ClearContext Corporate Blog

Our next major release, ClearContext v5, will be about making the email management features our users have come to depend faster, more automated, and more intuitive.  We've made many incremental improvements to ClearContext for Outlook over the past year, as well as some major additions like our statistics and effectiveness components.  But we've also been working hard on the next major version of ClearContext for Outlook, and we're excited to share our plans with you. 

Our development efforts are concentrated on four areas:

• Infrastructure & Performance
• Message Filing & Organization
• Project Management & Dashboards
• Statistics & Effectiveness Measurement

Please note that we are still early in the release cycle, so a number of these details are likely to change.  We're very interested in hearing feedback about which features are most critical for you.

Infrastructure & Performance

We’ve re-architected the ClearContext infrastructure to be more flexible with lower overhead.  This will provide a number of key benefits including:

• Improved performance
• Compatibility with more mail configurations
• Support for the upcoming Outlook 2010 release

Message Filing & Organization

Inbox management is a critical part of everyone’s day.  ClearContext v5 will make filing and organization smarter and more automated.  Key improvements include:

• Smarter topic assignment and filing
• Flexible topic management
• Simplified message prioritization
• Additional automated message filing

Project Management & Dashboards

ClearContext v5 project management functionality will include a much stronger focus on tasks and actions, and make project dashboards much more flexible:

• Improved summary information on projects and actions
• Flexible project creation and organization
• Integration of additional information
• Additional task management and prioritization
• Project archiving and reporting
• Improved search and filtering

Statistics & Effectiveness Measurement

Our initial release of statistics and effectiveness measurement focuses very heavily on email – volumes, response times, and performance.  We’re continuing to gather feedback on the data you find most useful in understanding your email activity, as well as continuing to refine the ways we measure your email management effectiveness.  If you haven’t already, please visit ClearContext Online and let us know what you would like to see there.

In addition to email, ClearContext v5 will expand elements of the statistics and effectiveness modules into areas such as tasks, appointments, and project-focused measurement.

Next steps and beta

In order to deploy these features and enhancements as quickly as possible, we are organizing the v5 release into several stages. The initial ClearContext 5.0 release will focus on the infrastructure and filing/organization features. Additional 5.x releases will focus on the project management and statistics areas.

We haven’t finalized release dates and beta schedule yet.  Stay tuned to the blog for more details.  If you’re interested in being on the beta list, please send an email to beta at clearcontext dot com.  Thanks for your interest!

v4.6.6 is available for download and addresses the following:

• Enhanced inbox count reporting
• Streamlined stats upload to ClearContext Online
• Changed the Compare your stats online button in the Scorecard
• Added ENC as a valid conversation prefix (Portuguese)

This update is complimentary for all registered v4 Pro and v4 TWC customers.

Download: Personal & Pro  |  TWC

The average ClearContext user receives about 500 emails per week. How does your email activity compare to those users, your friends, and people at your company?

ClearContext users reply to emails on average within about 6 hours. How does your email responsiveness compare?

Most ClearContext users send 100 messages per week and keep their inbox at under 25 messages.  How effective are you at managing your email, and what steps can you take to improve your effectiveness?

Today we’re excited to give you a way to answer those questions as we open up beta availability of ClearContext Online to everyone!

ClearContext Online is a companion service to both our free Personal and paid Professional ClearContext for Outlook products.  This site will provide a wide range of services to help you take better advantage of all the interactions and information that flow through your email within Microsoft Outlook.

The first set of services we’re releasing revolve around email statistics and effectiveness:

• View (and share if you choose!) a snapshot of your email activity
• Analyze and compare detailed email statistics with your friends and groups such as your company
• Evaluate and compare your email effectiveness – and soon get personalized tips on how to improve!

If you’re a ClearContext for Outlook user already, click the Compare your stats online link on the ClearContext Scorecard in Outlook to get started with ClearContext Online.  If it’s your first time, you’ll have to register and then click that link again to access ClearContext Online.   If you have already registered a support forum login, that login will work for ClearContext Online as well.

If you’re not a ClearContext user already, download ClearContext or take a tour of ClearContext Online.

In the coming months, we’ll be writing a lot more about how we’re expanding ClearContext Online to help you make the most out of everything you do within email.

Before we go into detail on that, though, our next big announcement will be something many of you have been waiting on for a long time – information on the next major release of ClearContext for Outlook.  We’re working on a lot of exciting improvements that our users have been requesting, and can’t wait to share our plans with you.  Stay tuned to the blog for a post on that later this month.

We have pushed a minor update to our Outlook client.  v4.6.5 addresses the following:

• Changed scoring of messages at startup to minimize un-scored messages in the Inbox
• Changed the cases where MessageContext is hidden on Tasks and Appointments
• Fixed multiple Topic display in the Dashboard when using a secondary data store
• Eliminated re-registration requirement on upgrades from ClearContext Personal

This update is complimentary for all registered v4 Pro and v4 TWC customers.

Download: Personal & Pro |  TWC

Our support forums are back up on a new server:

http://online.clearcontext.com/forums/

If you’re unable to access, give it another few hours as the DNS changes make their way across the tubes.  If you subscribe to the forum RSS, you will need to re-generate your feed here:

http://online.clearcontext.com/forums/create_syndication.php

We just released a minor update to ClearContext for Outlook.  v4.6.4 addresses the following:

• Fixed a calendar display issue
• Fixed a problem in the selection of Topic assignment preferences
• Changed the Response Time score to accurately handle low volume

Please download and upgrade at your convenience.  This is a complimentary upgrade for all registered v4 customers.  You do not need to uninstall prior versions before upgrading.

