The kalmstrom.com Online Chat Gets A New Look

If you are a frequent visitor to the kalmstrom.com site, I am sure you have noticed our new chat icons. I hope you like the cartoon style created by our talented graphic artist Jitendra Joshi? Personally, I am fond of the little yellow mouse sticking out on one side. It gives just that little extra touch needed to make the image interesting.

The kalmstrom.com online chat is very popular among users and evaluators of our Outlook add-ons. For more complicated questions that require long descriptions the e-mail is better, but the chat is perfect for short inquiries. Website visitors get an immediate contact with a member of the kalmstrom.com team and are given quick answers to their questions.



The chat is also used extensively in remote sessions. While the kalmstrom.com developer studies the remote product configuration to find the error, he or she can get information from the user via the chat window. This is valuable cooperation and helps finding the solution to the problem. 

The kalmstrom.com team gets transcripts from all chats automatically. That way we have a record of what has been discussed in the chat, and it is easy to share interesting info within the group. If you have been chatting with kalmstrom.com and want your own transcript, just press the e-mail icon to send it or the print icon to print it.

 

We have chosen to place the chat icon on nearly all the kalmstrom.com web pages, so that visitors don't have to search for it. We don't have the chat manned around the clock yet, but if no one is able to answer you may instead leave a message for us. That message will of course be read and answered as promptly as when you send us an e-mail.

After the chat is finished, visitors are asked to rate the given support or sales info. The rates give important info about what we can improve and what is important to keep in mind. The kalmstrom.com team is often praised for quick and good answers, and we do our best to live up to all the kind words given in the comment field of the Rate dialog. Be sure they are read ‒ often more than once!

Promotions In The kalmstrom.com Team

I am always happy to write about the kalmstrom.com team members, but today I feel a bit extra warm around the heart. Siret Toots has been engaged in the work at kalmstrom.com for nearly a year, but she also had another demanding job and did not have much time. Now that will change. From October Siret is taking over the responsibility for sales and marketing of the kalmstrom.com products and services.

With the growth of kalmstrom.com I can no longer handle both sales, marketing,  documentation and organization, so Siret's decision to accept the position we offered is a relief to me. She is clever and dedicated, so I know she will do a good job that will take kalmstrom.com forward.

Siret is the fiancée of our CEO, Peter. They met when they both worked for Skype, and in Siret Peter has found a loving partner with a strong integrity. She is a great asset to both Peter and kalmstrom.com!

The kalmstrom.com team has more assets! We have been very satisfied with the work of our trainee Sunil Patel, and from October we have hired him as Junior Developer. Also from October former junior developer Vijayant Rimza is called Developer. Vijayant is now able to take on a greater responsibility for development projects, so we feel that he is no longer a junior!

The future looks bright, and I am thrilled to see what these three and the rest of the team can achieve together.

kalmstrom.com Is Testing Windows 8

Yesterday Microsoft released a pre-beta version of their new operating system Windows 8, and we are excited to try it. Even though the kalmstrom.com products interact more with the Office applications than with the operating system, we always follow the Microsoft developments closely.

One thing that especially strikes us, is the trend of making software nicer to look at and easier to use. We have been putting a lot of efforts towards those goals in our own products lately, and we will continue to do so. Now we hope that Windows 8 will make this task easier. For example, could using the Windows 8 Metro user interface make it easier and faster to edit and submit the TimeCard for Outlook time reporting data?

kalmstrom.com CEO Peter and Lead Developer Jayant is already testing the new release, and I will come back to you later with their comments. The installation went smoothly, and now they are both eager to see how Windows 8 can enhance the kalmstrom.com products.

kalmstrom.com Develops Cloud-Connected Outlook Add-ons

To stay strong and be able to meet future development requests, the kalmstrom.com team has taken on a task that will change our products profoundly. User's don't have to worry, because they will still recognize the product they like and are used to, but the architecture behind it will be much different. The reason for this long term investment, is of course the technical development of the products we build on but also general changes in the business world. We see a future where teams continue to get more mobile and geographically dispersed, and therefore we want to re-build all of our applications for more web-based usage.

All of the kalmstrom.com Outlook add-ons have relied heavily on Outlook public folders or mailboxes for information sharing. This still works well in most organizations, and we will continue to support that usage. However, if we stand still, keep the current architecture and only add new features to our products, there will come a time when they have become old-fashioned. We don't want to wait for that day to make the necessary changes, because then we will prevent Member organizations from meeting and embracing the future. Members of kalmstrom.com Community deserve better! The products from kalmstrom.com must always be a help to make business more efficient.

