See your karmaCRM tasks everywhere now that we’ve added an ICal friendly feed for your tasks. Subscribe to this feed by going to your tasks section and clicking “Subscribe to your iCalendar task feed” below your task filters. Please keep in mind that while these tasks can be displayed externally, they cannot be edited, created or changed there. You’ll need to do that within karmaCRM.

You’ll be provided both a Webcal link, and a direct link to the feed as well. If you are using something like Apple ICal then you can just click the Webcal link and ICal will automatically prompt you to import the feed.

To add this task feed to your Google Calendar, simply copy the full URL provided in the link box. Then head over to your Google Calendar and click “Add by URL”. Paste in the link you copied from karma and you should be all set!

Keep Track of Birthdays, Anniversaries Etc

You can now easily keep track of dates important to your contacts such as birthdays, anniversaries, when you met them or anything else that is important to you. When creating recurring dates such as birthdays, karma will automatically create a recurring event for you, and add a reminder with a due date of your choosing. Access these important date in the contact form (in the additional information section)

You can also manage these dates in the show view, below events.

With our expanded relationships feature you can add multiple companies to a contact, link companies together, or add contacts and companies to deals. Relationships can be anything from a contact who referred another contact, to contacts and companies associated with a deal.

Each relationship can also have an optional label or role associated with it. This helps clarify what a contact’s role might be in a particular deal, or what type of partnership two companies might share.

Features

• Contacts, Companies, Deals and Cases now all a relationships section
• Track which contacts were referred, and who they were referred by
• Add secondary companies to a contact
• Each Relationship can be assigned an optional label to help identify the records role in the relationship

Better collaboration through the calendar is something that many of you have requested. Today we are happy to announce a number of enhancements that will help improve your karmaCRM calendar experience.

Better sharing

You can now share the calendar with your entire organization, a group, or a select number of users. Admins and owners are now automatically added to all calendars as well.

Assign events to other users

You can now assign events to other users in your organization (as long as they have access to the provided calendar).

Better Google calendar 2-way sync

We’ve made a number of changes to how the Google Calendar sync operates. You can connect your calendars without providing your google account password, as well as revamped the code behind the scenes.

2-way sync means if you change an event in karmaCRM it will be updated on your Google Calendar, and if you add an event to your Google calendar, it will be updated on karmaCRM.

Note: if you are adding an event to your Google calendar, it only updates the karmaCRM calendar at regular intervals so it may be delayed a bit before it appears in karmaCRM.

“My Calendars” VS “Other Calendars”

The calendars you specifically create, VS other shared calendars are now separated. Calendars that are shared with you will appear in the “Other Calendars” section. You can toggle the other calendars on and off by hitting the Hide link to the right of the heading.

After much adieu, the karmaCRM mobile app is here. We understand the importance of accessing your contacts and CRM data on the run and want you to know we are committed to constantly expanding our mobile presence. This launch is just the first of many regarding mobile so be on the lookout for more to come. This version is still beta, but we wanted to get it into your hands as quickly as possible to get your feedback.

We are proud to announce the availability of karmaCRM for the following devices:

• IPhone 3G+
• Android 2.0+
• BlackBerry OS 6+ Backberry Torch

Trying it out

To access karmaCRM mobile, enter the following url into your mobile browser:
http://[your-subdomain].karmacrm.com/m

Be sure to replace [your-subdomain] with the subdomain you use to access your karmaCRM account. Please note that this application will only run on the default webkit browser. It won’t run on Opera or Firefox.

Adding app to your home screen on IPhone

1. Tap the safari bookmark button (second from the right)
2. Add to home screen

Adding app to your home screen on Android

1. Bookmark karmaCRM in the browser
2. Open the bookmarks page
3. Press and hold the karmaCRM bookmark
4. Select Add to Home screen

Features

We plan on having full feature coverage of karmaCRM within our mobile app in the long run, but started with the features we found to be most crucial.

• Contacts
• Companies
• Tasks
• Notes
• Events
• Search

Why Not Native?

Cross Platform
Instead of focusing on one platform at a time, we wanted to engineer a product that could reach the widest audience possible. By choosing to do a mobile friendly version first, it gets karmaCRM immediately into the hands of IPhone, Andriod and Blackberry users, which covers a wide majority of the mobile market.

Increasing Speed
We believe that HTML5 powered mobile apps are only going to get faster as browser and mobile devices continue to improve.

Rapid Development
We wanted to release a mobile application that was able to be as agile and rapidly updated as our web app. This mobile app allows us to be very responsive to your suggestions and issues, shorten feature development time, and get it in your hands sooner.

