Using distribution lists

This is my third post in the series on Time Manager 2010 Quarter 3.  Today I’m going to keep it simple and show you how to set up distribution lists.  Even though this is a very easy process, it has powerful implications because it means you can now send reports to multiple email addresses simply, and can schedule reports on a regular basis and have them automatically distributed.

To view the video just click here.

To view the other two videos so far in this series you can click on the links below.

Simple report scheduling

Scheduling reports

Next time I am going to roll my sleeves up and show you some of the more powerful features available through the Alerts and Scheduling engine.

Scheduling reports in Time Manager Part 1

In my last post I told you how, in the 2010 Quarter 3 release of Time Manager reports could not be sent to a separate Scheduling and Alerts engine.  Today I am going to extend that concept and tell you a little about how reports can be scheduled.  You can view a five minute video of the process by clicking here.

Offloading reports to another process is only of limited use.  However, setting up a report once and then running it at regular intervals becomes much more interesting.  It allows you to pass a great deal of administrative work out to the alerts engine.

An example might be a productivity report you run once a month on the third of each month for the previous month.  Instead of having to remember to open Time Manager, select the report, select what data to appear on the report and run it, you can now set this up as a scheduled report and have it delivered to your inbox automatically.

The video will show you more about how scheduling of reports works.

Next time I will tell you about distribution lists and some of the other alert functions which do not rely on reporting.

Assigning Security functions to a User in Time Manager

Part of the new security module in Profess Time Manager allows you greater flexibility in what the users see and what they have access to.

You are now able to set up Security groups that can only have access to the projects menu under setup and no other option.

Two security groups are defined automatically:

Administrator – this has access to all menu options (with a quirk)

Default – this has access only to core functionality required to enter time, expenses etc.

You can add additional user groups, and define alternative menu options by using the Setup, Staff, Security Groups menu.  Then check on or off the options you want that security group to have.  Finally, assign the new security group to those staff you would like to make use of it.

On occasions new menu options are added to Time Manager to provide additional functionality.  By default these new menu options are not available to existing security groups.  When we do add menu options, you will always be informed of this.  To make these options available you just follow a simple process:

Open each security group inn turn.  As the page is displayed, all new options will be automatically ticked on so just scroll down, click on Save and the new features are made available to the group.

Of course, you might also want to consider whether you wish to make any new feature available.  If you do not open and save a Security group the new feature are not available.

Using Security groups means you can configure the entire access structure of Time Manager, simplify menu options just to those required by groups of staff, disable entire menu trees such as Administration or Setup, and make the user experience more tailorered to individual groups of users.

The Fourth Protocol

Following on from my earlier blog on booking time in 15 minute blocks to ease and speed up entry, this time I want to look at your protocol.

This refers to the in-house rules you have for time recording, and is often overlooked or taken for granted.

To keep it simple, I recommend at least the following four rules need to be considered when building a protocol for timesheeting in any organization.

The first protocol: what am I doing?

Perhaps the best place to start is with Activities.

If Projects represent the goal of either a specific job or commission (or in the service sector – the provision of an ongoing service perhaps to a specific customer/client), then an Activity is the type of effort that contributes to achieving that goal.

Against each Activity you can specify in free-text exactly what you expect your Staff to use each Activity for. This avoids confusions of generic items like ‘MEETINGS’ – is that in-house meetings AND professional customer consultations or are they separate?

Get that wrong from the start and sooner or later you’ll have people booking to the wrong Activity. So why not make it clear by specifying the type of Activity covered by a specific Activity Code.

Place your spec in the Setup > Activities > Maintain Activities {select your Activity and click Change to edit it}: Description of Work field.

When communicating your protocol (either in at least an e-mail to everyone but perhaps in a protocol document which you might place on your Intranet or whatever), why not then include as an appendix a pdf print of report Administration > Lists > Activity Listing – it offers a print of the Description of Work against each Activity?

The second protocol: how much detail do I have to go into?

This refers back to my earlier 15-minute article, but you might have a situation where other time-units apply be it more (30 minute blocks) or less (6 minute blocks is typical of legal settings, for example).

The third protocol: great, yeah but no but how do I do it?

Our contention is that day-to-day end-user use of Time Manager should be so easy that no end-user training is required. Especially if your Administrators have got their configuration right.

But Pillar can’t be responsible for the communication of the basics, such as distribution of the URL, what each individual’s Login will be and exactly what constitutes your protocol for time recording.

Rather, this is best communicated in a single, easy-to-use document that ideally details both the initial steps to access the software in your environment with all the relevant credentials and clearly states your rules and expectations of use (the protocol itself).

Most importantly, give Users the means to help themselves – give them the links to our support area, this blog and, in particular the videos. Tell them how they can access the in-system Help and where all else fails, who to discuss things with internally (they’re the Supervisor/Administrator who might then, in turn, contact our Helpdesk).

The fourth protocol: when should it be there?

All the above is naught without the fourth protocol which refers to when timesheets should have been Submitted. Unless you tie this down you could be chasing forever.

This is often looked upon as merely a practical administrative problem, but without the full set of time records, your reporting is incomplete. That means the business decisions you make may not be based on the full extent of evidence that ought to be available to you. And therein lies the risk.

Wrapped up in the fourth protocol is the process by which you then extrapolate information from the data garnered. This is the point of the entire system.

It therefore requires management and stakeholder buy-in to the whole reason d’être for deploying a time management system in the first place.

