The Project Management module is fully integrated to the whole suite of applications and modules.

It is difficult therefore to run a meaningful Project without feeding information from CRM, e-HR and Resources Management as a minimum. If you do not have feeds into your Projects Management from other parts of the platform, then any projects you manage will be “standalone” and without the possibility to do the following things:

1. Add resources to the project
2. Add specific tasks to specific members of staff and track progress of tasks
3. Add specific staff with specific skills to the project
4. Assign the project to a specific client or contact
5. Create timesheets associated to work on the project
6. Create invoices as above
7. Add work orders to above
8. Manage change or variation orders

The best Project Management solution would utilise information and feeds from the following additional modules:

• CRM
• e-HR
• Contracts Management
• Resources Management

Accessing Project Management

• Click on the application module square on your coversheet that says “Project Management” or click on “Projects” from the left-hand menu.

Projects List view

• Once accessed, the first view of projects is the projects list view below:

• Here you can see a full list of all projects already started.
• At the top of the page you may filter the columns of information you see on this list. Just click on the gate icon and select the information you want to display as default
• The Project name is written in blue. This is a link that will (if you wish) enable you to open that project for a full view of its’ contents
• The Client field is shown when a specific Contact or Company is selected from a drop-down list. This list is fed from your CRM information.
• The “Complete” column is a percentage indication of how far the project has been completed to date.
• The estimated and actual finish dates for the projects are also shown
• The start date of the project is the date that the project was first entered, and the Manager is the person that first started the project. Note that this information can all be edited.

How to Edit an existing Project

• Edit an existing project by locating the project you want to edit on the list view and clicking on the blue pencil icon at the right end of the row.
• This will then open an edit project form where more information can be entered and saved
• Note that only persons with the correct permissions will be able to see, edit and save project information
• To change permissions, see Administration / Projects Management Admin
• See also: Administration / General /Permission Groups

How to start a new Project

• Click on the + icon in the green “Projects List” square on the Projects Management coversheet or select “projects from left menu and click on “Add new” yellow box at top right of that screen
• The following box will appear asking for the initial Minimum amount of information required to start a new project.
• Note that pink boxes are mandatory to start a new project

• Each separate project must have a unique name
• You can use other existing projects as part of a programme management by selecting a “parent” project if you wish to have a hierarchy of projects inside one “programme”
• If you wish to choose another person to manage the project, then select “Manager” from drop down. This list is fed by e-HR employees and by the permissions and licenses that people have access to.
• It is possible to use separate calendars for each project. This is useful if your client is on other time-zones or working different days in the week to your normal calendar
• Select a start date if different from today
• Estimate finish date can be entered but will automatically change based on tasks and project programme you devise later.
• Under “Clients” you can check the box “Project with client” if you wish to link this project with a specific client contact or company. This will be useful if you want to add invoices or tasks for the client at a later date.
• All of the client, contact and company information are fed from CRM. If a contact or company record is not already in the CRM it must be entered first and then selected here.
• The “opportunity” box refers to any opportunity you are working in your CRM schedule and is linked to the client you choose.
• Add a full description of the project in the lower box if you wish

Adding Resources to a Project

• Click on the tab marked “Resources” on the left of box pictured above. The following box will appear:

• Click on add new to expand box further
• Resources (people) can be added to each project from the drop-down list
• Delete any resources not required by clicking on the bin icon provided
• The list that feeds the resources (people) is from your e-HR employee directory

Linking Projects with Contracts

• If your company uses Contracts Manager modules, you will already have (most likely) a contract for each project you undertake. If this is so, you can link these contracts with the project, to assure predicted timescales and costs are kept on track. The Projects and Contracts links create the ability to manage change. We call these i-VO (Interactive Variation Orders) and the whole process can be managed from here.
• See more information in the user guides for i-VO.
• To access, click on Contracts from within the new Project window
• Only existing contracts will show in the drop-down box to select

Adding Tasks to a Project

• Once a Project has been opened, you may add a new task to the project either :
  • By clicking on “project Tasks” / Add new
  • Or: By clicking on the “Gantt chart” view / Add new
• The picture below shows the add task box as it opens in the Gantt chart view / add new

• Each task needs a unique name
• You can assign any person from your organisation or from the list of “Global Resources” to a task.
• Assigning tasks to people will create an automated alerts and notifications and will be tracked in tasks management
• Now you can select “Parent Task”. This allows you to have children and hierarchy of tasks
• Selecting start date and duration will set end date unless you change end date manually
• The percentage complete scale at the bottom of the box, allows you to estimate if this task has already been started etc.
• The overall percentage of completeness assigned to the overall Project is a sum / average of the completeness of all tasks.
• Click Save to save the task and add to the Gantt Chart automatically.

Creating Predecessors

• When adding tasks above, we have already seen how to add children to tasks.
• However, it can also be possible to add tasks that have firm predecessors, so that the task is only due to start AFTER the predecessor
• It is also possible to a “lag” prior to the task starting
• The picture below shows how the drop-down boxes are auto filled by data already held in the project to pick the tasks, delays and lags.

Adding Resources to Tasks

• The add task tab on the Gantt chart page allows you to add resources to each task as required.
• Just select any resources listed
• ONLY resources added to either “Global Resources” or picked in e-HR as a resource can be added.
• To add an existing employee as a resource, go to e-HR, open the information sheet by clicking on the name in the employee directory
• Go to skills and positions and click “Is resource” button

Constraints to Tasks such as Deadlines

• Each task can have constraints to its success noted
• Go to the “advanced” tab on the add task form
• Pick the deadline to monitor
• A set list of constraints appears from the drop-down box. Pick one of these
• Add a constraint date to monitor
• By clicking on “Mark task as Milestone” you may monitor Milestones throughout a project

Adding Timesheets to Projects

• Click on “Timesheets” within the project view form
• You can view timesheets that have been linked to this project
• You may also run an invoice for any individual timesheets or groups of timesheets
• See CRM / Invoices to learn how to run and send an invoice to a client.

