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Project Management

Emma at improveit 360
  • Updated

All Projects Must Be Related to a Sale

Your team will almost always create a Project from an existing Sale record. 

A Project represents the sequence of steps and critical data tracked in your production process — from sale to completion.

If a Sale includes multiple Product Categories, creating separate Projects helps organize workflows and crews for each portion of the work.

For example, if a Sale includes both Windows and Garage Doors, you may create one Project for Window installation and one for Garage Door installation — each with its own template and assigned team.

 

Locate Approved Sales without a Project 

Before creating Projects, you may want to find Approved Sales without Projects so your team can stay organized and avoid production delays.

Tip: Use the out of the box Report to see Sales in which a Project has not yet been created. Follow along with this 3.5minute video: 

 

Get Organized with Project Templates 

Watch this brief 5-minute video and follow along with the Article below if you have not yet setup your Project Templates. Be sure your Production team as outlined your process using Project Templates. 

See also: Stay Organized with Project Templates and Step Dependency 

From the Sale page, click the Create Project button

 

Once you have created a New Project, it is important to Edit the Project and fill in the appropriate information. It is important to assign the intended Project Manager to the project for accountability. It is also important to fill in the Product Category.  

Click Edit on the top right of the Project page:

 

Fill in the appropriate fields. Key fields are highlighted. Assign a Project Manager to manage the Project. Select the applicable Product Categories to categorize your Projects effectively. 

It is also important to update the Project’s Status field according to any Stages of the production cycle which your company wants to track. The Status field is a customizable picklist, your organization can set the values to match your production stages. 

Note that there is a system-generated Project Status field which is based on the Completion Status of each individual Project Activity. See also: Project Status and Completion %. Finally, make sure a Completed On Date is entered once the Project has been completed.  

New: Enhanced Scheduling & Duration Metrics

Note the Calculated Start Date and Calculated End Date of this Project are based on the Project Activities related to this project. If we have not yet assigned a Project Template and we have no Project Activities on the Project, these fields will not have data to display. 

Once your Project has been assigned a Project Template or Project Activities have been manually added and given Start and End dates, your Calculated Start Date and Calculated End Date fields will be populated, based on the earliest Project Activity's Start Date and the latest Project Activity's End date: 

The Duration (Hours) and Duration (Days) are Roll-up Summary fields from all the Project Activities Duration based on the Start Date/Time and End Date/Time of each activity. 

This means the system reflects real expected effort — not manual estimates.

NOTE: The system only counts days and hours which are set within your organization's Business Hours setting. If the Business Hours indicate that your staff does not work past 7pm and you have an installation with an End Time of 8pm, the last hour will not be counted into the Duration. Same with weekends. If your Business Hours setting indicates your team does not work on Saturday and an Install is scheduled on a Saturday, those Days and Hours will NOT be counted in the Duration fields. 

 

Assigning Sale Items and Payments to a Project  

 The system allows you to assign specific Sale Items, Change Orders, and Payments to a specific Project. By assigning these Items to a specific Project, you will be able to: 

  1. Separate and track job costs accurately for both Product Categories sold and installed.
  2. Project balances align with the work your production team is executing 
  3. Split or assign payments appropriately if a single Sale contains multiple Projects
  4. This may be particularly helpful if your production timelines vary widely between products. For example, Windows may have a six-month backlog, whereas the Garage Door can be installed two weeks from now.

Watch this 3-min video on Assigning Items to Projects. 

Click Assign Items to Projects.

Then, drag and drop the Sale Items and Payments to the appropriate Project. 

If you have more than one Project, be sure you are splitting Payments appropriately. This may mean creating two Payment records in order to split a Deposit between two Projects. 

In the example below, the Contact gave us a single check in the amount of $6,500. We split that amount into two Payment records, one for $4,500 which is applied to the Roofing project, and one in the amount of $2,000 which has been applied to the Window project. 

 

Applying a Project Template 

Applying a Project Template saves setup time and standardizes your production process. 

See also: Create Project Templates and Template Activities 

Once you have applied a Project Template to your Project, you will have the ability to add additional Project Activities as needed or change the Step Dependency of Project Activities without impacting the original Templated steps.

  1. Project Templates include pre-configured Project Activities.
  2. Templates help ensure consistent steps and assignments.
  3. You can add extra Project Activities after applying a template if needed.
  4. Once applied, your Project Activities will be visible in the Project Activities tab.

On the Project page, click the Add Project Template button.  

Notice how the Project Templates are filtered based on the Product Category of the Project. You can select additional Product Categories to display additional Templates. 

In this example, we will choose our "Service" Project Template. 

 

The individual Project Activities are visible on the Project Activities tab. 

