Who’s the Wicked Witch of your group? Is a Vampire sucking the life out of your group?

Take this quiz below to find out if there’s a monster in your group, or if everyone is an Angel.

Take this quiz above to find out if there’s a monster in your group, or if everyone is an Angel.

Here are the possible outcomes…

Vampire

Vampires suck the life out of the group! The only thing positive about this vampires are the “B”lood that they’re drinking. Vampires are a constant dark shadow looming over the group, constantly complaining . They do nothing for the group, other than draining everyone else’s energy. On top of that, Vampires consider their schedule is impossible to work with. Vampires sleep all day, and only work in the middle of the night, making it difficult to coordinate group meetings.

Encourage Vampires to feel more confident and positive about the project and working with the group by making sure they feel included. Encourage them to share their suggestions and opinions and listen thoughtfully. Utilize GroupTable’s Live Chat to work within their schedule, if they are unable to make it to the actual location of a meeting.

Angel

Angels do all the work and stay on task. If it weren’t for Angels, the project  probably wouldn’t get done—or get done in peace. Angels are team players, and always looking out for the group.

Encourage Angels to use the GroupTable task list to allocate more of the work to other group members—rather than taking on all of the responsibility themselves.

Witch

Witches think they know best and try to tell the other group members what to do. Witches spend most of their time trying to cast their spell over their minions—I mean, members—to complete the project the way they see fit. They become so overpowering, that no one else’s opinion is heard.

Encourage Witches to trust their fellow group members and be more collaborative and cooperative. If all else fails, use the GroupTable Discussion and Live Chat to discuss ideas and plans, instead of meeting in person, so the Witch can’t “talk over” everyone else and everyone can be “heard”.

Frankenstein’s Monster

Frankenstein’s Monsters don’t pay attention to anything and are usually lost. They complete the wrong task, miss meetings because they misplaced the address, and usually have nothing of relevance to contribute to discussion.

Encourage Frankenstein Monsters to be more organized by double checking the GroupTable Group Calendar; as well as, pay attention to their GroupTable Notifications, which will alert them when a task assigned to them is approaching it’s deadline.

Ghost

Are Ghosts  even in our group? Ghosts are notoriously elusive. Their name appears on the group roster, but you have never ever seen them in person.  They never attend meetings and provide zero help towards the goals of the group.

Encourage Ghosts to participate and contact them through GroupTable’s Mail, their email, phone, text and sky writing (just kidding) to get their attention. If all else fails, hold them accountable for their actions by inviting your teacher as a “guest” to your group, so they can view who is participating and who’s not.

Here at GroupTable, we’re always working on new ways to improve and enhance your user experience.

Here are some recent changes:

Choose Whether to Display Your User Name or Real Name

A lot of users have been asking for this feature and we’ve listened! Now you can display your real name rather than your user name through the site. This is helpful if you’re using GroupTable for class and your instructor and classmates know you as your real name. If you’d prefer to keep your real name private, you can display your user name instead. For instructions on displaying your user name or real name, click here.

Change Your Email Address

You can now change the email address associated with your account. This is helpful if you received a group invite to a different email address and need to accept it through your existing account. Click here for instructions on changing your email address.

Discount Codes

Are you an instructor or represent a college or university? Are you looking to have your entire class, department or school sign up for GroupTable? If so, you may be eligible for a discount code! Request a discount code for your school today.

Billing

We have heard from some users that after submitting their credit card information, they were not charged or their account was not updated yet. If you’re experiencing this, your credit card may have been declined or the billing address you provided was inaccurate. If this is not the case, please reach out to our support team and we’ll assist you.

Facebook Page

We’ve recently revamped our Facebook page with lots of fun stuff. Like us on Facebook and gain access to discounts, helpful tips, resources for your groups & other neat stuff.

Support Wiki

After gathering your feedback on our recent upgrades to GroupTable, we’ve created a support wiki that includes the answers to any questions you may have about GroupTable. Some common questions we’ve encountered are:

• Why didn’t I receive my group invite?
• How do I edit a task?

Send Us Your Testimonials and Feedback

Share your GroupTable experience with us! We’re always looking for feedback to further improve your experience on GroupTable.

