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Archive for the ‘Product Updates’ Category

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

At OfficeDrop, we’ve noticed more and more visitors coming to our site who’ve searched for the word “cloud.” But since the cloud has so many meanings to so many people, we’d thought we’d explain how we see small businesses taking advantage of the power of cloud computing to get more out of their paper and digital documents. Our understanding of how businesses use the cloud is rapidly evolving as we grow!

Connecting Cloud Services

More and more, we are seeing the benefits of the cloud in terms of connecting data to other services. Paper no longer has to be stuck in a silo’ed document management service, but can instead be accessed and shared with other software via a cloud filing cabinet. Data can be pushed from one place into another to take advantage of unique technologies – like Evernote’s amazing mobile clients or FreshBooks’ unique invoicing software. (OfficeDrop has recently released an API to allow other software developers to build off of our document scanning service and digital filing system/digital office.) Cloud content management makes this all possible.

Why Cloud Computing Is Great for Small Businesses

Cloud computing is great for small businesses for a number of reasons. As we mentioned in our blog post, “An Introduction to Cloud Computing for Small Business Owners:”

“Cloud computing is a platform for accessing and utilizing your businesses IT via the internet. This means nearly all of your IT resources – your servers, data storage, software/ programs – are hosted on the internet. It used to be that all of your computing would have to be done by your own servers, hardwired to your business. Now that the internet is around, your servers don’t have to be hardwired, and you don’t even need to have your own. Instead, you can rent server space from anywhere in the country from people like Amazon, who have already paid the overhead. Utilizing this system with SaaS, which does the same thing with software, one could theoretically run an entire business from various cyber cafés (if those still exist) without purchasing any of their own personal hardware or software at all.”

We Are Still Learning About the Cloud – From Our Customers!

OfficeDrop continues to learn more and more about how small business owners want to interact with the cloud (and their data!) When we first founded the company 3 years ago (wow, that’s a long time) we thought that web browsers would be the favorite way for users to access their data. But we were wrong. With the success of our downloadable apps, we’ve noticed something pretty amazing: Business owners like to use applications to visit the cloud, not browsers.

Beyond the Cloud Filing Cabinet and OfficeDrop’s Cloud App Strategy

As our cloud scanning software app, ScanDrop, continues to take off and since our iPad “paper to go” app was in the top 10 business ipad applications in itunes, we’ve realized that apps are a great way to interact with the cloud.

OfficeDrop Free App Downloads

And by “realized” we mean that our customers made it clear that they like apps!

Our CEO, Prasad, has been busy training some of our web developers in desktop programming, and our CTO, Vik, has dusted off his Objective-C skills for our Mac versions.

We will have a new way to interact with our cloud digital filing service from the desktop soon for Windows users. And Mac users will soon be able to scan to the cloud just like their PC friends.

We are also busy working on creating workflow specific desktop/cloud solutions for paper intensive industries, starting with accountants and bookkeepers. We just did the first demonstration of our new bookkeeping software, which was very well received, and hope to enroll beta users toward the end of the month. This software will connect the popular QuickBooks software with paper in a number of powerful ways: from the scanner, desktop and cloud. Let us know if you are interested in trying this service!

We are having a ton of fun here at OfficeDrop, helping business owners harness the power of cloud computing. Of course, we haven’t forgotten the importance of actually speaking with customers. Give us a call at 888-674-6493 if you ever want to chat about getting your paper and filing cabinets into the cloud!

Posted in Benefits, cloud computing, Digital Office, Document Management, Evernote Document Management, Freshbooks Document Management, iPad, Market Research, OfficeDrop, Organization, Paperless, Paperless Champions, partnerships, Product Updates, scandrop, Small Business | 2 Comments »

New OfficeDrop Pricing Plans Coming Soon

Friday, August 13th, 2010

OfficeDrop is Updating Our Pricing Plans

I am pleased to announce that OfficeDrop will soon be releasing new pricing plans. But first, I have a message for existing customers:

Existing Paying OfficeDrop Customers Will NOT be affected by the NEW pricing

If you are an existing paying customer the monthly price you pay will not change. You will continue to receive the same set of services you have come to expect and your plan will remain the same. You can choose to switch to one of the new pricing plans, if you wish to take advantage of our new multi-user features, but the choice is yours. Stay with your current plan or pick a new one at anytime.