 

New: Updated Timeline & Scheduling Views (Gantt)

After assigning Project Activities (manually or via template), you can use the Production App Gantt chart to:

  1. Visually sequence work
  2. See activity duration and order
  3. Edit activity dates directly in timeline view
  4. View activity % Completion and Status
  5. See dependency lines based on Step Dependency settings

The Gantt chart provides a clear visual timeline of all work required on a Project — helping your team better coordinate execution and reduce miscommunication.

The new Production Gantt Chart requires the use of Production 2.0 Permission Sets, Page Layouts and Fields. See also: Production 2.0 Requirements and Project Status and Completion %. Once you are using the new Fields and Permissions, your team can start using the Production Gantt chart shown in this 7.5min video. 

If you plan to track Project Costs in improveit 360, see also: Tracking Project Costs for reports on job costing. 

 

Updating the dates for Project Activities 

Having a Project Template really saves a lot of time, but we still need to populate when we anticipate starting each activity. Thankfully, there is a feature that will simplify the way you update all of those Project Activities. The "Edit Dates" button will allow you to edit Dates on all of the Project Activities simultaneously instead of individually having to Edit them to specify the dates.  

From the Project Activities tab on the Project, click Edit Dates to set the Start and End dates for each Project Activity.

Notice that when we have Step Dependencies setup, the system will auto-populate the Start and End dates based on the Days from Previous Activity settings in the Template. 

Below is a view of the Project Template Activities page. Here are the defined offset values for Days from Previous Activity with their Step Dependency. (This is meant to serve as an example of why the dates and times in the above example were automatically set to the values you see.) 

Also note, the Service Install step was not given a Start and End date because there is no Step Dependency relationship on that step in our Template: 

Your updated Project Activity Dates will be visible from the Project Activities tab on the Project. 

 

Deleting Project Activities and Creating additional Project Activities

To ensure that your team remains flexible when they need to be, you will be able to add or remove Project Activities from a Project, even when the Project Activities have been added by applying a Project Template. You may choose to create special Project Templates that can be used to append a group of Project Activities to an existing list rather than adding activities individually.

For example, if your company sometimes needs to send project details to an HOA (homeowners association) for approval you can make that step part of the Project Template and simply have your Production team Delete it when it is not needed.  

BEST PRACTICE TIP: Use the 80/20 Rule. If you need this step 80% of the time, then add it to the Project Template and have your team Delete the step 20% of the time. However, if this step is needed only 20% of the time, then follow the below instructions to Create an additional Project Activity unrelated to the Template. 

To Delete a Project Activity from a Project Template, on the Project Activities tab, click the down arrow next to the Activity you want to delete. Then choose Delete from the menu. If you do not have Delete permissions, you'll want to discuss this with your company's System Administrator. 

Conversely, if you only need to add this step to 20% of Projects, you'll want to use the Create Project Activity button on the Project record itself, after applying a Template without this step. 

From the Project, click the Create Project Activity button. 

Indicate if the Project Activity being created should be Schedulable. A schedulable Project Activity will be available in the Dispatcher tool and your team will see the Scheduling Calendar when assigning this Project Activity. If the Project Activity is not marked as schedulable it will still appear on the Staff Calendar for the User it is assigned to. If a Project Activity is Unassigned, and it is not marked as Schedulable you will need to locate the Project Activity from a List View or from the Project itself.

Note: Non-Schedulable Project Activities do not show in the To-Do List or in a Task List View. 

If you select Yes, you will be prompted to select a Date/Time and Staff member from the Scheduling Calendar. System Admins: Remember to Set your Staff Capabilities and Show on Calendar setting appropriately so that the correct Staff members appear on the Scheduling Calendar tool.

Give the Project Activity an appropriate Name and fill in the Description to relay more details to your team about what the purpose of this Activity is. Be sure to fill in the Expected Duration (Days) as well. 

When finished click Save.

Your additional Project Activity will be added to the list of existing Project Activities for this Project. Click the Project Activities tab from the Project to view all Activities. 

  

 

Use the Dispatcher Tool to Assign Installation Activities

Some companies prefer to assign Installations and other Project Activities to installers using the Dispatcher Tool. This tool allows your team to filter Staff members by Territory, Capabilities and Distance. For schedulable Activities: 

  1. Assign them using the Dispatcher tool
  2. Adjust staff assignments or timing via the Staff Calendar

Watch this 3-minute video to learn more about using the Dispatcher tool. 

 

Re-Assign or Reschedule a Project Activity using the Staff Calendar

Using the Staff Calendar drag-and-drop tool, you can quickly Reassign a Project Activity to a different installer, or adjust the Date/Time of the Project Activity. 

 

Create Project Activity List Views

Organize the steps in your production process using List Views on the Project and Project Activities Tabs. In the video below we will discuss how to create List Views. List Views will help your team:

  1. Organize like-steps together
  2. Provide one location where it's easy to complete the same type of Activity for multiple Projects
  3. See the Step Dependency for the same type of Activity from different Projects

Watch this 3 minute video to learn more... 

 

See also:

 

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