by Kirk Trachy under QuickBase Advice & Tips

How to add Dynamic Gantt Charts to QuickBase will be shown today at 2pm Eastern time when Don Larson of MCF Tech shows their enhanced charting product.

As you drag a timeline and link it to another task, data is updated automatically and reports are reconfigured on the fly.

Who: Open to All
What: Don Larson from MCF showing Advanced Gantt Charting for QuickBase
When: 2pm Eastern time today, 11/17
Where: Online via WebEx
How: Register at: http://quickbase.intuit.com/webinars/register/965033785

MCF Technologies is a Certified QuickBase Solution Provider and is based in Cleveland, Ohio. http://mcftech.com.

by Kathleen Lamphier under Industry Trends

Here’s the seventh and final tip for boosting project team productivity with customizable web-based software. If you’d like all the tips in one easy to read PDF file, click here to request them.

Tip #7 – Anticipate needs for security, service and support
Many SaaS providers have made extensive hardware and software investments that offer an exceptional level of security. That said, not all providers are alike.

When you’re evaluating a potential solution for your Web-based project management needs, consider the following:

Data security
Where is the data hosted? What systems are in place to protect your data? Look for a solution that provides the utmost protection for your business information.

Service and support
What happens when you need help? Who’s available to get you started – and to assist your team as needs arise? Look for service and support policies that can bring rapid relief to your occasional challenges.

Years of experience
Is the provider a new player or a proven partner? Who are its clients and what are their satisfaction rates? Previous history is one of the best predictors of future experience.

Here’s what QuickBase offers in the areas of security, service and support:

QuickBase Data Security
Your QuickBase application data is stored in the same facility that handles millions of tax returns via TurboTax for the Web each year. QuickBase uses industry-standard, 128-bit Secure Socket Layers (SSL) protocol to ensure your information is neither intercepted nor corrupted during transmission over the Internet. In addition, QuickBase uses encryption technology to help protect your data when stored on disk.  Click here to learn more about the security, reliability, and confidentiality of QuickBase.

QuickBase support resources
Whether you are new to QuickBase or have been using it for years, the QuickBase Support Center provides everything from answers to common questions to detailed instructions.

QuickBase support resources include live technical support from the QuickBase Customer Success Team, online product help, live online training, and the QuickBase community forum.

Test drive QuickBase support
When you’re trying out QuickBase during a free 30-day trial you have access to all the same support resources as our customers – that includes live technical support.  Plus, you have assistance from the QuickBase Concierge Team.  Their job is to help you more quickly determine if QuickBase is a fit for your needs.

QuickBase experience
QuickBase is a proven solution backed by Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, QuickBooks and Quicken.  Over 56 of the Fortune 100 and thousands of small and medium sized businesses rely on QuickBase.  And, QuickBase has been serving customers for over nine years.

What do you think?
Please share your thoughts about and experiences with QuickBase’s data security, service and support. Have you worked with the QuickBase Customer Success Team? The Concierge Team?

What’s next?
This is the final tip in this series. It’s time for some reader feedback. Did you find these tips helpful? Do you have a favorite tip? Or maybe a team productivity tip you’d like to share that wasn’t covered?

What other topics would you like to see covered in the QuickBase blog?

by Kathleen Lamphier under Industry Trends

Tip number six for improving project team productivity with customizable web-based software. The seventh and final tip is coming next week.  Want all the tips, all in one easy to read PDF file? Click here to request them.

Tip #6 – Personalize the project experience
Sure, collaborative teamwork is what project management is all about. But your team’s success depends on the integration of individual efforts – each with different needs.

For example, not everyone on your team wants or needs to see all project information, and they definitely don’t all want to see it in the same way.  You may want to assign varying levels of information access to project participants.  And, each member of your team may want to customize the project management application to view just the information that’s most important to them.

Many project teams find the following personalization features very helpful:

Adjustable permission levels
The entire team does not need equal access to project information. Customizable project management applications allow managers to control what information individuals can see – and their ability to modify, share or simply view it – by assigning different levels of permission.  This way, the project manager retains the oversight he needs, while individual participants gain access to just the information they need – no more, no less. And, confidential or sensitive information remains restricted to authorized users.

Customizable dashboards and reports
A “dashboard” is an application’s control center. It’s the first page you see when you open your application, and it puts all the at-a-glance information you need in one place.  From it, you can search, add information, create or access reports, and more.

Project management software should enable individuals to arrange their dashboard to their tastes, allowing them to easily access just the documents, records and other information most important to them. It should also enable individuals to create their own custom reports so they can see information how and when they need it.

Get personal with QuickBase
Did you know that Intuit QuickBase provides many ways to personalize your project experience? They include: roles, groups, field level permissions, dashboards and reports.

Roles
You control access to your application and information by assigning a role to a user. QuickBase roles determine what the user can see or do within your application.

Groups
You can save time when managing large groups of users, by creating a QuickBase group. QuickBase groups are a collection of similar users combined together to grant application access or special permission rights to all members at once.

Field level permissions
There may be times when you want to share your application with many users, but limit access to certain fields. QuickBase lets you choose from three access settings: No Access, View or View/Modify.

