We are very pleased to announce that the revamp of our project management tutorial videos page is now complete! We have updated our tutorial videos to reflect the new features we’ve added recently and to show you how IPM is working with the CRM 2011 interface.
If you happened to be booked on a Qantas flight last Sunday, you would have felt the full effects of the seemingly insignificant ’leap second’. In order to bring electronic clocks back into sync after slight changes in the Earth’s orbit over the past four years, one second was added to the world’s clocks at midnight AEST on Saturday. And the result was chaos for air travellers. The extra second was enough to cause Qantas’s booking system to crash, causing delays of up to an hour for both international and domestic travellers.
Last year, I posted a blog about Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype, and what that would mean for project managers using Microsoft CRM. Well it seems that the software giant may have even more to offer, with reports appearing in Forbes that Microsoft has also acquired the business social network tool, Yammer, for $1.2 billion.
I’ve often mentioned on this blog how IPM is built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, and I’ve given many examples of just why Microsoft CRM is such a solid and reliable platform to build our project management software on. From features like customisable workflows and forms to a central project database, CRM provides many solutions that can not only be used in sales and marketing, but also in project management.
When most people think of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the words sales and marketing come to mind. It’s true that Microsoft Dynamics CRM is used in many sales and marketing departments to keep track of sales leads, marketing campaigns and accounts and contacts. But it can also be so much more than that. What I’m talking about is the fact that Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a platform; it serves as a base to build things on top of, much like the foundations of a house.
I found an article this morning about how social media is evolving in organisations to become more than just a marketing tool. Social media is now becoming a part of many departments in big organisations from HR right through to project management. And even smaller companies are jumping on board. So that got me thinking, what are some of the ways you could use social media to manage your projects?
On a project, documents can be approved, changed, updated and reapproved all the time, often being sent back and forth between multiple people working on a Job. It’s no wonder then that it’s easy to lose track of where a document is at, and who is holding up its progress.
Many construction companies can often be mistaken in thinking they don’t need a CRM system to help manage their projects – after all they are in the business of managing projects, not customers. However with developments in CRM technology in recent years, CRM tools are no longer just about contact lists and sales leads. That’s why I’ve put together the following reasons why project managers should be using a CRM tool as well as a project management tool to help manage their projects:
I recently came across an article on projectmanager.com.au entitled ‘Technology: Friend or Foe?’ and it got me thinking about technology, and also our relationship with technology in our everyday lives. We often marvel at how technology makes things easier for us, particularly when things go like clockwork, but as soon as something doesn’t work for us we berate it and vow and declare never to buy that particular brand or product again.
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. If there is one remarkable feat in construction, ‘The Coathanger’ as Aussies affectionately call it, would have to be right up there.
As the largest steel arch bridge in the world, it took 1 400 workers, 53 000 tonnes of steel, two creeper cranes, four maintenance cranes, 18 000m3 of granite blocks, 6 million hand driven rivets and eight years to complete.