To stay up-to-date with the latest upgrades, upcoming events, and contests like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

You’ve prepared for weeks to put your group performance before an audience, and to you it is nothing short of flawless. As you receive your grade back for what you perceived was something fantastic, you’re slightly disappointed with the outcome. What happened? Why isn’t your project number one? Well, from an audience perspective, there are many things that could affect your group’s project, and there are also ways to improve upon group projects, based on simple, focused tips.

Versatility

Versatility is a great way to catch an audience’s attention. You and your group shouldn’t let one idea or act become the sole purpose of your project. Come up with other ideas and don’t settle on one person’s point of view. Brainstorming helps your group explore other ways to show people that you really put effort into your project.

Communication

A significant reason to why groups may not be successful is lack of communication. Use GroupTable’s discussion boards to keep track of conversations. Create a sense of open communication, not only with the exchange of ideas, but also with constructive comments and ways to improve upon your performance. These constructive comments can contribute to a memorable act.

Stay on Task

Stay on task and try to get things done early as a group. Don’t leave the bulk of the work for one person. When a group doesn’t perform as one, your grade may suffer. There aren’t going to be three strikes; it could only be one, and your grade may be out of the race. A great way to keep on task is to set deadlines to when your group members should complete their assignment and learn their part. Incorporating a task list using GroupTable can help reduce clutter, and keep everyone on track.

Time Management

Showing the audience that your group has talent can be easily done by committing to a plan of action. Create responsibilities for each member of your group to increase efficiency. Try creating a task list and spread out the work so that nothing is left for the last minute. Leaving everything for the last minute is an easy way for your group to end up with an underperforming routine. Lack of patience and planning may end up showing in your presentation. Don’t let this create a missed opportunity to move onto the next round and get the grade you’re looking for.

There are many opportunities to make sure your group project comes out on top. With careful planning, good communication, and time management, your group won’t have to worry about whether or not you will get the grade you want.

If you’ve been a part of a group project you know that they can definitely be stressful. Simply doing a search on twitter for the term “group project” or “group projects” will yield many results of students experiencing the pains of dealing with group projects. Well, there is good news….Group projects don’t have to drive you crazy anymore. GroupTable was created by a group of students to help solve that problem.

Jessica, GroupTable’s project manager/designer, put together this cool comic depicting the pains many group project teams that are not using GroupTable run into.

Enjoy…

What problems have you ran into while being a part of a group project team or assignment?

Do any of the scenarios depicted bring up memories of past group projects?

GroupTable is a simple collaboration software that helps you easily manage group projects, study groups and all of the other groups of your life.

We’ve listened to our users’ feedback and have added many improvements that we list below our demo video. We’ve also created an easy to use, cross-referenced instruction wiki that you can review by clicking here. You can get a quick look at these improvements by viewing the demo of GroupTable directly below.

Our team has listened to your feedback over the last year and has been hard at work.  Today we are excited to share a sneak peak of all the great upgrades that are launching later this month.

The new updates will include…

1. Improved Task Management
   We have heard a lot of feedback from our users about adding a more robust task management feature for groups.  Our new task tab, which will now be in each group, will offer the ability to create task lists and tasks. Once you click “add a task” you will be prompted to enter basic information about the task such as who it is assigned to, the due date, what task list it is associated with, and a description for the task.  You even have the ability to attach files to the task. After the task is created members of your group will have the ability to comment on the task and give their feedback. All files that are uploaded to a task will be also shared in your group’s binder in the attachments folder.  This was designed to keep you and your group members from searching through all the tasks to find the file you are looking for. If a task was assigned to you, you have the ability to mark the task as completed. If this occurs an update will be shared with your group informing them that this has occurred. The addition of this feature improves accountability and project planning, thereby keeping your group more on track and efficient.
2. Full Group & Individual Calendar
   Each group and individual on GroupTable will now have their own calendar.  A group calendar will display the upcoming events and tasks for the group.  Each user can choose whether they want to view the calendar in list view or full calendar view.  The tasks that have been added in the task section of the group will also be added to the calendar.
   