Our developers have started with the comparatively simple application KBase. This is a knowledge base that is totally integrated in Outlook. The articles may also be embedded in a SharePoint site or OWA or be published to web pages with just a click of a button. The new KBase will have an ASP.NET MVC back-end and an SQL database, which will contain all of the tickets. We will supply this database for free if the user organization does not have an in-house or hosted SQL server or uses SQL Azure. Version 3 of KBase will have both a fully featured web interface and also, of course, an Outlook-interface. In addition, we will also make the web interface fully mobile and touch-friendly.

The new technique will also mean that our products will support the 64-bit version of Office 2010. Some Member organizations have asked for this, but we think most users will stay with the 32-bit version anyway. There are very few add-ons on the market that support the 64-bit version of Office, and the 64-bit version is only needed in special cases. However, for those who need it we want to give that support also.

The kalmstrom.com developer team has been working with this project for over a month, but I did not want to tell about it until we knew that the brilliant ideas of our CEO Peter was possible to realize. His understanding of how different techniques can be combined to create something new is the basis for kalmstrom.com Business Solutions, and now he has once again proved his skill.

A Microsoft Surprise

Last Friday Sigge and I were pleasantly surprised, when we received a delivery from Microsoft. As I told you in my latest blog kalmstrom.com Business Solutions has earned a Microsoft Partner Silver Competency ‒ Independent Software Vendor. However, we thought we would receive all the benefits over the Internet and had no idea that we would also get some physical proof of our accomplishment. It felt like Christmas when we opened the package and found a plaque in form of a beautiful glass sculpture to hang on the office wall.    

The text on the plaque is signed by Steven A. Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation and Jon Roskill, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group. This is their message: "For your commitment to creating and delivering innovative customer solutions and services based on Microsoft technologies, we proudly recognize your dedication to excellence."

The package also contained a Microsoft Partner banner, which we will display at our Indian office, and license and access keys that Peter and our developers are happy about. This Silver Partnership is an encouragement to us all, but it is also a responsibility we will do our very best to live up to.

Ugly Wrapping At Download.com

Even though we always recommend download of our products from the kalmstrom.com website, we also present them at other sites. This is done to reach more people, and since the download links still are ours, we can be sure that downloaders get what we want to give them.

However, the well known cnet site Download.com requires that they host the download file themselves, so that the products are downloaded from their site. We have accepted it because this is one of the major download sites, and we wanted our products to be seen there. It worked well for many years, except that they did not always had the latest version of our products. Now it does NOT work well anymore, and we have decided to remove all our products from Download.com.

The reason for this drastic decision is that we cannot trust Download.com anymore. They have started to wrap other downloads into installers, which is totally unacceptable to kalmstrom.com. This means that you cannot be sure that you will only get what you want if you download a software from Download.com. You might also get other programs that you don't wish to use or are even aware of. These programs may make unwanted changes to your system, and they may also be difficult to get rid of.

This sounds like a violation of developer rights, but cnet has cleverly avoided it by the wording of their terms of service. They can also claim that they have notified developers about the wrapping, even if it was just in one sentence a bit down in a newsletter and not in very clear words!

kalmstrom.com Business Solutions will never accept that our installation files give users anything else than a clean, genuine version of the kalmstrom.com software. Therefore we asked Download.com to remove all our products from their site immediately.

We also advice against downloading from Download.com. My guess is that the wrapping in the end will be fatal for Download.com. In the long run you cannot fool people – they are too smart for that and turn to other, more trustworthy sites.

PF HelpDesk V11.3 Released

Late Friday night we could release version 11.3 of Public Folder HelpDesk, the kalmstrom.com incident management tool for Outlook, and during the weekend the updated documentation has been published too. In my blog post of 21 July I told you about the support for Office 365 and the removal of the folder homepage, and I also mentioned some other improvements that will make PF HelpDesk even better for new and current users.

Another enhancement for evaluators is that the PF HelpDesk Example data is no longer dependent on the Office Web Components. The OWC have been very convenient and we have used them in our products for a long time, but since they are not installed automatically with Outlook 2007 and 2010 we want to gradually transfer to other techniques. Even if the Outlook 2003 OWC works fine with later Outlook versions also, it means extra trouble to download and install them if you don't already have them on your PC. In the new version OWC is still needed for the Settings and Statistics, but we will change that too eventually. For just working with the tickets there is no need for OWC.

If you are using PF HelpDesk and your organization has joined kalmstrom.com Community, you are welcome to upgrade your installation. You may see all the changes on the PF HelpDesk Revisions page.

