Prioritizer

For the next several weeks, we'll describe some unique features of JobOrder. Users can manage their time with Scheduled Time Slips and can enter Completed Time Slips in many ways.

In some organizations, tasks are performed sequentially, organized by importance. The Prioritizer allows you to organize tasks by importance and is used when the date due of a task is of secondary importance.

Prioritizer allows JobOrder users to define elegantly and simply the tasks to be performed by their Staff. The Prioritizer displays a dialog allowing you to display open Activities in open Jobs filtered by Jobs, Programs, Clients, Job Managers, or Resources.

The ‘Selected Activities’ area contains the following filtered columns:

Job Name or Job ID (depending upon what is selected as primary in Personal Preferences)
Phase
Activity Description
Access (“Full” or Team Name or Screen Name of Resource)
Scheduled Start Date
Due Date
Actual Start Date
Hours Budget
Hours Completed
Hours Scheduled
Hours Not Used
Revenue Budget (If Financial Access is enabled in Security Access)
Revenue Accumulated (If Financial Access is enabled in Security Access)
Revenue Balance (If Financial Access is enabled in Security Access)
Cost Budget (If Resource Financial Access is enabled in Security Access)
Cost Actual (If Resource Financial Access is enabled in Security Access)
Cost Balance (If Financial Access is enabled in Security Access)

In 'Selected Activities’ area, you can double-click on:

Job Name to edit Job
Phase Name to edit Phase
Activity Description to edit Activity
Access to edit Team, if it is a Team, otherwise Beep

Selecting an Activity in ‘Selected Activities’ populates the ‘Resources in Selected Activity’ area. The ‘Resources in Selected Activity’ area contains all Resources with access to the selected Activity.

You can click on the ‘Select’ column of a Resource row or use the ‘Quick Select’ popup to choose the Resources for which you will create Priorities for this Activity.

The ‘Quick Select’ popup allows you to select Resources by:

All Active Staff
Resources for Team…
Resources for Supervisor…

Clicking the ‘Create Priorities’ button brings up a dialog to define the new Priorities to be created. In the dialog you will create new Priorities, one for each selected Resource.

Clicking the ‘Create Priorities’ button brings up a dialog to define the new Priorities to be created. In the dialog you will create new Priorities, one for each selected Resource. JobOrder fills in the most appropriate defaults.

Permission to create Priorities for a specific Resource is granted to the Resource themselves, the Resource they report to, and the Job Manager of the Job containing the Priority. All Permissions are, of course, contingent upon appropriate Security Access.

Work Status radio buttons:

First button: Only one Resource can work on this item.

If one person clicks on this item in the Daily Log, the identical Priority will be deleted from the other Resources.

Second button: Multiple people can work on this item.

Each time a Resource opens this Priority, a comment will be added to Time Slip Details with their name and time. If a Resource enters a Completed Time slip or a partially completed Time slip for this item, another comment will be added to each related Time slip.

Second button: Multiple people can work on this item.

Each time a Resource opens this Priority, a comment will be added to Priority Details with their name and time.

If a Resource enters a Completed Time slip or a Scheduled Time slip for this Priority, another comment will be added to each related Priority.

Check box for ‘Complete related Priority’ when Completion = 100%.

We added 2 areas for ‘Priorities for...’.

Each area contains a popup with every person with Time slip Access in the selected Activity.
Each area contains the following columns:
Activity Description
Time slip Details
Phase
Job
% Completed
Date Completed
Priority Number

When creating Priorities, if the first ‘Priorities for...’ area is empty, the first Resource populates the first area.

When creating Priorities, if the second ‘Priorities for...’ area is empty, the second Resource populates the second area.

If the ‘Priorities for...’ areas already have Resources, JobOrder will refresh them automatically when creating new Priorities.

Additional selected Resources will not change the 'Priorities for' areas automatically. They will have to be selected individually via the popups.

We allow the user to drag a Priority slip higher or lower in one area, or from one area to another to switch Resources.

Double click on a Priority to edit a Priority record. The editing form will display a subform with all the Time Slips linked to the Priority being edited. In this Priority record, clicking on the "Delink" button next to the Time subform will 'delink' the Priority from the Time slip. We have added a button named 'Delink' instead of '-' in order to be specific that the Time slip is not being deleted, just being disassociated with this Priority.

In a Priority record, we have added the ability to attach files, just like Documentation.

In 'Priorities for' we added a mechanism to place Priorities ‘On Hold’. A check box for ‘On Hold’ allows you to show only Active Priorities or all Priorities. ‘On Hold’ is separate from the "-" button. You can place a Priority On Hold whether or not it has linked Time slips. Priorities can be linked to either Completed or Scheduled Time slips.

Each of the two 'Priorities for' areas has a ‘Done’ popup, showing how many days of ‘Done’ items to display:

Today
2 days
3 days
7 days
14 days
This month (beginning from the first day of the current month)
Last month (beginning from the first day of the previous month)
This year (beginning from the first day of the current year)
Last year (beginning from the first day of the previous year)
Show All
Hide All (default)

Each of the two 'Priorities for' areas has a ‘To Do’ popup showing how many open Priority items to display.

