Category Archives for : Announcements

Creately now supports Fogbugz on demand, so you can draw professional looking diagrams quickly and easily in Fogbugz. Thousands of users have used Creately to add charts to their cases and wikis, now you can do the same with a click of a button.

Tools to draw diagrams faster

Fogbugz on demand can users can use Creately to add various diagram types to their cases and wikis. Some of the features include

• Support for many diagram types including draw flowcharts, UML diagrams, Network diagrams, UI mock-ups, Gantt charts and much more
• Extensive set of objects for drag and drop diagramming
• Only 8$ per month for a diagram editor
• Smart objects and one click creation of connecting objects for fast diagramming
• Integrated Google image search to quickly look up related images

Creately diagram in Fogbugz case

You can add them easily to Fogbugz wiki pages as well.

Creately diagrams on Fogbugz wiki pages

For the full list of features available in the latest release check out the Fogbugz release page.

How to add Creately in Fogbugz on demand

There are two ways to add add Creately for Fogbugz in the on demand version.

• Click the admin drop down and select plugins. Click  view all available plugins at the left bottom. Find “Creately for Fogbugz” in the list and it will be marked as “No” in the installed column. Click on that and you will be prompted with the below screen. Agree to the terms and click “OK”, the plugin will be enabled for you.

Installing Creately in Fogbugz on demand

• Or you  can visit the Creately Fogbugz page and click “Install on demand”. Enter your Fogbugz URL and click “Install Creately”. You will see the above screen again. Agree to the terms and click “OK”, the plugin will be enabled for you.

Have fun drawing diagrams in Fogbugz and if you have any feedback you can contact support or get in touch with us using Twitter or Facebook.

How can we make it better ? How can we improve the sharing mechanism? We had a thought about this and we are excited to introduce the projects as libraries feature. This means you can draw a bunch of diagrams, group them as a project and reuse those diagrams as objects.This is a powerful feature that makes it very easy to reuse existing diagram drawn by you and other users. How do you convert shared projects to libraries ? All you need is a single click. Bit similar to Community browser but more powerful and opens up endless opportunities.

Adding Shared Projects as Libraries

All you need is one click. Simple open the shared project and click “Open as Library” button.

Convert Shared Projects into Libraries in One Click ( click to view larger image )

Example on How to Use Shared Projects

Below example shows how users can take advantage of this powerful feature.

Ann creates websites footers and shares them

David creates website headers and shares them

Diagrams available to me as objects so I can reuse them

Above is just one example but there are plenty more scenarios possible. But with so many diagram types available the possibilities are endless. This is taking team work and project sharing to the next level. So head over to Creately and give them a try and as always don’t forget to leave feedback via Facebook , Twitter and support mails.

One click access to thousands of diagram templates & examples, That’s Creately community browser in one summarized sentence. This is another step in our continuing effort to make Creately a complete diagram solution that goes far beyond a simple diagramming tool. The quick access to templates will save you time and help out in tricky situation where you are stuck with diagram ideas. The community browser integrates the drawing tool with the Creately diagramming community, where users can easily browse various diagram types, rate them, share them and even use them as templates.

Accessing the Creately Community Browser

The community browser can be accessed by clicking the “Import Template” button available in the drawing area tool bar.

Hundreds of Templates just one click away

Creately Community Browser Features

The browser if packed with features so you can search and use templates very easily

• Search by Type ( Left side bar ) – Select from over 20 diagram types available in the browser
• Four category filters ( Top right )
  • Template – Predefined Creately templates
  • Popular – Popular diagrams rated by the community
  • All – Every diagram in the community
  • My – Diagram drawn by you
• Search for Diagrams withing the context – After you select a diagram type you can search for diagrams of that type by using the search box at the top
• View Template – You can view the diagram in a new tab on a large scale before using it
• Use the Template – Click “Use” to start drawing the diagram

Features in Creately Community Browser ( Click for larger image )

The Community browser is available in Creately online version, Desktop and also in Jira, Confluence and Fogbugz plugins, so no user is losing out on this awesome feature.

Improved way to Create New Documents

We took a look at the previous “New Diagram Window” and thought of how it can be changed improve your diagramming experience. As a result we came up with a brand new process that will not only guide you but add some details automatically to enhance your diagram.

The new 3 step process lets you select diagram type and templates easily while also encouraging you to name the document. There are quite a few advantage in the new process

• Because you are selecting diagram type we can prepare the application by loading the necessary contextual tool bars.
• We will automatically tag your diagram so you can find them easily later
• You get access to templates while starting the diagram
• You are more likely to give a proper name instead of something like “Document 1”
• Quickly mark the diagram as a community diagram

The below images explains the process.

