By Mark Engelberg – TimeLinx
With the level of technology available today to pretty much everyone on the planet, we rightfully could expect to be alerted when a significant event happens in our business. Whether it’s an update to a schedule, a task assignment, or a finance issue with a customer, event monitoring and alerts should be a piece of the critical apps that run the business. If it’s not offered with your PSM software, ask if it’s available. Indeed, when we manage large projects for clients, we need to stay on top of specific situations to keep all the ships above the water and moving forward.
Keep Up To Date At All Times
Picture this. It’s taken years, but you have finally managed to banish spreadsheets and paper reports to the realm of your backup servers in the cloud or file cabinets in a back room. You proudly implement your shiny new PSM software, stand back and admire your work. Brushing your hands together, you go about your business, confident that you are now on the cutting edge of everything in your company. But alas, your new PSM solution isn’t set up to monitor the changing data and send important alerts about what’s happening, or what’s different, minute-by-minute if that’s necessary.
Wouldn’t it make MUCH more sense if your software alerted you the minute something changed? If you got an email for a wide range of project-related alerts, which can be configured by you, timed for the best delivery, and sent to individuals with specific knowledge requirements. Bob from accounting knows precisely when the project goes over budget while Mary in sales gets notified when she needs to follow up on a looming issue. Different alerts to different people on various topics.
But why think just about projects? We offer BAM (see below) that can also monitor your other applications, not just TimeLinx. Need to have a notification generated from your accounting system on low inventory levels? Or items received today? Or a past due account? Or a new customer record that has been created? The TimeLinx Alerts and Monitoring system can do that by adding connectors for multiple systems at the same time. No reason to limit alerts to just projects and services. And it’s not just for users, those alerts can go to customers or any external party in your database.
And by the way, “What’s an alert?” Well, it could be an immediate email notification when the event happens. Or it could be a summary email of a number of events at the end of each day. Or every Friday. Or a report format with complex details.
BAM
Business Activity Monitoring software is usually reserved for the big-time players when it comes to PSM solutions. But why? Do SMEs not need notification on their projects? Is the assumption that because they employ fewer staff, there are fewer details to manage? Either way, it’s rubbish. If we need alerts to know when important emails arrive, then we most definitely need alerts to know when something affects a project in a meaningful way. To every customer, their project is as important as any other.
What Happens Next?
Of course, arising issues is not the be-all and end-all of alerts, far from it. If you have BAM software, it can also alert you of the upcoming steps needed in your project’s timeline. All of the integral people involved in the next step can receive advance notice of what task is next. These can be curated especially for the necessary people. Jim, the sales guy, doesn’t need to know that the next step of hardware is about to be installed, and Janice in accounting only needs to know when and what she needs to invoice and whom.
Constant Monitoring
No matter how diligent we are, human error is a real thing. We have bad days, we get tired, and things slip by. If a server goes down for only 15 seconds, you might not know about it. However, a lengthy server crash will have everyone scrambling to determine why and how it could have been prevented. Good monitoring software will catch the issue before it’s an issue and send an alert to the relevant people. That way, you can pre-empt problems and help to ensure smooth sailing. No one likes disasters, so why even give them the chance to grow?
The point is, having integrated BAM software that sends out alerts and constantly monitors your systems and projects should be standard with your PSM solution. And if it isn’t, you need to ask why.
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About TimeLinx
TimeLinx delivers innovative project & service management software as a complete solution that perfects the sell-track-manage-support-bill cycle that services organizations must have to delight their customers; TimeLinx brings the cycle together in a single application that offers less frustration, better project management, complete reporting, and improved profitability – all specially designed for Infor and Sage.