Today we’re releasing a significant update to ClearContext Personal and Pro.   v4.6 is available for download now at www.clearcontext.com.  Thanks to everyone for contributing feedback and helping out with the beta program for this release.  Please download and let us know what you think!

This release is focused around two main areas of improvement:

• The first is a sneak preview of ClearContext measurement of email statistics, metrics, and effectiveness.  We’ve added an Email Scorecard and Stats module inside Outlook as an introduction to this new feature area, but a lot more is coming very soon.  Watch the blog for more detail.
• The second focus area is a large set of feature enhancements, performance improvements, and bug fixes.

Here are the highlights for the v4.6.3 production release:

Brand New Features

• Email Scorecard – Learn more here
• Jump to Topic button

Feature Enhancements

• MessageContext and FolderContext on/off preferences
• Notification Managers location
• Toolbar Defaults
• Dashboard Message sorting
• Dashboard Tasks filtering
• FolderContext Sorting Preferences
• Topic Assignment defaults

Compatibility and Performance Improvements

• Sent Messages & Exchange NDR issue fix
• Enhanced Add-in Compatibility
• Asynchronous MessageContext
• Non-Supported Mail File Check (for Oracle Beehive customers and others)
• Performance improvements

For more detail and discussion around this release and a list of additional bug fixes, please see this forum post.

Thanks again, and we hope you enjoy the new release!

We pushed out a minor point release late last week to address the following:

• Improved Dashboard performance when opening multiple tabs
• Stability during periodic thread cleanup
• Calendar display range default in Outlook 2003
• Taskline date display in Dashboard Tasks and Actions
• Added RV: to list of known prefixes to better support Spanish language threading

If you are experiencing issues related to the items above, we suggest you download and upgrade from here.

I recently had a number of folks ask about the additions we made between IMS v4 and ClearContext Professional.  At a high level, new features in the latest release include:

Topic Suggestions

ClearContext now suggests Topics based on your past history when filing.  After upgrade, run ClearContext > Analyze Contacts to increase the accuracy of suggestions.

Redesigned Tabbed Dashboard

The Dashboard contains a new summary view.  From there, open Project Dashboard tabs to view all the information related to a  project into a single combined view – email threads, contacts attachments, appointments and tasks.

Contacts and Attachments by Project

ClearContext automatically identifies contacts and attachments in your projects and folders so that you can quickly and easily share information with your team.

MessageContext

Formerly RelatedView, MessageContext now shows message text and indicates attachments in messages.

FolderContext

Instantly:

   
• See attachments and contacts from emails in each folder.

   

• Sort, save, and forward those attachments.

   

• Create distribution lists, meeting requests, etc. from those contacts.

Attachment Explorer

Explore and preview attachments within Outlook just like folders on your desktop.

Notification Managers

Too many status and notification emails in your inbox?  Many people’s inboxes are clogged with email like:

   
• Notifications from online services

   

• Automated log and alert emails from IT applications

   

• Receipts and status from e-commerce sites

Notification Managers automatically move these emails out of your inbox into a categorized view so you can quickly process notifications without constant interruptions.  Use ClearContext templates or easily create your own customized notification managers.  For more information, see our Notifications page.

Fit, Finish and Performance

Too numerous to list here, we have also implemented many v4.5 performance and fit and finish enhancements as requested by our customers.

As a reminder, the upgrade to ClearContext Professional is free for all registered IMS v4 customers.  If you are running v3 or earlier or you are running the Personal version of ClearContext, download and install a free 30-day trial of ClearContext Pro.

We are pleased to announce the release of ClearContext Personal and ClearContext Professional.  This release includes a number of our most requested features and makes organizing email and projects easier than ever.  Please upgrade soon, we’re confident you’ll find this release a huge step forward for ClearContext. (Please note that this is a complimentary upgrade for all of our registered IMS v4 customers).

We also would love your help in spreading the word.  In addition to the powerful new capabilities in Pro, with ClearContext Personal we now have a completely free solution for people who simply want to keep their inbox more organized and file their messages faster – please let your friends know about which product you think is right for them!  Thanks!

ClearContext Personal

Personal is a free Microsoft Outlook add-in for to organize your email and make your inbox useful again.  See our brief video for an introduction:

New Personal features include:

Suggested Topics

ClearContext automatically suggests the right folders to instantly file messages.

Attachment Explorer

Browse attachments in Outlook just like you view files in Windows.

FolderContext

View all the contacts and attachments contained in each folder.

ClearContext Professional

Pro includes all of the features of Personal plus the ability to organize and manage projects within Outlook.  This is a complimentary upgrade for all of our registered IMS v4 customers.  Here’s a 1.5 minute demo:

New Pro features include:

Tabbed Dashboard

Open each of your projects in tabs so that you can refer to them throughout the day.

Attachments and Contacts by Topic

ClearContext displays all contacts and attachments associated with the current project.

Download Pro here.  If you are using Personal and would like to try pro, select ClearContext > Try ClearContext Professional within Outlook.

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who helped beta test this release.  It’s really rewarding to have such a passionate group of users willing to give feedback on pre-release products.