In the First Step Select the Diagram Type You Want to Draw

In the Second Step Choose a Blank Diagram or Select from Many Templates

In the Final Step Name and Tag Diagrams to Complete the Process

Enjoy the new features and if you have any suggestions or feedback feel free to mention them in the comments section.

Happy Diagramming!

Creately Confluence Plugin Compatible with Confluence 4

A quick update! we released a new version of Creately Confluence plugin. It is now compatible with Confluence 4 and also includes the below features and more

• Easy migration from Confluence 3 to 4
• Compatibility fixed for Confluence version 3 and 4
• Diagram preview in edit mode ( Confluence 4 )
• Quick add/edit diagrams in edit mode ( Confluence 4 )
• Automatic diagram type suggestion

Add/Edit Diagrams Easily in Confluence using Creately

Drawing Gantt Charts in Confluence

Many understand the importance of Gantt charts but few bother drawing them. Its even harder in Confluence because of the lack of tools.  Now you can easily create Gantt charts in Confluence using our Gantt chart tool. Its simple to use and we added some templates to make it even more easier. Below are two of the many templates available for users.

Creately Gantt Chart Template

Creately Gantt Chart Template

Enjoy the new templates and have fun drawing Gantt charts in Confluence. If you have any suggestions about Gantt charts or anything in general feel free to contact support with your suggestions. The flowchart guide was very popular and thanks for the feedback. We will surely publish more guides in the future. Merry Christmas and Enjoy the Holidays.

Atlassian recently released Confluence 4.0 and the Creately Confluence plugin now supports the new version. There are some really good social networking elements added to the new version of Confluence and those features have gotten some great feedback from the users. Online collaboration is becoming increasingly important in future applications and adding social elements to the application makes it much more fun. If you are a Twitter user, the new additions like follow and mention within Confluence wont come as a big surprise for you.

Creately is all about visualizing things, so instead of writing some boring text explaining the benefits of Confluence diagramming plugin by Creately, I added a video to explain things more clearly. People hate reading texts, but love watching videos. Otherwise YouTube won’t be the second most visited site in the Internet.

If you have any trouble using the latest version of the Creately Confluence plugin you can contact support for help. There are some exiting new things to be announced soon, so be sure to add us to your RSS reader or follow us on Twitter.

I have a confession to make. I have been so busy working between our R&D centre in Sri Lanka and our head office in Melbourne, Australia that this blog post is a little late.

Back in June we entered Creately in to the Tech23 competition. Tech23 is a celebration of innovation with the aim is to find Australia’s 23 most innovative companies. The 23 that form part of the 23 go to Sydney, Australia to present and pitch their innovation to a board of experienced industry sector experts. There are several categories with numerous prizes up for grabs for the best innovations.

We are justifiably proud of Creately and what we have brought to the world. We love Creately and working with our users and customers to make it better. We thought that taking part in Tech23 would give us another mechanism to showcase our innovation. However like with anything you enter there is a selection process. As you can appreciate this kind of competition has lots of entrants – over 150 in fact – so it never makes sense to think you’ll make it as the disappointment can be a real blow. But of course we secretly hoped 🙂

On July 8 2011 we found out that we had been selected as one of the Tech23 2011 companies! Hurray! It turns out that the initial application is probably the easiest bit. The organisers did a great job holding briefing sessions via conference call and in person in Sydney and Melbourne. The Tech23 day, which was Tuesday 23 August, was busy with company and industry leaders breakfast in the morning, followed by the day of presentations and talks and then the networking/drinks in the evening. On the day each company has to give a 5 minute presentation about their innovation and company. It isn’t a pitch in the traditional investor sense but pitch of your innovation. After the pitch there’s a grilling by industry leaders. We were in the “Meeting the needs of the enterprise” cateogry and our industry leaders were Bill Bartee (Managing Director, Southern Cross Venture Partners), Mike Cannon-Brookes (Director, Tyro & CEO / Co-Founder, Atlassian) and Glenn Wightwick (IBM Distinguished Engineer, Chief Technologist, IBM Australia & Director, IBM R&D – Australia) (links to each person).

The whole day was fantastic and very interesting. It is always interesting to see the level of innovation present within Australia and coming out of Australian companies. Definitely punching above our weight. Overall we were named in the top 10 companies on the day and won the “ANZATech most ready to go global award”.

We continue to gather these accolades and you can see the full list on our customer love and press coverage pages. As they say it is onwards and upwards and we will continue to improve and innovate. We are not resting, we are innovating!

Do let me know your ideas for innovations around Creately in the comments below.

Chandika