Available Hours

The powerful scheduling features in JobOrder allow you to schedule staff, rooms, and equipment linked to activities in Jobs.

To track resource availability and utilization and to help with scheduling, JobOrder needs to know when each of your resources is available. This information is stored in the Available Hours Area, one record for each combination of resource and date. You can manually change a resource's availability by adding or editing records in this Area. Usually you will use JobOrder to generate most of these records automatically using an administrative function.

Whenever you add a new Resource, you specify the days and hours it is typically available on the Hours page of the Resource record. The defaults are stored in a special Resource record created by JobOrder called Working Days Standard. You can change the default working hours by editing this record.

You should specify any days your organization does not work by creating records in the Holidays area, one record for each ordinary workday that most everyone in your organization will not be working. If there are a few people who will be working on a certain holiday, you can manually add Available Hours records for them.

Adding Available Hours for a Year
Before each year begins, you should have JobOrder create Available Hours records for all your resources. You can create Available Hours records for many years at once if you like, but we suggest doing only one year at a time. If your fiscal year matches the calendar year, you can do it at the same time as you close out accounting.

NOTE: Adding Available Hours for all your Resources can take a long time if you have a lot of Resources. We recommend starting the process at the end of a workday and letting it run overnight in this case.

You should also add Available Hours records for each new resource you add to JobOrder. This is most easily accomplished by clicking Add Hours on the Hours page of the Resource record, but can also be done using this procedure.

To add Available Hours records for a year:
  1 Bring JobOrder's main palette to the front.
  2 Choose Holidays from the Administration menu to open the Holidays Area. Add a record for each ordinary workday that most everyone in your organization will not be working.
Holidays are for exceptions: days you would normally expect to be working, but won't be. "Normal working days" are defined in the Hours page of each Resource record. If none of your Resources are marked as being available on weekends, for example, it is not necessary to define each weekend as a Holiday.
  3 Close the Holidays Area. At the main palette, choose 'Add Available Hours for Year' from the Administration menu.
  4 Choose to add 'Available Hours records for all Resources'.
You may also choose to add Available Hours for one Resource, or for all Resources in a particular Department. If you are not adding Available Hours for all Resources, click Choose Resource or Choose Department as appropriate to choose the Resource or Department for which you want to create Available Hours records.
  5 Enter the year for which you wish to add Available Hours.
  6 Click Add Available Hours.
JobOrder begins creating the Available Hours records for the specified resources for the specified year. Any existing Available Hours records for those resources in that year are deleted first.
  7 If there are any exceptions (for example, people who will be working on holidays), open the Available Hours Area and edit or add records to handle them

Notification Rules

In most Organizations, management constantly worries about deadlines and budgets 'slipping through the cracks'. JobOrder offers a consistent, automated feature called 'Notification Rules' to watch for all important deadlines and budget problems, and many other items, to make sure that they are not ignored or missed.

Notification Rules tell JobOrder to notify certain individuals or groups whenever certain conditions are met, allowing you to inform staff members of important milestones, events, and problems related to Jobs. For example, you may want the entire Job Team to be notified whenever a Job is complete or want the company president to be notified whenever any Job goes more than 20% over its budget. And that’s just the beginning.

There are dozens of specific types of Notification Rules. JobOrder divides them into five broad categories:

Deadline:  A deadline is nearing or has passed.

Amounts:  Excessive costs, insufficient profit margin, etc.

Hours:  Excessive time spent on an Activity, Job, etc.

Leave:  Staff leave request has been approved or rejected.

Workflow:  A Job or one of its components has been changed.

When creating a new Notification Rule, JobOrder first asks you to choose what kind of rule you are adding. You can select a broad category of rule using the pop-up menu above the list, or select All Types. Then double-click the specific kind of rule in the list to display the Notification Rules form.

Notification Rules has two pages, Resources to Notify and Rule Details. The Resources to Notify page is the same for all types of Notification Rules. The Rule Details page varies slightly for each kind of rule.

Resources to Notify

On this page, you can choose who should be notified when the rule is triggered, and also specify comments about the Rule.