10 (default)
25
50
100
All

'Lowest priority' always means the lowest priority of the _displayed_ Priority Time slips. The average person may have hundreds of Priority Time slips, but they only work on the ones they are looking at, selected with the 'Active' query for 1, 10, 25, or whatever number of items.

The Active items will be displayed with consecutive numbers as 1,2,3,4, etc.

In 'Priorities for' we have added a popup for 'Filter Priorities by' with a popup for:

All (default)
Past Desired Date
Past Required Date
Desired this Week
Required this Week
Resolved this Week
Changed this Week
Priorities for selected Activity
Priorities for selected Phase
Priorities for selected Job

Priorities for selected Client (if these are selected, we keep them in the original order, so they may be displayed as 1,4,12,26, etc.)

We have added an additional element to all the Resource popups and lists called "Unassigned", with a Resource Number of 0.

This keeps this ‘Unassigned’ Resource separate from specific resource queries, and allows us to easily see the Priorities which are not attached to a Resource. No real Time Slips can be attached to these Unassigned Priorities.

On the Prioritizer dialog, we added a button for 'Instant Activity'. After an Activity has been added, the Prioritizer is refreshed.

Tabs in Prioritizer

Tabs are labeled:

Add
Arrange
Edit Details

The ‘Arrange’ tab shows the Priorities for 2 selected Resources, allowing you to drag between the two.

The ‘Edit Details’ tab shows the Priorities for one selected Resource and a text block containing the Priority Details for the selected Priority, similar to Instant Traffic Status.

Daily Log

In Daily Log, both Time slips and Priorities will be displayed as separate areas.

When selecting a Priority, we display a new dialog, similar to the existing Scheduled Time slip dialog. You can enter the actual hours (or actual start-stop time). JobOrder will create a new Time slip and will update the existing Priority with the Completion %.

In Daily Log, we allow completed Priorities to be used again to create new Time slips, just by clicking on them.

When a Time slip is created from a Priority, JobOrder looks at the Work Status radio buttons and takes the appropriate actions:

If “Only one Resource can work on this item’ is enabled:

If one person clicks on this item in the Daily Log, the identical Priority records will be deleted from the other Resources.

If “ Multiple people can work on this item” is enabled:

Second button: Multiple people can work on this item.

Each time a Resource opens this Priority, a comment will be added to Priority Details with their name and time.

If a Resource enters a Completed Time slip or a Scheduled Time slip for this Priority, another comment will be added to each related Priority.

If the field “Complete related Priority’ is enable, when Completion = 100%” all other related Priority Items are marked complete.

Notification Rules

In Notification Rules, we have added new rules for:

Priority has been added
Priority has been changed
Priority has been completed (important for Contacts at Clients, in addition to regular Resources)
Priority has changed from Active to On Hold or from On Hold to Active.
Priority Required Date due in less than xx days
Priority Desired Date due in less than xx days.

Please email if any of this information needs additional clarification.

Victor Siegle

JobOrder enhances productivity.

New features in JobOrder 2009 (continued from July 13, 2009)

To experiment with JobOrder, please download a JobOrder 2009 demo from:

ftp://ftp.JobOrder.com/Public/demo.

Download the ‘.dmg’ for Macintosh OS X or the ‘.exe’ for Windows XP or Windows Vista.

JobOrder contains almost endless features customized for some specific customer, noticed by other customers, and then generalized and expanded to solve more business process problems. In the next several blogs, I’ll describe some of these impressive features, including:

Activity Allocation
Accounting Reports
Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable Reports
Asset Tracking
Available Hours
Bank Reconciliation
Billing Worksheet Report
Cash Flash
Contacts
Credit Card Distribution
Daily Log
Date Shortcuts
Digital Assets
Direct Time Entry
Documentation
Estimate Approval
Expense forms
Expenses
Form Positions
FreeForm
Help System
Holiday Leave Request Power Tool
Impressions and Meter Reading Report
Instant Activity
Inventory Waste Report
Invoice Analysis Report
Job Shop Summary Reports
Job Status Reports
Job Summary Reports
Jobs
Job, Estimates, and Template Overview
Job ‘Reset’ Scheduled Start Date and Due Date
Leave Request Manager
List views of areas
Literature Request Manager
Manual Entry of Purchase Tax on Units Expense Details
Meeting Planner
Message Center
Meter Readings
Notification Rules
Parent Organizations
Payment History View
Personal Preferences
Programs
Purchase Order Line Analysis Report
Purchase Orders
Purchase Orders not required
Recalculation Manager
Referral Report
Resource Rate Evaluation
Resource Usage Report
ScoreBoard
Security Access
SkillFinder
Simple Direct Time Entry
Simple Jobs and Simple Estimates
Simple Profit and Loss Report
SmartScheduler Allocation
Spell Checking
Statement of Work Calendar
Storage
System Preferences
Terminology
TimeBlocks
Time Slip Journal
Total Hours Report
Traffic Status
Utilization Budgets
Vendor Invoice Payment Analysis
Work Centers
Work Center Subsidiary Report

A wide range of small to midsize project-oriented organizations, including ad agencies, architects, consulting companies, design firms, engineering firms, and job shops run their businesses on JobOrder. Finding PRACTICAL solutions to their business problems is their never-ending goal.

