Here are 5 ways I’ve figured out to get a lot more done in TrackVia a lot quicker.

1) Use 2 monitors!

• The ability to do simultaneous data entry on one screen and reading/referencing/surfing on the other screen is huge.  2 screens means 4X the productivity!
• Flat screen monitors are cheap these days!  If your boss is too cheap to buy you an external screen to help you get a lot more done, you should reconsider your career plans there.

2) Have 2 browser windows open for your TrackVia work.

• This is kind of a corollary to rule 1.  But it’s huge to be able to do data entry into TrackVia in one browser window while viewing the results in another browser window.
• You can even be simultaneously logged-in as 2 TrackVia users if you use 2 separate browsers (for example, one IE window and one Safari window).

3) Use CTRL+F to find things on your screen.

• Whether you’re working in TrackVia or doing anything else in a browser, this is the one tip that you shouldn’t live without.
• It’s crazy that people still stare at the screen and slowly scroll down looking for one specific word.  Just use CTRL+F and start typing – your browser will take you straight to it.

4) Heavily use TrackVia’s “favorite views”

• Even the biggest TrackVia power users spend most of their time in only a handful of different views.  Add these views to your “favorite views” section of your account’s home page, and your navigation just got a lot quicker!
• Under this scheme, to get a different view is only 2 easy clicks – click the logo in the upper left of the screen, and then click the favorite view!

5) Use a modern browser!

• Safari, Chrome, Firefox – if you don’t know what these are, and your browser vocabulary is limited to an I and an E, you need to step up it up to 2010!
• Modern browsers do a great, and faster job, of handling modern websites, including javascript.
• For those of you stuck on IE6 based on corporate policies, we feel for you!

Here’s the extra one that’s kind of out there.
6) Create a TrackVia “time machine” by setting up a combination of our features so that you can always go to any past date and see what records were in a particular view on that date.

• Important: for this to work well, you should use only views that have a relatively small number of records (<200ish).  If you have a large view, use some filters to break it down into a few smaller views

1. Create a new “Emails received” table in your TrackVia account (this is a “sample table” when you choose how to create your table).
2. Use an email address to add email collecting to this table.
3. Go to your TrackVia views that you’d like to have daily snapshots of (for example, a current pipeline view of sales leads, or all of your employees’ tasks for the week).  Add a distribution schedule to each view (you can even set it to attach an Excel spreadsheet), and set it to be delivered to the email address that’s linked to the Emails received table.

That’s it!  Now you’ll have a table of daily snapshots of those views so that you can always to back and see what records were in that view, and their statuses, on any given day.  And because these views are in a TrackVia table, you can use great features like Search and Filtered Views to keep them organized.

Because our online database application is delivered through a browser, our developers keep a close eye on the browser versions that our visitors are running.  And our marketers try to play Sherlock Holmes to extract insights about our customer base by comparing it to the reported market share of various browsers and versions.  For example, it’d be an interesting insight to say that because nearly 12% of our customers are running IE6, a signicant amount of our customer base is technology laggards.  However, it’s not true, and the opposite is actually true (for IE6 at least).  We know from conversations with our biggest customer that their corporate policy is to run only IE6, while our champions there are very early adopters of technology.

So, without claiming any particular insights out of the following stats, we thought it’d be interesting reading for our customers and others to see the browsers that TrackVia’s customers and web visitors are using.  In terms of trends, over the last 3 years we’ve seen IE lose about 5% of (our) market share, Firefox remain steady, and Safari usage double to account for most of the loss by IE.

Trackvia's browser share across all browsers

TrackVia's browser shares across IE

What is the app you’d most like to be able to immediately install in your TrackVia account? Here are some suggestions that customers have given us in the past. What do you say?…

• CRM
• Inventory Management (running totals of materials, parts, products, etc.)
• Project Management
• Asset Tracking (including barcode scanning to update records)
• Nonprofit donors
• Customer feedback (complaints, compliments)

Now your TrackVia data can be a dynamic, integrated part of your broader IT and business systems!

TrackVia’s API allows developers to integrate TrackVia with other business applications. New database records can be created from remote API calls, and individual database records or a set of records (corresponding to a view in TrackVia) can be fetched via the API. Any record can also be updated or deleted. The API uses HTTP GET and POST requests, and data can be sent or retrieved in XML, JSON, or CSV formats.

TrackVia’s API is secure. Each API transaction requires an SSL connection and a unique security key available only to TrackVia administrators. In addition, the API must be enabled in the TrackVia user interface for specific tables and request types before it is functional. Finally, API calls can be limited to specific IP addresses, corresponding to the servers that host the applications to be integrated.
Our customers typically use our API to:

• synchronize data in TrackVia with data in another database (including ERPs)
• automatically create records in TrackVia in response to events in other systems
• download new records from TrackVia once per day for further processing

For example, a customer might use TrackVia to manage repair requests from existing customers. Each repair request in TrackVia references a specific customer. The master source of customer data, however, might be an in-house customer relationship management (CRM) system. With the TrackVia API, the customer data in TrackVia can be kept in sync with the data in the in-house CRM.

TrackVia’s API has been up-and-running with select customers for most of 2009. In 2010, however, we’re making the API available in a self-serve model. That is, any customer with the requisite knowledge can download our API Developer’s Guide, configure the API’s security settings to their liking, and begin passing data into and out of TrackVia. (The required knowledge is computer programming; so an API solution will typically be built either by an application developer or other IT professional employed by the customer, or with help from TrackVia Professional Services.)

TrackVia’s API is both simple and fully featured. New TrackVia records can be created from remote API calls, and individual TrackVia records or a set of records (corresponding to a view in TrackVia) can be fetched via the API. Any record can also be updated or deleted.
The TrackVia API is not included in our standard pricing plan. You may evaluate it free for test and development purposes. For production uses, please contact your TrackVia account representative for pricing information.

We’re posting product updates and other interesting tidbits on Twitter!  Please follow us to keep on top of the latest service updates and rumors about upcoming features!

TrackVia provides High-grade Encryption using AES-256 256 bit encryption.  This means TrackVia’s SSL encryption (protects your information as it travels through the internet) is so incredibly secure, there’s really not much more to say about it!

By default, all new TrackVia accounts have SSL enabled from the time they’re created.  Some existing TrackVia customers may not have SSL enabled.  If this is the case for your account, just email us at support@trackvia.com or call us at 800.673.3302 and we’ll get it enabled for your account, pronto!

Want to know a great way to find TrackVia help articles, and other TrackVia tips & tricks?  Search on Google!

Once you’re in the TrackVia forum after clicking a Google search result, be sure to click around and read other articles.  And please – leave some comments!