by Kathleen Lamphier under Industry Trends

Here’s tip number five for boosting project team productivity with customizable web-based software. Tip six is coming next week.  If you’d like all the tips now, click here to request them.

Tip #5 – Automate recurring processes
The whole point of project management is to make more effective use of everyone’s time. Every hour of busywork you eliminate through automation is an hour liberated for more productive and more profitable use by team members.  Automating recurring processes reduces or even eliminates administrative work while providing more timely and in-depth communication.

Customizable, web-based project management software can help you:

Manage reports:
You can automatically distribute reports on a pre-arranged schedule (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.). Recipients can then interact directly with the real-time information in the report by making on-the-fly changes to the report and sorting information by category, dates, resources and more. Empowering users to create and modify reports saves you the time of creating one-off reports for various team members.

Communicate progress:
As work proceeds on the project, the application can be set up to automatically send status alerts that notify team members when new projects or tasks are assigned to them and update them when information changes – for example, when work is completed or delayed.

Prompt action:
Your web-based project management application can send reminders to notify team members in advance of task due dates to ensure that key dates are met.

QuickBase’s automatic email features streamline communication
Are you familiar with Intuit QuickBase’s automatic email features? They include:

Scheduled report subscriptions:
Creating a scheduled report subscription enables you to automatically email a report to application users on a periodic basis. For example, you can create a report subscription which automatically emails a report of all open tasks to your project team before the weekly status meeting.

Notifications:
QuickBase can automatically send out e-mails to notify one or all of your users – or notify you – when information in a record has changed or when a record has been added or deleted.  For example,  you might want help delegating work, in which case QuickBase can notify a user when a new project or task is assigned to him.

Notifications also let you apply very specific conditions to trigger the email and also target only appropriate individuals for receipt. For example, imagine your QuickBase application tracks deliveries for your company. When a delivery’s status changes to “Ready for shipment” you want QuickBase to automatically send a notification to the person listed in the “Driver” field. No problem. QuickBase can automate communication based on what data a record contains.

Reminders:
Don’t miss another deadline. QuickBase can let you know that a due date is coming up. You can set up your QuickBase application to automatically send an email reminder to you or any user to warn that an important date is approaching.

For example, you could tell QuickBase to email a reminder to each user five days before their task is due. If you want, QuickBase could also send the reminder a certain number of days after a task was due, to jog a user’s memory about a still-unfulfilled (and now overdue) task.

Coming next week, tip #6 – Get personal.

It’s your turn to share.
Do you use QuickBase’s automatic email features?

What kinds of reports do your team members subscribe to? What was your reporting process like before QuickBase?

by Kirk Trachy under QuickBase Advice & Tips

A writer asked me the other day, “What is QuickBase’s most distinguished feature?”

If you have been a QuickBase user for any time you are probably reeling like I did. Where to start? There are so many.

I landed on one of QuickBase’s core functions. Its role functionality.

If you have ever attended one of my 10 weekly webinars you will hear me say, “If you can say it, you can do it”. The role functionality describes what you can “see” and “do” right down to the field level of any table in any application for any customer, client, user or administrator. I have been with QuickBase for almost five years and have yet to come across a scenario that we have not been able to address with QuickBase roles.

You can create as many roles as you like and make them as unique and customizable as you like. One large retailer decided to take this to an extreme with over 1,000 unique roles and dashboards. That wasn’t really necessary but it is an example of how open and flexible QuickBase is.

Each role in QuickBase can control a default dashboard, whether you want the drop down menus and tables accessible, and it allows you to dissect each table and control its “Add”, “View” and “Modify” functionality right down to the field level. The process is the same for each table, so what you did for Contacts and Opportunities is the same as what you will do for Projects and Tasks.

A popular functionality is taking ANY unique role and assigning this role to an anonymous user we call, “Everyone on the internet”. That means that people on the internet who are not QuickBase users can do anything an Administrator can do. In reality, people usually pare back the role that they extend to anonymous users. Maybe they allow them to add records and receive email notifications on status changes. By the way, maybe you want different roles to have different dashboards? You can. You can also have a different web Form for each role as well. That isn’t just for adding a record. This applies to editing, displaying and grid editing forms as well. What you see on add may be different on the resulting displayed view and still different on edit and still different on grid edit.

