Project Management

[brills]

We've been a CommitCRM user for about a year, love the product. We're always observing available products to see if there's a way to improve on what we're doing. One thing that seems to be missing is management of a complete project. Setting up a new server has a million to do items, from the build, to post config, firewall config, backup config, MX modification...much much more. It would be great to see a module for management of projects like this. Any thoughts.

[martinds]

Have you tried using contracts for projects? Works pretty well for us.

[Support Team]

In order to manage complex projects in RangerMSP, we recommend on using RangerMSP Contracts (as martinds has suggested).

You can create many Contracts (projects) under each Account, which can all be Active concurrently.

For each Contract you can create related Tickets, Tasks and Appointments which will all be tracked under this Contract, allowing you to view all open issues for this project, activity history, and more.

Using the example of setting up a new server, you can create a new Contract for this project, and add as many Tickets (= complex tasks) you need. So you can create a Ticket for the build, and Ticket for post config, a Ticket for firewall config, etc. For each Ticket you can also add Tasks for smaller items which need to be done within this Ticket. Note that you may also use the RangerMSP Tasks for simple tasks directly on the Contract; you can add as many tasks you need to each project from the Contract's Pending tab.

In order to track all open items for the project, you can view the Contract's Pending tab and Tickets tab, and see all pending Tasks, Appointments and Tickets. You can also view the project's activity history, including Tickets, Charges, History Notes, related Documents (and emails) and more in the contact's History tab.

When you need to log the work performed, parts used, etc. you can add Charges in the Ticket level (which will be logged under the Project's Contract since the Ticket is related to this Contract), or directly under the Contract. This way you can easily bill the customer for all of the work which was performed for this project in a single Invoice/Charge report.

There are also several other reports which can help you analyze activity at the project (=contract ) level, together with the option to summarize information, such as view all the Charges for this Contract, report with all open Tickets, Tasks, Appointment for this contract, all parts used for the project, etc.

I hope this helps.

Neta

[brills]

OK, using contracts makes sense.

Could we use these as templates for each type of project i.e. server install, firewall install, PC setup etc. as a lot of projects are repetive. I.E. setup a contract for a new server install, the 10 or 15 tickets that need to be completed, then each time there's a new install we just assign that template contract to that client and away we go?

[Support Team]

Creating template Contracts is an interesting idea and I logged this into our system for further consideration for future versions.

What you can do at the moment is to use the copy-contract and copy-ticket features.

You can create your own "template" Contract per Project type you wish to manage, and assign it to a "dummy" Account. You can add a description which explains when this Contract type should be used. Each time you wish to open a new Contract of this type, you can copy it (use the Copy icon in the Contracts window toolbar).

As for Tickets - you can also create "template" Tickets under each Template Contract, which represent the different tasks that need to be done for this type of Contract. You can keep these Tickets in a "Completed" status so they do not appear in your lists. Whenever you create the new Contract, you can display the Tickets which are related to this Contract, and copy the Tickets (using the Copy icon or right-clicking the Ticket). This will create new Tickets, copy the Ticket description, and will allow you to select a different Account and Contract for it.

HTH

Sherry

[brills]

Just following up on the project template idea.

I created a dummy contract along with the tickets for a couple of typical projects i.e. new desktop setup, new laptop setup, new server setup.

I copied the dummy contract to a real new client desktop setup and the corresponding 6 tickets from that dummy contract did not copy over.

The project template feature is really a huge item we're needing in our practice. If you're looking for how to a MSP would do projects one of our peers Karl Palachuk has a book titled 'The Super-Good Project Planner' that we're basing the project idea on. We'd also be more than happy to beta any need product to test this out.

Thank you.
Brian Williams
Advantech NW

[KeithC]

My company does everything from cabling to programming the servers, telephone systems, fire and security systems. I would love to see a project manager add in with graphing and charts.

[FunctionOne]

I just ran into this wall myself tonight. We are developing an outline for the process we go through over the first two months in onboarding a client. We do this for every client we bring onboard and it's a tiresome process to have to manually rebuild this every time. It would be great if we could create these templates that when copied would keep tickets and tasks intact.

If this could be coupled with my idea for creating checklists as mentioned over here it would be very close to delivering a solid foundation for a project management module:
here

[Support Team]

Good points. I hope we'll have some good news on this for 2009...

Sherry

[FunctionOne]

Hmm - that sure sounds a bit like a tease Sherry :) Are we going to get a present just after the New Year? Please, please, please? :)

Happy Holidays to you and the entire CommitCRM Team - we look forward to more greatness!