The IPM Blog

Throughout The Workflow Series, we have shown you many ways you can use workflows to automate and customise your use of IPM. As we are continually adjusting and changing IPM in our development process, new ways to use workflows are appearing all the time and one such way is the conversion of Site Diary information into official Change Requests.

During the development of IPM, we have added the SD Change Requests section to the Site Diary form, so users can quickly and easily add details of any changes that arise on site to their Site Diary. However, what happens if they then need to create an official Change Request in the Contract Control section, and send it on to relevant stakeholders to be approved? The SD Change Request is merely a record of potential changes, so would this mean users would have to duplicate all the information into the Change Request form? Not likely, and it’s all due to workflows.

To make the best use of the SD Change Request feature, users can create a workflow that will automatically take the information from the SD Change Request and create an official Change Request in the Contract Control section. The workflow can be set to run on demand, or when a new SD Change Request is added, whichever suits the user best. This means there is no duplication of data and your site diary records are an accurate reflection of happenings on site and your Change Requests are ready and waiting in Contract Control for you.

If you want to see how this process can be taken even further, check out another post in the Workflow Series, Converting Change Requests to Change Orders.

Note: for simplicity, I refer only to Change Requests and Change Orders in this post, but please note these are referred to as Variation Requests and Variations in countries outside the USA.


Previous entries in the Workflow Series:
Creating Forecast Tracking Reports
Monitoring Meeting Minute Items
Making Purchase Order Approvals Simpler
Creating RFIs and Change Requests from an Issue
Converting a Change Request to a Subcontract Change Order
Converting Change Requests to Change Orders

Lately, we’ve been looking at how workflows can make the process of managing changes to the project specifications a little easier, and this post follows on from that in helping you convert change requests into change orders.

This workflow will probably suit those of you in the Electrical and Civil industries a little better, but of course any IPM user can create it if it suits their needs.

We know that changes and variations are often inevitable in projects, and they are a process to be managed to ensure everything is initiated, actioned and approved quickly to keep the project running smoothly. So we wanted to show you a simple workflow that can make that process a little easier.

Once you know about a potential change or variation to the specifications of the Job, no doubt you would go into IPM and enter a Change Request and send it off for approval. Well the sample workflow we created monitors that Change Request document, and when it is approved, the workflow then automatically creates a Change Order document. This saves you having to manually go in and enter details of the Change Order. Not only that, it can also create a contract item in the head contract to ensure the Change Order does not get missed during the billing process. Of course, this is just an example of how workflows can help automate the Change Request to Change Order process, so you can choose to add extra steps, or not include certain steps according to your own business processes.

As changes can affect different areas of the project, check out another post in the Workflow Series that can help you create a Subcontract Change Order from a Change Request.

Note: for simplicity, I refer only to Change Requests and Change Orders in this post, but please note these are referred to as Variation Requests and Variations in countries outside the USA.


Previous entries in the Workflow Series:
Creating Forecast Tracking Reports
Monitoring Meeting Minute Items
Making Purchase Order Approvals Simpler
Creating RFIs and Change Requests from an Issue
Converting a Change Request to a Subcontract Change Order

In the previous post, we looked at how workflows can assist you in taking the information from an issue and creating a change request or RFI . This post will look at one of the next steps in this process, which you may need if the change required has an effect on one of the subcontracts.

Due to feedback from our customers, we knew that users wanted a way to take information from a Change Request and create a Subcontract Change Order with it. To accomplish this, we developed the Subcontract Change Order Price Request section in the Change Request, which lets you send out a request to your subcontractor for a price on the work and materials for the change. This is a really handy feature already, even if you don’t end up using it to create Subcontract Change Orders.

Then, to create a Subcontract Change Order, users can create a workflow to take the information in the Subcontract Change Order Price Request and create a Subcontract Change Order with it, using the particular subcontract and subcontractor you requested the price for the change from. Simply set the workflow to run how you want it to and it will do the rest, for example you may wish for a Subcontract Change Order to be automatically created once the subcontractor’s price has been entered in the Subcontract Change Order Price Request and approved. And as the Subcontract Price Request is part of the Change Request, there is now a valid link between a Change Request and a Subcontract Change Order, which wasn’t possible before.

To learn more about the impact workflows can have on Change Requests and Change Orders, check out some of the other posts in our Workflow Series.

Note: for simplicity, I refer only to Change Requests and Subcontract Change Orders in this post, but please note these are referred to as Variation Requests and Subcontract Variations in countries outside the USA.

Previous entries in the Workflow Series:
Creating Forecast Tracking Reports
Monitoring Meeting Minute Items
Making Purchase Order Approvals Simpler
Creating RFIs and Change Requests from an Issue

This is the fourth post in the Workflow series, which we hope has been helpful so far in showing you a few examples of how workflows can help automate some key areas of IPM you use every day.

In this post I’m going to cover the beginning of the change management process, and the next few coming will show you additional workflows you can use to help make manage changes to the project a little easier.

Typically many changes to a contract or part of the project will result from the identification of a certain issue. IPM has a comprehensive Issues register where you can record and monitor details of all the issues that arise on a project. Sometimes though, it may also be necessary to take the issue further, and the use of workflows can greatly assist this.

This workflow is a simple one, but one that can save you time and means you don’t have to enter duplicate data. Once an Issue is added to the Issue you register, you may discuss it will others involved in the project, and you may then need to create an RFI to get more information or a Change Request if the issue needs to be addressed with a change to the original plans.