Ordinarily, I find most enterprises opt for about 2-8 monthly standard reports which could be a mix of statements and progress reports as well a bit of forecasting. If stakeholders don’t know what information they want out of the system, how can Administrators build a data structure which will reflect their needs?

And this is why the fourth protocol is the most important.

CHANGE

Sometimes those needs change – perhaps the business has changed or the way a service is to be provided requires a re-structure of the organistations resources. If this is the case, then it is a good time to look again at your protocol. And don’t forget – we’re here to help and offer on-site business consultancy on this very matter.

If you’d like to discuss any of the above, e-mail me on carl@profess.co.uk or login to WordPress and post you comments here.

Tell me what you want, what you really really want…

 

Sorry if I enticed you here under false pretences!  This is about software.

Now Time Manager is becoming more feature rich I thought it was a good time to step back and take a look at some of the less obvious issues.  The first one I want to look at is speed vs. look and feel.  The majority of Time Manager users find the responsiveness good, but we do have some large users who feel the software could do with being snappier.  These users tend to be inside a corporate network where high levels of overall traffic cause fairly sluggish response.

Over the years of developing Time Manager we have always tried to make it look and feel modern and slick.  To this end many of the tools added to the web pages carry some overhead to accomplish this.

Just one small example:

We changed from using standard asp buttons to using image buttons.  These look much nicer and can have pictures as well as text on them.  However, each button needs to be downloaded, like every other part of the web page.

Similarly, we have standardised on using a grid control from Telerik which looks far nicer than the standard grid control and offers a range of extended features.  However, each of these additions adds overhead to the page, makes the page size larger and hence slower to download to your browser.

Therefore, I am proposing to change some of the controls on certain pages – the Time entry page where Projects and Activities are selected, for instance – so they look simpler but operate more quickly.

The current Event entry page looks like this, with image buttons and the Telerik grid for selecting Favourites.  To see these as a bigger images just click on the image and they will show maximum size in a new window.

The proposed alternative is this, with standard buttons and a standard grid for selecting Favourites.

This second version reduces the bytes sent to your browser by 20%, and we are looking at reducing this even further with more fine tuning.

I would like your feedback on whether this is an acceptable course of action for us to take.  Please click on this link and select your answer.  If you want to tell me more, add a Comment.

Better Personal Time Management is Enterprise-wide Time Management

Unless you are a single-person enterprise, the nature of structured organisations has the implicit benefit that if staff manage their own time more productivity then they are innately improving the performance of the team, the department, section and entire organisation.

Put simply: workers rarely exist in islands of solitude when it comes to contributing to the goals of the enterprise.

But time management is NOT about recording time.

Better time management does not arise magically from timesheets. For sure, better analysis can be derived from time data but there is no immediate benefit to storing this data – it needs to be used.

That’s what reports are for. But then what?

The fundamental principle of better time management is straightforward: do what’s important and, conversely, ignore what isn’t.

Time Manager helps you achieve this in many ways.

By making time recording easy.

In over a decade of working in this field I’ve still to meet anyone who enjoys entering timesheets.

But if we can reduce the pain by making it easy, then this increases the likelihood that…

i) staff will actually enter their timesheets (I still occasionally visit clients where some staff still refuse to enter timesheets, hiding behind accusations of Big Brother and believing they ‘have better things to do’ with their, um, time) and,

ii) there will be improvements in the accuracy of time record entries. And let’s face it, if it’s information we want to squeeze out of data, it may as well be accurate. Otherwise it’s time to pack-up and retreat to the potting shed.

If it is tiresome to enter timesheets, short-cuts to reduce the amount of entry will naturally occur – for example, I’ll say I spent on all morning on Project X when in reality I spent most of it on X but also half an hour on Y and a bit longer than that on Z. No. No. No!

(A quick nod to the performance optimisation white paper here – ask our Helpdesk if you’re after a copy).

Hence, we use drag & drop Favourites; right-drag Copy in week journal views; all-day event booking (by dragging to the day header section) and, in the future, there’s talk of recurring events.

By reducing re-keying

I’ve already mentioned the reduction of 50% of keying-in for appointment-based work (such as HR, consultative or social work) by linking your TM Diary to MS Outlook/Exchange calendar.

Even if you only use the TM Diary (and not the MS Calendar), this still reduces keying-in for all Diary events and, don’t forget, all Leave automatically appears on your Journal/Timesheet.

By promoting better task management

By this I mean:-

• Think-forwards. Project work into your journal before you do it. What will I do this afternoon or tomorrow or next week – there’s no reason why you can’t predict what you will be doing and how long it will take. Some people call this grand idea ‘planning’. Immediately you know whether you are going to overrun if things take longer or whether you can fit in extra work. Using the Week Journal view you can look and move Staff Events around easily to squeeze in that all too-familiar last-minute or urgent task and see the ramifications. And no re-keying – this is the same data you’ll be typing as a timesheet entry, so just adjust if necessary rather than key in again. Planning made easy.
• using the To Do’s as a tasklist scratch pad – focusing on the Important mini-tasks that make up the day

These are all just tips. If you choose to use them, don’t do so just once or twice and then revert back to the old ways – keep them alive: the greater benefit is in the prolonged use.

Not only that, but using something habitually means something becomes easy if not trivial and, thus, not a distraction.

Now timesheet entry is about managing time, not just feeding the mince machine of ‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’.