What's New
New updates and improvements to Grobu
Brief Downtime
Update
We'll have some brief downtime today (Sunday) while we migrate to a new physical host!
EDIT: And we're back up!
EDIT: And we're back up!
v0.6.0 - Big permission change + many UI fixes
Improvement
Much of this week was spent on user interface improvements, resulting in a lot of little polish + a couple of larger changes. Kudos to my friends for providing very valuable feedback (and finding quirky edge-case bugs!).
Major Change - Event Visibility
- [PREVIOUSLY] Members of a group could only see events that they were officially invited to. This created a lot of confusion and friction, especially for new organizers and users - an organizer could not seamlessly invite their friends to the group and ask them to vote in a poll or RSVP to an event.
- [DESIGN CHANGE] Since we're targeting groups that we expect are largely made of up friends who know & trust each other, this level of privacy is unnecessary and counter-productive.
- [NOW] Members of a group can see & participate in all events in the group - no more need to be officially invited! They can participate in polls, add notes, and
RSVP(known issue: Forgot to create the UI to actually allow this - will address shortly!)
Minor Change - Timezone Support
- Users now have a Time Zone setting in their profile (and it's automatically defaulted for new users based on their browser).
- All events & activities will be displayed in the user's timezone.
- A footer has been added to the site to highlight which time zone you have set (so you don't have to remember).
Other Improvements & Fixes
- Organizers now only get a notification the first time someone votes in a poll (not on every vote)
- Voting in a poll is now a seamless operation - the poll option UI will now automatically update (for you & everyone else that has the page currently open) instead of triggering a full page reload
- Viewing an event that has a scheduling poll now leaves the poll visible by default (previously the poll would auto-hide if you had already voted, which was confusing & inconsistent behavior).
- Revised the layout of poll options to (hopefully!) be more intuitive and clear (including now displaying voter names in a tooltip instead of a toggleable pane)
- Fixed that the poll options sometimes got cut off in the mobile view, without being able to scroll.
- For admins - restyled the finalize button and added a confirmation dialog to clarify & confirm action.
- Added real-time updates to the Event Notes pane - so if you are on sitting on the event page and someone else adds a new note, it'll show up instantly on your screen (known issue - this update doesn't trigger if notes are edited)
- Also fixed an error with how "recent notes" are calculated
As always - love to get the feedback and bug reports!
v0.5.0 Added Notes for Events!
New
This is the final (?) key feature that is critical for launch - the ability to keep notes (shared or personal)! We will revise the UI even more in the future, but for now we have a sidebar with a "chat-style" interface showing the notes that others have added (as well as any personal notes you have added). Just very basic text notes for now - we've got enhancement ideas on the roadmap for things like supporting richtext/markdown and tagging others.
The rest of the development plan between now and the future launch will primarily be focused on the new user experience and some UI polish. There are already plenty of great ideas on the roadmap, but we need more user feedback to determine which ones to prioritize!
The rest of the development plan between now and the future launch will primarily be focused on the new user experience and some UI polish. There are already plenty of great ideas on the roadmap, but we need more user feedback to determine which ones to prioritize!
v0.4.0 - Improved Notifications
Improvement
The newest update (v0.4.0) is deployed! The core improvement in this update is a more robust notification system for user and group admins. You'll now get notifications in the app itself, as well as email notifications, for key activities.
- For group members, this will include invitations to vote in polls and RSVP to events.
- For admins, this will also include when event members vote and RSVP to events.
We recognize this may get a bit noisy (especially for active groups) - so we have a future roadmap feature to allow customization of notifications by type & by channel. We'll also look to add additional notification channels, such as SMS, Discord, WhatsApp, and potentially others! Stay tuned!
v0.3.1 - Poll Options - UI updates
Improvement
One more update for today - now when creating a scheduling poll for your event, you are no longer fixed at 3! You can add & remove options (but you still must have at least one).
Also simplified & streamlined the UI - scheduling poll options no longer have a description text field; the description is dynamically generated based on the start & end dates + times. And adjusted the styling a bit - hopefully you agree it looks better!
Also simplified & streamlined the UI - scheduling poll options no longer have a description text field; the description is dynamically generated based on the start & end dates + times. And adjusted the styling a bit - hopefully you agree it looks better!
v0.3.0 - Totally Revamped Dashboard + Events UI
Improvement
The next big improvement to Grobu has landed - a totally revamped user interface for your dashboard & events list! Instead of just being one big pile of events, we now have a sleek tabbed interface that lets you see at-a-glance the different categories of events that you need to know about, including which ones need your attention! The Dashboard view now focuses only on the events that need attention, while the All Events page adds additional tabs for upcoming events, past events, and events that are still being scheduled. We hope this new UI is intuitive and helpful!
(Side-note - also adds the location to the email & calendar invites!)
