With the GREAT POWER comes great responsibility!

One of my favorite things about FireFox is it’s ability to seamlessly handle all sorts of add-ons. This means that you can EASILY add features like, the ability to keep tabs on your email, ability to see the ip address of every website you visit, ability to debug HTML, CSS, and even JavaScript directly from your browser… I’ve even seen a add-on that helps you order pizza!

The very thing that makes FireFox stand head-and-shoulders above the rest, can also make it a big headache. Over the past few months, I have seen two separate circumstances in which a program or add-on has cause DataJoe to just not work. By sharing this information with our Community, I hope to help save others from the same kind of headache.

The two programs we have specifically seen cause problems with DataJoe are an Add-on called “Adblock Plus” and the Internet Firewall made by CA.

Basically, both programs were designed with measures to try and prevent JavaScript generated Pop-ups. What neither vendors considered is that the specific code they are using has the tendancy to throw JavaScript errors in some situations. When this happens, all things JavaScript stop.  In both cases, while DataJoe began loading, it was abruptly stoped at some point before the Login screen was displayed.

The solution in both situations? Disable or uninstall the offending software while using DataJoe.

So, if you are having problems with DataJoe… or any site really… loading or working properly, the first thing I would suggest is disabling all of your FireFox Add-ons. You can do this by clicking “Tools” in the menu, followed by “Add-ons”. This will open the “Add-ons” window. Preceed by clicking on each item listed in the content area and selecting “Disable”. Once you are finished, you will need to restart FireFox. If you are still having an issue with DataJoe after this, give us a call and we’d be happy to help you find a solution! If this fixes it, try adding your Add-ons back one or two at a time… this way you can use the process of elimination to determine which of the Add-ons are not compatible with DataJoe.  If you do find an offending program or Add-on, let us know!

Release Notes 11.10.09

Hello DataJoe Clients:

We’ve pushed a release last night with a new functionality feature for Layout and BlueLines, as well as a new feature in the Reporter Module. Please see below for details regarding this update.

Sum and Count fields:

Layout now includes the ability to add a count for every association zone field as well as a sum field for every association field that is a numeric, percent, or currency field. These special fields can be placed into your layout to show a row that totals or counts the values within a particular association zone.

For example, if you had an association zone for subsidiaries and asked for the annual revenue for each subsidiary. In layout you could just show the # of subsidiaries (COUNT:: subsidiary name) and the total revenues (SUM :: subsidiary revenue).

Archiving in Reporter:

The Reporter Module now has an independent section for housing archived submissions. As in the Researcher Module, this feature can be found under Advanced Tools, and Archived Submissions.

Please be advised that this feature is only accessible to users with the Reporter Module add on.

As always, please contact us for any questions regarding this release.

Thank you,

The DataJoe Team

DataJoe’s 2009 MEGA Researcher Conference Resources Now Available

DataJoe’s third annual MEGA Researcher Conference provided our clients with the opportunity to access and share information about researching and the DataJoe system among peer researchers and DataJoe team members. Held in October, this year’s Webinar Edition allowed clients to come together without the expense of travel costs.

In the Social Network Your Data, Turning Site Metrics into Revenue and Scouting Out Data 2.0 sessions, attendees gained insight into tools and sources used by peer researchers. The ever popular Best Ideas Roundtable session allowed all attendees to share highlights from the year on great products they’ve put together or new policies and procedures they’ve implemented in the researching process. In the New Functionalities session, attendees heard about new and upcoming features to the system as well as a few “quick hits” of helpful searching tools such as wild card searching and the prospect flag search.

Two presentations – Nominations: A Researcher’s Experience and 20,000 Records in A Single Project allowed for in-depth looks into the projects of Virginia Business and Sports Business Journal, respectively. This year we also added Clarification Stations – where DataJoe team members lead instructional-based sessions on different aspects of the system such as explaining the difference between sub-projects and inner projects, detailing the different ways to associate products on e-commerce pages and how to create a search page through your e-commerce portal.

The Webinar format also provided for the opportunity to showcase the DataJoe Award winners in their own sessions and allowed them to present on the products or processes for which they received awards.

Those who attended the conference can now access videos, PowerPoint presentations, handouts and more when logged in to our Web site at http://software.datajoe.com/conference/index.php.

These resource are available for attendees to review what you learned in the sessions or to view sessions for the first time if you weren’t able to attend at certain times throughout the week of the conference.

As you obtain more information from the sessions we held a few weeks ago, please feel free to visit the DataJoe Notes community forum at www.datajoe.com/forum and add your questions or comments to the discussion board. We believe that the best ideas can come from collaboration, including sharing ideas among peer researchers, and the discussion board is the best place for you to do that.

If you have any remaining questions about the conference or the sessions that we held, please contact conference@datajoe.com.

Release Notes 9.04.09

Hello DataJoe Clients:

We’ve pushed a release this week with updates to the download for CSV files. Please see below for details regarding this update.

CSV download:

CSV files now include the project title and subtitle in the first two lines like it did in DJ3. The download also includes updated representation of footnotes both within data and project footnotes. Footnotes are represented with parenthesis to distinguish the footnote from the data.

For questions on this release please contact support@dataJoe.com.

Thanks,

The DataJoe Team

Release Notes 8.14.09

We’ve pushed another release with updates to Layout, the Project Package Tool and Searching.  Please see below for details regarding the new functionality.

PDF Generator:
Sometimes PDF’s simply do not export.  The most common reasons for this are due to improperly structured HTML tags in your lists layout or weird characters on the list, which is a result of copy/pasting data from the Web.  To help you determine why your PDF’s are not generating we have developed a PDF generator catch that identifies where the problem spot lies in your data, so you can fix.
Here’s a screen shot of the PDF generator that has identified where the data is that’s causing the error:

This shows you that the highlighted in yellow text is the problem spot, which will need to be edited on your end.  The text in red tells you what’s wrong with this data to give you an idea of how to edit it, so the PDF will generate.

Project Package Tool — E-mails in Contact File:
There is now a toggle in project packages to “Include e-mail address in contacts file.”  With this toggled, and after you Save/Cache your project package, there is a new column in the “Contacts” file of the download, which is for the personal e-mail field of person records.  If the personal e-mail is populated for records then it will list this in the contacts file.

Wildcard Searching:
You now have the ability to do searches for a record with a specific word in it or starting with a particular letter. To do these searches you will add in a percentage sign (%).
For example, you could do a search for “Big%t” which would yield a search for records that started with Big and had the letter “t” somewhere else in the name.
You can also do a search for T%, which will give you a result of all records starting with the letter “T”.

As always, please contact us for any questions regarding this release.

Thank you,

The DataJoe Team

Release Notes 7/30/09:

We’ve pushed a substantial release this week which includes updates to existing DataJoe processes and additions of new functionality to many areas of the system.   Please see below for a list of all the items included in this release.

Text next to the “Update your Data” button:

You are now able to edit the text next to the “Update your Data” button found on the cover letter of an e-mail blast.  This is a feature that can be changed on a project-by-project basis.  To do this, go to the project you would like to edit this text on.  Once in Project Setup, go to Optional.  In Optional–>Survey Settings, there is now an option for “Click-through HTML”.  If you click onto this text you can change the wording.   After changing the wording make sure to send yourself a test e-mail to review your new wording.

Improved Vertical Spacing Tool in Pre-Press:

We’ve made some improvements to the vertical spacing tool in pre-press.  You are now able to adjust the vertical spacer by using any of the following options:

• moving the purple bar up or down
• while clicked onto the bar, use the up or down arrows on your keyboard
• by typing into the “vertical” text box.

See below for the new look of this tool.

Sub-project previous ranking/Sub-project Footnotes:

You now have the ability to use previous rankings and project footnotes within sub-projects.  To enable this, you will need to go to the Sub-projects Optional settings under Style Adjustments.  In Optional–>Style Adjustments; there is now a toggle for “Sub-project prev. rank overrides.”

With this option checked off, within the sub-projects advanced details of a record, you can chose the option to “Edit sub-project” to edit the sub-projects previous ranking and project footnote.  You will find this option at the bottom of the sub-projects advanced details.

After adding in the previous ranking and footnote, you can view this in bluelines or pre-press, just like in any other project.  And, you still have the ability to do a permanent edit-text of the previous ranking and a temporary cosmetic-edit (right clicking) of the footnotes, while in pre-press.

Icon for word/text docs on E-commerce:

Now on your E-commerce site if you have a .txt or .doc file uploaded as a static product you will see an icon next to those products for the corresponding product type.

For .txt files you will see: 

For .doc files you will see:

CAPACHE added to contact page of E-commerce:

We’ve added a CAPTCHA for the default contact page in your E-commerce site.  For any client who’s using the “Contact” tab on E-commerce, and you are using our default DataJoe contact page, you will now have a CAPTCHA which helps to prevent Web crawlers from sending e-mails to the contact.  To view this, go to your E-commerce site and click on your Contact page. You will now see the below:

Back button on Track Transactions:

There is now a way to get back to the Track Transactions page when review an order detail.  If you are in Track Transactions and click onto a person’s name to review their order details you will now see a  “< Return” hypertext at the bottom of the details page.  If you click onto Return it will take you back to the Track Transactions page.

