Frequently Asked Questions
About Feng Office
General information of what Feng Office lets you do.
► Can I install the Feng Office Professional Edition in my server?
Yes, you can. You have a choice of using Feng Office hosted by Feng Office in World class Data Centers or to host it on your own servers. Many of our clients have gone for this option due to law requisites, company policies or other reasons.
Feng Sky is the cloud-based Feng Office.
Feng Onsite is the self-hosted Feng Office for businesses and organizations.
► Is Feng Office compatible with mobile devices?
Yes, it is.
► What are Feng Office Editions?
There are three "Standard Editions" of Feng Office:
the Community Edition (aka: CE)
the Professional Edition (aka: PE),
and the Enterprise Edition (aka: EE).
Also, we have recently started developing specilized Editions (Some of which are: Agency management, Business Associations, Governmental Project Office, and Test labs).
The most basic Edition is the Community Edition. It integrates workspace management, tasks planning and tracking, document management, e-mail, time tracking, conversations, calendaring, reports, and a great many features that help a small team work collaboratively. It helps teams communicate, stay organized and share information in an efficient way.
The Professional Edition builds on top of the Community Edition and adds extra features. Some of the additional features of the Professional Edition include: Client Management, Project Portfolio Management, Gantt Chart, and advanced e-mail management. It helps professional businesses and organizations ensure quality services and processes, keep control of projects, save time and money, and making happy clients and teams.
The Enterprise Edition includes all of the Professional Edition features, and it adds Invoicing, Expenses management, Purchase Orders, Inventory management, more advanced reporting, and more features for business and project managers.
► Can I access all the information of a Customer or Project?
Yes, you may. That is why we have created the Clients & Projects module.
On top of that, you can enhance collaboration by using Workspaces to manage your organization departments
If you have not yet, have a look at our demo, which explains this much better
► Can I share the information with other people?
Yes, you can give permissions to different people so they can access, share and collaborate in any activity or with any information.
You can give access to colleagues, partners, customers or any person you’d like.
► Can I see a summary of all the activities?
Yes, you can. Under the Overview tab you will find a summary of the most relevant information. The information will be related to the Client, Project , Workspace or Folder you are standing on.
At times this view is not enough, but that is why there are Custom Reports, so that you can get the reports you want whenever you need them.
► Does Feng Office support multiple languages?
Yes, we support over 20 languages.
You may change the language in your user account preferences by:
1- Click on your name (top right corner) and go to Account
2- Select Edit preferences, on your right, under the Actions section
3- Now go to General and look for the Language option
4- Pick a language
5- Scroll down or up and save the changes
You may also change the language in the login screen:
1- Get to the login screen
2- Press Options
3- Change the language
► Does Feng Office have an Email Client?
Yes, it does. This is great because you will no longer have to rely on a specific computer to look into your email, you can share them with your colleagues easily without having to forward them, and most importantly..they can be autoclassified within your Clients or Projects area, so that you can keep track of everything you said or were said.
You may find further information on how to set your email accounts in this article.
► Can you make custom changes to my Feng Office?
We love making new features, customizations, adjustments and tweaks to the system. If it is general enough sometimes we may even add them to one of the standard versions.
One thing you should keep in mind when thinking about making a custom development to your Feng Office is that you will most likely want the change to be of top quality, and to keep it updated and running with time. That means that it will require a good amount of dedication from analysts, designers, developers and testers to develop it in the first place, and then it will have to be maintained with future Feng Office releases.
Given that we get so many of these requests, we only provide custom development service to Subscribed Customers with a 12 months pre-payment recor, or by charging for the analysis service
► Does Feng Office have a Gantt Chart?
Yes, it does. Further information can be found here
► Does Feng Office have a Ticketing System module?
We currently have an internal Ticketing System for our clients.
However, if you are looking for a way to have your own system for your clients:
► Can I add custom properties or fields?
Yes, you may! This is something that few systems around have, but we got it covered to provide our clients with as much flexibility as possible!
