批注 2022-08-03 094310.png - ConcourseSuite Support image

ConcourseSuite Support

Support
http://concursive.com/help/en_us/
Corporate
PUBLIC PROFILE

Back to topics

Discuss Project Management

Project Plan, Activities, Tasks, Action Lists, Lists - still confused

You need to be logged in to post messages

Project Plan, Activities, Tasks, Action Lists, Lists - still confused

1/11/2005 4:16 PM EST
Default user photo

By Kip Iles

Its been awhile since I had the time to actually return to my evaluation of CentricCRM. I seem to be the driver at one of my clients site. I actually try to use the product as I do projects for them which gets them to turn around and take another look and say, WOW! - I like this. Hopefully I will get past working for my Insurance and Mortgage companies due to two direct hits from hurricanes 2004 and make a little money for myself.

Anyway ...

I still seem to get confused as to how to really use the project features. The Plan view has a really nice interface and lays out the work in an orderly fashion and assigns work as expected but then I want to add memos as to what was actually done on each item and I only have a restricted description field to type that in. This leads me to Project | Lists.

With lists I can add my memos to each item stating why I did something or why I decided not to do something but these are not assignable, do not appear on my home page, and lack the features of the Plan Outline/Activities.

Then I seem to go back into the Project / Discussions and actually type in my Plan overview and detail plans there so I can get some feedback and author in a more flowing manner. This usually leads me back to the Outline/Activities to actually copy and paste info back into the Outline and perform the assignments but then I'm stuck again because I may want to add special instructions for that one activity. So I create an Activity Folder that kinda states what I want to happen below but no real way to log feedback or memos for each item as they transition states.

Then we have Tasks and Action Lists elsewhere that can really fragment my thought process. Either we have too many ways to input this information or I'm just not clear on the intended uses of each, yet.

I would stick to using the Outline/Activities if I could had some sort of memo history for each item since I like the way it presents the Plan and how the Activities show up on my home page. I really dont mind duplicating some of that effort back into the Discussion area since its easier to jot down a rough plan there 1st just to get feedback.

But I need some clarification again here. I look at your projects on this site and it seems that everything has a use but it still doesnt seem to flow in my feeble mind at least. The information, tasks, lists, memos, discussions don't seem to easily link to each other so the relationship is lost.

I wonder how are others using the project features and if the effort to describe your projects from concept to completion is worth it. Once I actually get busy implementing these projects I find it even more difficult to take the time to keep documenting so i end up with a lot of prelim info but very little in the way of actual implementation info.

As an independent consultant, I find it difficult to justify the time (non-billable in most cases) to document completely but I also know that it may be months or years before I may need to get back to a customer's project for adds or changes and then I wish I had taken more time and effort to document (the as-built portion mainly).

Other things I run into is that for a lot of my projects there seems to be more of a heirarchy - that is - some projects can stand alone but others may rely on other projects - either as a parent or a child. I dont see yet how I can establish that relationship.

Lastly, It would be nice if the Invitee was notified via email that they have been invited to participate in a project. I suppose I could create an activity and assign it to them that specifically states - Join the Project, Please.

1. 1/12/2005 12:50 PM EST
Default user photo

By Matt Rajkowski

Concursive Corporation
Product Design

airplane-icon-100x100.png

A couple of thoughts... I'm hoping others will discuss how they use these features as well.

Centric CRM is split up into several major areas: Sales, Help Desk, Communications, Projects, and Documents. While some users might touch each of these capabilities, others will only use a subset. If you use the default Administrator role then you have access to quite a bit, and determining what to use will certainly be confusing without some direction.

As for projects, we use them for making assignments, announcing milestones, and organizing documents. All of our assignments go into the project plan tab. We use lists for jotting down items that are not yet assignments, but more like ideas. To log issues that arise we use tickets.

Since the introduction of Project Management in Centric CRM 2.9, we have made progress on some of the features you suggest: assignment notes (we have a history of these per assignment now), and we are looking to add others such as linking projects to accounts, and uncommenting the section in code that emails a user when they are invited to a project (it's there, just not working). That should help in linking these things together.

As for tasks, action lists, etc... some of these are Sales oriented but could be used for Help Desk and others too.

We have a general notion of relationships that you will start to see in 3.0 as well. We envision a utility that will allow you to relate anything and everything... such as accounts to other accounts, and I like your suggestion, projects to other projects.

Hope that helps... I'm looking forward to responses from others.

2. 4/20/2005 6:21 PM EDT
Default user photo

By Kip Iles

Im currently enjoying the Project enhancements in version 3.0 and am beginning to get a better handle on how to use the Project features. I really appreciate the Activity notes. That really makes my life easier.

Now if I could ask for a bit more flexibility in rearranging projects a bit. I would like to be able to move any project object from one project to another. Primarily Plan Outlines and Discussions.

As folks learn the system they have a tendency to create way too many projects when a Outline or Activity folder would have been a better alternative. I try to stress that a Project is the broadest stroke and we really dont want too many of these. For instance - IT Infastructure - is a very broad stroke. We can then create Outlines (e.g., DNS) for specific types of activities and can further detail those activites with Activity Folders (e.g., Public and Private) and finally activities (e.g. add domain) that live under those folders.

Once the damage is done it is very difficult to go back in and rearrange or consolidate.

Maybe Im just a bit anal about all of this since we can find it all via a search and customers can submit tickets to any one of the projects (or none). I suppose a best-practices manual of sorts is still in order.

2 results found