Hierarchy flag field/value list:

You now have the ability to add hierarchies to flag field/value lists.  Hierarchies give order to value lists by grouping the flags into sub-categories. To create a hierarchy flag field go to your flag manager and switch the flag type to Hierarchy and click the create button to create a new Hierarchy flag. You’ll then be taken to the Hierarchy creation area, which will look like this:

.

From this area you can load in flags and form sub-categories of flags by using the arrow buttons.  To load in a flag, click on the green “Load” button.  To unload a flag, click on the green “Unload” button.  After loading in all the necessary flags you can move the flags into the necessary order by using the up and down arrows.

To create the sub-categories click onto the flag you wish to create the sub-category for and then click on the down & right arrow-button .  To remove a sub-category use the down & left arrow-button .  Once a sub-category has been created it will be indented (see below).

After you have finished creating the Hierarchy flag group; click save.  Note that it might take a few minutes to build the flag after saving.  Then, just like any other flag field, you will want to create the value list field (in the survey setup of your project), which the hierarchy group flag is built from.  To do this go to your survey setup and create a new field type for value list.  After naming the field hit “next” and chose the hierarchy field you just created from the “build from flag group” drop-down option.  Check if you want to “allow multiple selections” or not and save and load the field onto your survey setup.

Now, what will the field look like on the survey? See example below…

The main flags for “Real Estate” and “Home Builder” are purple.  Once the survey recipient checks off either option—it will open up the sub-categories for the survey recipient to chose from.  Each sub-category the recipient checks off will be calculated next to the main flag (just like the Home Builder flag is showing the number one next to it because “commercial construction project” is selected.)

DataJoe MEGA Researcher Conference 2009 (Webinar Edition)

 UPDATE!  Early Bird Registration is now Open for the MEGA Researcher Conference 2009 Webinar Edition! Click HERE to go to our conference web site and register for the conference!  Early Bird Registration ($75) last through August 15th. After the 15th normal registration will be held and participants can register for $100 through September 1st.

—

After the wonderful astounding success of the 2007 Researcher Workshops and the 2008 Researcher Conference, DataJoe is pleased to invite you to its 2009 Mega Researcher Conference (Webinar Edition)!

After travel budgets were slashed for many researchers, DataJoe decided the best way to be inclusive of all community members would be to do what we do best – bring content to the Web. This year, instead of an actual conference in Denver, DataJoe is promoting a week-long series of workshops the first week of October.

Webinars include:

Best Ideas Roundtables (2 sessions) – Join one or both sessions to hear the Best Ideas used in the last year. This session always proves to be our most popular as ideas are generated and used at other publications. We’ll be hosting, but will gladly share our screens with anyone who has visuals during their turn at the “mic.”

Winners Webinar (2 sessions)  – Our DataJoe Award Winners will be announced prior to the Webinar Conference, but we still want to make sure they’re recognized! Winners will present and give a description about the process for their project and judges’ comments will be revealed.

DataJoe’s Clarification Stations (3 sessions) - Want to know more about sub-projects vs. inner projects, creating a search page on your e-commerce site and associating products together for a better e-commerce page? Attend any one of our three “clarification station” Webinars where we’ll walk you through the process.

Scouting out Data 2.0 – We’re bringing back one of our most popular sessions! Knowing how to root out data in free and accessible places can save you enormous amounts of research. Data experts will present on the best places to find data and how to put it to use.

Social Network Your Data – Creating a social network around your database can bring in new customers, create a conversation among your readers and alert them to new products for purchase. DataJoe users already using social networking relative to their data products will present on how to make it all happen.

Turning Site Metrics into Revenue – Now that DataJoe gives you the ability to download the metrics relating to your e-commerce site, learn what to do with them! This Webinar will feature researchers who take the numbers and run … straight to their marketing, IT and editorial offices and put the numbers to use. Find out how to translate what you see in your download and use it to tweak projects, fix your pricing and identify your target market.

Nominations – A Researcher’s Experience – Jessica Sabbath from Virginia Business will explain her publication’s experience using the nominations tool. Virginia Business was the first publication to use the tool for both their CPAs and Attorney nomination forms. Though using DataJoe constituted quite a change in their process, it saved the publications enormous amounts of time. If nominations is something your publication is interested in doing, don’t miss out on this Webinar!

Publishing 20,000 records in a single project - Sports Business Journal compiles over 20,000 records in its Fact Book product that prints each year in bound form. This book is compiled out of more than 10 projects and inner projects and involves over (how many) people, editors and production artists. As a trade journal, Sports Business faces different challenges than many business publications, but they can also relate to being creative with inner projects, e-commerce and the survey process. Sit in on this Webinar to understand how one publication manages more than 20,000 records with integrity and accuracy.