In case there is some additional information for the users, contacts, documents, tasks, etc. that we do not have a field for by default, you may add it at your will. Then, you can run reports and get this information as well.
Further information can be found in this article.
► Am I elegible for a discount?
Some of our clients are Non Profit Organizations and some are Organizations oriented towards Education.
As such, some of them may be elegible for a discount by presenting the right documentation and telling us a bit about what do they do and how would they be implementing Feng Office. Then, our Management Team will look into it and decide on the matter.
Please feel free to contact us for further information
Using Feng Office
Specific questions on how to use Feng Office.
► I forgot my password
Please go to your log in screen and click on the Send new password option.
You will only be asked for your email address, and then further information will be sent to it. Easy peasy!
► How do I manage permissions?
There are plenty of ways to do this, therefore we suggest having a look at this article for further information
► How do I add new users?
There are different ways to achieve this.
The fastest one is by the People widget in the Overview tab, where you will be asked for the user name and email.
Otherwise you may:
- Click on your name (top right corner) and then go to Administration
- Select Users and then Add User
- Fill in the fields
- Scroll down or up and click on Add user to have it added
An email with further instructions will be sent to the person you have just created a user for.
► How do I create a time report?
Timetracking is great! You may know what are your colleagues are up to and how much time they have spent on specific tasks, clients and projects.
Now.. how do you see all this information? Simple. You just need to run a time report:
- Go to the Time tab
- Click on Run Report (top right)
- Select the options and values you wish to have in the report
- Run the report
More information about Time Reports can be found in this article
► How do I filter tasks?
Many of our clients have thousands of tasks, and they would go crazy look for the right ones to show if it were not for the filters.
After you log in to your Feng Office account, you should access the Tasks tab. Then, on the bar where it says Filter the usual option is Assigned to Me, and the Status as Pending
This way you will get to see the most important information for you.
In case you are a Manager you should consider having the Assigned to Everyone filter so that you can know what is going on with your colleagues.
Please bear in mind there are different sorting and grouping options, so feel free to play and explore a bit there!
► Can I assign tasks to multiple users?
Yes, you can.
Please have a look at this article for further information.
► What happens when I delete a user?
Feng Office provides with two ways of getting rid of a user:
1- Disabling a user:
This means that the user will no longer be able to access the system, but all the data he/she has worked on will be kept. Otherwise you would then be asking who has made that comment? Who has uploaded that document? Who is the assignee of this task?
2- Deleting a user:
This is only possible when the user has made no actions within the system, but logging in.
No consistency issues would happen here, so it would be completely wiped out of the system.
► How can I use billing?
To use billing through tasks you need to create the billing category and assign it to the specific users. To create a category you should go to “Administration” ->”Billing”, and assign a name, description and value to the working hour.
After creating this category, you should assign it to a user/s (the option is in “Administration” ->”Billing”). It’s convenient to use the “Update timeslots with unset billing values” to recalculate the value of working time based on the previously entered rate.
Once you have performed the procedures mentioned above, it will begin calculating the invoice value of the hours worked according to the category associated with the user.
► How do I upload several documents at once?
In order to upload several documents at once, you just need to select more than one document using the CTRL or SHIFT keys when browsing for the documents... and then you just need to click on Upload
► What happens when I delete something?
Whenever you delete something, it will first be sent to the Trash bin (which may be accessed through the bottom left corner).
Then you would have 30 days (or the amount of days you find more suitable) to restore the object, or otherwise have it deleted from the system.
► How can I activate or remove menu tabs and modules?
Feng Office allows you customizing the tabs and modules at your will.
More information about this can be found here.
► Can I customize the system so that it looks more like my organization?
Feng Office allows uploading your logo (which will be used in the notifications thereafter) and also change some of the colours so that you change what we call the look and feel.
This way, the users engagement with the system will be improved as they would feel it as their own.
Please have a look at this article for further information.
► Can I edit documents online?
Yes, some of them.
Doc, docx, xls and xlsx are currently not supported for online edition right now, but you may still create our documents (in .html format) and work on them online.