Rule Details

On this page, you can specify the values that trigger the rule. For example, for a Deadline rule, you can specify that the rule should trigger when it is within a certain number of days of the deadline. For other kinds of rules, you can often specify that the rule triggers when a certain absolute threshold is exceeded or when a ratio (of, for example, actual to budgeted amount) is exceeded. You can also choose to trigger the record any time its constraints are reached, or to apply it only to one particular record (Activity, Material, Job, etc.).

Billing Rules

Organizations often have a problem with making sure that Invoices are generated appropriately and on-time. JobOrder has a mechanism called 'Billing Rules' to automate the generation of Invoices. Invoices will not fall through the cracks when Billing Rules are enabled.

Billing Rules govern the automatic creation of Invoices. You can define Billing Rules in Templates, Estimates, or Jobs. You can print the generated Pro Forma Invoices in the Reports Navigator (go to the Billing category, then choose Print Invoice)—you'll find a checkbox for printing only the Invoices generated by Billing Rules.

You can choose to have Invoices automatically generated:
n at the beginning, completion, or closing of a Job
n at the completion of a Phase or Activity
n when an Expense Detail exceeding a particular dollar amount is entered
When the Billing Rule is triggered, you can bill the total unbilled amount, or a specified dollar amount or percentage.
You can also choose to have the Invoices generated immediately, or a day or more after the rule is triggered.

Billing Rules created in one area will be copied to another when appropriate. For example, copying a Template to a Job will copy the Billing Rules in the selected Template to the Job.

Billing Rules have the following options:

Amount to bill:
Dollar amount to bill
Or
Percentage to bill
Or
Bill entire remaining unbilled amount

Billing is triggered by:
Initiation of the Job (signing of the contract)
Or
Completion of the Job
Or
Closing of the Job
Or
Completion of a specific Activity in the Job


When to bill:
Immediately
Or
Xxxx Days after the Billing has been triggered


Billing Rules in Jobs will generate the following Invoices.

Amount to bill:

1. ‘Dollar amount to bill’ generates a ‘Prebill’ Fixed Charge for the amount specified. The Work Center will be the Work Center defined in System Preferences: Invoices: Work Center for Billing Rules.

2. ‘Percentage to bill’ will generate a ‘Prebill’ Fixed Charge for the amount calculated. The Work Center will be the Work Center defined in System Preferences: Invoices: Work Center for Billing Rules; or

3. ‘Bill entire remaining unbilled amount’ does the following:

For ‘Bill by Budget Fees’, it bills all unbilled Activities.

For ‘Bill by Actual Fees’, it bills all unbilled Time slips.

For ‘Bill by Budget Expenses’, it bills all unbilled Expenses.

For ‘Bill by Actual Expenses, it bills all unbilled Expense Details.

It then generates Applied Prebills for all Prebills generated by previous Billing Rules for this Job.

Documentation with Multiple Approvals in Jobs

    Managing the approval of documents by multiple users can be a difficult task. JobOrder offers a powerful business process to handle document approvals. Here is an outline of the steps to do this.

1. Set email preferences

Go to System Preferences - Email Sending & Receiving.

a. In order to send and receive emails in JobOrder, you need to check the boxes “Start Email Sending Services” and “Start Email Receiving Services”, as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1


b. Next, click the “Edit Email Account Settings” button to display the Email Account settings dialog so you can define the email accounts to be used for sending and receiving (see figure 2)

Figure 2


c. The top section, Outbound email settings, is for filling out the information for your SMTP server, used for sending emails out of JobOrder.
     i. From Address – this is the email address JobOrder will use to send its emails


     ii. Account ID – this is the account name JobOrder will use to log onto the SMTP server, generally matching the first part of the ‘From Address’


     iii. Server – this is the address of your SMTP server. It can be in DNS format (ie ‘mail.myhost.com’) or in TCP/IP address format (ie 192.168.1.200)


     iv. Password – this is the password for the SMTP server account


     v. Email attachment limit – many email servers impose a limit on how large an email can be. This size limit includes both the body of the email, all headers, and any attachments included with the email. This needs to be set in order to help reduce the number of failed emails that JobOrder attempts to send because the attachments are too large.


     vi. SMTP Server requires authentication – this is a special setting that may or may not be required by your mail server. Ask your email administrator if you’re unsure.


