habit, that is, to see it showing 100% strength, you will need to mark 21 consecutive checks within the last 21 days for a daily habit. This is based on a theory that we tend to form a new habit by doing it for 21 days in a row.

Your habit doesn’t have to be a daily one, it could be twice a week, or maybe once a week. The same formula applies. Instead of 21 days, the new habit forming period could be extended to the number of times per week multiplied by 21. Once a habit is formed, you can mark them as “Formed” and continue to work another one.

Forming good habits and keeping them followed is a great way to get you to do things that are required to achieve your goals. Please give it a try and let me know how it works for you, or simply what you think.

If you’re interested in learning more about building habits and how to get motivated, etc., please check out Zen Habit’s recent post, 20 Key Questions on Motivation and Habits, Answered. It has some great ideas from how Leo built his own habits.

GoalsOnTrack New Feature: Vision Board

We’ve just launched another feature for GoalsOnTrack, the Vision Board. It helps you visualize your goals by flashing a series of goal pictures you have uploaded or set for your goals. To see how it works, just go to your “Goals” page, and then click on “Vision Board” button at the top. Remember that only your active goals’ pictures will be shown on Vision Board.

Below are two samples of vision board running for 4 active goals.

What are we working on?

Just a quick update on what we have been working on lately.

Our main development effort has been focused on implementing iCalendar integration. Once that’s completed, you should be able to import tasks from your Calendar program that supports iCalendar format(ICS), such as Google Calendar, Mac’s iCal, Outlook Calendar, etc. You will also be able to export your tasks in ICS format, to be imported to your calendar software.

We are also working on a few smaller improvements such as, function to delete tasks from dashboard, set completion date when marking a task as done.

As always, we’re open to all suggestions or ideas that you think that may be useful to you. We will try to implement them in the system as best as we could.

Stay tuned, until next post.

Harry

New Feature to Import Tasks from Outlook

I’m glad to tell you about a new feature we recently launched. Now you are able to import tasks from Outlook. To do this, just go to “Settings” page, and click “Import tasks” menu item from the right.

The steps involved in importing tasks from Outlook are very simple. All you need to do is:

1. First export your tasks from Outlook to a CSV file

2. Then upload that file to GoalsOnTrack.

3. Choose which goal you want to import to, and which tasks you want to import.

These are the fields that will be recognized and imported from your Outlook tasks:

• Subject
• Due Date
• Date Completed
• Status
• Priority
• Notes

You may choose to import tasks daily or weekly, depending on how intensive you are using Outlook to manage your tasks.

We’re working on another feature to allow you to export tasks from GoalsOnTrack. The default format is still CSV format, as that is most common format that can be imported by most of the task management software or applications.  

But let me know if you prefer a format that may suit your needs better.

Upcoming release for performance improvement

I’ve been working on a new release which aims to improve the overall site load speed (particularly for adding/updating tasks) and also fix a few minor issues.

As I mentioned earlier, all free accounts will be removed from the system so that they will no longer slow down the site for paying members.

I’m also planning on adding a few new features, which include:
  1. Add a “Daily To-do List” section to dashboard so that you can add those tasks that you do every day, but they may not belong to any of your goals.
  2. The ability to selectively display which goals to show on dashboard.
  3. Multi-user support (still finalizing the details)

Please let me know what you think about these new features, and if there are anything else you’d like to see in the site.

-Harry

New Pricing Plans

Today we are officially closing the beta version of GoalsOnTrack and annouce a new version with new pricing plans. The transition from the beta to the new version is transparent and your accounts will not be affected in any way.

Currently we offer two types of accounts,  “Free” and “Standard”. The differences between the two are listed below. For any users who signed up but haven’t upgraded(or paid), you will be under the “Standard Trial” plan, which expires in 30 days and will be automatically downgraded to “Free” plan.

If you wish to continue using the site after 30-day evaluation period, please upgrade your account from the “Settings” -> “Pricing Plans” page, to avoid interruption of the service.

We offer two options of payment. You may pay either through PayPal, or with a credit card. You will receive email receipts of your payment, and your account will be automatically upgraded once your payment goes through.

Even though we’ve closed beta version, that doesn’t mean we are no longer improving and adding new features to the site. There is still ongoing development work being done daily to make the site better. Therefore, you continued support and feedback are always welcome.

If you have any questions regarding the new pricing plans or about upgrading your account, please let me know.

Thanks,

Harry

End of Beta Soon

The beta period for the GoalsOnTrack website will be over soon. We launched the first release about six months ago in 2008, and have been working hard to fix bugs and glitches and to enhance the application by adding important features and improving the user experience. I’d like to thank you for your many suggestions and great feedback during this period. We’ve done our best to address a lot of your requests, and will be continuing to do so in the future.

In the coming release (planned to go live on Mar 1), GoalsOnTrack will be offered under two different types of plans, Free and Standard. All new accounts will have full access as Standard accounts for 30 days. Afterwards, you may choose to stay as a Standard account by paying a $9.95 fee per month, or to have your account automatically downgraded to Free account, which will have only limited access to features and functionality.

For users who signed up before Mar 1, you will be treated as new signups and you may continue to use and evaluate the site for another 30 days for free.

We are trying our best to make the site as useful as possible for all users. And there will be continued development and improvement to the site, even after the beta. We have plans to offer more advanced and powerful features for some power users in the coming months. Therefore, your suggestions and feedback are always welcome.

Let me know if you have any comment on this or have any questions.

Cheers,

Harry

New version launched!

GoalsOnTrack’s new version has been officially launched today.

You should be able to login and use the site using your current login and password. All data you have entered in the old version persists in the new version, though the layout and look-and-feel are different now.

If you can’t login or access your data in the new version, please let me know immediately and I will make sure it’s fixed asap.

Please test around and give the new version a try. Let me know if you have found any bugs or have any suggestions.

Thanks and Happy New Year to You All!

Christmas release

It has been a bit quiet lately on the blog, that’s because I have been focusing on getting this new release done for the past few days. There’re just two days away from Christimas, and a new version is almost ready. Actually the backend is pretty much done already for the production. However, I am still working on several front end items, such as some new screenshots, testimonials etc.

Although I have been trying to test the code as thoroughly as possible, there still could be bugs or minor glitches here and there. I will probably have to deal with them after this release is in production.

Another thing is with the new feature of uploading pictures for goals. I will need to test it all out on a staging server first before the code goes live. If everything goes well, that shouldn’t take long, otherwise, there could be a slight delay. Anyway, I think the new version will probably be out around Christmas, and everyone should be able to see and use the new version before the new year.

A brief down time

There has been a brief down time, about 5-10 minutes, on the hosting server this morning. It happened around 6am. It seemed like some uninitialized object had caused mongrel processes to fail. But it has been corrected now.

For those of you who are interested in the backend setup, the site is running on a dedicated linux server, with Apache/2.2.9 as web server, and 2 mongrel clusters as app servers. The site itself is coded in Ruby on Rails, and the database is running on MySQL 5.

If you’re a web developer or techie person, you may want to check out my other blog at http://harryche2008.wordpress.com/ where I occasionally post RoR and web development related stuff.