Tag Archives: Google Apps

Google Drive, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Contacts.

Usability tweak: a restyled My Profile page

August 28, 2017UsabilityBox, Google Apps, UsabilityKerika

We have updated the My Profile page (you can access yours at https://kerika.com/my-profile) to be consistent with our new look-and-feel:

My Profile

Updating your photo is easy: you can either upload something from your laptop, or get something that’s already online, e.g. your LinkedIn profile photo:

If you are a Kerika+Google or Kerika+Box user, it will look a little different, since we never see your Google or Box password (and hence are in no position to help you change it), and we also rely upon Google/Box to give us your name and photo:

Kerika+Google Profile

How we manage your document versions

September 13, 2016Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Team Collaboration, Technology, UsabilityBox, Google AppsKerika

Kerika helps you (and your team) manage multiple versions of a document, and it does this so smoothly that you might not even have noticed…

Here’s how it works: when you add a file to a Kerika card or canvas, it shows up in the list of attachments, like this:

If you then attach another file to the same card or canvas that has the same name and file type, Kerika automatically treats it as a new version of the same file, rather than a completely different file:

In the example above, when a Team Member adds another document called Foo.docx to a card that already has a file attached to it with the same name and file type, Kerika treats the new document as a new version of the old Foo.docx rather than as two documents called Foo.docx.

How you access all these old versions depends upon how you set up your Kerika account:

If you are using Kerika+Google, these files are being stored in your Google Drive, and Google will manage the versions for you: you can find this under the File menu in Google Docs

And pretty much the same thing is true if you are using Kerika+Box: Box will take care of the older versions automatically, although their user interface is slightly different

And what if you signed up directly with Kerika, without using a Google or Box ID?

We provide an easy way to get to older versions of a file for users who signed up directly: when you are previewing a file, click on the Older versions of this file link on the top-right.

Kerika will show you a list of all the old versions that are available for that file, along with details on who uploaded those versions, and when:

Downloading attachments, with a single click

September 12, 2016UsabilityBox, Direct Sign Up, Google AppsKerika

Did you know that we have made it really easy to download files that you attach to a Kerika card, canvas or board?

Just hover your mouse over an attachment, and you will see these buttons appear on the right:

These buttons let you:

Download a file
Rename a file
Delete a file attachment

Couple of other points to note:

Rename a file shows off our integration with Google Drive (for our Kerika+Google users) and with Box’s service (for our Kerika+Box users): renaming the file from inside Kerika will automatically rename it in your Google Drive or Box folder as well.

Deleting a file attachment doesn’t actually delete the file from your Google Drive or Box account: it just means that file is no longer attached to that particular Kerika card, canvas or board.

We encourage you to hang out with your friends

September 9, 2016Technology, UsabilityBox, Direct Sign Up, Google Apps, LoginKerika

When you sign up directly with Kerika, we take a look at your email address and try to figure out whether you would be better off with Kerika+Google or Kerika+Box.

This helps ensure that you are going to be able to easily collaborate with other people from your company, who may have signed up already using their Google or Box IDs.

Here’s an example: joe@kerika.com tries to sign up directly, and we suggest automatically that he sign up as a Kerika+Box user since so many of his colleagues already have Kerika+Box accounts:

Tracking Kerika users

September 2, 2016Kerika, TechnologyGoogle Apps, PrivacyKerika

If you use Ghostery (which is a pretty cool browser plug-in, by the way), it’s easy to see which “trackers” are being used by a website.

The only tracker that Kerika uses is Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is a free service from Google that we use to get a general understanding of who visits Kerika.com, from where, and using which kinds of browsers.

For example, Google Analytics tells us that an amazing 98.27% of all visitors to Kerika.com use the Chrome browser: this is way above the general market share for Chrome, which is about 29.15%!

And that’s the only tracker you will find on Kerika.

Here, by way of contrast, are what news sites like the New York Times and CNN use in terms of trackers:

Kerika+Google users can decide whether to use Google Docs, or stay with Microsoft Office

August 30, 2016Technology, UsabilityGoogle Apps, Preferences, WhiteboardKerika

If you are a Kerika+Google user — you signed up for Kerika using your Google ID (like a Gmail address) — your Kerika files will be stored in your own Google Drive.

Most Kerika+Google users prefer to have their files converted to the Google Docs format when they upload them their Kerika cards, canvases or boards: this makes it easy for them to edit these files from inside a browser.

A small minority of our Kerika+Google users, however, prefer to keep their files in their original Microsoft Office format.

(The most common reason for this is if you are working with complex spreadsheets: Microsoft Excel is still far better than Google’s Spreadsheets!)

If you are a Kerika+Google user, you have a choice of using Google Docs or not: just go https://kerika.com/preferences and select this option:

Either way your files will still be stored in your Google Drive; the only difference is whether they are stored in the Google Docs format or kept in their original Microsoft Office format.

Making sure Gmail users sign up for Kerika+Google

August 23, 2016KerikaBox, Direct Sign Up, Google Apps, Login, UsabilityKerika

We offer three ways for you to sign up as a Kerika user:

Using a Google ID, e.g. a Gmail address if you have one.
Using a Box ID, if you are a Box user.
Signing up directly.