     vii. Send Test Email -   use this button to test the settings you’ve entered by sending an email to someone (generally yourself so you can check it immediately)


d. The bottom section, Inbound email settings, is for the email address used by JobOrder to receive emails for automatic processes. This should be an email dedicated to this purpose so that email replies don’t get lost.
     i. Reply-to Address – this is the address to which email replies will be sent. This can sometimes be different from the actual account id used for retrieving your email.


     ii. Account ID – this is the account name used to log onto the specified POP or IMAP server for downloading emails.


     iii. Server – this is the DNS name or TCP/IP address of the POP or IMAP server being used to receive messages.


     iv. Password – this is the password for the account.


     v. Protocol – this is the email receiving protocol to be used for downloading messages. POP, or Post Office Protocol, is designed to dowload messages and delete them after downloading. IMAP, or Internet Message Access Protocol, is designed to leave the messages on the server to allow access from multiple locations.
         1. See http://www.emailaddressmanager.com/tips/protocol.html for a good description of the differences between IMAP and POP.


     vi. TCP Port – this is the port used to communicate with the IMAP or POP server. When choosing the Protocol above, the default port for that protocol will be set here. In exceptional cases, non-standard TCP ports are used by mail servers as an extra security measure.


     vii. Test Login – click this button to try logging into the email account specified by the above settings. JobOrder will simply attempt to connect to the server and log out without actually downloading any messages.


2. Set Documentation handling preferences 

Figure 3


Go to System Preferences - Documentation (see figure 3)
a. If multiple people need to approve a particular piece of Documentation in order for it to be considered approved, select “Approvals are by Workgroup”.


      1. If selected, the Approvals tab in Documentation will have a list of the approvers with appropriate controls for adding them from Vendor Contacts, Organization Contacts, and Staff Resources for Internal Approval.


     2. If not selected, the Approvals tab in Documentation will have sections for choosing a single Vendor Contact, a single Organization Contact, or a single Staff Resource for Internal approval.


b. Choose the path to the folder where all Attachments are to be stored.
     i. When running in a Client/Server environment, you will be navigating the disk drive(s) attached to the SERVER, not the CLIENT machine on which you are currently operating.
         1. The SERVER handles the storage and all future access to the Attachments.


         2. If a network volume is to be used, it needs to be accessible to the SERVER, not all the individual CLIENT machines connecting to the server.


     ii. Keep in mind that these Attachments are also used in other areas such as Contracts, Emails, Email Requests, Invoices, Requisitions, Resources, Priorities, and Estimates. JobOrder organizes each of the types of Attachments based on the area name, and then the internal sequence number within that area.
        1. In other words, all Attachments for Estimate #7392 will be stored in a folder hierarchy as follows
             a. Attachments - Estimates - 7392
             b. In order to avoid potential file name conflicts, all files are stored in the folder using a date/time stamp. JobOrder handles the translation automatically.


c. Set the Letters to be used for the emails being sent out
     i. Approval Request Letter – this is the letter in the Letters area which is used as the body of the email sent to the approver (or list of Approvers when using Workgroups)
         1. In order to be used as an Approval Request Letter to which a reply can be sent to JobOrder and properly processed, the body of the Letter must contain one or more of the following lines
              a. [  ] Approved
                  i. Place an X (case does not matter) between the brackets in order to “Approve” the files attached to the email.


                  ii. Note that the line in the Letter must have a single space between the “]” and the word “Approved” in order to work properly. Any extra words after “Approved” are ignored.


                 iii. File attachments may be returned with the reply email sent back to JobOrder.


              b. [  ] Approved with changes
                 i. Place an X (case does not matter) between the brackets in order to “Approve with Changes” the files attached to the email.
                      1. This item is intended to specify that changes have been made to any files returned with the reply.


                 ii. Note that the line in the Letter must have a single space between the “]” and the phrase “Approved with Changes” in order to work properly. Any extra words after “Approved with Changes” are ignored.


                 iii. File attachments may be returned with the reply email sent back to JobOrder.


           c.  [  ] Rejected
                i. Place an X (case does not matter) between the brackets in order to “Reject” the files attached to the email. 


                ii. Note that the line in the Letter must have a single space between the “]” and the phrase “Approved with Changes” in order to work properly. Any extra words after “Approved with Changes” are ignored.


               iii. File attachments may be returned with the reply email sent back to JobOrder.




