The Site Caddy Incubator

The Site Caddy team is passionate about giving our clients the best tools availble to manage their online presence, and we are constantly working on improving the system.  Sometimes we don't do a great job of taking our heads away from our computers long enough to tell everyone about what we're working on!

The Site Caddy Incubator is a list of the projects that are currently in production, in the planning stages, or under consideration based on client feedback.  Please note that all the release dates in this document are estimates.

We always welcome your feedback - but especially on the projects in the incubator.  Whether you would like to vote for one over another, request certain features, or simply tell us how excited you are - or how grumpy your are that a new feature is taking so darned long to release - please tell us at info@sitecaddy.com.

Directory

Click on any of these links to go straight to the incubator project in question, or feel free to stroll through the whole list!

• New Page Editor, File Manager and Photo Editor
• New Payment Gateways and eChecks
• Reporting on Conversions and Funnels
• Event Management
• New Shopping Cart and Checkout Pages
• Discussion Forums
• Invoice Manager
• Upgraded Management of Roles and Permissions
• Upgraded Data Grids and Data Export
• More Google!
• Integrated Support
• New URL Format for Websites
• New Content Sharing System / Facebook / Twitter
• Two Way Connection with Social Networks
• Survey Manager
• Site Caddy Dashboard
• Content Biographies
• New E-Mail Delivery Gateway
• Course Registration
• Blogging
• Shipping Upgrade
• Site Caddy Mobile Manager and App

New Page Editor, File Manager, and Photo Editor

What Is It?
The Site Caddy Page Editor is used throughout Site Caddy for editing the content of pages, products, catgories, e-mail messages... anywhere you edit content.  The current Page Editor is past it's prime, and showing signs of age in the latest browsers.
The new Page Editor, apart from working optimally in the latest browsers, will offer a host of new features.  The content in the page editor will be styled to match your website so you can get a better idea of what your content will look like when you are working on it.  And it will be connected a vastly improved file manager for uploading files and attachments.  And - a brand new feature to Site Caddy - it will also include an image editing tool that will allow you to perform simple photo editing jobs (cropping, resizing, etc.) from within Site Caddy!
This upgrade is long overdue...

Who Is It For?
Everyone that uses Site Caddy will benefit from this upgrade.

When Will It Drop?
Status: In Development
General Release: 2011:Q4 - could not be soon enough for most!

Go back to Incubator directory.

New Payment Gateways and eChecks

What Is It?
We will be adding full support for 3 new payment gateways, including Authorize.Net.  For the first time, you will be able to accept online checks.

Who Is It For?
Anyone using e-commerce - especially if you are considering an alternative payment gateway.

When Will It Drop?
Status: In Development
General Release: 2011:Q4

Go back to Incubator directory.

Reporting on Conversions and Funnels

What Is It?
In e-commerce, we're always thinking about the conversion rate - the percentage of visitors to the website that actually make a purchase.  The funnel is the series of steps the visitor takes to get from the start of a conversion (e.g. shopping cart) to the end (e.g. payment). We want to eliminate or improve any steps in the funnel where we are losing conversions.  This new Site Caddy report will provide a simple analysis of the key funnel pages on your website, and which pages have a higher abandonment rate.  It should help everyone find ways to improve their conversion rates.

Who Is It For?
Anyone selling online.

When Will It Drop?
Status: In Development
General Release: 2011:Q4 through 2012:Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

Event Management

What Is It?
A complete system for managing events, sending invitations, and collecting payments for events.  This is a significant upgrade from Site Caddy's existing Event Manager, and intended to suffice the needs of event driven businesses.

Who Is It For?
Anyone that holds events - but especially for businesses that focus on events as a core part of their business.  For everyone else, Site Caddy's existing Event Manager will probably still be good enough.

When Will It Drop?
Status: In Development
General Release: 2011:Q4

Go back to Incubator directory.

New Shopping Cart and Checkout Pages

What Is It?
A number of small improvements - usability and design - to make it easier for your customers to hand over their hard-earned money to you.

Who Is It For?
Anyone that using Site Caddy's e-commerce services.

When Will It Drop?
Status: In Development
General Release: 2011:Q4

Go back to Incubator directory.

Discussion Forums

What Is It?
Discussion forums are areas on a website where visitors can post messages in the forum on topics you create, and then respond to each others' messages.
As the site/forum owner, you will have the ability to create the topics, control access, moderate the conversation, and delete messages if necessary.

Who Is It For?
Everyone that wants to allow their website visitors to communicate with each other and your team.  Community building is a good thing!

When Will It Drop?
Status: In limited distribution
General Release: 2011:Q4

Go back to Incubator directory.

Invoice Manager

What Is It?
The Site Caddy e-commerce system, as with most e-commerce systems, allow the customer to intiate the transaction.  For example, they put a product in their shopping card and then pay for it with a credit card.
The Site Caddy Invoice Manager will enable clients to create invoices, send them to customers, securely collect payments online, and even set up a payment plan.

Who Is It For?
Anyone that needs to send invoices and would prefer the convenience of collecting payments online.

When Will It Drop?
Status: Testing and Documentation
General Release: 2011:Q4

Go back to Incubator directory.

Upgraded Management of Roles and Permissions

What Is It?
This is a complete upgrade to the way Site Caddy works with the people that interact with your account.  Whether they are users, contacts, customers, members... there will be a more consistent approach to working with the people in your account, and better control over the permissions you can assign each person.

Who Is It For?
Everyone.

When Will It Drop?
Status: Late Planning
General Release: 2012:Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

Upgraded Data Grids and Data Export

What Is It?
Throughout Site Caddy's Manager, we have lists of data.  Lists of your pages, your news and events, your products and categories... lot's of lists.  Since we're computer nerds and the words list or table don't sound techie enough, we refer to these lists as data grids. 
Data grids that contain lots of data (records) include tools to help you work with the data: search tools, paging tools, sorting tools, etc.
The upgraded system of data grids will have many benefits: faster loading of long lists, more tools, greater consistency throughout the lists, and most importantly - an easy way to export data from data grids to spreadsheets for use offline or in other systems.

Who Is It For?
Everyone.

When Will It Drop?
Status: In Development
General Release: 2011:Q4 - 2012:Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

More Google!

What Is It?
Google is so big it's scary - but here at Site Caddy we see them as benign/benevolent overlords of the internet.  They provide many of their services free of charge, and with open APIs so that we can connect to them from Site Caddy.  The Site Caddy Google Analytics Plugin is a good example of this, where you can view reports of your website visitor stats from within the Site Caddy Manager.  We will continue to add more integrations with Google tools such as:

• Multimedia: YouTube Plugin
• Advertising: AdWords, AdWords Express, AdSense
• E-Commerce: Google Offers, Product Search, Commerce Search
• And more: Maps, Google Places, Charts and Visualizations, QR Codes

Who Is It For?
Everyone.

When Will It Drop?
2011:Q4 through 2012:Q2

Go back to Incubator directory.

Integrated Support

What Is It?
We encourage everyone to use our support@sitecaddy.com e-mail address as the first contact point when you need help.  That's not because we don't love to hear from you on the phone (we do) but because it makes it easier for the first available staffer to respond, and easier for us to register the issue in our issue tracking system.
We will be adding new tools that will make it easier for people to interact directly with our agents, and with our issue tracking system.  Both of these tools will be integrated with the Site Caddy Manager, so you will be able to (for example) initiate a chat session with a support agent, or create a ticket in our issue tracking system.  Whatever page you initiate the support request from in Site Caddy will be recorded, so the agent will understand where you need help immediately.
No matter which way you choose to contact us, you will be able to track all your issues in the system, update the tickets, and track the status of any issue.

Who Is It For?
Everyone.

When Will It Drop?
2012:Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

New URL Format for Websites

What Is It?
Learn more in this news post.

Who Is It For?
Everyone.

When Will It Drop?
2012:Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

New Content Sharing System / Facebook / Twitter

What Is It?
Site Caddy now provides the Share button, which allows visitors to your site to easily share your website address with others via social networking sites and e-mail.
The new sharing tool will be similar, but with a few very important differences.  You will be able to connect the sharing tools to specific pieces on content on your site - like a page or an event - and it will leverage the latest widgets from the big boys like Facebook, Twitter and Google.
It might look something like this:

Who Is It For?
Anyone that wants more visitors on their website.

