1. Project Management/Planning
a. Project Planning, Estimation and Pricing - eProject allows project managers to organize their project into configurable phases and tasks that need to be managed for completion of the specific project. Hourly estimates for different resource types can then be added to each of the tasks. This results in the ability of a project manager to get a time, cost and price estimate on the project.
b. Project Team, Resource Scheduling and Calendars - Project managers and resource managers can manage exactly which resources are place on the project team and also indicate the overall role of each of the team members. eProject also allows resource managers to schedule specific employees to specific estimated work to ensure that the proper number and type of resources are scheduled on the project. As managers are scheduling specific appointments, a calendar view of all appointments for each employee is displayed so that scheduling conflicts can be avoided. All appointments will display on the project calendar giving the project manager a view of all tasks that are scheduled for any particular day.
c. Project Customer and Contact Management - Project managers can manage multiple customer locations and customer contacts on a single project. This gives all users on the project a quick glance at the customers locations involved and provides customer liaisons with immediate access to contact information.
d. Project Cost Baseline, Cost Analysis and Change Request Management - eProject relies on a baseline technique to tie down the original estimated cost of the project. Once a project is base lined, the project manager cannot change or add estimates to the project. This forces project managers to estimate, plan and price projects correctly before the actual project work begins. It also provides a very accurate means to determine the estimated cost versus the actual cost of the work as the project progresses. If the end customer wants additional work part way through the project, a change request process has been employed. The change request allows the project manager to do additional estimates and a subsequent baseline on the change request.
e. Activity Management - While phases and tasks on a project give a general overview of work that needs to be done to complete a project, eProject also provides the ability to create, assign and manage specific activities on a project. These activities can be used to document, assign, and track due dates on issues, to-dos, follow up items or any other specific activities that arise during the course of an active project.
f. Document Repository - The document repository allows users to store documents directly with the project. Adding documents to the project provides visibility to key information to all team members. These documents can include email communications, customer requirements, statements of work, signed contracts and any other electronic document that will help deliver a successful product to the end customer.
g. External Customer Access - eProject can also be setup to provide access to end customers. This gives the end customer the capability to get directly involved in the project process or to just check on the status of the project.
h. Project Milestones, Project Templates and Date Calculations – eProject allows the project managers to setup key project milestone dates to track and ensure that the project is progressing on time. If a key milestone is overdue, the project is flagged and the project manager and other team members are notified.If many projects are similar in process and/or deliverables, a project template can be used to create several projects that contain the same phases, tasks and estimates. This provides the project managers a quick mechanism for creating a project designed to fulfill a standard product offering. In addition, standard timelines can be created for these product offerings and eProject can calculate the key milestone dates based on a final delivery date. (Back to Top)
2. Request Management - eProject includes configurable requests that can be used to send and track a work item to other users of eProject. These requests will end up in a queue of work to be done by certain users. This mechanism is very useful when one or two individuals in an organization are the only ones that can complete a task. An example of this would be that a resource manager is responsible for scheduling all resources on a project (in other words project managers are not allowed to schedule resources on their projects). In this case, the project manager could create a request for resource scheduling on the project. The resource manager is responsible for reviewing the request and actually doing the scheduling on the project. The resource manager would then indicate that the request is complete. (Back to Top)
3. Multi-project Worksheet - The multi-project worksheet allows users to view and edit data on several projects at the same time on the same screen. This is particularly useful if a project manager wants to see specific data of all their projects at one time. This is also useful if all the projects have a similar field and you want to update the field across all the projects at one time. (Back to Top)
4. Personal Work Management Tools
a. My Projects, My Requests, My Activities - My Projects, My Requests and My Activities are quick views to access specific data that the user is responsible for. This allows a project manager to concentrate on the projects, requests and activities that are important to them without seeing all the other projects in the system.
b. Time and Expense Reporting - Time and expense reporting is provided within eProject. All time is recorded directly against a base lined estimate. This is critical to understanding the actual cost of fulfilling the end customer’s requirements versus the planned cost. The process of time reporting also allows the employee to mark that a task is complete. This subsequently shows up within the project and tasks are automatically closed when all resources have completed the work on a specific task.
c. Calendar Views - Personal calendar views are provided in both weekly and monthly views to allow each employee to see at a glance the project work that has been assigned to them. The user also records vacation time, administration time and other non-project time in eProject. (Back to Top)
5. Employee/Resource Management Tools
a. Employee Profile Management - Employee Profile Management provides managers the ability to enter key information about an employee including start date, annual vacation time, resource level and termination date. The managers can also access a user’s time and expense sheet.
b. Team Calendars and Team Projects - Employee managers have several tools that provide access to information about employees that report to them. The Team Calendar lets a manager see the schedule for their whole team at one time. This allows them to see how busy each person is, as well as provide information for scheduling a team meeting or some other team event. Team Projects provides an overview and access to all projects that their direct reports are involved in. This provides vital employee performance information.
c. Team Scheduling/Rescheduling - Another scheduling mechanism within eProject is the schedule pending model. In this process, project managers schedule resources on their project; however, the schedule is considered pending until the employee’s manager approves the time. This mechanism allows a manager to control what each of their employees is working on. During the process, the manager can either approve or reject the pending schedule. The manager can also choose to move the schedule to a different date or even a different employee.
d. Manager Reports - Several employee management reports are provided to allow managers to measure their employee’s performance. The employee utilization report shows how busy the employee schedule is. This report in conjunction with other performance reports can be used to determine if the employee is performing their job functions well and if the employee is under or over utilized. The business compliance reports are a set of reports that indicate if the employee is following proper business processes. As an example, are they reporting their time every week or are they forgetting to do it. (Back to Top)
6. Email Notifications - eProject delivers email notifications to employees and managers about events that occur in the system or on a project. These events include, but are not limited to, business process failures, overdue projects, and canceled projects, being added to a project team or being schedule on a project. (Back to Top)
7. Administration Features - The following is a list of administration features that have been customized for one particular client. This is not a complete list but it contains the major items. a. Resource Levels - eProject provides the ability to manage resource levels or job types. This allows managers to cost out different employees or jobs at different cost and price rates. This also allows eProject to fit into just about any industry.
b. Project Phases and Tasks - Project phases and task organization are managed by an administrator. This allows the eProject customer to decide on what level of organization that projects will be managed within eProject.
c. International support - Region/Sub-Region/Country Management and Currency - eProject has international support built in. A manager can setup regions, sub-regions, countries and states within eProject. This provides the ability to manage projects and project performance at several different levels. This also allows eProject to incorporate different currencies and exchange rates as well as resource level costs in different countries.
d. Announcements - An eProject administrator can add or change important announcements that are displayed on the eProject home page. This provides a mechanism for delivering important information (training classes, support phone number, process documentation) to end-users.
e. Customized Fields - Customized text and date fields can be added to the system and subsequently to projects to allow some expandability without further development to eProject.
f. Customer Management - A list of customers can be maintained so that customer name and address information is consistent across projects. This also avoids reentry of all of this information on every project. (Back to Top)