Have you not tried PF HelpDesk yet? Welcome to download the application and test it for free. It can be installed in any Outlook folder ‒ public, shared or private.

Praise For HelpDesk OSP In New Testimonial

A few days ago a Community Member from the U.S. made the whole kalmstrom.com team happy by sending us a good testimonial on HelpDesk OSP. As you might have seen we placed some testimonials on the kalmstrom.com home page when we redesigned it. We plan to circulate snippets from testimonials on the home page, and now we replaced a Calendar Browser testimonial with excerpts from this new one. If you use one of our products, maybe you also want to share your experience of it?

Heather White, Prospect Development, UC Berkeley, first tells what our product has meant for her team: "Helpdesk OSP has been an incredible help to my team in our business process. It saved our unit several thousand dollars over competitor products and allowed us to leverage tools we already own, eliminating the need for additional training."

We also appreciate that Heather writes about how they make use of Helpdesk OSP. This is often the most interesting part of a testimonial for those who are new to the product. "Our team can now share information on our SharePoint site with just one click. We use Helpdesk OSP to initiate and track data and service requests from the schools we serve, making a complex process much more simple and transparent.”

Welcome to read more testimonials ‒ and of course to send us your own!

PF HelpDesk With Support For Office 365

The development of support for cloud solutions continues at kalmstrom.com Business Solutions. Our Outlook helpdesk was recently updated to a new version, Public Folder HelpDesk V11.2. It has full support for Russian and several other enhancements, but above all it gives the possibility to use Microsoft's cloud-based SQL Azure database for tickets and settings. Now the kalmstrom.com team takes one step more towards the clouds by making PF HelpDesk compatible with Office 365 also.   

Microsoft’s cloud based Office is still only available in Beta, but far-seeing  Community Members have already shown an interest in using our products with Office 365. HelpDesk OSP and TimeCard already work with Office 365, but the products that have a folder homepage in Outlook must be rebuilt.   

PF HelpDesk may be installed in any Outlook folder, and the folder homepage solution has been used ever since the application was created more than ten years ago. It has many advantages: it gives a nice graphical interface, displays the views and provides a handy search capability. The homepage is also involved when you create a new ticket ‒ but it cannot be used with Office 365.   

Since the folder homepage solution does not work with Office 365, we have to find new ways to give these functions in PF HelpDesk. At the same time we cannot accept that Members who don't want to use Office 365 gets something that is not as good as before. Ideally the next version should be better for them also. This is not an easy task, but our developers are experts on ingenious solutions. They already have a plan for how to both replace the homepage and make PF HelpDesk even better for all.
  
Most changes are made “behind the scene”, and many users will never notice them. What the helpdesk staff will see is the new search dialog and the addition of a gallery control. This control will show all custom views, and you can easily switch views from there. And to create a new ticket? Isn’t that the most important feature of all? Yes, it is, and don't worry - we will solve that also :-)   

Since Community Members are already waiting to use PF HelpDesk with Office 365, we have made the development of the new version a high priority task, and we hope to release it soon. I will come back with more info about this exciting project later.

PF HelpDesk V11.2 Released - SQL Azure New Database Choice

Public Folder HelpDesk V11.2 has been released! Public Folder HelpDesk is an issue tracking application for Outlook, and in spite of the name it can be installed in any Outlook folder, public, shared or private. We thank our Lead Developer Jayant Rimza, who was responsible for the development of version 11.2 and has done a great job with a difficult and time consuming task.

The most important new feature of the kalmstrom.com Outlook helpdesk is a third database alternative, SQL Azure. Microsoft's cloud database is a good alternative to Access, because it gives better storage capacity and security. SQL Azure is not free like Access, but you only pay for what you use. You don't have to bother with managing your own SQL Server - with SQL Azure Microsoft handles all maintenance. For a distributed team SQL Azure has another advantage: you can reach it from any system. All you need is an internet connection!

If you prefer you own SQL Server database, we have good news for you also: changes in the code will give your PF HelpDesk better performance after upgrading to V11.2. Several other enhancements have also been added and bugs were fixed, so if you are already using PF HelpDesk I suggest you take a look at the Revisions page .

All Community Members are welcome to upgrade! We will not mess with your database, so if you want to try the SQL Azure alternative you must make a new installation of PF HelpDesk.If you prefer to continue using your current Access or SQL Server database, you can just make an ordinary upgrade.

Do you need a tool for organizing and sharing incident reports and want the team to work with them inside Outlook? Have you not tried PF HelpDesk yet? Please download the application! I am sure you will like it, and our support group is here for you if you have questions.

