November 2010 - Posts

• A Time to Give Thanks!

  Well folks, it's that time of year again! A time where we stuff ourselves with delicious foods, fall asleep on the couch, maybe watch football all day and then get up at an ungodly hour (or not go to bed at all) just to get the best deals!  My mouth is watering right now just thinking about all the food I'm going to eat tomorrow! Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potato pie, green bean casserole, corn pudding, cranberry sauce! Yum! More importantly, it's also a time where we give thanks for all that we have in our lives. At many dinner tables tomorrow night, people will go around the room and tell each other what they are thankful for. I thought it would be fun to ask my co-workers what they are most thankful for this year and wanted to share their answers with you! "Our office Keurig machine and a seemingly endless supply of coffee." "A wife that puts up with me, that I love dearly." "Being awesome at Fantasy Football." "Technology that allows me to keep in touch with friends and family across the country - especially during the holidays."  "Our family thanks God for our beautiful new addition, baby boy born on November 9th, and for everyone's health! We have also been blessed by the support of amazing family, friends, and co-workers. Plenty to be thankful for again this year!" "Friends that are like family to me." "Kids that keep life interesting and most of the time puts smiles on my face." "Living in a city with such awesome sports teams like the Steelers and the Penguins." "A job that I love with co-workers that I can call my friends." "Family and friends that warm the heart. " "Someone else writing a blog post."  "Every breath that I take." One of the things that I know all of my colleagues are thankful for, because we talk about it all the time, is having such awesome clients. I'm not kidding! We love the partnerships we're able to build, and the wonderful feeling that comes from finding a solution that makes the lives of our users just a little bit easier.  And of course, nothing makes us happier than to get a phone call or an email from a client telling us how thankful or appreciative they are for our help. I'd like to share some of those lines with you now: "You are fabulous! These are very helpful !" "Great...thanks so much for the quick response!" "Thank you so much, you have no idea how much time this will save me." "I didn't want to overwhelm you with a multitude of compliments.  You guys are amazing!  You saved the day and quite possibly much more than that for some." "You are a superstar....!" "Awesome! I always forget that your help section is so helpful. Others' aren't." On that note, I'd like to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy the holiday weekend and try not to eat too much turkey tomorrow, the tryptophan might mess up your Black Friday shopping plans. Please feel free to share with us in the Comments what you are thankful for! Gobble! Gobble! Posted Nov 24 2010, 09:38 AM by jenkohlman with 2 comment(s)

• Effective and Efficient Project Management in policyIQ – A Wrap-Up on a month of Project Management

