After much anticipation from the WorkPapers user community, I am proud to announce that invitations for WorkPapers trials and testing will go out throughout the following week. After watching some fireworks tonight (from Honolulu Hawaii), I will setup the first pre-production release that will be setup as invitationware. Those who actively participate in this phase over the next couple weeks will receive a free one year subscription to the service. Please notice the ‘actively participate’ qualifier. That means posting to the user forum with bugs since there will still be a few, suggesting improvements, commenting on your own work application of the service, and answering others questions.
The initial release will include IMAP mail connectivity and allow users to link emails to their working papers. WorkPapers will also feature a ticked-reviewed-complete workflow with user access in three levels – manager, editor, and reviewer. All pretty much the same as the original desktop software complete with a tree interface tied to multiple text editors. Here are a couple (big) screen shots. There are still some style and placement tasks outstanding that we will work on before uploading.

One of the big programming challenges in this release was the addition of email connectivity. As auditors, attorneys, or researchers that need a good working papers solution, our professional lives revolve around email. This release was held back about six weeks due to many intricate email challenges. In fact, email, Google Contacts connectivity, some Exchange 2007/2010 Outlook Web Access (OWA) connectivity, and schedule integration with Google Calendar and OWA is already coded under the hood and will be released gradually after testing. This initial release is a ‘shaved’ version of solid, tested code.

Also, in good WorkPapers fashion, the user will not be tied into using the workflow tabs that we have programmed into the interface. The tabs across the top of the text boxes are fully customizable by individual project. All other solutions try to lock us into their so-called best practice workflow, which is fine if all you have to do is one kind of audit, review, or research.

These screen shots show only a small portion of WorkPapers functional ability. Not only can you link emails to procedures and evidence, but users with proper access, can send procedures/task details via email. This makes it very convenient for a manager to ‘push’ tasks and prioritize work as necessary.

This is just a small taste of what is to come…. in the next couple days will submit another blog post directing all to a web site to register for the invitation to use WorkPapers.

Oh, and yes, I am a user too. I have been using the software for the past three months on the production server and have found it very useful in juggling the many tasks related to multiple project management at work and task management for development of WorkPapers itself.