Whats next?

We want your feedback on how we can make improve this app, and give you the features you need while on the go. Our future plans includes making this app installable on IPhone and Android and a mobile app designed specifically for IPad or Android Tablets.

Offline Access?
For the first few versions of this app we decided against offline access, so we could be sure to get it online as quickly as possible. We will be adding offline access in the future as we get closer to version 2, so consider it in the roadmap.

We’ve made it easier to identify duplicates by adding duplicate record detection to contacts and companies. When adding a contact or company, if the name or email address matches an existing record, you’ll get a red notification of any potential duplicates it found. You can continue to create the record if you choose, but at least you’ll know there is a potential duplicate. This detection runs on all records whether it’s private or not to help minimize redundancies.

This duplicate detection also runs when you load the records detail view. It will appear above the tasks box if it detects another record with a matching name or email.

Better Note Filtering

We understand the importance of knowing that no contacts slipped through the cracks of your sales cycle. This is why we added some advanced note filtering to contacts and companies. Any time a note is added to a contact or company, this timestamp is updated.

You can now do the following:

• Order records by the least recent note at the top
• Order records by the most recent note at the top
• Show all records that have notes
• Show all records that do not have notes

These filters are available in the advanced filters of the contacts and companies list.

Coming Soon

We have been hard at work making karmaCRM mobile friendly, and will be announcing the first version in our next post. It is already available online, so you can check it out now. It’s primarily tested on the Iphone, but should also work on most Android phones, and some Blackberry.

To give it a spin, browse to your karma subdomain /m, so http://yoursubdomain.karmacrm.com/m. We want to make this the best it can be, so please send your feedback, ideas and issues. Cheers!

Depending on your business, it might be important to track contacts who’ve referred business, or who’s related to who. We have added a feature to do just this. This feature wouldn’t have been possible without the wonderful suggestions and contributions from all of you!

Contacts as a Referral Source

Now your existing contacts can be tracked as referral sources. When adding a new contact, simply select “Existing Contact” from the Referral Source drop down. You’ll be asked to search for an existing contact, and once selected it will look like the screenshot below.

When opening this contact later, the referrer will appear in the relationship box as pictured below.

New Contact Referral Report

Create a report showing all your contacts who are referrers, and the people they have referred. Makes it easy to ensure you give your high volume referrers their proper kudos!

Track Family Relationships

Now you can easily associate family members using the relationship manager. Open the contact you want to add a relationship for, and scroll to the “Relationships” section. Choose what type of relationship you are trying to add, and search for that contact. Possible relationships include “Parent”, “Child”, “Spouse”, “Grandparent”

As you all may know, our development team is always on the move, knocking out new features and changes karma based on your wonderful feedback. We understand how it’s been difficult to keep up. To combat this issue, we’ve added a public changelog on our website and matching dashboard widget within karmaCRM.

Filter Your History

Many of you were used to seeing notes separate from activities and notifications, so we added a filter in all history sections allowing you to do just that. The filter will remember your setting next time you open karma, so no need to change it each time.

Our team has been hard at work, making it easier to update information wherever you are within karmaCRM. Now you can edit information in the profile view, in your lists and anywhere you see the yellow indicator when you hover over information. Simply click the button (or double click within the yellow area) to load the inline form. Then when your done, click away or hit enter to save the record.

Editing in Your Lists

You are now able to edit most of the information from within your lists (including custom fields). Not all fields are editable at this time, so hover over the column in question to see if it’s “editable”.

Editing in the Profile

You can also now edit much of the information in the profile view without having to leave the page. KarmaCRM hides empty fields, so if you want to add a value that isn’t present, click the “Show all fields…” link to load all available fields.

Other Updates of Notice

Deal totals in the list

It’s now easier to see the deal price total for a given filter set. At the bottom of the deals section is a sum of the currencies present in the filtered results. Keep in mind this isn’t just what’s displayed on the page, but the all deals in the given filter.

Iphone App Coming Soon

We know you’ve all been clamoring for us to release Iphone and Android apps. Our team has been developing our Iphone app for the last few months now, and are close to its release. If all goes well, expect to see our version 1 Iphone app in the app store early to mid-August. Once we get this app online, its right back to the drawing board for the Android app. Don’t worry, we won’t stop until we have a full blown mobile presence!

Affiliate Program Launched

Tell your friends and co-workers about karmaCRM, and get 15% commission for each person you refer. Signup for our affiliate program in a few seconds, and get a special URL that will track the people you send. If they signup for a paid account, you get paid forever as long as they remain our customer.

