In the past couple of weeks, we have been teasing you with sneak previews of the new features we had in store. But there’s a big thing that we have kept secret up until now. These were not all separate feature releases that we were putting our efforts into, but part of Wrike’s new user interface. The trumpets ring, the curtain falls… and here comes the much anticipated moment when we’re proud to introduce Wrike Graphite!
What you’ll immediately see in Wrike Graphite is the new look of the interface. What we targeted is making the design neat, clear and very lightweight. We know that when it comes to daily productivity, it’s the little things that matter. Pure, contrast palette, restyled folder tree, intuitive icons, and more – we hope that each of these details will make it even easier for you to navigate Wrike and spot all the necessary project info in your workspace.
Besides rethinking the design, Wrike Graphite goes much further. While we were creating magic with this new version, what we had in mind was no less than reshaping the whole experience of working online together! Function-wise, one of the core components in this shift is a built-in timer which doesn’t only track your work time with pinpoint precision, but also broadcasts your work progress to the team. A typical online work scenario is usually very transactional – one colleague asks a direct question, another one answers him. It gives you laser focus on the details you need, but this pattern misses the benefits of accidental interactions that we enjoy in the real world. The model of "management by walking around", however funny this title sounds, helped many successful leaders, such as Steve Jobs, to be very effective. Wrike has been delivering this concept through easy info sharing, a flexible model of task following, and convenient real-time notifications on the web, in email, and on mobile.
In Wrike Graphite, we made another big step in this direction: with literally one click on the play button of the timer, you start subtly broadcasting to your team what you are working on. It's a push-pull model, which means that you're not imposing this info to your colleagues, but if they "walk by", they'll know what you're working on and will be able to contribute, if necessary. For people who work across the building, country, or globe this is transformative for their online work experience.
Along the same lines of making project management more approachable and simple, we rethought the process of scheduling tasks and setting dependencies between them. When you have a clear vision of how tasks are connected to each other, you can easily build this sequence right from the new task view. Just as easily, you can later reschedule these tasks, or get the full picture of your projects on the timeline.
We know that sometimes every second counts, so we added another powerful feature - HTML5 desktop notifications. Thanks to them, your team will be able to react to comments and approach new tasks the moment they arise.
Last, but not least, we put extra effort into making your e-mail experience even better. This time we've redesigned and improved email notifications. We’ve added the familiar patterns you enjoy in Wrike’s Activity Stream, so that these interactions become more collaborative and you - more productive.
As you can see, the magic mix of Wrike Graphite includes a lot of big and small updates that have one goal in common - make a positive difference in your day-to-day work. In our coming posts we’ll take a detailed tour of the key new features, so that you and your team can make the most of them.
Can’t wait to see the new Wrike Graphite in action? Simply enable it for your workspace in Wrike Labs right now!
Important note: The old user interface will be disabled for all users on September 30, 2013. We wanted to make sure that you have plenty of time to get adjusted to the new Wrike. Keep in mind, our customer care team is always there to help you with any questions or concerns that you might have!