  This month's CPE event last week was a fun one to host.  Our team presented a Project Management solution in policyIQ for the first time - and we had a great audience made up of experienced users, brand new prospective users, and Resources Global consultants with different perspectives to offer on project management. A Practical Approach to Project Management While there are plenty of learning opportunities out there for formal project management theory, we wanted to take a practical approach to our solution.  policyIQ's strengths lie in the ability to organize the documentation, decisions, tasks and issues that are involved in a project.  To make the most of these strengths, we started by breaking down our project into major Milestones, and the Tasks that made up each one.  Taking advantage of the linking capability, we document the Issues we encounter and link those to all of the Tasks that are ultimately affected. We focused a great deal on the reports that you may use to track your project's status - such as a list of Overdue Tasks, a matrix outline the entire project from Milestones to Issues, or an Issue Log that detailed the severity and impact of the open issues. You all had some great questions! During the one hour session, we had some great questions that we wanted to be sure to answer here for the benefit of anyone who may not have been able to attend. Q: Can the user show the flow chart of the project right within the page? A: Yes - The user may either attach a flow chart (an image file, Visio file, or any file type) as a file attachment, or embed an image into the page itself. Q: Can you send an alert to everyone impacted by a change on a page?  A: Yes, policyIQ's new "Custom Alerts" feature will allow you to create an Alert on a page that will notify the relevant users that you identify if changes are made.  Q: Does this solution have a way to handle a request for project changes, e.g. additional scope? A:  A project team can certainly set up a process in policyIQ to collect requests for project changes or scope adjustments.  This might be a Form that is created, or may be an additional Page Template.  If changes are made, it is important to note that policyIQ does not automatically adjust dates on subsequent tasks.  Task dates do need to be updated individually, if the scope of the project is updated. Q: Can policyIQ manage dependencies across tasks? A: It is possible to link Tasks together to indicate that one task is dependent on another.  You may even have a field on the Task Template that asks for "dependent Tasks" to be defined.  However, it is most important to note that Task dates are not automatically updated if a preceding Task has a date adjustment.  While linked, Tasks are independent and not updated based on those relationships.  For this reason, some project managers may continue to use a product like MS Project to manage the overall project plan and dates - while using policyIQ to track documentation, Issues, Deliverables, Decisions and all of the information that is generated as a result of a project. Q: How can I run a report that shows me all of my past-due tasks? A: A report of Overdue Tasks is going to be a very common report created by project managers or team members.  Using filters on your Task pages, you can create a list of all Tasks where the Status IS NOT "Complete", and the Due Date is in the past.  If you want to see only Tasks that you are responsible for, add an additional filter for those where the Task Owner contains your name. Q: How can people use the syndicate feature with project management? A: policyIQ allows you to create an RSS Feed to "syndicate" content from policyIQ and push it out to any program that reads RSS Feeds.  (Email programs, SharePoint, Internet Explorer, or any number of other "feed readers".)  RSS Feeds might be created to distribute Deliverables to Executive Teams as they are completed, push Meeting Minutes to all team members each week, or to send Status Reports to your management level. Q: Can policyIQ produce a visual representation like a Gantt chart? A: No, policyIQ does not have a Gantt chart view.  Some project managers may continue to use a product like MS Project to manage the overall project plan and dates - with a Gantt chart option - while using policyIQ to track documentation, Issues, Deliverables, Decisions and all of the information that is generated as a result of a project. Find more information online and in our Help Guide If you weren't able to attend the training session, don't fret!  There are lots of ways that you can get caught up on Project Management in policyIQ. Recording:  We have the recording of last Thursday's session available now on our policyIQ Training page. Help Guide: Check out the solution manual in your online Help guide. Ask us!  Our team is happy to help you think about the ways that policyIQ might work for your project team.  Email us or give us a call and we'll be happy to work with you. Posted Nov 23 2010, 09:21 AM by chrisburd with no comments Filed under: Training, reports, project management

• Options for Linking to External Documents and Applications

  Have you ever used the Web Link content type in policyIQ?  A Web Link is just like a Page or File content type, as it can be linked to other items and stored within Folders in your site.  The benefits of using a Web Link may not be obvious, so we'll examine the different possibilities: Link to Large Files on your Network policyIQ restricts uploaded file attachments to 15 MB, so larger files on your network could not be loaded into policyIQ.  One way to workaround this limitation is to point a Web Link at this local file.  Your users would need to have access to this local drive, so a shared drive is the likely destination. To create a Web Link that points to a local file, simply click Add>New Web Link from the Create And Edit module.  On the New Web Link panel, choose the link type "File://": This marker denotes that you're linking to a shared drive rather than a web hyperlink address.  Next, you'll want to populate the link address with the full path (drive included) to the file: Once the Web Link has been saved, you're now free to index it within a Folder or link it to other objects (such as Pages or Files).  This can be a useful alternative to uploading larger file attachments, and accessing the Web Link from the Attachments/Links tab is similar to downloading a file attachment:   Linking to Commonly Used Web References Clients that use references to corporate, industry or other standards could use the Web Link function to link back to these standards.  The alternatives would be to provide links within the body of your policyIQ Pages, or save the web information onto a series of Pages within your site.  If a link changes and needs to be updated, the first alternative would be very cumbersome to maintain, as there wouldn't be an easy way to locate and update this information in bulk.  Also, if the content of the standards change, the information that you've saved might be out of date on your reference documents. Instead, try creating a series of Web Links that point to this web content, and store them in a central Folder within your site.  You could also link the Web Links to any Pages that must reference these standards, and the links would be easy to access via the Attachments/Links tab.  By creating a series of Web Links that reference these standards, you're assured that the information is up to date, and that users have visibility to locate and maintain this information.  Other Options for Linking Remember that you are able to include hyperlinks within the Rich Text fields of your Pages, although they could pose problems to maintain as mentioned above.  To insert a hyperlink, highlight an area of text within your Rich Text field, then click the Link icon: The text area highlighted will now become a clickable hyperlink to the URL entered.  Note that to test your new hyperlink, you'll need to save the Page then open it in "View" mode.  The hyperlink will now be clickable on the Page: Have questions?  Check out your Help Guide online, or contact our support team for assistance!    Posted Nov 18 2010, 06:25 PM by brianwhalen with no comments Filed under: tips

• RSS Feeds and Custom Alerts make communicating project information easy!