Please email if any of this information needs additional clarification.

Victor Siegle

JobOrder is practical.

New features in JobOrder 2009

To experiment with JobOrder, please download a JobOrder 2009 demo from:

ftp://ftp.JobOrder.com/Public/demo/

Download the ‘.dmg’ for Macintosh OS X or the ‘.exe’ for Windows XP or Windows Vista.

JobOrder 2009 includes a new visual interface, designed to coordinate with Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”) and Windows Vista.

The Navigator (formerly called the “Main Palette”), the List view, the Record view, and the Road Maps are more colorful and will brighten up your workday.

At the top right of the Navigator, a new Search box allows you to search AREAS, HISTORY, POWER TOOLS, and REPORTS. Type all or part of the item for which you are searching and press 'return' or 'enter'. For example, you can find every function in JobOrder related to Time Slips by typing ‘Time’ in the Search box.

On the left side of the Navigator, we have added a 'Finder' mechanism, containing 'HOME', 'AREAS', 'POWER TOOLS', 'REPORTS', UTILITIES' (if you have Database Administrator security access), and 'HISTORY'.

'HOME' displays the 16 main icons and the Search box.

'TOPICS' has two major options: 'System Topics' displays all the AREAS, POWER TOOLS, REPORTS, and UTILITIES in JobOrder, organized by the main categories of Accounting, Administration, Buy & Sell, Plan, and Track.

'User Topics' allow you to create your own categories and to add any AREAS, POWER TOOLS, or REPORTS, organized as you choose. Use the 'Add Topic', 'Delete Topic', 'Add Item', and 'Delete Item' buttons to manage 'User Topics.

'AREAS' contains all the AREAS in JobOrder to which you have access, organized by an 'A – Z' Rolodex at the top of the page.

'POWER TOOLS' contains all the POWER TOOLS in JobOrder to which you have access, organized by an 'A – Z' Rolodex at the top of the page.

'REPORTS' contains all the REPORTS in JobOrder to which you have access, organized by an 'A – Z' Rolodex at the top of the page.

'UTILITIES' contains all the UTILITIES in JobOrder to which you have access, organized by an 'A – Z' Rolodex at the top of the page.

'HISTORY' contains the last 25 records you have accessed in JobOrder AREAS, organized by an 'A – Z' Rolodex at the top of the page.

PLEASE NOTE CAREFULLY: You can use drag and drop to create subcategories with favorite items under 'AREAS', 'POWER TOOLS', 'REPORTS', UTILITIES', and 'HISTORY'.

For example, if you want to have 'Media Rates' always appear under AREAS, you can click on AREAS, click 'M', click on 'Media Rates', and then drag it back to the word 'AREAS'. By single-clicking on the triangle at the left of the word 'AREAS', you can expand or collapse all the items that have been dragged as favorites.

This same drag and drop principle also works for 'POWER TOOLS', 'REPORTS', UTILITIES', and 'HISTORY'.

Please email if any of this information needs additional clarification.

Victor Siegle

JobOrder 2009 is now available!

JobOrder solves business process problems for project-based service businesses. With a consistent, easy-to-learn interface, JobOrder stores all of your project information in one place, eliminating endless double entry, and gives you analytical tools to solve problems you thought were impossible.

There is one simple and unique secret to our success. For most businesses in our target markets, JobOrder’s existing code will solve 95% of your problems. But that’s not good enough. We’ve learned that creative service businesses always have unique skills and processes that distinguish them from their competition; otherwise they have no reason to exist. But if you have unique skills and processes, it’s CERTAIN that canned software will not help you automate your processes; by definition, what you do that’s special is UNIQUE.

JobOrder’s programmers will LISTEN to you, understand how your UNIQUE processes work, and modify our software to meet your SPECIFIC requirements. We build your processes into our code base so that you NEVER have to pay for integrating your custom changes into JobOrder upgrades.

Customizing JobOrder to meet your specific requirements is the best of all possible worlds; you can take advantage of millions of dollars of existing “best practices” software code, pay once for the customization to include your UNIQUE features and then keep your amazing software a secret from your competitors.

Because JobOrder’s operating principles are so straightforward, your staff can learn the basics of JobOrder in a couple of days of training. When you want to move on to more advanced concepts, you’ll discover that the operating principles are the same as the basic concepts; that makes learning new concepts a straightforward matter of understanding where we store the information and the terminology we use to describe it.

Victor Siegle

JobOrder is comprehensive.
JobOrder is practical.
JobOrder enhances productivity.
JobOrder is simple.
JobOrder is powerful.
JobOrder is automated.
JobOrder is ingenious.
JobOrder is organized.