Users in Our 60-Day Free Trial Period Will Have Additional Pricing Options

New users who have already signed up for our 60-day free trial will have the option at any point during their trial to upgrade to one of the plans that were available when they signed up, OR they can choose one of the new plans. Again, the choice is yours. Upgrade options that were available to you when you signed up will continue to be available. You also have new plan choices.

Information on the New Pricing Plans

The new pricing plans take advantage of new features we will be releasing in the coming weeks. In particular, we will be launching multi-user accounts. This has been a highly requested feature and we are excited to add this capability to our service. With a multi-user account, a single OfficeDrop account can be used by multiple users, each with their own login. You can also define groups of users, set permissions on folders and documents & customize the OfficeDrop interface with your own logo. Multi-user functionality has been highly requested, and we think it will help our customers share data with their accountants, assistants, co-workers, and others. Other new features available with the new plans include increased storage, counting storage as GB (vs. the page count), and easier ordering of on-demand/one-off scanvelopes.

You will also see that we have a new line of self-scanning plans. These plans will take advantage of our simple to use ScanDrop scanning software, and allow offices to manage and share paper and digital files with our award winning online document management/digital filing system.

New customers will see different pricing plans very shortly. We believe that these new prices will better reflect the improvements to the service that we have made and are making, such as integrations with Google Docs, Our ScanDrop scanning software, more functionality in linking OfficeDrop accounts to Evernote, improved search, more storage, etc.

To preview our new pricing plans, please click here.

We are also working on a new pricing FAQ page, which I will link to as soon as it is ready.

Again, I would like to make it clear that we are NOT changing the prices that current users pay nor the plan they are on nor level of services that they receive. And users currently evaluating our service who are in our 60-day free trial period will be able to upgrade to one of the new pricing plans OR one of the plans they saw when they signed up (i.e. the “old” plans.)

If you have questions please contact us by phone at 888-674-6493, via our live chat feature which you can access at the top of our home page or you can email me, prasad (at) officedrop (dot) com or support (at) officedrop (dot) com.

Sincerely,

Prasad Thammineni, CEO and Co-Founder, OfficeDrop

Posted in Customer Satisfaction, Digital Office, OfficeDrop, Product, Product Announcements, Product Updates, scandrop | No Comments »

OfficeDrop Gets Your Paper into Evernote

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

We’ve just issued a press release to let everyone know that OfficeDrop now acts as a cheap, easy way to get all of your paper into Evernote.

Good News For Evernote Users

With OfficeDrop’s new, automatic scan to Evernote it’s simple to get text-searchable paper into Evernote. Users signed up for OfficeDrop document scanning can now set their account to automatically upload all scans, not just manually push selected scans, to Evernote. Evernote customers can drop their paper into OfficeDrop’s prepaid envelopes, put the envelopes in the mail and OfficeDrop will automatically scan all paper directly into the customer’s Evernote account. Learn more about using OfficeDrop’s mail-in scanning service to Evernote here: http://www.officedrop.com/officedrop-evernote

If you want to scan documents yourself, you can also self-scan paper documents to Evernote with OfficeDrop’s free scanning software, ScanDrop. The ScanDrop scanning software that you use to scan to Google Docs is now completely compatible with Evernote. ScanDrop connects TWAIN enabled scanners on Windows machines directly with Evernote. From the convenient ScanDrop application, users can view, edit and upload their scans to Evernote, all without having to open a web browser or Evernote. Get the free ScanDrop software here: http://www.officedrop.com/scandrop-scanning-software/

We hope you enjoy the new ways to get paper into Evernote. This way you can remember paper document as well as digital documents and never forget a thing.