   The personal calendar, that each user has, displays all of the user’s events and tasks across all of that user’s various groups.  This feature gives the user a birds eye view of what is coming up in each of their groups without having to view each group calendar.  GroupTable has also added side panels on the right column that display a user’s upcoming tasks and events.
3. Event Functionality
   Once you have created an event on the calendar an event page is also created for this event.  This event page displays information about the event such as:
   • Event Description
   • Time & Date
   • Location
   • Related Attachments

   The event page also has a section for comments.  In this section members of the group have the ability to add an agenda, meeting minutes, event recap notes, and other related comments about that specific event.  Members can also add video and images pertaining to the event.

4. Rich Text Editor in all Discussion & Comment Fields
   All comment and discussion areas now contain a rich text, or WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor.  This allows for formatting of ordered and unordered lists, highlighting, bold & italic options and more.  This feature makes it much easier to illustrate key and related concepts when sharing with your group members.
   
5. File Sharing & Management Enhancements
   We have added a number of improvements that involve file sharing.  Some of these improvements include:
   • Drag & Drop Uploading into your Binder:  Now you can drag a file from your desktop into the upload area to quickly share a file with your group.
   • File Version Tracking: Now when you edit a file online once the file is saved it is saved as a revision in your group’s binder.  You can also add a revision by uploading a file with the same name.
   • File Sharing on Tasks, Discussions & Events: GroupTable enables you to share files on your group discussions, events and tasks.  Each time a file is shared in one of these areas the file will also be added to your group binder in the attachment folder for easy access.  This way you don’t have to search around the site looking for where your group member added a particular file.
6. Invite Guests to your Groups & Restrict Access to Certain Areas
   Group creators now have the ability to add guests to their group and control what parts of the site they can see.  You even have the ability to give guests access to certain folders in the binder that you have created, and not others.
7. Group Update Filtering by Time, Group and User
   Accountability is a very important part of group work.  Nobody wants to work with someone who doesn’t pull their weight.  GroupTable now allows group members to see what updates other members have made.  These updates can be filtered within a given period of time, by type of update, by user or by group.  Each group now has their own update tab that displays the updates that have occurred specific to that group, but each user also has a group’s update dashboard that allows them to see all of the updates that have occurred across groups in reverse Chronological order.
   
8. Organize Groups into Group Lists
   Users will now be able to organize the groups they belong to into group lists. This is especially helpful when belonging to many groups. From the group list, users can view the creators and descriptions of the groups in the list, access each group’s binder, request to join a group in the list or remove themselves from a group in the list. With group lists, related or similar groups can be easily accessed and sorted.

We are planning on releasing these updates and more within the next two weeks!

We look forward to continuing to improve our software to meet your needs.  We tremendously value your feedback and are eager to see what you think about the new additions.

See you at the Table!

>Dave & the rest of the GT Staff

Every day it seems as if more elements of our lives transfer from physical to digital…Schools are integrating iPads into their curriculum, fully loaded with the course materials; a meeting between an entrepreneur in the United States and a venture capitalist in China can be held via Skype on their personal laptop; phones are no longer just for talking, but as a fully-functional personal assistant. With so many ways of communicating, conducting business, and planning personal events, it can become overwhelming to try and keep track of it all.

In an age where we are provided with so many outlets for communicating, shouldn’t there be just one to aggregate it all? Well, now there is. GroupTable was designed to fully manage your business, academic and social lives, all from the same location. With the ability to upload, manage, task, and schedule events, GroupTable has now added a little more control to society spinning “technically” out of control.

Most times, programs similar to GroupTable are built strictly for the sole purpose of managing one’s academics, or exclusively for business—not GroupTable. As a program set up by you, and not by your business or university, YOU are the one in control of what you want to manage.

To give you a better idea of the endless possibilities that GroupTable is capable of, we have provided some of the ways our current users have already taken advantage of this unique program:

The life of a student is fast paced—especially when it comes to finding a time to meet for a class assignment. Now, a group can create an account and invite each of its members to joinWith the easy to use drop feature, GroupTable provides a Binder that each member can upload their portion of a paper or project. . From here, they can upload articles, revise papers, as well as set milestones and due dates in the calendar.