Estonia - New Market For kalmstrom.com

Today I have the pleasure to introduce to you our new translator, Siret Toots from Estonia. Siret will localize all kalmstrom.com products for Estonian. Calendar Browser and HelpDesk OSP are already finished, and the translated phrases will be added to the next updates of those products.

Siret will also be responsible for the marketing of PamFax in Estonia and for the translation of this tool for easy and secure faxing into Estonian. Later Siret will complete the kalmstrom.com Finnish phrase lists, which need an update as some phrases are missing and shown in English instead.

It is not easy to translate our phrase lists, because you need to understand the product and not only know the language well. For example, if you find the word "book" in the phrase list for our resource booking tool Calendar Browser, you need to understand that it means "reserve" and is not referring to a book you can read. Siret is both dedicated and cooperative, so I feel confident that she will give us good translations and eventually new Members of kalmstrom.com Community.

New kalmstrom.com App Under Development: iCalendarTimeCard

Today I have great news for users of TimeCard, the kalmstrom.com application that lets you report time from inside the Outlook calendar. We have made an agreement with Ramp Up, who also helped us with TimeCard Mobile, to create a TimeCard app for iPhone. It will be called iCalendarTimeCard.

TimeCard Mobile has served well for several years, but now it feels a bit outdated. It is time to give TimeCard users a better alternative for their smart phones, and we will start with the iPhone app. Next step is to make iCalendarTimeCard work for iPad and iPod touch also, and then we will turn to Windows Phone7.

With iCalendarTimeCard it will be possible to filter, edit and create new events with assigned TimeCard categories in iPhone. Since neither iPhone, Windows Mobile nor Android supports the categories field, we will also support an addition to the body field for the TimeCard properties.

The iCalendarTimeCard Add Event screen will be similar to the default iPhone calendar – but with additional dropdowns for the TimeCard properties and with the kalmstrom.com design and colors. In this first step reporting will have to be made from TimeCard, but later we wish to create a TimeCard for smart phones that can be used stand alone. We have that in mind during the development, but we will take one step at a time.

I am sure iCalendarTimeCard will be an excellent tool for the many TimeCard users who don't spend all their working time in front of a computer. And of course it will be free of cost to Community Members and TimeCard Singel Support customers!

New kalmstrom.com Headquarters On Legendary Island

Kalmstrom Enterprises AB, the company behind the brand kalmstrom.com Business Solutions, has moved its headquarters to an island in the Baltic sea. Öland is situated near the south eastern coast of Sweden.

Even if it is an island it is no tax paradise ‒ quite the contrary, since the local tax is rather high ‒ but it is a paradise when it comes to nature. The southern part is a UNESCO World Heritage, and many other areas are also protected in various ways.

Öland is also famous for the many historical monuments, and on the image above you can see the biggest one, the castle ruin of Borgholm. It is named after the small town you can see behind it. The royal family of Sweden has its summer residence, Solliden, by the sea not far from the ruin ‒ and Sigge and I live in the upper right corner of the image :-)

Borgholm is a good town for a business, because the authorities are eager to attract new companies to the area. A significant part of the population works in the tourist industry, but the internet has given new possibilities to live and work on the island.

The leaders of Borgholm want to take advantage of that and persuade more people to move to the island. Sigge and I did just that, and now we look forward to continue our work in an environment that is both stimulating and healthy.

kalmstrom.com CEO Takes All Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Exams

Once again the kalmstrom.com team is happy to congratulate our CEO to an achievement. Peter has now passed all four exams for Microsoft SharePoint 2010, which means that he is certified as BOTH Administrator and Developer. This also means that he is eligible to become a SharePoint 2010 Master, and hopefully he will find the time to go through that 3 week training course at Redmond in the future!

With today's exam Peter has 15 Microsoft certifications. In the team we benefit from his knowledge on a daily basis, and it is of course evident in the kalmstrom.com  products and services. However, it feels good that Peter also has the proper exams to certify his skills.

How To Archive SharePoint List Items

SharePoint gives great customization possibilities, but sometimes it might be difficult to know what can be done and how to do it. All are not SharePoint experts, like kalmstrom.com CEO Peter Kalmstrom!

We of course want to do our best to help users get the most out of our products. Therefore we were happy to document how to archive old helpdesk tickets, when a Community Member who uses the kalmstrom.com application HelpDesk OSP asked about it.

Now we have added instructions for archiving to the HelpDesk OSP Workflow Manual, and we have also published a new video demonstration on the subject.