Posted in Press coverage, Product Announcements, Product Updates | No Comments »

Use OfficeDrop to Embed PDFs in Your Website HTML

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Did you know that you can use OfficeDrop to embed your documents on a webpage? It’s simple.

If there’s a document you want to share via a webpage, you can just paste some code into the HTML and you’ve got a webpage with an embedded OfficeDrop PDF document – just like this one here (how-to below):

Pretty cool, huh? Just another new feature we’ve provided to help you get the most out of your documents. (Don’t worry, the size is only restricted so you can see our handy Blog navigation on the right).

How did you do that?

If you’ve ever embeded a Youtube video, you’ll be familiar with the process.

To embed an OfficeDrop document’s URL on your site, find the document you want to publish, and from the list view click the “More” dropdown menu and then select “Embed URL” (you can also select this button from the individual document view).
Then, agree to the disclaimer, and click “Publish.” After that, OfficeDrop will provide you with a widget code that you can paste into your site’s HTML.
Be sure to change the height and width of the image to your preference before copying the code.
All that’s left is to copy paste into your site’s code, and your document will be on display.

For help embedding OfficeDrop documents on your blog, see the Youtube embedding instructions here. Just paste the OfficeDrop generated code where the Youtube code would go.

Posted in OfficeDrop, Product, Product Announcements, Product Features, Product Updates | No Comments »

OfficeDrop Featured in Intuit’s “Get Organized Get Rewarded” Event

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

OfficeDrop and Intuit, the nation’s number one selling accounting software package, want small business owners to know that getting organized and going paperless is easier than you think! OfficeDrop will be showcased among the Intuit Marketplace’s best organizational tools in Intuit’s “Get Organized. Get Rewarded.” event this month. OfficeDrop’s mail-in scanning service and online document management are offering a free trial through the Intuit Partner Program.

The Intuit “Get Organized. Get Rewarded” Campaign offers customers limited-time deals on web apps focusing on office organization. OfficeDrop’s free trial is a great opportunity to see how document scanning and online document management can save money and improve productivity. In addition to the exclusive deals featured with the individual apps, those who sign up for an app will have a chance at winning a free Kindle e-reader.

We’ll be updating our blog with more organizational tips and tricks and more happenings as the “Get Organized. Get Rewarded” event continues this month!

Posted in Benefits, Document Management, document scanning service, OfficeDrop, Organization, Paperless, Product Updates | 1 Comment »

New OfficeDrop Features: Favorite Documents and Phrase Search

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

We’re always innovating to make a better OfficeDrop product, and recently we added two more features to make it easier to find your scanned documents. For your document management pleasure, we would like to introduce the “Favorite Documents” feature and phrase searching.

Favorite Documents

You have favorite songs and websites, why not favorite digital documents? To help out those who have a handful of documents that need constant reference, you can now make a document a “Favorite Document”, which will place it in the “Favorite Documents” list under the “Labels” list. “Favorited” documents are in no way moved from previous folders or labels, so they stay organized, but easily accessible. To show a document you care, click “More” and then “Favorite Document” from that document’s list view, or click “Favorite Document” from the options on the right of the full document view. To remove documents from the favorites list, simply repeat the previous sequence which will then provide a “Remove Favorite” button.

Phrase Search

To speed up your text-searching, OfficeDrop can now recognize and filter by a specific phrase. As with other search engines, you can throw quotations around your search (e.g. “document scanner”) and the results will yield only documents that feature those words in that order. This feature gives more power to your search bar, and saves you the time of sifting through pesky coincidental matches for common words within your search terms.

It’s thanks to customer feedback that we are inspired to add new features like these, so we encourage you to keep your questions and comments coming. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy these two new features and we’ll be here building new ways to make document management easier.