2. Text just before comments – this is a specific phrase contained in the Approval Request Letter which is used to show where freeform comments may be entered in the reply to the email.
          a. Comments may also be simply entered at the beginning of  the email reply. Specific phrases automatically inserted by common email applications (Outlook, Outlook Express, Mail.app, Eudora, Entourage) are used to find the end of the comments at the top of the email reply


3. Text just after end of comments – this is a specific phrase in the Approval Request Letter which is used to mark the end of the freeform comments area.
           a. It should be located AFTER the ‘Text just before comments”. If not found after the ‘Text just before comments”, the comments will end up being ignored.


ii. Confirmation Letter – this is a Letter sent in response to a received Approval Request email to let the approver/rejecter know that the email was received.
         1. Leave this blank if you do not want to send out these confirmations. Depending on the amount of emails going in and out of JobOrder, sending this email can become an annoyance to the Approvers.


iii. CC: Recipient Letter – this is a Letter that gets sent to any people included in the CC: list of a Documentation letter.
         1. This Letter should not contain the lines for approving or rejecting the Documentation. The CC: recipients are meant to be people who receive the attachments as an FYI type of courtesy.


3. Check Security Access for Jobs
         a. Check your Security Access records to be sure that the Documentation page in Jobs (see figure 4) allows the Documentation page to be seen either in the list of Related Areas or, preferably, as a tab on the Jobs page.

Figure 4


4. Add desired Notification Rules
     a. The following Notification Rules are available for assisting in the Documentation workflow
           i. Job Documentation has been approved or rejected for…
                 1. This rule creates a message for the JobOrder Message Center to let specified Resources know when an Approval or Rejection email reply has been received and processed by JobOrder.


                 2. Messages  created by this rule are also emailed to the specified Resources whose Personal Preferences specify to send Notifications as email.


            ii. Documentation Approval Reply Received after Completion…
                1. This rule creates a message for the JobOrder Message Center to let specified Resources know when an Approver has emailed a reply AFTER the Documentation record itself has been marked with a Completion Date


               2. Messages  created by this rule are also emailed to the specified Resources whose Personal Preferences specify to send Notifications as email.


5. Add Documentation Records to Jobs
       a. Modify a Job and switch to the Documentation tab (or Related Areas tab with Documentation selected). See Figure 5.

 Figure 5


i. The list in Figure 5 shows
     1. Documentation records sent out to the Approver(s) in black text.


      2. Documentation Approval Requests returned by Approvers in Magenta text if the reply contained attachments.
          a. The name of the Documentation Item is the root of the original that was emailed out with the name of the Approver appended for easy grouping.


          b. These records differ from the originals in that they do not allow for approval requests. They are there for storage and historical trail.


3. Create Next Revision
         a. Use this button to duplicate the Documentation record currently selected in the list, adding an appropriate revision number to show that it’s based on the record being duplicated.


4. Create a Document for each Activity
         a. Use this button to automatically create a Documentation record for each Activity in the Job Overview. Revision number 1.00 is automatically added to signify it’s the first revision of the Documentation associated with the Activity.


5. Clear all
         a. Deletes all the Documentation records, their Attachments, and Documentation Approvals


ii. Add a Documentation Record

      
      Figure 6


1. In Figure 6, we see that the General Information for a Documentation Record
      a. Item
         i. the descriptive name of the Documentation


      b. Job Name
         i. the name of the Job to which the Document is associated. This is for information only here.


     c. Description and Location
         i. notes on where the physical Document is located, if it is not in the list of Attachments.


     d. Comments
         i. Freeform comments regarding the Document.


     e. Activity to complete automatically after Approval
         i. If this Document is associated with an Activity, this field specifies the next Activity which is marked as complete if this Documentation is approved.


        ii. If this Activity has a Simple Dependency, the Dependent Activity will be automatically set to start on the same date as the Activity being marked as Completed. The entire Dependency chain will be traversed and updated accordingly.


     f. Activity to start automatically after Approval
         i. If this Document is Approved, you can specify an Activity whose Scheduled Start date will be set to the date of the Approval.