Let me take this one step further. You can overlay as many roles as you like with as many users as you like too. For instance maybe you want to copy a role used by other people but just add this one very small approval field that no one else has access to, you can.

An example of an “Everyone on the Internet” application can be viewed by anyone at:
https://www.quickbase.com/db/bcyiggmep

Click the “Add a Request” button:
https://www.quickbase.com/db/bcyiggmeq?a=GenNewRecord

The above form is actually way different than the internal form and contains much behind the scenes linking and workflow. All controlled with role functionality.

Another example of the power of QuickBase roles is the QuickBase Project Manager 4 in 1 application. It actually is one application but with 4 distinct levels of functionality for all the roles.

Check a copy from our application library at:
https://www.quickbase.com/db/bbtt9cjr7?a=dr&rid=528

To get a copy, click the “Get App” button.

If anyone has a request for a particular new application, let me know. You can always find me in one of our ten weekly live webinars by registering at:
http://quickbase.intuit.com/webinars/.

Have a great day.

Kirk Trachy – QuickBase Evangelist

by Kathleen Lamphier under Industry Trends

Here’s the fourth tip for improving team productivity with customizable web-based software. Tip #5 is coming Tuesday.  If you just can’t wait and want all the tips now, click here to request them.

Tip #4 – Maximize productivity while minimizing IT dependence
A desktop or custom project management solution requires IT assistance for installation, maintenance and support from both a time and hardware perspective. When you turn to your IT department (assuming you enjoy the privilege of having one) to provide you with a project management software tool, you add a burden to its schedule, delays to your implementation and an additional expense to your project.

Customizable SaaS project management solutions deliver the functionality you need without incurring new costs – in time and money – for installing software, adding new features or for maintenance and support.

For maximum efficiency and productivity, your project management software application should provide:

Convenience:
With the right application, your team can access project information over the Web, whenever and wherever they want. They can create and modify reports instantly without IT or developer assistance. And they can update their own task status, fast.

Customization:
Team members can easily change row and column names, create real-time reports, personalize their application dashboard to see just the project information they need, and more – all on the fly.

Speed:
Your project management software should enable you to collaborate right away, without installation or custom development delays or extensive training.

Scalability:
Teams are fluid groups of individuals that form, dissolve and re-form over time. Managing secure access and assigning varying levels of permission for each user should be simple enough for the application administrator (the person who can customize the application and access permission levels) to do without IT assistance. And adding users to the project management software should be as simple as sending an email.

Updates:
Every off-the-shelf software upgrade requires installation on each user’s machine – a time-consuming process. One of the major advantages of SaaS project management solutions is that upgrades are made automatically without imposing any work on you or your IT team.

Coming Tuesday, tip #5 – Automate recurring processes

How about you?
Has QuickBase helped you increase productivity and minimize dependence on IT?

Has QuickBase’s customizable dashboard feature helped your team members focus on the information that’s most important to them?

While commenting on a recent post of mine, one customer, Lou Brothers, shared how “using Dashboards and Notifications has really increased the quality and speed of [project] updates. Since everyone can see the information that pertains specifically to them they can focus on providing updates and ignore the ‘noise’ from everyone else.”

by emccann under Uncategorized

…or rather, ‘What didn’t I learn? Not much.’ It was a great 1-day conference, held at the Boston-Newton Marriott, just a hop and a skip from our office here in Waltham.

Really relevant material and great panelists. All attendees heard from companies like VersionOne, Tableau, HP and Google. If you are in the IT industry or have products and services you sell to IT buyers – you may find some of the below content relevant.

Three learnings that I found interesting are:

#1- Give your prospects a map of how they are supposed to find your product. They know what they are looking for generally; but it would be great if we could help them during their search/research phase. There’s so much content out there. Push relevant messages that will help them narrow their focus. Not necessarily just on your product/offering – consider giving them industry information early on during their research phase.

