A number of new goodies have been added to CoachAccountable, this time with an emphasis on making the system even easier and smoother to use.

One-Click Access to Worksheet Assignments

When you assign a worksheet to one of your clients, the email notification of the assignment they get now contains a magic link that puts them one click away from working on it.  It’s a marked improvement from earlier, which was a link that took them to a page which first prompted them to log in.  Making the process of being coached by you easier is always a good thing.

One-Click Access to Shared files

In a similar vein, whenever you share a file with a client (and vice-versa), the email notification contains a magic link allowing the receiving party to download the file with a single click.

Email Reminder Reply Replies

Earlier I added the ability of people to reply to reminder emails in order to record metric data or mark actions complete–a nice shortcut to keeping things up to date without having to log in.  Now when someone enters data in this way, and email reply comes back letting them know how they are doing.

For metrics, it’s a message about how things are stacking up against your goal:

40 has been recorded for the 17th.

You are 9 push ups above your 10/17  target (31 push ups).

If you need to change this for the 17th, just reply to this email with a new number.

For actions, it’s a statement of how you did relative to the due date:

Add email reply functionality has been marked complete as of 9:34am on Thursday, October 18th.

This action was due 7pm on Friday, October 19th, which makes it done 1 day ahead of schedule.  Nice!

Comment on (Almost) Any Notification

Whenever files are shared, session notes or journal entries are emailed, and worksheets are submitted, the other party gets a notification.  In addition to containing the particulars of the item, either coach or client can reply to the email to make a comment on that item.  Comments appear in your coaching stream, and are instantly emailed to the other party (which can they can then reply to).   This makes a nice touch point for communication between coach and client about particular items in the coaching relationship, and it’s all captured and organized by CoachAccountable.

Gravatar Recognition

Gravatar is short for “globally recognized avatar”, meaning folks can have a picture of themselves associated with their email.  Now when any user is created (i.e. a coach signing up or a coach adding a new client) the system now checks Gravatar for an avatar associated with the email, and imports it right on in if found.  This saves everyone the step of uploading a head shot.

And that’s what’s new.  Nothing earth shattering, just a lot of nice little bits that give the system a really polished feel.