Adding Sites to Projects

• Click on “Project Sites” within the view form for a Project
• Select add new
• This form gives you the ability to add sites to projects and to auto-number those sites. The auto-numbering of sites is part of the change management process on the advanced Project management solutions
• By adding full address information for each site, you can ensure deliveries are handled correctly

Site Register

• You may add staff or contractors from e-HR register or from CRM to each site
• The site register is a record of all staff and other contractors that are logged to be on each site
• The site register is used to log the information providers, specifiers and management for the change management process.

Importing Projects from Microsoft Projects

• Click on the green “import” button at the top right of the screen when in Projects list view
• Click on the cloud icon on the import page
• Select an MS Projects file to import
• Click on OK to save and import

How to Open an Existing Project to Edit

• From the list view of projects click on the pencil edit icon at the end of the right side of the row.

• Key elements of the project can be edited here.
• Add resources (if resources are in CRM / e-HR as suitable resources and are marked as resources)
• Link the project with any existing Contract (if Contracts are held in Contracts Management and you have access to this application in your Projects solution)

Setting and Managing Project Budgets

• Inside the project edit form, click on tab “budgets”
• You can set the original budget here

• Note that the remaining boxes that show “additional, allocated and Remaining budget are auto-filled when change management is used or when expenses are applied to the budget
• The idea of this page is to keep an up-to-date running total of the project budget and costs so far.

Change Management

• Change Management is a solution that can be added to the Projects Management solution with an additional license.
• The Change Management solution is also known as i-VO (Interactive Variation Orders).
• This change management solution is designed to alleviate problems when an on-going project becomes subject to changes requested by others on-site. These changes (if not managed correctly) can result in lost time on the project without due attention and increased costs being applied to the project without proper authorisation. When these issues occur, they often crate tension between contractors and project owners and in the worst case can mean that a contractor is not re-paid for the cost incurred to make the requested changes. These risks can be totally negated with the use of proper change management proceedures.
• The change management / i-VO solution is a combination of Projects / Contracts and Web and Mobile applications.

The Change Management Process

1. A Project is set up in the normal way
2. A Contract is added to Contracts Management in the normal way.
3. The contract is linked to the project (see linking projects and contracts)
4. Rules for the changes can be created globally (in administration)
5. OR per Project in the Project Edit form (See How to edit and existing project)
6. Once rules are set, changes that are in-line with rules will follow the process to be approved (See change Management approvals)
7. Once approved, Changes will be applied to the Project and the time and cost allocated to the project
8. On-going reports are created to show what changes have been requested and by whom and which ones are approved and when.

Setting Change Management Rules

Four things need to be pre-set in order to successfully manage changes with the Trivaeo solution:

1. Sites for Projects need to be properly set up and identified
2. Each site needs to have a site register of people working there
3. Each Project must have an owner (client or Manager) pre-set for approvals
4. Each Projects must have rules set up to itemise what changes are subject to which change approvals processes

Setting Change Management Rules

• Go to the Edit Project form and select “Change Request Rules”
• Select Create Rule
• The form below appears:

• Here you can create a full matrix of rules that will automatically seek approvals when changes are requested that meet these rules.
• For example: When any change is requested for this project that are expected to be more than £12,000 in cost and could delay the project for more than 5 days, then this rule says that BOTH the Project Manager AND the Client need to expressly approve these changes before work begins.
• See below to learn what happens next if this rule is applied

Change Management Approvals

• Note that every Project Manager and every “Client” added to these projects will automatically have access to see and manage changes and projects.
• The “Manager” is normally your internal person responsible to Manage the project and is set when you create the project. See “how to edit an existing project” if you wish to change the Manager responsible
• The “Client” is the named person deemed to be “client” from your CRM when you set up the project. This person / contact can also be changed by editing the project (see above).
• When a new Change Request is added, each person that is part of the process will receive email alerts and links to the project Change Management to read and study information prior to approvals being sought.
• Each person will receive an automatically generated email from the projects system advising them that a change has been requested and what they need to do next.
• Clicking on the link in the email will take the Manager / Client to change Management form for approval.
• Here they can see all available data, costs, delays and pictures to enable them to make a decision to approve or reject the change request.

i-VO Change Management Mobile Application

• As a user of the Trivaeo projects Management solution you may also have access to the bespoke created mobile application for i-VO (Interactive Variation Orders)
• This application will alert you every time a new change is requested and further alert you if action is required from you.
• The mobile application negates the need to log into the Project to approve changes, they can be approved or rejected directly using the mobile application
• View Changes
• Click on alert shown
• Read attached information and review pictures if provided
• Choose from three actions:

1. Approve – Your approval will be logged in history of the project and will be communicated to those seeking approval and authorisation to proceed.
2. Reject – The rejection will be returned to the original change seeker and the record will show that you have rejected this request to make a change
3. Request more information – Ask a written question as an attached note and click send. This will delay the decision until you have received an answer to your question / information request

Change Management Reports

• An on-going live view of the status of all requests for variation / change to the project are held in Change Manager
• Access Change Manager from the Projects Management cover sheet or via the left hand menu “Change Manager”

• Here you can see an up to date list of all changes applied for your records
• Select per project or per site
• Open each change t view status of approvals by clicking on the blue writing

• Now you can prove each and every approval of each change and see the history of all communications, costs, pictures, photographs used as part of each change request.
• Approved requests will automatically add the expected costs to the project
• Approved requests will automatically add the expected extra time to the end of the project.