Since an archiving workflow can be useful for all SharePoint users, not only if you connect Outlook to SharePoint with HelpDesk OSP, we have also added a description in the website Tips section.



Addition in July 2013: Now we also have this demo in a SharePoint 2013 version!

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Addition, Nov. 2014: For customized archiving to an Access or SQL Server database, use the new kalmstrom.com Solution SP Archive!

kalmstrom.com Products All Get Five Stars On Reopened French Office Marketplace

Microsoft's Office Marketplace is an important marketing channel for the kalmstrom.com products. We get many visitors to the website from Office Marketplace, and those visitors are exactly the people we want to reach. They are often skilled IT professionals who know what they are looking for, and most stay long on our site and study several pages. Many of them also download our products and eventually become Community Members.

Therefore we are happy that the French Office Marketplace now has reopened after being closed for several months. Five of our products are presented there: Calendar Browser, HelpDesk OSP, OLAP Reporting Tool, PF HelpDesk and TimeCard ‒ and they all have highest possible ratings: five stars!

Another SharePoint Certification For kalmstrom.com

Peter, our kalmstrom.com CEO took the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administration certification yesterday, so now Peter has 13 Microsoft certifications.

The test had several parts: Designing a SharePoint 2010 Farm Topology, Planning SharePoint 2010 Deployment, Defining a SharePoint 2010 Operations Strategy and Business Continuity and Planning for Search and Business Solutions. Of course Peter managed them all!

Congratulations, Peter, from the whole team. You are an inspiring leader!

New Developer In kalmstrom.com Team

The kalmstrom.com team has a new Member, and I am happy to introduce you to Vijayant Rimza, our new junior developer. After taking his Master of Computer Application exam Vijayant started as trainee with us, and what we saw made us believe that he will eventually be as good as his older brother, our Lead Developer Jayant. Vijayant already has the ambition and the dedication, and he is very intent on improving his skills. Therefore he continues to study in his free time, both English and programming. We give him a warm welcome to the team.

Right now Vijayant is working with the implementation of the new design for HelpDesk OSP, the application for publishing to a SharePoint site via Outlook. His work at kalmstrom.com will be very varied, so it will give him excellent experience and a good opportunity to grow.

Vijayant has a gift that we were not aware of until I asked about his interests for this blog ‒ he paints and does pencil drawings, and very good also! Above you see him looking at one of his comic figures. This means that we suddenly have two artists in the company, even if only graphic designer Jitendra Joshi makes his living from the talent. I wonder how this will affect kalmstrom.com in the future? We surely have a very interesting time ahead of us!

Website Update For kalmstrom.com

     
The redesign of the kalmstrom.com website continues. After the latest update in January I was still not satisfied with neither background nor header, but now we have our own designer so I could easily get help.

Jitendra made some suggestions after my ideas, and we presented them to the rest of the team and also to some other selected people. I wanted to keep a dark background, but many in the group preferred something light. Some wanted grey, some blue and others white.

"Too dark, I get a headache!". "Too light, the actual content does not stand out." "Too dominating, the content disappears." "Boring!" The comments were many and pointed in different directions. I wanted a design that suits all but still looks interesting.

After many rounds of suggestions and discussions all could finally agree on a design which is not boring and not give headaches either. I have now implemented it and feel very satisfied. You can see some suggestions above, but welcome to the kalmstrom.com website to see the winning one. I hope you agree with me that it is good!

kalmstrom.com CEO Gets 12th MS Certification And Second For SharePoint

Today the kalmstrom.com team congratulates Peter, CEO of the company, who has passed his 12th Microsoft Certification and second SharePoint 2010 exam: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring. This exam validates that he has the configuration skills needed to administer a SharePoint 2010 installation.



Of course we already knew that Peter has those skills. He has been administrating our intranet for several years, and he also gives advanced lectures and courses for SharePoint administrators. Still, it feels good that he now also has an exam to prove his knowledge. He will take two more, to have the right to call himself a "SharePoint Master".

SharePoint is a platform for the future. We use both our SharePoint intranet and our issue tracking application HelpDesk OSP extensively. This helps us handle the contacts with Community Members and evaluators in an efficient way, and we can also easily share information within our geographically spread team. HelpDesk OSP is not only used for support cases but also otherwise when we wish to publish from Outlook to SharePoint. For example, when we were looking for new employees this past autumn we let the Outlook add-on automatically direct applications to a special list, where we could easily review them.

Congratulations, Peter! The whole team feel proud, even if Sigge and I probably take some extra pride in you as we are your parents! Who could have imagined this when we bought you your first computer?