Dashboards
With QuickBase you can customize dashboards for your users, including personalized views of the information important to them, buttons to get them going to the right place fast, and information to guide them on what to do or what’s new. For example, you can add a report to the dashboard that lets each user see a list of her own unfinished tasks when she opens the application.

Reports
With seven QuickBase report types to choose from, you can display your data the way you want and interact with your data right through your reports. QuickBase reports formats include: table, grid edit, summary, crosstab, calendar, chart and timeline.

Coming next week – tip #7 – anticipate needs for security, service and support.

How are you using QuickBase’s personalization features?

by Kathleen Lamphier under QuickBase News

If you’re using QuickBase to manage projects, here’s a chance to help others searching for online project management tools make the best purchase decision they can by sharing your experience.

Please take a few minutes to post a review of QuickBase project management at onlinepmtools.com.

About onlinepmtools.com
Onlinepmtools.com is a user review website (launched March 2009) that provides user reviews of – you guessed it – online project management tools.  At onlinepmtools.com it’s all about user reviews: “Hearing straight from people and companies who have used the tools is the best way to get a feel for quality and fit for your own needs.”  So please help others in their search for an online project management tool by posting your review of QuickBase.

Posting your review
Went you get to the QuickBase listing on the website, just click either the leave a comment or the write a review link to share your thoughts.   You’ll be asked to rate QuickBase in terms of features, support and ease of use using a five point scale.  Then, write a short review in your words of why you chose QuickBase for online project management.  You can also choose to be notified by email when additional reviews are posted.

I’m a user too!
Personally I don’t just work for Intuit QuickBase; I’m a user too. I use the product all the time.  I’ve worked at other software companies where I’ve used their product a tiny bit internally – or at least taken a training class on how to use it (that was back in my enterprise software days).  But at QuickBase I actually use the product a lot – more than I’ve used the product of any other company I’ve worked at.

I think it’s pretty cool that we use QuickBase so much at work.  I use QuickBase to manage marketing projects and budgets, report on program results and submit/track website work requests.  I also use it to submit and track projects with external vendors.  That’s just a few uses off the top of my head.

I like how QuickBase is easy to use like a spreadsheet – it’s got that familiar rows and columns look to it – and the grid edit feature is near and dear to my heart.  I also like the fact that I can quickly create and share reports – and export them to a spreadsheet when I need to.

It’s about you
Sure I use and like QuickBase but onlinepmtools.com doesn’t want to hear from me, they want to hear from customers like you, so please do post a review.  Thank you!

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 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.

by Kathleen Lamphier under Industry Trends, Uncategorized

I’ve been thinking about my last post and figured if I’m asking you to share your spreadsheet story why don’t I share mine too. I admit it, I was a shuffler. Don’t get me wrong. I like spreadsheets for number crunching — even making lists or schedules when I’m the only person working on a project. But, I’ve not a fan of the shuffling thing.

Prior to joining the QuickBase team I worked for several companies where I have been locked out of team spreadsheets that were posted on a shared drive – because someone else updated their information and left the spreadsheet open. That resulted in the rest of the team – or at least the most frustrated member – hunting that person down to close the spreadsheet so the rest of us could update our respective sections before our team meeting that day. That was definitely frustrating. Other times it was like an update roll-call. I’m done. Who’s going next? Ok, I’m done. Next. And on and on till we each got our updates in.

In the past I’ve also had to spend time consolidating spreadsheets. One time I had a list of leads from a seminar and I needed status updates from various sales reps. Because each sales rep could only see their own information I had to create about 10 versions of the spreadsheet – one per sales rep. Then email one spreadsheet to each rep requesting an update on the list of prospects. Followed by reminder emails and phone calls to get the information back, then consolidate that information back into one spreadsheet for a program report to management.

With QuickBase reporting on leads is so much easier. Our concierge team (think inside sales meets customer service) uses QuickBase to get their leads – each rep sees only their information – and I can easily report from the same system. I just pull a report of leads by their campaign code in order to get just my program. If I ever needed to remind the concierge team to update information I could set up an email notification to remind the whole team – instead of having to send out an individual email to each person.

I can’t tell you how nice it is to have all the information I need all in one system and accessible through an internet browser. I can pull reports from home, from the road. I don’t have to be in the office or using a VPN to do it.

One more confession.
You know when you send out a spreadsheet to a few people for updates and at least one of them messes with the formatting so you can’t just cut and paste information back into your master spreadsheet? Well, sometimes I’m one of those people who reformat a spreadsheet to make it work better for me. At my last job, I drove my manager a little crazy with my spreadsheet tweaking. But that’s all behind me now because with QuickBase I don’t need a spreadsheet, I can just create or edit a report in my team’s QuickBase application to see just the fields I need to see and then use grid edit to update my project information. I love grid edit – it looks just like a spreadsheet. I get to see the information I need the way I need it and I haven’t messed up any formatting for anyone else. And there’s no cutting and pasting, my information is updated along with my co-workers all in one place. No fuss, no muss and no frustrated managers.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Ok, enough about me. Tell me your story.
Remember the first five people to reply to my last post will receive a Starbucks gift card.