Using a Google ID means you are getting Kerika+Google: the version of Kerika that offers amazingly smooth integration with your Google Drive and Google Docs.

Using a Box ID means that you are getting Kerika+Box: the version that offers amazingly smooth integration with the Box platform.

And signing up directly means that you can use any email address you like, and leave it to Kerika to store your files for you.

Originally, we had just Kerika+Google, and then we built Kerika+Box to address the market for enterprises that preferred using Box to Google.

And, finally, we built the direct login method for people who didn’t care about how their Kerika files were stored, and were happy to just leave that whole job for us to take care of.

We are now trying to streamline that process even further.

If you already have a Gmail address, it is very likely that you are already comfortable with using Google’s services, which means you should really be getting a Kerika+Google account so that you can benefit from all the great, smooth integration we have already done.

In the same vein, if the majority of people from your company have already signed up for a particular service, e.g. Kerika+Box or Kerika+Google, then it makes sense for you to sign up in the same way so that you can share boards with your coworkers.

This process is now more automated, and, we hope, simpler: when you sign up, we look at the email address you are using to set up your Kerika account and try to set you up with the version of Kerika that will make most sense:

If you are signing up with a Gmail address, we are going to set you up with Kerika+Google.
If most people from your company have already signed up for Kerika+Box, or Kerika+Google, we will set you up the same way as well.

This should make for less confusion about which flavor of Kerika is going to be tastiest for you…

Automatic version tracking

April 23, 2016Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Team Collaboration, Technology, UsabilityBox, Direct Sign Up, Document Management, Google Apps, Kanban, Kerika, Scrum, Task Board, WhiteboardKerika

Another great new feature: if you upload a file on any card, canvas or board with the same name as a file that’s already attached to that particular card, canvas or board, Kerika will automatically keep track of these as being different versions of the same file. This makes it even easier to organize all your Kerika project files.

Here’s how it works:

Kerika lets you add files to any cards, boards or canvases, on any of your Kerika Task Boards, Scrum Boards or Whiteboards.

There’s no limit to the number of files you add, nor any limit on the size of these files.

When you add a file, to a card, board or canvas, Kerika automatically uploads that file and shares that with everyone who is part of your board’s team. You don’t have to do anything: Kerika makes sure that all the Team Members have read+write permission, and all the Visitors have read-only permission.

These files are stored in your Google Drive, if you are using Kerika+Google, or in your Box account, if you are using Kerika+Box, or with Kerika if you have signed up directly with an email address.

That’s how Kerika has always worked; what we have added is an automatic versioning feature that checks when you add a new file to see if has the same name, and type, as a file that’s already attached to that particular card, canvas or board.

If the file name and file type match something that you have already added, Kerika automatically treats that new file as a new version of the old file, rather than as a completely different file. This makes it really easy to manage your Kerika project files.

Here’s an example: this card has a file attached to it called “Foo.docx”.

If a Team Member adds another file to this same card, also called “Foo.docx”, Kerika will treat that new file as a different version of the same Foo.docx, rather than as a completely different file:

Accessing these older versions is easy: if your Kerika files are in being stored in your Google Drive, you can get the older versions using the Google Docs File menu:

If your files are being stored in your Box account, you can access the older versions from the menu on the right side of Box’s preview window:

If you signed up directly with Kerika, you can access the older versions from within Kerika’s file preview:

Clicking on the Older versions of this file link on the top right of this preview will give you a list of all the old versions of this file that Kerika has:

So, that’s it: simple, easy, automatic tracking of multiple versions of your project files! Brought to you by Kerika, of course.

Changing your Kerika password

March 17, 2016Kerika, TechnologyBox, Google Apps, Kerika, SecurityKerika

For folks who sign up directly with Kerika, we store the user password (in an encrypted form, of course), which means that these users can change their passwords directly from within the Kerika application by going to their My Account page at https://kerika.com/my-account:

For people who sign up using their Google or Box IDs, we rely upon Google/Box to manage their passwords: in fact, we never even see anyone’s Google or Box password, even for a second!

So, their My Account page looks a little different, like in this example of a Kerika+Google user:

Migrating users from Kerika+Google to our own storage

January 15, 2016TechnologyGoogle Apps, Our UsersKerika

We don’t offer this as a regular service — because it involves some special back-end work that can be a little time-consuming — but we recently helped a bunch of users migrate their accounts over from Kerika+Google to the new version of Kerika that lets you sign up directly with us, and have Kerika store your files instead of linking Kerika to a Box or Google account.

This is the version that you sign up for when you click on the left side of our Sign Up page:

Sjgning up directly with Kerika — Signing up directly with Kerika

With this option, Kerika stores your files for you using our new integration with the Box Platform.

Migrating away from Kerika+Google to this new platform helps our users save money: they could discontinue their use of premium (paid) Google Apps which they had adopted only to use as a sign-up mechanism for Kerika.

Handling this migration isn’t something we do for everyone, but this is one of our oldest customers. 🙂

Get more done, with Kerika

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