Researcher Web Cafe – Join us for a fun “get together” and see your researcher colleagues face-to-face! For those who have or can use a Webcam, we’ll be holding a fun session mid-week to allow persons to network and discuss relevant research topics or just topics of the day.

Registration begins next week and runs through September 1st, but make sure to register early! Early registrants can register for a reduced amount of $75 to attend all Webinars if registered before August 15th. After August 15th, registration is open to all participants through September 15th for a fee of $100.

The registration page will be announced Monday, July 15th. Check back here or check your e-mail for the formal announcement!

DataJoe Awards Now Open for Submissions!

Attention DataJoe Clients!

The 3rd Annual DataJoe Awards are now open for Submissions!

To enter, send your submissions via electronic format to conference@datajoe.com with the category submitting for in the subject line. If your submission is too large to be sent electronically, please burn it to CD and send to DataJoe so that it  can be mailed to award judges.  The deadline for award submissions is July 31.

The DataJoe awards are open to all clients.

Please read below for award categories and descriptions:

Subjective/Judged Award Categories:

• Most Creative Published Project: Submit a list or directory that took you some thinking to figure out. Whether you had to be a detective and really investigate the data or accomplished some creative repurposing of your data, send us the list and tell us how you did it.

• Longest and Most Complete List: Find the list in your collection that has the most information, and include a brief summary of how you went about collecting all of it.

• Best BOL Cover Design: Submit your publication’s most recent BOL cover, and tell us what the concept was and who the artist was.

• Most Inventive E-commerce Marketing Angle: Did you send e-mail campaigns, produce a radio spot, or highlight your product online in a special way? Send us the link, information on who was involved, the timeline for the project and any ads that were used to drive traffic to the product.

• Best Overall Data Product (i.e. The Best of the Best!): Find the No. 1 data product you’ve provided over the past year, be it a directory, Book of Lists or guide. Tell us briefly about how it was put together and who was involved in the process.

Objective/Statistical Award Categories:

• Percent of Survey Returns Averaged Over Time: DataJoe collects information on the number of returned surveys from each blast. We’ll take the average of the 12 months, (or, for new clients, we’ll take it from the amount of months you’ve utilized the system and average by that number).

• Number of Products Sold vs. Page Views: (For DJ4 Clients Only) DataJoe collects information on the turnaround on your products vs. your e-commerce portal page views. We’ll take your best month from the last 12 months.

• Average Number of Records Updated (per researcher): Using your log-in, we’ll compute the number of records you’ve updated in the last 12 months (or, for new clients, we’ll take it from the amount of months you’ve utilized the system and average by that number).

*Requirements for subjective submissions:

• Submitted projects must be in PDF format. Projects/products must have involved the use of DataJoe in the last year. Please indicate whether the project/product was done using DataJoe 3 or 4.

• For each submission, you must follow above instructions (i.e., supply a few sentences of “background information” on your submission, anything unusual about your submission, any obstacles in creating the project that makes it unique or why you chose to submit it.)

• You cannot submit entries into more than three categories.

• All submissions must be sent electronically to DataJoe by Friday, July 31. DataJoe will collect submissions into their respective categories and submit them to a judging panel of your peers. Judges are not allowed to judge a category into which they have submitted an entry.

Release Notes 6.29.09

Hi DataJoe Clients:

We just pushed a release with updates to some much requested areas of the system belonging in Marketer:

Downloadable Dashboard:

You now have the ability to export your site metrics through the Dashboard.  To do this go to Marketer and in the admin tools area (gray wrench button) click on the Dashboard.  From the Dashboard you can then select on the Settings pop-up then specify a Start and End Date, click Go! to save that setting and then Export to export the results to Excel.

List/Flag included in BOL Contacts File:

Now within the Project Package Contacts file  the last column will be devoted to the “list(s)”.  This ensures that your users purchasing your package product will know which list(s) and/or flags the contact person is on.  Please Note: you will want to make sure you do a “Save w/Cache” on all project package projects before you will see this column in the file.

Additionally, this release made some minor updates to suppressed submission e-mails, fine-tuned calculations and allows users to unload a subproject from a Filing Project.

As always, please feel free to direct any questions with the release to contact@datajoe.com or 303-989-1300.

At your service,

The DataJoe Team

DataJoe Office Closed Friday July 3rd

Attn: DataJoe Clients

The DataJoe office will be closed this Friday July 3rd for the Independence Day holiday.
We will return to our regular business hours of 8a.m. to 5p.m. MNT on Monday July 6th.
Have a save and happy weekend everyone!

At your service,
The DataJoe Team