EDIT: Also note that dark mode has been temporarily disabled. Some of the features that have been recently added were not styled for dark mode and were not visible/usable. There's a future roadmap item to update the UI and consistently support both light & dark mode - so it will come back (eventually)!
(Side-note - also adds the location to the email & calendar invites!)
EDIT: Also note that dark mode has been temporarily disabled. Some of the features that have been recently added were not styled for dark mode and were not visible/usable. There's a future roadmap item to update the UI and consistently support both light & dark mode - so it will come back (eventually)!
v0.2.1 - Added Locations to Events
New
The next feature update - now you can add locations to events! There's a new, optional address field on the event - it uses Google to autocomplete, and allows you to save your favorite locations for quick & easy re-use in future events. Events with locations saved embed a Google Maps preview + link directly to Google Maps.
Known Issue: The email invitations and calendar invites do NOT yet have the location added - that fix will be forthcoming! This was fixed in the v0.3.0 deployment!
v0.2.0 - Event Schedule Polling added!
New
One of the key features of Grobu has now been added - the ability to create scheduling polls for your future events! This is really a major enhancement, because not only does it represent one of Grobu's core features & differentiators, but all of the infrastructure put into place to support it will allow us to add other fun features in the future (such as additional types of polls).
Using the new poll feature is pretty easy - when you create an event, you now select the event status:
Using the new poll feature is pretty easy - when you create an event, you now select the event status:
- Draft (no schedule poll, not scheduled - you are just creating a placeholder for the future),
- Scheduling Poll (there's a scheduling poll to determine the event date & time)
- Scheduled (the event has a confirmed date & time).
Right now the poll is hard-coded to 3 options -- this will be fixed to be flexible in a future release. (In fact, there are a LOT of known issues & improvement ideas related to polling that we've already documented! The feature is definitely not "final"!) For each option, the organizer picks a start & end date & time.
You still have to invite other group members to the event in order for them to be notified of the poll and to be able to vote in it. When invited attendees vote, they get 3 buttons or each option:
You still have to invite other group members to the event in order for them to be notified of the poll and to be able to vote in it. When invited attendees vote, they get 3 buttons or each option:
- Preferred - this is a preferred option for me (worth 2 points)
- Yes - this option works (worth 1 point)
- No - this option does not work (0 points)
Once at least one person has voted, the options will show a voting score.
Polls have a deadline (defaults to +3 days from event creation). At the moment this deadline doesn't mean anything -- members can still vote once the deadline has passed (if the organizer has not yet finalized the poll), but this may change in the future.
At any time, the organizer may finalize the poll by selecting one of the options - that option will become the date & time of the event (and then voting will be locked down and the event will become scheduled).
As noted above - there are a LOT of enhancement ideas (and some known issues) related to polling - we'll be polishing this feature in the coming weeks to make it an even more effective tool for organizers to gather their parties!
Polls have a deadline (defaults to +3 days from event creation). At the moment this deadline doesn't mean anything -- members can still vote once the deadline has passed (if the organizer has not yet finalized the poll), but this may change in the future.
At any time, the organizer may finalize the poll by selecting one of the options - that option will become the date & time of the event (and then voting will be locked down and the event will become scheduled).
As noted above - there are a LOT of enhancement ideas (and some known issues) related to polling - we'll be polishing this feature in the coming weeks to make it an even more effective tool for organizers to gather their parties!
First round of fixes is already in!
Fix
Fixed: Event invitation emails were showing multiple copies of the body.
New: Event organizers can now automatically invite & confirm themselves during the event creation process.
A big future enhancement request is to add polls for future event scheduling - that's definitely on the roadmap!
New: Event organizers can now automatically invite & confirm themselves during the event creation process.
A big future enhancement request is to add polls for future event scheduling - that's definitely on the roadmap!
Alpha Version Launched!
New
The alpha version of Grobu has launched!
This is a very limited release - we're only inviting close friends to "kick the tires" of the initial production deployment. It's the kind of release that doesn't even feel like we should "release" - it's bare-bones, doesn't have a fraction of the features and functionality that we imagine, but every start-up software book, blog, and guru says "Ship it!", so that's what we're doing!
If you somehow find this site and you are interested to learn more, sign up for the wait list -- when we're ready to "ship" an early-access, beta release to a slightly larger audience, you'll be the first to know!
This is a very limited release - we're only inviting close friends to "kick the tires" of the initial production deployment. It's the kind of release that doesn't even feel like we should "release" - it's bare-bones, doesn't have a fraction of the features and functionality that we imagine, but every start-up software book, blog, and guru says "Ship it!", so that's what we're doing!
If you somehow find this site and you are interested to learn more, sign up for the wait list -- when we're ready to "ship" an early-access, beta release to a slightly larger audience, you'll be the first to know!