We’re very proud to announce Daylite 4.1. We think it is the best Daylite release to-date! Features such as search & filtering, tasks, meeting invitations, printing, reports, and Daylite Mail Assistant (DMA) have been updated with a focus on improving your productivity. Our beta testers confirmed we did just that with this release, providing feedback such as, “my productivity just exploded (positively) as DL is so fast, efficient…” and “I like Daylite more and more… it is the greatest CRM tool.” We’re anxious to get this release to you as soon as possible, so it’s available directly from our website now and has been submitted to the Mac App Store for approval. To get you started, let’s review some of the Daylite 4.1 feature highlights mentioned.
Search Everything Fast
Search is now more comprehensive and much faster. Daylite 4.1 searches all entries – emails, notes, tasks, projects, opportunities, contacts, even forms – as well as major fields including phone numbers, details, addresses and custom fields, greatly increasing the likelihood that you’ll find what you’re looking for. This is because the full content of entries is now searched (i.e. the full body of an email, notes, etc.) and the most relevant results quickly returned (and we mean FAST). You can see additional results of a specific type by clicking the “more” button. We also added a global keyboard shortcut to access a Daylite search from anywhere, no matter which app you are in.
More Ways to Filter
In this release filtering has also been improved with expanded options to help you get a list of matching entries. The new filter options include job title, department, group details, ticker symbols, CC, or BCC email fields, email/URL/IM labels and types, project and opportunity details, and more.
Quick Task Entry
For those of you who generate lots of tasks, we’ve made it easier to add them in Daylite 4.1 with a new global keyboard shortcut. Just go to your Daylite Preferences > General > Quick task entry shortcut, and put in the shortcut you would like to use to activate the entry window. Then no matter what app you’re in, adding Daylite tasks is quick and easy.
Talk About Your Tasks
If you are a Siri user you’ll be thrilled that you can add your tasks to Daylite 4.1 with Siri. With some configuration, both your Daylite Inbox and Worklist will now appear in and sync with the Reminders app on your iPhone and Mac. So simply tell Siri, “add take out trash to worklist” and it’ll show both in Reminders and in the Daylite Task Worklist.
External Calendars in Color
In Daylite 4.1 you now have the option to see category colors in other calendar apps and even set a category when making an event in another app. This option is set in the Calendar Sharing preference pane.
Manage Meeting Invitations
With this release we added some additional features to the external meeting invitation support to ensure you are in complete control over what gets sent out to your contacts. Every time you invite someone to a meeting, you’ll get a confirmation dialog to make sure you’re aware what’s going on. If necessary, you can also resend invites when you need to jog someone’s memory about a meeting.
For external meeting invitations you receive, you can now modify certain details of the appointment, like categories or keywords. Finally, DMA no longer automatically processes received invitations until you accept or reject the meeting.
Put It On Paper
Calendar printing is done easily in Daylite 4.1. Simply view your calendar as you would like it to appear, showing multiple users, or only particular categories and select File > Print. You can control date ranges, font sizes and whether to include a legend or mini calendar.
There is also “configurable” print layouts for labels, envelopes and multi-column lists where you can specify the printer, paper size & orientation and font sizes. When printing lists, any numerical columns are summed automatically and you can also change how the columns are spaced, add grid lines and alternate row background colors. All of these configured layouts can be saved as templates.
Bill with Billings Pro
Together, Daylite with Billings Pro are now a more complete workflow solution for almost any small company. Daylite 4.1 can transfer data into Billings Pro, including contact details for people or companies. Tasks and appointments associated with a project can be sent to Billings Pro as either estimates or working slips to make invoicing a client a seamless workflow, avoiding any duplicate data entry. Hence, no matter how you bill your client – by the hour, task, project, etc. – you can do your business in Daylite and easily invoice for it through Billings Pro. Read more on how Daylite and Billings Pro work together.
Do More With Other Apps
We’ve published an Application Program Interface (API) that allows Daylite functionality to be extended through integration with other great apps. For instance, if you need some great email functionality, DirectMail and Mail Chimp are examples of powerful Daylite integrations created by other developers. Or, if your workflow includes heavy project management you should check out the existing Daylite integration with Merlin. See a complete listing of existing Daylite add-ons with some really great software solutions. If you are an interested developer, you can read about the API.
New Interactive Reports, Easier Customization
Some of our partners have created outstanding custom reports in the past. In Daylite 4.1 we’ve made that customization process easier with the newly released API (above). While we were at it, we added a few reports of our own that allow you to look at information in a more graphical view with drill down capabilities that provide detailed information. For example, the Opportunity vs Contact Creation Report is a valuable analytic tool in a sales organization. As a sales manager, you can see the number of contacts (people and companies) versus the numbers of opportunities created over the last month. A disparity between these numbers might indicate a lack of conversion within your sales team, and future efforts could be focused on closing that gap. Take some time to check out the new reports and how they might help drive your productivity. To find a partner for report customization, visit our partners page.
Daylite Mail Assistant Automated
Using Daylite Mail Assistant to record and capture communications is even easier since it now optionally auto-links emails. This option can be selected under the Daylite pane in Mail Preferences. Turn on automatic linking to have emails recorded in Daylite as you view them – no need to continuously click “Add to Daylite”! For those using Microsoft Exchange Server, you’ll be happy to know we’ve also improved support for Exchange accounts.
DL 4.1 Release Wrap-up
A great deal of effort has gone into this release, significantly improving the stability of Daylite. Over 120 reported bugs have been addressed and resolved. As result, we think Daylite 4.1 is a great release. Upgrade to Daylite 4.1 now and check out the full release notes.
Word to the Wise: Daylite 4.1 requires a specific installation and upgrade process. This process can take UP TO AN HOUR per machine if you have a large database. If you cannot upgrade all desktop clients and the server at the same time, you should refrain from upgrading until you can perform the proper procedure. If you do not follow the proper process, sync will stop and you’ll be pretty upset! We don’t want that to happen.