#2 – IT buyer preferences for online content types: 66% find that trial software offers are v. effective; 38% find that case studies are v. effective; followed by white papers (37%), vendor demos (36%), online videos (31%), webcasts (28%), etc…

#3 – Also, did you know that IT buyers spend more time on Google search – often times digging down 3-4+ pages until they find what they are looking for?

For those of you considering QuickBase or for those who have already decided on QuickBase – what other types of information/content can we provide you with in order to make the research phase when learning about the online database market even easier?

How can we make your search even easier and less time consuming? Let me know, I’m all ears.

by Kathleen Lamphier under Industry Trends, Uncategorized

Here’s the third tip for boosting team productivity with customizable web-based software. Another tip is coming Tuesday but if you’d like all the tips now, click here to request them.

Tip #3 – Get the hosted app advantage

A hosted project management solution gives your team members access to the information they need – wherever and whenever they need it – allowing faster response, reducing errors and enabling better decisions.  It helps your team:

Overcome geographic obstacles
Whether team members are in Paris or Peoria, they can collaborate on projects. Staff, vendors, partners and customers can work together regardless of location.

Remove time boundaries
The Internet is up and ready 24/7 – so participants can work on projects regardless of the time of day or time zone.

Hosted project management solutions also help minimize administration and maximize security, allowing you to:

Reduce installation, maintenance and even training hassles
By eliminating the need to install and run the application on your own computer, SaaS removes the burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation and support. The only software that team members need on their computers is one they already have and know how to use – a Web browser.

If you choose a customizable SaaS solution, you can adjust the application to match your existing project management process, drastically minimizing the need for application training. Customizable software accommodates the way you and your team work, not vice versa, making adoption much easier.

Reduce security threats
USB drives, email attachments and laptops are prone to data loss, theft and other security leaks. Using a hosted Web-based application means your team doesn’t have to store or email information. Instead, it’s all stored in a secure data center managed by your SaaS vendor.  For example, QuickBase uses the same data center that handles millions of tax returns via TurboTax for the Web each year.

Coming Monday, tip# 4 – How to do more and rely on IT less.

How have you used QuickBase’s customization features?
One customer I spoke with told me she looked at several packaged CRM applications, determined what she liked from each, then created her own custom QuickBase CRM application adding in those features she liked from the other applications and creating her ideal app.

Has anyone done something similar with QuickBase for project management?

Share your story.
One customer, KLH, commented on a recent post of mine and mentioned that his team “needed a robust Proj Mgmt Application(s) that was totally tailorable to our client’s needs. QuickBase was the solution of choice…”

Have you customized QuickBase to work the way you want?
To match your existing process? Tell us about your process. And about life before and after QuickBase.

by Philip Gross under Inside QuickBase

Jim Salem, our chief architect, will be presenting the QuickBase architecture to the IASA New England chapter on April 23d. If you are in the area, and are interested in the nuts and bolts of how QuickBase is built, come on by! You can register at: http://bit.ly/odJjm

Details are below:

————–

Inside SaaS: Deep Dive into the Intuit QuickBase Architecture

Examine a rich software-as-a-service platform in detail. Used by over half of the Fortune 100, Intuit QuickBase solves critical business problems via its easy-to-use and easy-to-customize applications.

Jim Salem, QuickBase’s architect and co-founder will present its unique, highly scalable application engine which seamlessly integrates multiple web services including database, email, workflow, and reporting.  We’ll discuss its patented active-active load balancing technology that has made it one of the most reliable, fast and proven SaaS technologies today.

Its Windows-based hosting technology has  been extended as the basis for the Intuit Partner Platform, a service for RIA developers to deliver QuickBooks-integrated applications to small businesses. We’ll cover key design choices in data flow, network, and container design that have made QuickBase especially suited to hosting diverse applications for thousands of businesses.