To avoid re-entering all the information in the issue record into IPM in order to create an RFI or a Change Request, you can simply set up a workflow to run on demand that can automatically create these documents for you, using the information from the Issue. Simply select which Issue you wish to address, and run the appropriate workflow to turn it into either an RFI or Change Request. Of course, you can also create workflows with slightly different processes, for example you can turn an issue into a meeting minute item so that it can be discussed before the decision is made to proceed.

We have more posts coming in the Workflow series that show you how workflows can help you manage Change Requests once they are in the system, so stay tuned...

Note: for simplicity, I refer only to Change Requests in this post, but please note these are referred to as Variation Requests in countries outside the USA.


Previous entries in the Workflow Series:
Creating Forecast Tracking Reports
Monitoring Meeting Minute Items
Making Purchase Order Approvals Simpler

This is the third post in the Workflow series, showing you easy ways you can use workflows to enhance and automate IPM to suit your own business processes.

This week, I’m going to show you a workflow we came up with that can make the process of approving purchase orders simpler. In your organisation, you may have employees who are only authorised to approve purchase orders up to a certain amount, but anything over that must be approved by an employee with a higher approval limit, such as the project manager.

In order to make this distinction simpler, we created the PO approval workflow. The workflow monitors each purchase order and kicks in when the status of a purchase order is changed. It will immediately recognise if the person changing the status can approve purchase orders of that amount. If not, it will keep the purchase order status as pending, and send an email to the project manager (or appropriate employee) informing them there is a purchase order in the system that requires their approval. If necessary, the approval can be escalated further up the chain until a team member with the appropriate level of approval can approve the PO. It’s entirely up to you.

This way, employees can update the status of the purchase order without worrying about their approval amount, or having to create an email themselves when a purchase order requires higher approval. The workflow will ensure no purchase order gets approved unless the person has the correct security level, and cuts out unnecessary emailing back and forth to get purchase orders approved.

Previous entries in the Workflow Series:
Creating Forecast Tracking Reports
Monitoring Meeting Minute Items

This is the second post in The Workflow Series, which shows how workflows can enhance and automate different areas of IPM to suit your business processes better. Of course, due to the nature of workflows, you can decide how and where you use workflows, so these are only examples in an almost infinite list of possibilities.

Last week, I outlined the use of workflows in the creation of forecast tracking reports, used to track the changes to your forecast to complete figures as the project progresses. This week I’m going to talk about how workflows can help you ensure meeting minute items are followed up and actioned on time.

Do you find yourself, after every meeting with architects, subcontractors, general contractors and the like, constantly chasing up attendees to ensure they have actioned the items on the agenda they are responsible for? Or setting yourself countless outlook reminders and scribbling on post it notes in the hope that nothing will slip through the cracks?

Well, you will be pleased to know that as this is a blog about solutions, there is an easier way to manage your meeting minute items. And, you guessed it, the answer lies with Microsoft Dynamics CRM workflows. In other examples we have shown you of workflows, they have been set to run on demand or when part of a record is changed. But workflows can also be created when a record is created. This is perfect in the case of meeting minute items, as it means that each time you create a meeting minute item, a workflow can kick off and constantly run in the background. One way you can use this is to have the workflow regularly check today’s date against the due date on the meeting minute item. If the due date rolls around and the item has not yet been actioned, the workflow can then automatically send an email reminder to you, and the person responsible for the item. So all you have to do is create the workflow and add your meeting minute items into IPM as you normally would, and it will do the rest for you. No more chasing people up, setting countless outlook reminders or scribbled post it notes.

We have plenty more tips and ideas for workflow uses, so keep checking back for more in The Workflow Series.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the power of workflows in customising and automating your project management software. Well this got me thinking about all the nifty ways IPM can use workflows to better suit your project management needs, and I decided it was time for a blog series to show you how a few of them work. So, welcome to the first post in The Workflow Series.

I will start off with showing how workflows have helped develop quite a new feature of IPM, the forecast tracking report. Not long ago, IPM developed the enhanced forecasting tool in the Job Tasks Progress screen. This easy to use tool enables you to continually update detailed forecast to complete information for each job task as the job progresses. However, we found that once the forecast was updated, the original forecast was overridden with the new one.

Was there a way to view what your forecast to complete was three months ago and compare it to now? With workflows, the answer is yes. We added a forecast tracking report to the Job and Job Task forms, which is created by a workflow. Now you can decide how you want the workflow to run.

As an example, we created a workflow that would run every time the forecast to complete figure in the Job Tasks Progress screen was changed. When the forecast is updated, the workflow runs in the background and creates a forecast tacking report to show you what the forecast looked like before it was updated. Now each time the forecast is changed, a forecast tracking report is created in the Job and Job Task forms and they will soon develop into a comprehensive and searchable tracking log for all the forecast updates on the project. This way you can compare what your forecast looked like three months ago to how it looks now.

Of course, the nature of workflows means you can choose how you want them to work. Instead of automatically creating the forecast tracking report, you could set the workflow to run on demand, so it only creates the reports when you want it to. Workflows are also simple to create if you have the appropriate security access level, so you are in control without the need for external consultants.

This is just one way IPM is utilising workflows, so stay tuned for more in the Workflow series...