We’ve just made an advancement in our never-ending quest to provide you with a quick, zippy, responsive CRM. If you’re using Firefox 4, any version of Chrome or Safari 5, then you may have noticed pages are now loading a bit faster and loading indicator in between page transitions. We’ve taken advantage of some pretty cool technology supported by modern browsers to allow this to happen.

If you use ANY version of Internet Explorer however you are out of luck. You will still be able to use our software normally, as you have in the past, but will not get the added speed boost that users of our favorite browsers (FF, Safari and Chrome) do. Even in the NEXT version of IE…IE 10 they still don’t support this technology. Our advice….scrap the clunky, dated IE mindset and grab a modern browser to maximize karmaCRM and your overall web viewing experience.

Paid Accounts Around the Corner

We want to thank all of our beta users for the great feedback, ideas, suggestions and bug submissions. There’s no way we could have gotten here without your diligent help. Know that no matter how big we grow, listening to your feedback, and providing a thorough response will not change. You have helped build karmaCRM in a very real way and the least we can do is take your time and suggestions seriously.

We are now almost ready to launch paid accounts, but as promised are giving all of our existing users a 30 day free trial before the plans kick in. This trial starts Wednesday, May 25th and lasts for a full 30 days. This means that all new accounts beyond this point will receive a 30 day free trial, and all existing accounts will need to select a plan before June 24th. You’ll only need to enter credit card information if you select a paying plan. The “Always Free” plan will always remain free.

The Year of Social and Mobile

We have a lot of exciting things planned for 2011, and hope to focus on 2 areas specifically, mobile and social.

Mobile
In the mobile department we are weeks away from completing our v1 Iphone app. It will have contacts, companies, tasks and events to start. Since we are all Iphone users ourselves, we need this app just as badly as you all do. After we launch the Iphone app it’s right back to our caves to get the Android app going.

Social
In the past year, we’ve been focusing on getting the simpler aspects of CRM right. Now that we have our base, we plan to start connecting some of the missing social dots such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We don’t have much on this yet but we know there’s a lot we can do in this space. At the end of the day, we want to make sure you have everything you need WITHIN your karmaCRM account to close leads and win deals.

Thank You!

We can’t express enough how wonderful it has been dialoging with all of our users. You’ve impressed us with the high number of your suggestions that are spot on, and relevant to our whole user base. Choosing to emphasize customer driven development, we really didn’t know what we were going to get. Our users have proven it’s a viable business model and one we will hold very close. Looking forward to future, and we appreciate all the help we’ve gotten along the way.

Sending a warm THANK YOU from everyone here at the karmaCRM team!

After much elbow grease, user feedback and 40 hour days, we’re pleased to announce karmaCRM is in public beta. This doesn’t change much of anything for our existing users, but new users can signup without the need for an invitation code. Read more about our public beta announcement here.

When will you start charging?

All accounts will remain free until June 1st. A credit card will be required to continue on all non-free plans beyond this point. If your account is created past May 1st, a free 30 day trial will be in effect starting on the date you signup.

Where do I enter my credit card or upgrade my plan

We are still putting the finishing touches on this part of the system, and should have it online by May 15-20th. We’ll send out an announcement when it’s ready to accept your cards so you can go ahead and select the plan that fits your needs.

What happens to my account if I don’t upgrade or enter my credit card?

If you do not enter a credit card beyond the 30 day trial, your account will be downgraded to a “Always Free” plan. No data will be removed, but you will be unable to add any data beyond the “Always Free” limits. If you have more than 2 users, only the first 2 users created will be able to login until your plan is upgraded.

New Features

We have been working on a few features to encourage collaboration and keep everyone from your team in the loop. Listed below are some features added recently that we believe help further this mission.

Add comments everywhere!

You can now comment on history items and tasks inline within the list. Everyone involved in the comment including the creator of the record will receive a notification that a comment has been added.

Notify team of record assignment

If you assign a record to anyone other than yourself, you’ll see a check box appear asking you if you want to notify this user of the record assignment. This helps keep salespeople informed about what tasks, contacts and companies are being assigned to them.

It will also add a new notification inside the users app. Next time they refresh the page, they’ll see a new notification of the user assignment.

Quick access to contact & company info

Time is money, and we want to make sure your data is within quick reach at all times. This is why we’ve added the vcard icon next to contacts and companies across the app. When clicked, it will give you a preview of that contacts information including phone numbers, emails, and address information.