Greek Life: Homecoming, Philanthropies, and Socials-OH MY! Being in a sorority while in school, I can empathize with how hectic it can make life. Greek Life is like a full-time job in itself. Attempting to keep track of the endless events going on can become nearly impossible. Now an organization can set up an account to keep its members up to date. Not only can they take advantage of the calendar, but now there’s a single location to upload T-shirt drafts, applications for councils, as well as various announcements. Finally, there can be some organization to these organizations.

Travel Group: Hashing out details of a trip among a group can get tiresome…How many emails do you really need to send to remind someone about the deposit? GroupTable will allow for a group to upload travel documents, create a packing list, and even set a reminder for that deposit deadline.Now the only thing you need to worry about, what drink you’re going to order to cheers to a successful trip!

Business Proposal: Businesses are generally made up of various departments. As many of us know, communication between these departments, and even the department itself, can get lost in translation. GroupTable allows for say the PR team or the Business Development team aggregate their information to decrease confusion. Now when a RFP hits your desk, you can upload it and delegate each task to its respective employee, along with deadlines and important details listed in the calendar. Each member can edit each section, providing advice if necessary. Never again will you be scrambling to get your proposal in on time because two people accidentally provided the bio section.

Team Sports: Who’s in charge of team snack today? Wonder no more, parents, because your GroupTable account will allow you to create a team calendar—fully loaded with the practice schedule, game time, and yes, which parent is in charge of the team snack that day!

Study Group: Endless amount of work to be done before the big test or project, and no one to work with. Using GroupTable’s invite feature, you are able to send out invitations to join your study group strait to their email. This makes reaching out and coordinating everyone’s schedules easy and effortlessly, as you can mark on the calendar when someone may not be in town to join the study group. The calendar also proves useful for marking milestones your study group wishes to complete prior to the big project or test day.

Volunteer Group: Organizing fundraisers and events all while trying to maintain momentum is tough. By taking advantage of the features that GroupTable has to offer, you can send out the email invitation, reminders of upcoming gala’s, charts of money raised so far, and so much more! GroupTable can make any volunteer group run like a fortified business!

From Soccer Mom to student, or businessman to buccaneer–whatever your goals may be, GroupTable can finally make sense of every corner of your life. Begin by introducing it to your co-workers, classmates, church group, and watch how quickly your social, business and academic life harmoniously co-exist.

I recently came across a blog post done by Nick Rac, a student from Bentley University.  He gave his personal account on how GroupTable helped his group not only eliminate many of the problems they had, but played a part in helping them win a $1,000 contest at his school.

With his permission I have re-posted it below.

Thanks for the great testimonial Nick, We’re glad we could help!

—

Recently our development staff added some new enhancements to GroupTable.  We always like to keep all of you in the loop so below you can see what we have added:

1. The ability to see group member’s phone numbers:  We have heard feedback that it would be helpful to have all of group member’s phone numbers available in one spot.  You can make your phone number visible to your group members by adding your phone number on your edit profile page.    Once your phone number has been added your group members will be able to see it either on your group member’s tab, or on the specific group member’s profile page.
2. The ability to view documents in GroupTable’s frame:  This is a very cool functionality.  You can now open and view a document, power pt or other file directly in GroupTable’s frame.  To do this visit your group’s binder and click the magnifying glass.
3. The ability to delete your discussion replies: We heard feedback from some of you mentioning that when you reply to an existing discussion post and spell something wrong, or would like to change your reply there is no way to do so.  Well that problem has been solved.  From now on you can delete your personal discussion replies by clicking the delete icon under options.

We are constantly striving to improve GroupTable to better fit your needs and look forward to any additional feedback any of you have.

All the best,
David Brim & The GroupTable Staff

September was a great month for GroupTable.  We now have over 750 registered users and had close to a million hits for the month.  This week we also added another member to our team.  Her name is Kelly and she is a communications major/marketing minor at UCF.  We are very excited to have her on board and know that she will bring a lot to the table.  We’re also very glad to have the support of all of you.  Your really helping us get the word out in your classes, through Facebook, Blogs, Tweets, etc.  You guys rock!

See you at the Table,

Dave

Our team has been working really hard over the last few weeks and GroupTable V2 should be ready to go very soon.  It’s going to be awesome!  In the mean time I just created a GroupTable Fan page on Facebook and you can become a fan!  It would really help out with our movement and your support would mean a lot to me personally as well.