Tasks can be easily moved from one Task List to another provided they are in the same project.

1. Navigate to the “Task List” page

2. Click on a Task that you want to move to another Task List.
3. Click on the “Move” link

4. A drop-down will appear listing all your existing Task Lists.
5. Select the Task List that you would want to move this Task to.

That’s it! The task will be moved immediately. This is great for doing a brain-dump first (getting all tasks under 1 Task List) and then moving things around after you figured out how you are going to categorize the Tasks.

I went around asking a few of the startups I work with about DeskAway & how they use it. I was mainly interested in finding out:

•    What are the features that they use most on DeskAway
•    How do they motivate their teams in using DeskAway regularly
•    What is it about DeskAway that they like the most

I spoke with three startup guys who manage their teams and partners on DeskAway. Sameer Guglani, Founding Partner, MVP: A typical early-adopter and influencer, motivates teams he works with to use new tools, and is quick with his feedback. Rizwan Iqbal, co-founder, Sutra Services Pvt. Ltd: A tech geek, who is a part of a company who evaluates various tools before closing on one and ensures that the team uses them. Pankaj, an entrepreneur who is working on a startup in the space of customer experience and feedback (in stealth mode): He is someone who uses tools and mechanisms only when he sees a direct value to his business.

Here is what I found, some of which can be tips to Owners / Team Leads on DeskAway.

Most Used Features on DeskAway:

Tasks and Task Lists. At its basic level managing a project is all about organizing one’s tasks and task lists. All of them found DeskAway’s interface to managing, assigning and handling tasks to be very easy. Some of these users and their teams use task list for managing not only things related to specific projects, but also have their own personal task lists and optimize their time by managing all that they do on DeskAway.

Getting your team to use DeskAway regularly:

All the users I spoke to were using DeskAway quite regularly to manage their work and interact with their teams. A few techniques they have employed and have worked for them are:

•    Getting all work related communication onto DeskAway. Using the tasks, milestones, notifications, notes and file-sharing on DeskAway only and keeping away from emails & phone. This works well, shares one of the users, especially when dealing with remote teammates, as this is the most efficient way of collaborating.
•    “If I see them (a task) on DeskAway, they aren’t done yet” is what one of the users shared. Their technique is that any task assigned to them has to be dealt with on DeskAway, this ensures that all of them check back on things assigned to them on DeskAway and act on it there.
•    Making it a part of the process, building usage of DeskAway as part of the various things teams do. Identifying the advantages of getting onto DeskAway and educating the teams about it.

Though, all of them do think that once the teammates see the advantages of getting on to DeskAway, there has been no looking back.

The best thing about DeskAway:

•    The UI is very simple and easy to understand
•    The navigation flow is very good, it does not need an extra effort to learn things
•    DeskAway team keep adding to the already extensive feature set, which makes it all the more interesting to use the tool. To quote a user, “ It’s like you think of something (feature) and a few weeks later, its already there on DeskAway”

All these teams believe that DeskAway has made managing their teams and projects easy and more efficient. One of the teams owes it to DeskAway, as it became easy for them to get into a structure through DeskAway, which was missing earlier.

This past weekend one of our customers complained that he could not access DeskAway and that he had paid for it yearly (the question of reliability came up a few times). The problem was not with our service - we have been getting 100% uptime. It was something to do with his PC/ Network/ ISP etc. Something was blocking the site. We wanted to make sure that we help him out to the best of our ability. This is an email we sent him after getting inputs from Rackspace (our hosting provider), technical folks on our team, twitter etc. These tips might help you’ll in the future - since we all are so used to using web apps…

Thanks for your prompt response. The problem is at your Computer/Network/ISP end (I will tell you how we know this below) and hence there are a couple of things that you can do to see if the problem goes away. This is the first time something like this has happened so it seems very strange. There are no complaints from our other global users. We have contacted our hosting provider, Rackspace.com and they have given us pointers that you would need to do at your end.

Check if DeskAway.com is up?

http://host-tracker.com
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
http://isitmeoryou.com/

Here, it shows that DeskAway is up - from multiple regions.

(From Rackspace -> Since it is confirmed the problem is not here or with ‘the internet’, that would usually mean it’s local to either the PC or the network. In some cases clearing cache and what not will help, but in others it might require router resets and/or escalation to their local ISP.)

What you can do at your end?
1. Clear your browser cache, close the browser and try again
2. Restart your router
3. Restart your computer
4. Ask a friend in another part of town or country. In fact we did ask people on Twitter about this today - http://twitter.com/sparkimpact/statuses/1334749922
5. Access the site using a different ISP
6. If you have a network troubleshooter at your office then do show him this email and see if he/she can contact your ISP.

Try the following commands one by one from the command line (If using Windows, then goto Start->Run and type in ‘cmd’ without the quotes) and send us the results:
a. ping www.deskaway.com
b. ping <our ip address>
c. tracert  <our ip address>

Hope this works! If it doesn’t then send me the following:
1. Your IP Address - http://whatismyipaddress.com/
2. Your location (City, State, Country)
3. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP)

Is DeskAway.com reliable?
Check out our Pingdom reports (we use Pingdom for uptime) - http://www.pingdom.com/reports/208dhkc8tf76/
We have got 100% uptime so far so there is no question of the site or server going down.

Lastly, here is a video we took today to show you that DeskAway does work and is online - http://screencast.com/t/6enU7Fqbyw <http://screencast.com/t/6enU7Fqbyw>

Hope to get this resolved soon.

We heard back from him yesterday and all is working fine I am guessing it must have been something to do with the router.

Are there any other troubleshooting tips that you would want to add to this? Happy uninterrupted surfing.

The Account Information link within your account (you can see it only if you are the Account Owner) will help you view your current plan (how much of it you are using) and also help you upgrade your DeskAway account.

Go to the “Settings” tab, click on the “Account Information” link.

This will take you to the “Your Current Account Information” page with all the information about your DeskAway account. Click on “I want to change this plan” button to change your current plan.

Next, choose your location (India or International) from the “Choose Your Location” page.

Select your new plan and click Upgrade/Renew.

Follow the steps to the billing and payment page.

Forrester Forecasts The Future Of Software-As-A-Service Technologies.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) has evolved beyond its early roots in customer relationship management (CRM) and human capital management (HCM) applications — though both applications continue to demonstrate high potential for growth in the enterprise — and is now gaining traction in areas such as Web conferencing, collaboration, and IT service management (ITSM). These categories will experience significant SaaS success over the next decade, according to research published today by Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR).

..

Collaboration. Although its long-term future is unproven, Forrester’s market data has shown SaaS collaboration to be one of the hotter areas of SaaS adoption, with the potential to significantly impact the collaboration market.

As seen by the number of signups and conversions we are getting from the last 4 months we are more and more excited about businesses consuming DeskAway with their virtual teams -  employees, customers, partners and consultants. Long live SaaS!

Read the entire article here.