         ii. If Simple Dependencies are specified for the Activities, DO NOT USE THIS FIELD. Simply setting the “Activity to complete automatically after Approval” will take care of this


      g. Scheduled Creation
          i. This is the date you expect the Documentation record to be created
         ii. Mostly important when the Documentation records are tied to actual Activities in the Job Overview (the Item name matches the Activity name)


     h. Scheduled Completion
         i. Used to show the expected completion date on calendars and timelines so that the workflow can be more easily managed.


         ii. Matches the Activity Scheduled Completion date where applicable.


     i. Actual Creation
         i. Used when Routings are involved. Currently inactive.


     j. Actual Completion
         i. The date the Document is completed and no longer used.


     k. Attachments
         i. Add Folder
            1. Used to add all the files in a selected folder on your hard drive (or any mounted network volumes)


         ii. Launch selected Attachment
            1. Downloads the attachment from the server and tells your computer to open it. This requires the computer to recognize the file creator or extension automatically.
               a. When attached from a MacOS computer, the file creator and file type are stored in fields of the Attachment record in order to aid in this.


               b. When attached from a Windows computer, the extension of the file name is used. The Windows registry of the computer launching the file would need to know how to handle the document based on its extension.


              c. If a MacOS computer is opening a file attached by a Windows computer, the extension may or may not be recognized and handled automatically. Likewise when opening a file Windows that was attached by a MacOS computer. 


2. Documentation Approvals by Workgroup. See Figure 7.
     a. Select a Letter for ‘Approval Request’
         i. Allows you to choose a Letter to be used for this Documentation Approval Request.


         ii. The selected Letter overrides any Letter currently set in System Preferences - Documentation.


         iii. Leave this blank to use the one in System Preferences




     b. Approvals
         i. This is a list of people who will be sent emails requesting their Approval or Rejection
            1. Mail merges the Letter specified above or the one in System Preferences
         ii. Add Approvers using controls along the right of the list


        c. Add Approvers
            i. Use the controls to add whole workgroups of Contacts, or individual Staff members or Contacts.
              1. Only those Staff Resources and Contacts with email addresses can be added.


          ii. Choose Staff
             1. Choose a Resource of type Staff to be added to the list of Approvers


          iii. Add Workgroup Members
             1. Presents a dialog of all Keywords used in the Contacts area which begin with the word “Workgroup”
                a. Choose a Workgroup from this list to get a list of all Contacts (from both Vendors and Organizations) which use the selected Keyword


               b. Accept the list of  Contacts to have them added to the list of Approvers


               c. Cancel the list of Contacts to return to the list of Workgroup keywords and select a different Workgroup.
                  i. This loop can be repeated as many times as necessary to get to the correct Workgroup


            2. Choose by Organization
                  a. Select an Organization (by name or id depending on System Preferences) to get a list of Contacts at that Organization


                 b. Then select the Contact at that Organization to add him/her to the list of Approvers


           3. Choose by Vendor
                a. Select a Vendor (by name or id depending on System Preferences) to get a list of Contacts at that Vendor


                b. Then select the Contact at that Vendor to add him/her to the list of Approvers


     d. Email Request
          i. Sends the approval request emails to the list of Approvers
          ii. Marks the “Request Sent” date of each record
              1. As each Approver replies to the email sent, the appropriate fields for “Request Returned” and “Approved On”  or “Rejected On” will be marked.
                   a. If attachments are returned with the reply, a new Documentation record is created to store the returned attachments. The name of this Documentation item will be that of the current Documentation record + the Approver’s name.
                       i. These Documentation records will not have an Approvals page


     e. Send to Submitter
          i. Send Selected Approval
               1. Select an Approval in this list and an email will be sent to the submitter indicated in the Job Record to show the submitter the status of that Approver’s reply


         ii. Send All Approvals
               1. The submitter gets a list of the Approvers showing the dates the request was sent, returned, approved, rejected, etc, as well as any attachments returned and any comments from the email.

