Work Flow Management
Web Based Project Management System
Any business can benefit from improvements to its project and workflow management and AIS was no exception. All businesses are made up of a number of inter-related procedures or systems and the company's ability to manage these systems and the people working within them will ultimately dictate its ability to expand.
Have ever felt that regardless of how hard your team work, you never seem to make progress and that when you delegate, people sometimes fail to produce the required standard of work? If the answer is yes - don't despair. The introduction of simple administrative systems and integrated solutions can transform the way your company operates and help you to get far more than you believed possible from your available resources.
In our company the primary tool we use to manage workflow is the project management module which documents all aspects of a project from inception to completion.
Within the system, each project that we undertake is regarded as a job. Every job that takes place within our organisation (no matter how small) is added to the system. Each job has a creator (or project manager), project title/description, create date, start date, end date and unique work order reference number.
Each job is made up of a number of "tasks" which are defined by the project manager and are then assigned to the appropriate members of our team. Every job has a status indicator that indicates the stage at which a job is currently at. In our system jobs can be in one of four stages: pending, active, prepare invoice and complete/archive. As the project develops the status of the job evolves and the job effectively moves through the system, from inception to completion.
When a task is assigned to one of our team, they receive an email notification and / or text indicating the details of the task to be completed. Each team member has their own web based inbox or "task tray" that lists all of the tasks that they are currently involved with. All the team members have to do is refer to each task and any instructions contained within it, mark the task as started, complete the task to the detail specified and indicate the duration taken on that task. When a task is marked as started, the project manager for that job will receive an email notifying them that the job is progressing, similarly when a job is completed. This enables the system to constantly update the project manager on the status of a particular job without the burden of having to pursue project team members for status updates. It also allows any member of staff to quickly and accurately "tune in" to a job / task that they may not have had any previous involvement in.
When all tasks are complete and the project manager verifies that the job has been completed and the job moves to the invoicing stage. The project management system provides a facility that allows a project manager to raise an electronic "invoice request form". The form contains the details of the client of the job, an accounts reference, a unique work order reference and the lines of the invoice to be produced.
This form is submitted electronically over email to our accounts department who raise the invoice according to the details of the form and send the invoice to the client. When our accounts department has completed this task, they simply click a special "call-back link" in the email which confirms to our project system that the invoicing stage has been completed and the job is then marked as "complete/archive". At this point the project manager is notified via email that the project is closed and the whole project lifecycle is complete.
Throughout the whole project lifecycle, we are collecting valuable information such as start dates/end dates, task durations, financial data etc. This enables us to produce a variety of useful reports using Crystal Reports assisting us in evaluating the internal operation of our business and highlight where improvements can be made.
Our consultants would be delighted to speak to you should you require a FREE initial consultancy:
