The IPM Blog

For years, Excel has been a staple project management tool. But have you ever stopped to consider whether in some instances using Excel may actually be more of a hindrance than a help in managing your projects? I’m not saying there is no place for Excel in project management, but the heavy reliance of organisations on Excel as one of the main project management tools can often involve more work than is needed.

Take the developing of a forecast cost report for example. You may have your initial estimate in an Excel spreadsheet, which needs to be transferred into a forecast cost report, along with other information, such as actual costs. You could spend days developing this report by retrieving information from two or three different areas. The report is then put together using a range of formulas, which if inadvertently changed can alter the entire data set and make it inaccurate.

Then consider how this report is used. There may be two or three project managers working on the report, so it has to be shared around to be updated and often it can become confusing as to which is the correct version. Some project managers may even store Excel documents on their own laptops or computers making reports inaccessible should they be absent.

I’ve taken this same scenario and applied it to IPM. To develop a forecast report here, you can import your original estimate document from Excel into IPM. IPM then takes the information from it and uses consistent formulas to create other files relating to your project, such as job tasks, the original budget detail and the Gantt chart schedule. This information can then be used to generate a whole range of reports, including a forecast cost report complete with the ability to drill down into each task to see costs and forecast details. And because the formulas used to generate this information are embedded in the report design there is no risk of accidentally altering data.

We recently created a forecast cost report for a client using IPM and the process was completed in under an hour, something that may have taken two or three days solely using Excel. With IPM, job data is now also stored in one central place, so everyone who needs to can access and update information easily and there is never any confusion as to which is the current version. The information needed to generate the forecast cost report will continue to update when information is added into other areas of IPM, such as detailed forecasts or costs transferred from the accounting system. You can then generate a new report on demand and it will have the most up to date information, so you get instantaneous, reliable and accurate reports for your job quickly.

I’m sure if you asked any project manager whether they would prefer to take three days or one hour to generate a forecast cost report, they would choose the latter. But what do you think?

We often talk about one of the main benefits of IPM being its ability to integrate with your ERP accounting system. But what exactly is ERP integration and how can it help you achieve what you need from your project management software?

I like to think of it this way. What would happen in your organisation if the project manager made changes to a part of a project that impacted on the budget, but didn’t inform the accounting department? Chaos. The accounting department would be working off original budgets that don’t match with the new projections, as they have no visibility of the project manager’s changes.

Well it’s the same with software. If you have two different systems for accounting and project management, there are multiple versions of information about the project and if these two programs don't talk to each, this can cause problems in your organisation. Your employees’ productivity can also be lowered if they have to continually enter duplicate data into each system. The solution to this has often been to use accounting software that provides some project management functions. But with the developments in software these days, better options are becoming available and it now no longer seems a sensible option to have the one software program for both the accounting department and the project management side of things. Having one software program has proven to not provide enough scope for project managers to really do their job properly, and often project managers hate using project management software that ‘thinks’ like an accounting program.

This is where the importance of integration comes in. By having two different solutions specific to each department, but that synchronise with one another, you can fulfil the needs of both your accounting and project management departments and each can use software appropriate for their working environments. You then also avoid the above scenario of a breakdown in communication and duplicating, with the two separate software solutions actually talking to each other and sharing all the necessary information about the project. That way, you will always get one version of the truth.

IPM supports integration with a number of ERP systems such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Sage Timberline Office and SAP B1, with others in the pipeline. This also means that if you currently use one of these ERP accounting systems, you won’t have to change it to invest in our project management specific solution. We’ll just slot right in to your existing system. Integration can also ensure user buy in is higher as each user can operate in an environment appropriate to their job.

You can find out more about the benefits of ERP integration in our free whitepaper.

An investment in project management software can be a very big decision and one that is usually well researched and not to be taken lightly. Apart from the obvious consideration of the price, many other factors have to be taken into account to ensure you end up with the right software for the job. So to make the decision easier, I’m posting the following list of 9 reasons why IPM is the project management software for you.

1. IPM is built for project managers
IPM was developed and designed with project managers in mind – it is not an accounting system with some project management aspects built into it. The developers of IPM have over 20 years experience in the construction industry and understand what project managers need out of their software.

2. IPM is user friendly
IPM can be used from within Microsoft Outlook, which makes it one of the most user friendly project management solutions around. Most project managers are already familiar with the Outlook environment and use it on a daily basis, so by accessing all the project related information from here, IPM helps increase user adoption and saves time transferring communication and documents from one application to another.

3. Efficient Document Control
Managing all the documents related to a job can be difficult if you have multiple people all working on separate spreadsheets or documents. But with IPM you can create, track and store all of the documents relating to your project in the one place. You are not limited in your document choices either, with the ability to create many documents such as RFIs, RFQs, Meeting Minutes, Site Diaries, Extensions of Time, Defects, Subcontracts, Change Orders/Variations, Progress Bills, Timesheets and more.

4. Email tracking
Do you hate spending hours searching through your inbox to find an email you need to forward to someone, or sorting each of your emails from contacts on a job into their respective folders? This process is easy with IPM, which if used within Outlook, can automatically generate a tracking number in the subject line for each email you send out. This tracking number will then be used to automatically store all of your emails and any replies against transactions in the job in IPM.

5. Extensive Reporting Abilities
As IPM was developed with an understanding of both the construction industry and its accounting processes, our reporting tools can give you all the information you really need. Unlike other project management solutions that report on only document control, we can report on costs as well.

6. Ability to Customise
We understand that no two organisations’ processes and procedures are the same, and therefore the software they use shouldn’t be either. We use the customising abilities of the CRM framework to tweak our software to fit the needs of each organisation we provide IPM to. This means you can change labels on a form to suit your organisation’s terminology, or remove fields you don’t need.

7. Workflows
Workflows can be created by each user to fit your individual document processes. With workflows, tasks such as turning an RFQ into a subcontract, or generating a change order once a change request is approved are as simple as clicking a button. How you decide to use workflows is up to you, for example you may choose to generate an outlook task or an email to alert you of cost overruns.

8. Job Planning and Forecasting
With our planning and forecasting section you can manage and display live scheduling information in an interactive Gantt chart, access budget data, cash flow and costs information for each job task and add detailed forecast to complete information.

9. ERP Integration
IPM can have ERP integration with Microsoft Dynamics Nav, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Sage Timberline Office or SAP B1. This means accounting and project information can be quickly and easily synced between both applications, saving time and letting your project managers do what they do best, run the project. If you are already using one of these ERP systems it also means you don’t need to change your financial system to use IPM.

If you want even more reasons why IPM is the software for you, please don’t hesitate to contact us to arrange a free demo.

Are you the sort of person who gets into a routine and sticks with it? Don’t worry, most of us are. We all have that same coffee place we stop at on the way to work, or the same seat on the train every morning.

However, when it comes to using new software, this probably isn’t the right approach. Organisations often spent large amounts of money finding and implementing software programs to help them work better and smarter. But due to ingrained human nature of liking routine and what’s comfortable, they often encounter two main problems with users interacting with the software. Either users try to apply their old processes to the new software, or they learn one way to use new software then stick with it.

We’re all guilty of it (I didn’t discover control + v to paste something for about six years). But unfortunately, you will never get the best out of your software without trying new options, discovering better ways of doing things or implementing new workflows all the time to help streamline your work.

In project management software especially, this has been more of a problem than other industries due to the nature of the software itself. Whilst industry-specific software available to other industries has come along in leaps and bounds, many project management software solutions available today are still being built on very old technology. Although they may look and feel stylish and fresh, the ‘back end’ is stagnant and often has very stringent uses and applications that force users into a set routine.

This is why the very nature of IPM being built on the Microsoft Dynamics® CRM framework is so important. IPM is based on Microsoft’s latest technologies, which are continually evolving and progressing as Microsoft evolves its platforms. Because of this, IPM will never stagnate and will always provide new ways for users to interact with the software and improve their processes.

Although it is ultimately up to the end user to continually improve their interactions with the software they use, having software that facilitates this no doubt makes the process easier. So when you are looking at project management software, make sure you check whether it has the ability to change and evolve with your organisation and help your users discover better ways of doing things. Because as Winston Churchill once said, “There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction”.

Have you ever found yourself in a dispute with a client or subcontractor on a project and unable to produce documents to support your claims, simply because they were never properly completed or filed? Being in this position can cost contractors thousands of dollars and time lost to complete extra work, all because they didn’t document their position clearly.  

I recently discovered another good read from CFMA’s Building Profits magazine which will no doubt be useful for any organisation in the AEC industries. Written by Jeffrey Firestone, Director of Litigation Services and Auditing & Accounting Services at McManamon & Co LLC, and Andrew Natale, Chair of the Construction Law Group at Frantz Ward LLP, the article outlines ways to protect your construction claims with proper documentation.

One of the best ways to cover yourself and avoid costly disputes with customers, contractors and subcontracts on a project is to ensure that all correspondence is well documented and stored in writing. Verbal communication is often not conclusive enough to prove or disprove a claim and in today’s litigious society, it is imperative to record documents such as transmittals, change orders, RFIs, site diaries and meeting minutes. But, why are organisations still being caught out? Is it that the process of documenting and filing is just too time consuming and difficult?

This is why an investment in project management software with good document control facilities can save you time and money in the long run. Unlike traditional practices where project managers maintain all of their own estimates and documents in spreadsheets only accessible to a handful of others in the organisation, well developed software products such as IPM enable automatic filing of all documents related to a project in the one place. This means that in the unfortunate event of a dispute, document retrieval is efficient and all encompassing.

Records of email correspondence are also gold when it comes to dispute resolution. We know the manual filing and organising of emails is a time consuming and monotonous task, but did you know that IPM can automatically track and file email communication for a certain job with an automatically generated tracking code in the subject line?

With documentation features like this, there is now no reason why disputes should cost your organisation more than they have to.