When Will It Drop
Status: Planning
General Release: 2012:Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

Two Way Connection with Social Networks

What Is It?
The internet is all about content.  Your website is all about content.  But it can be time consuming to write and post content to your website, your blog, your Facebook wall, your Twitter feed... where does it end?  Wouldn't it be great if you could write once and have your content posted to all your social media channels?
That's what this new feature will do.  Once you add your connections to your social networks to your Site Caddy account, whenever you post content in Site Caddy you can choose to automatically have it posted to your other accounts as well.  How cool is that?!?!

Who Is It For?
Anyone that uses Site Caddy and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn - and that does not have too much time on their hands.

When Will It Drop?
Status: Planning
General Release: 2012: Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

Survey Manager

What Is It?
This is gonna be huge... that's why it's taken us so long to develop and test!  The new Survey Manager will allow you to easily create surveys, attach them to your website, invite responses from the general public or restrict to a group of contacts, and then receive detailed analysis of the responses.

Who Is It For?
Anyone that needs to get a better idea of what their customers and members are thinking.  And really - isn't that all of us?

When Will It Drop?
Status: In limited distribution
General Release: 2012:Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

Site Caddy Dashboard

What Is It?
Site Caddy has grown into a very large system, and it can be hard to keep track of all your content and transactions.   The dashboard will allow you to get a snapshot of the general state of your account in one place, alert you to any issues that need your attention, and make recommendations based on live reports.

Who Is It For?
Absolutely everyone.

When Will It Drop?
2012: Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

Content Biographies

What Is It?
The Site Caddy database keeps tracks of millions of pieces of data - not just your content, but when it was created and edited.  The Content Biography system will give you access to this information for most types of content.  You will be use it to answer questions such as "who deleted that page from the website?" or "how many times has this news item been updated" or "when is the last time I signed into my account?".

Who Is It For?
Everyone - but especially users that might share an account with other users.

When Will It Drop?
2012: Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

New E-Mail Delivery Gateway

What Is It?
It's pretty technical, so we won't bore you with the details on this one yet.  Suffice it to say that it will help your e-mail campaigns get delivered more quickly, and with a higher rate of success.

Who Is It For?
Everyone that uses Site Caddy to send e-mail campaigns.

When Will It Drop?
2012: Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

Course Registration

What Is It?
Information will be available soon.

Who Is It For?
Anyone that offers classes.

When Will It Drop?
2012: Q1

Go back to Incubator directory.

Shipping Upgrade

What Is It?
The shipping options and functionality in Shop Caddy are getting a major upgrade in every respect.  The most obvious change will be support for a total of seven worldwide shipping companies including FedEx, USPS, Stamps.com, UPS, Canada Post, DHL, and Australia Post.  We will also be adding support for warehouses, for larger businesses that might ship products from more than one location.

Who Is It For?
Anyone that needs to ship the products they sell online.

When Will It Drop?
Status: In Development
General Release: 2011:Q4 through 2012:Q2

Go back to Incubator directory.

Blogging

What Is It?
A blog is a lot like a website - infact the name blog is a combination of web and log.  This is an oversimplification, but you could think of a blog like a website, but where your visitors can post comments and replies to your content.

Who Is It For?
Everyone.

When Will It Drop?
2012: Q2

Go back to Incubator directory.

Site Caddy Mobile Manager and App

What Is It?
Since Site Caddy is a 100% online service, you can manage your account from any computer or device with a web browser and and internet connection.  But today's handheld devices such as iPhones, Blackberries and Android phones have small screens and working in a web browser can be difficult.  The Site Caddy Mobile will provide a streamlined version of the Manager interface perfectly suited for mobile devices with smaller screens.  It will make it easy to perform common tasks such as posting news, checking orders, or sending messages.

Who Is It For?
Anyone that would like to manage their account from a smart phone.

When Will It Drop?
2012: Q2

Go back to Incubator directory.

Please report any inconsistencies on this help page to support@sitecaddy.com.