2021 Road Map

Like many of you, we are formulating our goals for the upcoming year.  While we’re not sure if we’ll reach them or not, it’s a good idea for us to let you know where we’re headed so you can make plans and generally look forward to upcoming new add-ins to make your life easier.

Last year, we had a two fold commitment to both improve your experience when dealing with Sperry Software and to get more automation into your email life.  To that end, we did not meet many of our goals – mostly because of the pandemic.  We did however achieve a few goals:

First, we rolled out the Quick Text Hotkeys Pro add-in with its ability to quickly insert your recipients name in your greeting similar to the way your signature is automatically inserted.

Next, we added the ability to have the Timed Email Organizer add-in monitor shared folders so that you can be notified with a desktop prompt when something changes in a shared folder.

Finally, we were busy behind the scenes working on our Office 365 specific add-ins.  These add-ins work in your desktop Outlook just like our traditional versions, but they also work in Macs and Outlook on the web.  More on this in just a bit.  In addition, we also have improved our existing Schedule Recurring Email for Office 365 service (which runs on our cloud servers but sends repeating emails through your email accounts).

Going forward, we want to continue to improve your experiences when dealing with Sperry Software – both in terms of using the software and when reaching out to us for any reason.  To help in that regard, we will be taking a look at how we are handling tech support.  While we like to provide as much tech support as possible, over the last year or so many customers have asked us for remote desktop viewing sessions.  This is certainly convenient for you, but comes at a certain expense; mostly business insurance but also the tools that allow the remote access.  So, we’ll be looking at implementing a “premier tier” tech support that will allow for that, so that customers who need that kind of help can still get access to it.  It will be sold like a typical product so that users can get access to it whenever it is needed and will not have to be purchased when an add-in is initially purchased.

Next up is to create a “Pro” version of the desktop version of the Schedule Recurring Email add-in.  Many people would like to be able to schedule an email, and instead of having go to everyone, have it send to each person – like a mail merge.  Think of it as Schedule Recurring Email and Send Individually combined.  This will be useful to people who send out monthly parts or supply lists to their vendors, realtors who want to notify potential home buyers about new listings without exposing email addresses to each other, etc.  We expect to have this ready in a few weeks.

Next on the list of goals for 2021 is rolling out a new version of the Timed Email Organizer add-in.  This new version will be similar to our Schedule Recurring Email for Office 365 service in that there will be no desktop installation.  Rather, it will run from our cloud server and work within your email account.  This new version will be called the Timed Email Organizer for Office 365 and if you are familiar with the desktop version, then you’ll know that it will run rules that you create – except that unlike the Outlook desktop version, it will run 24 x 7 x 365.  This will be a subscription product, but will have a free tier just like Schedule Recurring Email for Office 365.  We are aware of Power Automate (aka “Flow”) and are looking to differentiate it from Microsoft’s product.

Finally, we are planning on rolling out “modern” new style Outlook add-ins that work on the desktop, on Macs, and on Outlook on the web.  These new add-ins do not get installed per se, rather you add them to Outlook using the “Get Add-Ins” toolbar button right in Outlook.  The first one of these will be Phishing Net, a new style add-in that will put up a toolbar button in Outlook that will allow you easily submit suspicious emails to your corporate security officer.  Many companies have rolled their own versions of this concept, and similar to the aforementioned Timed Email Organizer for Office 365, there will be a free tier.

More on this next month when we introduce it; in the meantime subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with us and hear about our newest products as they come out.  To subscribe, just click the yellow Subscribe To Our Newsletter banner on the upper right hand side of your window.

That’s a pretty good list to start.  Is there anything you’d like to add to our 2021 road map? Comment below or email us.  We’d love to hear it!