One of the qualities you will undoubtedly find in every good project manager is an ability to stay organised. With a constant stream of communication about RFIs, contracts and budget and schedule changes, it takes a very organised project manager to stay on top of everything.

But dealing with the huge number of incoming and outgoing emails that are generated by a project every day can test even the most organised project manager. Previously, the answer to this has been to manually sort and file information and communications into separate email folders. But due to the proliferation of email communication these days, the sheer amount of communication means manually filing is just not feasible.

Many project management software products have tried to come up with a solution to this by introducing automatic email filing. But what many products claim to be ‘automatic’ filing is far from it, and often has huge limitations.

That’s why Microsoft Dynamics CRM has developed an automatic email tracking function that is truly automatic, whereby a tracking code is assigned to the subject line of each email. This way all incoming and outgoing emails with the same tracking code are grouped together and stored in the database. And with IPM’s ability to utilise all the features of Dynamics CRM, the email tracking feature is also incredibly useful for project managers, and is unlike anything else currently available to project managers. Here’s why:

1. Email filing is not automatic in other project management software applications. Some other applications do have email filing, but this often means you have to forward the email to a central job email address, so the process is not automatic.

2. Other applications can only file all emails under the Job. Just think of how many emails you may send and receive on one Job, and how difficult it would be to sort through them all to find the one you are looking for.

3. With IPM email tracking, each transaction has a unique code. This means you can click on an RFI for example, and see all the communication related only to that RFI.

Utilising the tools and features available in CRM, IPM can make the process of email tracking for companies in the construction industry easy and automatic.

To find out more about IPM’s automatic email tracking, please contact us.

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There’s no denying the economy is struggling.  The ripple effects of the 2008 ‘Global Financial Crisis’ are still being felt across the world, worse in some places, but still being felt all the same. Australia hasn’t been quite as hard hit as our European and North American counterparts, but there is still a noticeably sluggish feel to the economy compared to the boom years of 5 – 10 years ago.

One of the sectors that has seen a slump all over the world is construction, and with a slump comes reduced profits, and ultimately less confidence in ‘expensive’ investments such as new software.

But software could actually be a smart investment during a downturn. As John Chaney pointed out in the CFMA’s May/June issue of Building Profits, in previous economic downturns the contractors who have emerged stronger from recessions are those who have embraced new technologies.

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