  In our last blog post, we talked about the importance of communicating issues or risks in a project to the entire project team - but that isn't the only critical communication that project managers need to consider.  Management teams want to be kept in the loop on the overall project status - or notified as deliverables are completed and milestones are reached.  Project team members need to have access to meeting minutes from every regular status meeting or requirement discussion. Use policyIQ features such as RSS Feeds or Custom Alerts to automatically communicate these things to the interested parties - without having to add a task to your already busy day! Here are just a few of the ways you can use RSS Feeds or Custom Alerts in your project management content to save time and energy when communicating critical information. RSS Feeds to send out Status Reports to executive or management level Create an RSS Feed that your management or executives can add to their email program - and publish all Status Reports to the feed in policyIQ. As soon as the new Status Report is published to the feed, all individuals subscribing to the feed will automatically be notified of the new item. RSS Feeds to send out Meeting Minutes to project team members Similar to management status reports, Meeting Minutes are a valuable communication tool for your project team. By keeping meeting minutes in policyIQ - and publishing them to an RSS feed that is followed by the entire team - allows all team members to have access to the information as soon as it is available and any time they might need to look back at it. Custom Alerts get updates on Risks or Issues Every Issue or Risk that is recorded is of critical interest to specific team members or other individuals within the organization. Use the Custom Alerts on each Issue page to set up alerts to notify specific individuals every time a new change is made and published on an Issue. This saves the step of having to email those changes out to everyone each time, because policyIQ will take care of the emails! Custom Alerts to notify of new High Severity Risks As a project manager, you add a Custom Alert to all Risk pages that will alert you when a Risk is changed to "High Severity". You could choose to get an email - or just a Dashboard alert in policyIQ, where you can check every morning to see if any Risks have been upgraded in severity. Custom Alerts to send final Deliverables As deliverables are finalized, your management team may want to receive copies of these final versions. Set up Custom Alerts on the Deliverables that will send an email (to include Attachments) when the final version of the deliverable is published. These are just a few ideas; RSS Feeds and Custom Alerts can be used to communicate virtually anything related to your policyIQ content.  Not sure how to set up an RSS Feed or add a Custom Alert?  Check out your Help guide online, or contact our support team for assistance!  Do you have any other ideas to share with us in the comments for communicating project information? Posted Nov 10 2010, 03:51 PM by chrisburd with no comments Filed under: tips, project management

• Effectively track project risks and issues - and their impact on your project tasks!

  I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about what makes a great project manager.  It was prompted by her experience with a poor project manager, and the frustration caused when information is unevenly communicated throughout the team.  The situation caused me to think back over my own good and bad experiences with project management - and I came to the realization that the "great" experiences weren't the projects that had no risks or issues (does that ever happen?), but rather those projects where the project team was able to effectively and clearly communicate the issues to all relevant parties in a timely manner.  Keeping track of project risks isn't easy.  Project teams relying on email might struggle to compile a complete list of all of the open issues, while other teams use shared spreadsheets where team members can update the status of each issue as things change.  (If your team is anything like most project teams I've worked on, there's a fight to update that one shared spreadsheet the morning before a weekly status meeting!) policyIQ can make it much easier to track project risks - and the impact they might have! Email and spreadsheets can be effective for small projects, but as a project gets larger, those methods become unmanageable.  For those larger initiatives, consider how policyIQ can help you to track those issues. In simplest terms, you may simply choose to create a Template for Project Issues, with fields to capture the Severity of the risk, the Description of the issue, the Impact on all areas of the project, and the Remediation Plan currently in place.  You'll probably also want to track the person responsible for managing the issue and the dates when the issue is expected to be resolved. Allow every member of the project team to enter Issues into policyIQ, and be sure that they continue to update those Issues as the situation changes or dates get shifted.  Before a weekly status meeting, run a report of those issues and be sure to review the entire list of issues with the team.  If an issue impacts more than one area of the project, be sure that all team members are up to date on the status and what they can do to work around it or help to resolve it. Take it a step further by Linking Issues to Tasks If you want to fully utilize the capabilities of policyIQ for project management, track Tasks, as well as Issues.  (Along with Milestones, Deliverables, Meeting Minutes and more!)  When an issue is documented by a team member, she can link that Issue page to all of the Tasks that may be affected.  If the Issue is a delay in development of an application, for example, items in testing and training may be affected.  When running the weekly list of Issues, create a report that also shows all of the Tasks that are affected by open Issues to be sure that all Tasks are updated with appropriate dates and next steps. Stay tuned for more! In the next few weeks, we'll bring you more ideas for using policyIQ for managing projects and initiatives, such as how to utilize RSS feeds or Custom Alerts to push status reports out to management groups automatically - and how to use forms to gather information from team members. Questions?  Contact our support team and we'll be happy to help you!  Ideas?  Let us know in the comments section how you might use policyIQ to manage your internal projects and initiatives! And don't forget to register for our CPE training event on November 18th!   Posted Nov 09 2010, 10:39 AM by chrisburd with no comments Filed under: tips, setup, project management