You may also work on your GoogleDocs documents through Feng Office too. You just need to state the document URL.
► How do I set up task dependencies?
Sometimes you want tasks to be completed only if other tasks have been completed. Good news! You can do this in the Professional and Enterprise Editions of Feng Office!
Just need to do as following:
1- Click on your name (top right corner) and go to Administration
2- Go to Configuration and then select General
3- Enable the option called Use task dependencies
4- Save the changes
You would then need to create a task - lets say Task A - and then create a new task - lets call it Task B -.
Later on, you may access the aforementioned task or edit it, and then look for for the Previous task section (within Task data). Now you would just have to click on Add previous task and look for another one (lets say Task A). After doing this, you will not be able to complete Task B until Task A has not been completed.
► How do I change the timezone?
Feng Office supports automatic timezone recognition through the browser (which is what we suggest), but some people may prefer using a fixed one.
In order to change this value from one to another you have to:
1- Click on your name (top right corner)
2- Select Account to access your profile
3- Select Edit user on the right, below the Actions section
4- Go to the User data tab
5- If you want the timezone to be autodetected, set the Auto-detect user timezone from browser option to Yes. Otherwise, set it to No and select a fixed timezone
6- Click on Save changes
Important Note: Feng Office currently handles both tasks and events with an "international point of view" since most organizations using Feng Office do it globally.
This means that if you set up an event at 3 PM GMT +1, and then have a daylight saving time change that makes your new timezone as GMT 0, the event will still remain at 3 PM GMT +1, therefore having it at 2 PM GMT 0.
In these cases most, if not all, organizations foresee theses scenarios and take the timezone into account when creating/editing the task or event in question.
In the near future this feature will be improved though so that "local only" events and tasks are taken into consideration in an easier way.
► I received a winmail.dat file in my Feng email client
► How do I clear my browsers cache?
Sometimes you may need to clear your browser cache in case there is a new update in Feng Office (or other applications) or in case there is domain name change.
What is the browser cache? It is information your browser keeps to make things "faster", but it does not get refreshed often, unless you set up a specific setting for this.
In order to clear your cache, the fastest way is pressing CTRL + F5 keys at the same time.
However, at times it may be tricky and this might not work.
In such cases we suggest looking into the following links which explain how to get rid of the cache in the browser you are using:
Security
Questions regarding how Feng Office makes sure that your information is always secure.
► Which are the risks I am exposed to in case of any damages in your servers?
Feng Office is based on an architecture designed so that if one server fails, the other one is prepared to maintain the operation of the application.
The company manages its facilities in the world's largest data centers, designed and audited to provide maximum security and confidentiality. Over 100,000 company servers around the world make use of this platform that specializes in providing network infrastructure, servers and redundant connection, and scalable, proactive monitoring, intrusion detection system and hackers, firewalls and encrypted passwords.
These instalations have a 24/7 365 monitoring system, alternative power systems, redundant cooling systems and advanced mechanism for fire control.
Feng Office possesses a 24/7 monitoring system for hardware and software that ensures identification of deviations prior to any failure of normal operation. Also, we update the database software with the latest security patches.
The access to these data centers possesses security mechanisms and video surveillance to control any physical access to servers.
► What is the level of confidentiality you offer like?
Our clients data is the most valuable thing we have, and as such, we are very careful and meticulous with it.
1- We do not provide any data of yours (not even your email address) to third parties
2- Every employee in Feng Office signs a Confidentiality Agreement
3- Not all of the employees can access the servers, just some of them
4- Even so, no one will be accessing your data. In case we ever have to due to Support measures, we would be asking for your permission first
► Are your backups safe?
Our clients data is the most valuable thing we have, and as such, we are very careful and meticulous with it.
That is why we have backups done every 8 to 24 hours done, and then they are saved in different servers in case anything wrong went to happen with the original server.
Backups include backing up your whole database, as well as the filesystem (where all your emails and documents are saved).
Note: soon these backups will be in real time
Free Community Edition section
In this section you will find FAQs for the free downloaded Community Edition for users that have no subscription plan with Feng Office
► I think I found a bug on Feng Office Community Edition. How do I report it?