      
      Figure 7
      
3. Documentation Approvals (by an Individual)
      a. To be documented in the future.


4. Archival Information

      
      Figure 8
        a. Storage Archive ID
           i. The storage identifying information used to locate the hard copy


        b. Storage Location
          i. Where the hard copy is located


        c. Storage Medium
          i. The type of medium on which the hard copy is stored


        d. Date to retain until
          i. Date when the hard copy can be destroyed


        e. Date destroyed
          i. Date the hard copy of the Documentation was destroyed


        f. Approval page displayed
          i. The type of Approval being used
              1. Workgroup
              2. Individual


        g. Created by
           i. The Resource who created the Documentation record


        h. Sequence #
          i. The JobOrder internal sequence number of the record

Project Management Complexities: Four Plus Four Equals Thirteen

A Sea of Project Management Complexity: Fuzzy Math

      Projects involving one or two people are pretty simple. In the case of a single person project, communication with others in the organization is less than likely. A two-person team has only two interactions. But adding a third person to the mix means complicating matters quite a bit.

      Teams with at least three members will eventually have to interact with each of the other two members, for a minimum total of six interactions. Now, as project teams dive into the planning stages, it is likely that the entire group participate in team meetings to communicate together. These meetings discuss execution of strategies, planning, development, and evaluation of results. This necessary group dynamic now increases the number of interactions to at least seven – six one-on-one interactions and one group meeting.

      Now, put four people in a project team, and there is a minimum of eight one-on-one interactions. Plus, there are four different ways three team members might need to communicate with other members, plus the interaction of the entire group – a total of thirteen ways to interact. Four plus four equals thirteen.

      And that’s just for starters. The reality is that projects probably involve many more than four people working on interrelated tasks all at one time. Interactions between team members are constant and take place on multiple occasions. This is necessary to ensure that everyone that is part of a team remain on the same page and is kept up-to-date with current date.

      Now, if distance and time is added to this scenario, the number of interactions can be overwhelming and regarded as “untrackable.” Throw in vendors, customers, and bosses – and the scenario becomes unbearably complicated.

      Given these numbers and scenarios, it is no wonder why many projects fail and tasks get overlooked or simply “fall through the cracks.” Tracking these interactions and activities is enough to make any project manager insanely busy. Luckily, there are ways to solve this problem while tracking it all through the use of technology, specifically, business productivity software.

      Business productivity software can solve many business communication and process problems throughout the organization. In fact, small to mid-size project-based organizations are more frequently seeking cross-platform business productivity software solutions at higher rates than ever before because of the many immediate and tangible benefits they offer. This is because business productivity software eliminates clerical inefficiencies, cuts administrative overhead, and enables project-oriented organizations to deliver work more reliably and manage changes.


Initial Questions: A Good First Step to Simplify Things

      Before implementing a software tool to streamline internal communications and alleviate the pressures of tracking activities, timelines, schedules, budgets, and related tasks, there a number of questions a project manager must ask:

* Who gets information from whom?
* Who needs information from someone else, but isn’t getting it in a timely manner because too many interactions are taking place at the same time?
* What kinds of interactions are taking place?
* When are these interactions taking place?
* What kinds of information would be useful to the team as a whole, but simply isn’t available because it would require too much time to gather?

   Answers to these questions are a critical first step, but it won’t solve the problem. There are other issues to worry about in regards to project team dynamics.

      Consider the complexity of the jobs project teams are assigned to complete. Factor in the myriad of tasks that must somehow come together into a single deliverable result to the inherent complexity of communications in an organization of reasonable size. It becomes clearly apparent that, while one team member perceives their jobs as being fairly simple, the jobs the entire organization does and the things that must happen in order for work to get done at all are anything but.

      Any organization larger than a handful of people is swimming in a sea of complexity. There is a synergy of activities taking place – while a team member is working on their task, another is working on their own, while yet another is talking to someone else of the team about a topic that’s related. Without a coherent, centralized system that keeps everyone in a team up to date on what’s going and on who’s doing what, the risk of incomplete tasks are increased. Multiply all these interactions, with the number of people in a team, and throw into the mixture some client changes, and soon, chaos abounds – that is, of course, without the right tool.


Business Productivity Software: A Calming Breeze

      The right business productivity tool is designed to help organizations cope with all that complexity. It provides not just the information a single person needs, but delivers the information everyone in the team and organization needs. Additionally, the tool has to be able to adapt to organizations, regardless of size, and must also be flexible enough to grow as the organization expands.

      It is natural to think that a tool designed to calm the storm is complex to use in itself. Logically this is true. And many tools out there are extremely complex. But the right tool is simple-to-use, straightforward, and uses concepts anyone in a team or organization can master in a few hours. Each piece works like every other piece of its type, and the pieces are connected to one another in a way that makes intuitive business sense.
    
