Blend gets "Feature" Rich

After a full year as a simple news and blog site, we have finally updated ElementalBlend.com to incorporate its full feature set. Behind the unassuming login on the home page lies a powerful system that serves a broad range of purposes from CMS to employee time tracking for our staff and from analytics reports to invoices and payments for our clients.

Content Management

The Blend content management system is simple to use but allows for a lot of capability. Our entire site is basically one big blog. Our news, thinking aloud, playground and live projects sections are all powered by our CMS. The real flexibility and advanced features are actually the simplest to use because, as developers, we have left the system open for HTML. Each post has a basic teaser with no HTML for a future RSS feed and then a two column body section that allows full HTML giving us the flexibility to completely change the layout of a post as needed.

The Blender

The Blender is what we call our project and time management system. Each employee logs in to manage contacts and projects, track their time for tasks, take notes, etc.. The interesting part of the system is that our time tracking automates invoices for our clients which can then be audited and delivered electronically to the client who can then choose to pay online, making the system completely paperless.

Client Area

Our clients have their own area of the site. After logging in a client can access past and present invoices and analytics reports, they can make one time payments or set up recurring payments for monthly services, and they can request site maintenance or new project work.

Plans for the Future

What the future holds for ElementalBlend.com is already in the works but the list is too long to go over here. We invite you to keep visiting us to see what new features we add over the coming months and years. As a client, colleague or just a visitor, we want to know what you think and what suggestions you have. Please feel free to contact us and give us your opinions on the site.