ClearContext Corporate Blog

A quick note on IMS licensing:

• Full Licenses – We are offering IMS v4 at an introductory price of $79.95 USD for a single license through the end of the month.  The regular price of $89.95 applies starting December 1.
• Upgrades – Purchase an upgrade before the end of the year to take advantage of the introductory upgrade price of $29.95 USD.  The regular upgrade price of $44.95 applies starting January 1.

By now all registered users should have received an email from us regarding v4 upgrade options.  If you have not received one, drop us a line at support at clearcontext dot com and we’ll send additional detail.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

We’ve updated our GTD setup guide for IMS v4.  A PDF is available here.  This is an evolving work; so please post any comments/feedback on the guide in our forums.

We’ve updated our User Guide to include new features for v4, including the IMS Dashboard, Alerts, Do Not Disturb and Toolbar Management.  The downloadable PDF of the User Guide includes additional information about the IMS Daily Workflow.

Yesterday we pushed out IMS v4.0.2 to address the following:

• The IMS Dashboard and ActionView were experiencing stability issues when encountering malformed appointments.
• There was a compatibility issue with Business Contact Manager.

If you are experiencing either of these issues, shut down Outlook and download and install the update.

I’ve recently made an update to our v4 demo.  Take a look:

A larger version can be found here.  If you’re interested in embedding this on your website or blog, grab this code:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.clearcontext.com/ims_demo/ims_demo_425px.swf"></param><embed src="http://www.clearcontext.com/ims_demo/ims_demo_425px.swf" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object>

Thanks!

There’s quite a bit that’s been written about our release over the last few days.  Take a look for some hints on our future product plans… 

ClearContext Aims To Untangle Your Outlook Inbox
David Needle – Enterprise News
"If you use Outlook, but have trouble keeping track of the glut of e-mail the Microsoft program collects, a solution may be at hand." 

E-mail overload? ClearContext promises solution for Outlook users
Eric Lai – ComputerWorld
"Version 4 of Information Management System (IMS) gives users an integrated dashboard view of all the e-mails, appointments and contacts related to a given project — something that ‘fundamentally hasn’t been possible in Outlook before,’ said ClearContext CEO Deva Hazarika." 

ClearContext – Helping you with email overload
Chris Morrison – VentureBeat
"So ClearContext helps give some structure to the user’s day. It allows new email notifications to be selectively turned on or off, giving the user breathing room to work on the actual projects related to their email communications. At other times, users are encouraged to go through and deal with their prioritized emails."

ClearContext IMS
Steve Parker – Internet Fork
"If you are a Microsoft Outlook user, ClearContext is a godsend."

Wow.  I intended to put up highlights of the new release yesterday, but the response to v4 announcement has been amazing and has kept us all incredibly busy (in a good way).  A hearty thanks for the support!

For the v4 release we really focused on points of pain our customers have talked to us about in our forums and via support requests.  Here’s an overview of the key new features in v4:

IMS Dashboard

Accessed from the Dashboard button on the toolbar, this tool allows you to view Messages, Tasks & Appointments, filtered by Topic and Category.

When unfiltered, the messages window shows flagged messages only.  Apply a Topic filter to show Inbox and Filed messages with assigned Topics.

Alerts

Create an unread message or contact alert trigger by clicking the Alerts button on the toolbar.  If a message that meets the criteria set in your Alert trigger remains unread for the time you specify, IMS will pop-up a window letting you know that there is a message in your Inbox that needs attention.  A few notes:

• You can set Alerts by contact or message thread
• You manage/view your Alert triggers from the Alert management window, accessed via the ClearContext menu.

Toolbar Simplification

Probably the first thing you will notice in the new release is that the toolbar has been simplified.  Add/Remove buttons and change their position via ClearContext > Options > Preferences > Toolbar. 

Do Not Disturb

Access this feature from the ClearContext menu to turn off message notifications and work without interruption.

Topic Query on Save

Much like the Topic query on send function for composed messages available in v3, IMS will query for Topic assignment when a task or appointment is saved.

Mark as Read When Filing

IMS now marks all messages as read when filing using one of the filing buttons.  This behavior can be turned of via ClearContext > Options > Preferences > Misc.

Go to Topic

Accessed from the Topic Selector, Go To Topic opens the Topic folder that you select.

Custom Forms Support

IMS can be configured to use custom forms from the Task and Schedule buttons.  This allows the product to be used in conjunction with third party add-ins like Taskline.  Enter the custom form class in ClearContext > Options > Preferences > Tasks/Appts.  FYI – To use Taskline, enter IPM.Task.Taskline in the Task custom form field.

Thanks to the beta community who helped us test the new
features!

We’ve got a lot more to talk about in conjunction with this release.
In particular I want to share our near term product plan and talk at length
about the Information
Management System Daily Workflow.  So watch the weblog over the coming
weeks for some really exciting stuff.

We are pleased to announce the release of IMS v4.  The press release is posted here.  We’ve got a lot more to say about the release a little later.  In the meantime, peruse our newly re-designed website, download and install IMS v4, and let us know what you think.