Posted in Document Management, Product, Product Announcements, Product Features, Product Updates | No Comments »

New Feature: Duplicate Notification

Friday, January 15th, 2010

We have found that during the uploading and scanning process, people sometimes submit multiple copies of the same document, or submit a document that has been scanned previously. Whether this is intentional or by accident, duplicates can clutter your document list, and take up excess storage. For this reason, there is now a way to see when duplicates are submitted on your OfficeDrop online account.

The New Duplicates Tab

From your ‘Inbox’ tab, which shows current uploads, Users will now see a ‘Duplicates’ tab. When the system senses an upload that already exists in storage, it stores it under the duplicates tab before it is processed. In the duplicates tab, the user is shown which documents are suspected to be duplicates, and which existing documents they are a duplicate of. Documents are suspected duplicates if the user, name and size coincide. The user can then review both documents, and choose whether the suspected duplicate should be processed anyway, or deleted.

Just one of the many ways OfficeDrop keeps you organized. Feel free to leave any questions of comments below.

Posted in Benefits, Product Announcements, Product Features, Product Updates | No Comments »

A Few Touchups for the New Year

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Over the past month or so, we have introduced a few “touch-ups” to the OfficeDrop Application. These are by no-means ground breaking features, but more along the lines of “usability enhancements” and “I can’t believe it wasn’t already there”.

Here are a few of the noteworthy ones:

Context-Menus for Folders and Labels

Folders Menu Screenshot

Folder context menu screenshot

Labels Menu Screenshot

label-context-menu2

Now you have a “right-click” for each individual folder and label. Just click the arrow to the left of the folder or label name and you are given a list of options specific to that classification.

Drag and Drop Feature

You can now Drag and Drop documents to both folders or labels. To do this, just click and drag document snippets to either a folder or label in the folder or label menu. Dragging to a folder will move that document from any folder it was in previously, to the new folder. Dragging to a label will simply add that label to the list of already applied labels.

Posted in Document Management, Product Announcements, Product Features, Product Updates | No Comments »

New Online Document Management Feature

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Uploading your documents directly to a folder

To simplify your organizational process, OfficeDrop has introduced a new feature that allows you to upload documents directly to folders. This is especially helpful if you have a large number of documents to upload, and don’t want to spend time assigning documents to folders one by one. Uploading documents directly to folders which are already in use eliminates the need to search through document snippets in your OfficeDrop account and you can preemptively apply labels as well.

To upload a document directly to a folder:

From your home screen, click the arrow directly to the left of the folder name in the Folder menu box.
From the drop-down menu, select “Upload Files.” This will prompt a menu box.
Assign any labels you would like applied on the left side of the menu.
Click “Upload Files,” and select the document(s) you wish to upload.
Upload as many documents as you wish.
When you are finished, click “Close.”

: First select the folder into which you want to upload the file

: Second select a folder

: Next add labels (if you want) and push the “Upload Files” button

: Finally, select the files you wish to upload

Processing will begin immediately and your documents will finish processing under your Inbox tab, as usual. Once they have finished processing, your documents will appear in the designated folder.

Posted in Document Management, Product Announcements, Product Features, Product Updates | No Comments »

Pixily on your iPhone – View Your Paper on Your Phone

Monday, December 21st, 2009

There’s an iPhone-optimized website for that…

So it’s not technically an app, but OfficeDrop provides an iPhone optimized mobile web page, allowing you to access OfficeDrop’s best online features anywhere you go. Access your paper on your phone! In addition to the optimized page, users can always use their iPhone to snap a camera-phone picture and email that to OfficeDrop for conversion to your online account.

From the iPhone mobile site you can search all of your documents, and browse documents by label.

To access the site, simply go to i.pixily.com on your phone’s browser, enter your login information, and away you go. Use the interface just like you would with your standard OfficeDrop online account.

Don’t forget to click the favorites (+) button at the bottom of Safari and then “Add to Home Screen,” so you can see a shortcut to your homescreen, and access your online documents as quickly as possible.

Posted in Benefits, Customer Satisfaction, Document Management, Product Features, Product Updates | 2 Comments »