With so many improvements and new features, there are slight chances that very small bugs are found in the Beta versions. Should you happen to come across with any of them, please do report it so that we can look into the matter.
If you are subscribed to our services, please contact your Account Executive or our Support Team for a faster response.
In case you are using the Community Edition for free, please report the bug here
Thanks!
► Can you help us with our Community Edition installation?
Yes, we can!
Our team of engineers, architects, developers, testers, system administrators, and customer support work every day on improving Feng Office. They have been developing the system non-stop since 2007. Most likely, nobody in the World is more knowledgeable and can be of better help with supporting and extending Feng Office.
Feng Office is a mature software platform, with literally hundreds of incremental releases over the past 7 years, and millions of users around the world.
As it is a highly customizable, business-operations solution, each Feng Office installation is unique, so helping your specific case will take some time and work from our team.
If you would like to talk with one of our expert Consultants or Developers to work with you, please get started with requesting a one-hour consulting session, detailing as clearly as possible your business case, here.
If you are having a technical difficulty with a Community Edition installation you can open a support request ticket here if you have an Official Support Contract with Feng Office, or contract a support plan here if you don’t have one.
If your Feng Office installation is not large enough to justify contracting our annual support plan, you should consider setting up a Feng Sky account where you will have a complete solution including hosting, maintenance, support, access to additional features, and backups without any hassle.
If you don’t know if your Feng Office installation has a support Contract in place, this section addresses the question of whether or not your organization has a support contract with Feng Office. Of course you can always go through the Feng Office online documentation first for self-service support, where information and answers to the most frequent questions are documented and publicly available.
► How do I know if my Feng Office installation has a support contract with Feng Office?
Did you install your Feng Office installation, or know who installed it?
I don’t know who installed my Feng Office
If you didn’t install your Feng Office and don’t know who installed your Feng Office either, you are welcome to contact us through this form. Our support team will ask you some relevant questions and guide you through the best process for you to get support.
I didn’t install our Feng Office, but I know who installed Feng Office
If you know the person who installed your Feng Office, ask them how they installed the system and read the section below.
I installed my Feng Office
If you installed your Feng Office, did you:
1. Use an automatic installation service provided by your hosting company?
2. Download the free Community Edition from the Feng Office Website or Sourceforge?
3. Purchase a supported Edition on the Feng Office Website?
Unless explicitly stated otherwise by your hosting company, Options 1 and 2 do not provide personalized support from the Feng Office team, as those are unsupported, free-downloaded Community Edition installations.
When you install a Community Edition without contracting a support plan, Feng Office is not responsible in any way for the support of that installation.
If you are using your Feng Office for important business operations in your organization, we highly recommend that you contract official support with Feng Office. You can contract support for your Feng Office installation here.
If you are still uncertain whether or not your Feng Office installation has a support plan with us, please contact us through this form. Our support team will help you determine the support status of your installation and guide you through the best process for you to get support.
► But I am helping you! I am reporting a bug to you. You have to help me now!
We appreciate bug reports. And we try to resolve bugs as soon as possible. However, please understand that in order to build the product the developers and the support team should focus on either fixing general bugs, or providing support to paid customers (the ones that make Feng Office possible), such as we have explained in earlier FAQs in this section.
Bug reports for the Community Edition are managed through the public issue tracker, here, and we also appreciate if you could try reproducing the very same issue in our free trials. If you cannot reproduce the issue there, experience has shown us that chances are it is a misconfiguration on your installation, in which case we would suggest contracting a subscription plan to have it solved fast. If the issue is not urgent to you, your installation is not for critical operations, or you want to solve the issue yourself, you may look for further information in our Wiki or in the Forums.
It is not responsible for the health of the project to provide free-personalized support as this would lead to lack of financial support for our team members. If they can't make a living working on the project they would need to look for other jobs and therefore abandoning and dooming Feng Office, and neither would it be fair for those who do pay for this service.
Thank you for your understanding!