      Furthermore, only the pieces essential to getting the job done need to be utilized. When selecting your tool, it is imperative that team members are not forced to use aspects of a tool, which will add work to their life and are not necessary for their jobs.

      The right tool allows one team member to focus on a piece of the package, while another can focus on another. Additionally, at anytime, in case it’s necessary to switch gears or tasks, the tool must enable any team member to easily learn those pieces needed to complete the work.

      An organization’s needs are certainly complex. Therefore, the right business productivity tool is complete, offers powerful automation of administrative tasks, flexible to meet the changing needs taking place in an organization, and adapts to be as complex or simple as work demands it, but no more. It should never be unnecessarily complex.


The Learning Process: Reveal What’s Beneath the Surface

      The process of learning how to manage interactions via the use of technology is also learning about the organizational process – what works, what needs to change, what should be implemented. Ideally, a business productivity tool, while moldable to fit the needs the needs of an organization, brings to light explicit concepts and interrelationships in the organization that were always there, but just beneath the surface.

      These hidden dynamics are not in the conscious of project team members during the planning phases. The process of learning how to use a business productivity tool should be one filled with enlightenment. Perhaps a new way of taking on a task is discovered. Essentially, the ideal business productivity tool will help project teams and individual members understand their own job better and to see how individual roles fit into your organization’s “big picture.”

     Please email if you have any questions.

     Victor Siegle

JobOrder 2010

We are working hard on the development of JobOrder 2010 and hope to have a beta release around January 1, 2010.

JobOrder 2010 will be based upon 4D v11 SQL Release 5, our programming language, certified for Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7 and for Macintosh OS X 10.5.8 and OS X 10.6.1.

4D v11 SQL Release 5 is a dramatic upgrade from 4D 2004.7, the programming language used for JobOrder 2009. For more information about 4D v11 SQL, please visit http://www.4d.com/us/products/11reasons.html

JobOrder 2010 will greatly facilitate the development of JobOrder 2010 Internet, JobOrder 2010 iPhone, and access to JobOrder via SQL report writers. JobOrder 2010 has many internal changes, including improvements to both speed and stability.

Our current plans are to release the shipping version of JobOrder 2010 in early 2010. We will keep you updated through this Blog.

Please email with any questions.

Victor Siegle

Going Beyond Project Management - Adapt to Change. Adopt Profitability.

Change: A Product of an Old Adage

Project-based organizations realize that customer-focused project management is far superior to product-centric project management. In other words, "the customer is always right". This famous adage that puts your customers’ wants and needs first has always been a motto for project managers. However, never has this saying been more critical to the success of project-based organizations than in the current, unyielding pace of business.

Project managers are faced with an unenviable challenge. Everyday, they are tasked to ensure that all facets of a project are working harmoniously for the common good – delivering a quality end product for the client in a timely manner and within budget. This involves managing schedules, budgets, people, and deadlines.
  
Being the primary contact point for clients, project managers understand that customers will only remain loyal when they get their needs met, fast. This still holds true even if the client decides to change a detail in a project that is already in progress. Worse, the client is still right even when making a change toward the end of the project or when certain phases are nearing completion.

Well-oiled, project-based organizations are synergistic in nature, meaning that a multitude of activities, ranging from creative development to accounting, occur all at the same time by different members of a team. When a client calls asking for a change, a wrench is thrown into the midst of the gears, which can cause a total breakdown of the project and risk its execution and completion.

But client-facing project managers learn from experience that saying ‘No’ to changes is just unacceptable to the majority of clients. Moreover, denying the client the ability to make changes portrays the organization as unprepared, uncooperative, or worse of all, incompetent. Therefore, in order to follow the mantra, “the customer is always right,” avoiding or disallowing changes in projects is not an option.

In today’s world, where ideas come and go at a rapid rate, there are many pressures. Enabling change for the purposes of meeting client needs is not only recommended, but also required. An organization that rejects change pushes prospects into the open arms of their competitors, who may also find flexibility a difficult challenge, but will do everything in their power to embrace it. This reality thrusts the project-oriented business into an environment where it is essential to adapt to changes in order to remain competitive and profitable.
       