Jim Salem
For the past 25 years, Jim Salem has been a pioneer in distributed computing and in the software/platform as a service space. He has extensive experience in all aspects of internet service delivery including scalable hosting infrastructure design, automated application provisioning, efficient resource management, and 24×7 operations.
In 1999, Salem co-founded Intuit’s QuickBase, where he has been responsible for architecting and delivering fast, reliable PaaS and SaaS services to hundreds of thousands of users. While at Intuit, he has held senior management positions in engineering and operations. Salem is currently the Platform-as-a-Service Group Architect.
Prior to Intuit, Salem served as Director of Web Hosting Engineering at GTE Internetworking (BBN Planet) where he supported thousands of servers in ten data centers. Earlier, he was a senior engineering manager at Thinking Machines, which developed a 65,536 processor parallel computing platform. Salem earned a B.S.E.E. degree from M.I.T. in 1984.

Date: April 23rd, 5pm-8pm
Location: Intuit Offices
100 5th Ave
7th Floor
Waltham, MA 02451
Agenda:
05:00pm-06:00pm Networking
06:00pm-06:15pm Chapter Announcements
06:15pm-07:30pm Inside SaaS: Deep Dive into the Intuit QuickBase Architecture

Register at: http://bit.ly/odJjm

by Kathleen Lamphier under Industry Trends, QuickBase News

Here’s the second tip for improving team productivity with customizable web-based software. I’ll post another tip every few days. But, if you’d like all the tips now, click here to request them.

Tip #2 – Find your productivity sweet spot

When seeking a project management tool, professionals and business owners have often been caught between two options: off-the-shelf, packaged project management applications or custom solutions built in-house, or with outsourced developers.

Packaged or Custom – Each has its pros and cons.

Packaged applications offer the convenience of out-of-the-box features and rapid deployment. But they impose their rules on users, have limited features and cannot be tailored to meet the unique needs of different companies, or even different teams within the same company.

Custom software will certainly work for your teams. But it’s expensive and it can be time consuming to develop, implement and support. Modifying the software to meet changing functionality and process needs is neither easy nor fast – every application change introduces a new round of development, testing and installation.

There is a way to get the convenience you need with the flexibility you want. Instead of buying packaged software or developing a custom solution, consider customizable “software as a service” (SaaS) project management solutions. SaaS solutions are Web-based applications delivered as a service, hosted by a third-party vendor on a secure server and easily accessed via a browser.

SaaS project management offers a productivity “sweet spot” that gives you:

Cost-efficiency

SaaS solutions require no additional hardware or software and are often priced per user. With the per-user pricing model, you only pay for the number of users you need as you need them. As you add and remove users, your monthly subscription fee adjusts accordingly; with desktop software each license becomes a sunk cost that requires an additional investment. Some SaaS vendors provide an unlimited application model in which you pay per-user and have access to as many applications as you like, rather than paying a user fee for each application.

Flexibility

With customizable SaaS solutions, you can control: what information is gathered and tracked; how information is displayed; who can see what information; what information is communicated when and to whom; and what analyses and calculations are performed on data.

This flexibility allows you to work the way that’s best for you and your team – instead of conforming to processes dictated by the software. And it’s easy to modify the application on your own – without a consultant – as your business evolves. But the key word here is “customizable” – not all SaaS solutions allow this flexibility.

Scalability

SaaS solutions are much friendlier to a company’s growth model than packaged or custom-built solutions. The best SaaS solutions allow you to add or remove users quickly and easily as your needs change. This scalability allows companies to start small and grow their application use over time and is especially helpful for quickly adding users in a new location.

Coming Thursday – tip #3 – Get the hosted application advantage

Have a friend who’s struggling with off-the-shelf or custom project management software?

Send them the link to this tip and introduce them to the SaaS productivity sweet spot.

What about you?
Have a packaged or custom project management application war story?

Reply to this post and share your story. Tell us why you decided to look for an alternate solution and why you selected QuickBase. Tell us about life pre- and post QuickBase. And, you guessed it, be one of the first five people to share your story and receive a Starbucks gift card as a thank you. Your complimentary coffee – or Starbucks treat of any kind, like a salted caramel hot chocolate or awesome congo bar – is just one reply away.