To attain profitability, organizations must be able to effectively manage changes in projects, as well as key assets within the organization that are most likely to face the process of change – mainly people and knowledge. By establishing change processes and implementing business productivity software to manage and automate all underlying business tasks within the organization, project oriented organizations can be successful even in the midst of changes.


Implementing Change Control Processes

Left to its own devices, change will create a number of problems. Unmanaged change increases the potential of causing disruption to projects already in progress, which can result in a mediocre end product, missed deadlines and budgets, and ultimately contribute to the deterioration of the relationship with the client. This results in business and productivity losses affecting the bottom line and potential loss of the client.

Designed to consistently handle the inevitable changes that crop up from the shadows, an intelligent change control process, to handle any request that changes the specified project requirements, can help alleviate the pressures of meeting customer change demands. To work, it is necessary to integrate a change control process into the original project contract. This way, if a client needs to make a sudden change in the project, they would have to ask for it through a change request.

The control process should be designed so that good or necessary changes, which will improve the end product, get through, with appropriate adjustments to the cost and time. On the other end, the process also makes sure that the bad or inappropriate changes never get implemented into the project.


Making a Change

When a client submits a change request, immediately assess it to see if it's even worth investigating. During this process the organization, and not the client, needs to figure out how long it's going to take to analyze the impact of the change. After the investigation, compare the estimated benefits with the disadvantages. If the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages, then approve the change.

Remember, as a project-based organization whose goal is to make the customer happy, it is imperative that the interests of the customer take precedence over the desires of the organization. In the long term, a happy customer means more business.

Should the conclusion that a change request is more disadvantageous to the project than it is beneficial, consider working with the client to revise any areas of the change request to make it more feasible to accomplish.  However, always keep the original budget and schedule as outlined in the original contract in mind. Should the changes require additional money, it then may be a good idea to persuade the client to drop the change request.

Change request processes will differ from organization to organization. Nonetheless, creating a change process is necessary. Establishing the control process early on empowers project-oriented organizations to maintain control of the project. Plus, the organization is covered by the contract and the client gets what they want, but pays for it if necessary. Everybody’s happy.


Tools for the Job

Managing changes to projects within the organization requires knowing what information has changed, who made the changes, and when they were made. To address ever-changing business demands project-oriented organizations must implement an automated business management process which not only helps to manage changes to information throughout the organization, but also to manage all the underlying business processes that run an organization.
  
Small to mid-size project-based organizations can use technology to help in this endeavor. With the right tool, managing changes in projects effectively opens the door to improved customer satisfaction. The ideal solution offers a well-designed business productivity process that incorporates automation of tasks and priorities, flexible workflow, resource and user impact assessment, and an easy-to-use user interface.
  
Additionally, this tool ensures that changes taking place throughout the organization are communicated, reviewed, and learned in a timely manner, saving priceless time and keeping data up-to-date.


Business Productivity Software

Changes to projects are inevitable. Expect clients to make changes to their projects. The main challenge throughout the change process will be to match customer intent to the business intent of an organization while reducing the cost of servicing customers.

The key to achieving this is by establishing change processes, which clients will agree to, and implementing cross-platform, business productivity tools to automate the business process.

Small to mid-size project-based organizations are more frequently seeking cross-platform business productivity software solutions at higher rates than ever before because of the many immediate and tangible benefits they offer. Business productivity software eliminates clerical inefficiencies, cuts administrative overhead, and enables project-oriented organizations to deliver work more reliably and manage changes.
  
The ideal software should offer an easy-to-learn, multi-platform, multi-user management tool, which offers project-based organizations a full array of powerful tools to streamline and refine the entire business process – from the moment a prospective client calls to the moment the final invoice is sent.
  
Ideally, because everyone in the organization will use the tool, it should make everyone happy. It should offer a cross-platform, client-server solution for estimating, time and expense tracking, prioritizing, resource scheduling, invoicing, accounting, and reporting.

Additionally, the tool should include accounting functionality with A/R, A/P and G/L, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Professional Services Automation (PSA), and more. Therefore, everyone, whether they use Macs or PCs for their design, drafting, programming, or accounting, should be able to learn and use this tool for maximum business productivity throughout the organization.

Please email if you have any questions.

Victor Siegle

© 2009 Management Software, Inc.