• November is Project Management Month!

  Over the past year or so, you may have noticed that our policyIQ team has focused on bringing you "solutions" in policyIQ.  Each month our training session focuses on a new solution - a way that policyIQ can solve your business problems or bring efficiencies to a critical process. This month is "Project Management" month - and throughout the month, we'll be bringing you blog posts and training on the topic of project management.  While the title of Project Manager is often given to a specific group of individuals in an organization, we'd like you to consider all of the ways that every one of us is a project manager in our daily work. Project Management is simply the process of managing tasks, time and resources to successfully accomplish some goal.  Managing a project or initiative requires keeping track of the tasks, communicating status, tracking issues or risks and organizing all of the materials and deliverables produced.  policyIQ is an ideal environment to manage those items. This month, we're going to explore how you can use the features of policyIQ to efficiently manage large and small initiatives to track tasks and deliverables.  Some examples of those initiatives might be: System Implementation Projects Product Launch Merger or Acquisition Process Implementation or Change Policy Rewrite or Consolidation These are just a few of the examples that we know our clients have dealt with in the past few months, but there are so many more examples out there.  We'll be bringing you examples and ideas throughout the month - and asking you to share your ideas with us here in the blog. Be sure to join us for our monthly CPE training event on Thursday, November 18th at 3 PM ET / Noon PT, where we will explore the topic "Manage Projects and Major Initiatives More Efficiently with policyIQ".  Register for this training session today!  (Participating attendees earn 1 CPE credit.)  In the training session, we'll illustrate the project management process in policyIQ - and answer your questions about how you might utilize the features of the product to bring efficiencies to your projects and initiatives. So tell us in the comments section: What types of projects do you manage?  How do you track your tasks, risks and deliverables today?  What are the areas where you would like your process to be more efficient? Posted Nov 08 2010, 10:54 AM by chrisburd with no comments Filed under: tips, Training, project management

• Save money on policyIQ using Resources Consultants

  This month we're bringing you an entire month of ideas for how you can use policyIQ to manage projects and initiatives.  If you are engaging consultants from Resources Global Professionals to assist with any of those internal projects, we have some important cost-saving information. If you have a Consultant from Resources Global Professionals engaged and working in policyIQ, they are considered a non-licensed user. OK, but what does that mean? Well, it means that we won't charge you for their user license in policyIQ - it's FREE! It doesn't matter whether they are a Standard or Advanced User; all Resources Consultants are considered non-licensed users. You're probably wondering; is there anything I need to do in policyIQ to ensure we don't get charged for our Resources Consultants? The answer is YES, you need to let our support team know. Once you let us know, we will be able to go into your site and flag those specific users as non-licensed. It's that simple! If your organization is looking for a partner to solve problems or implement initiatives, contact us or your local Resources Global Professionals office to learn how we can help you "from the inside out."  We employ seasoned professionals so they can start adding value as soon as they begin an engagement. Our professionals are experienced problem solvers who average 20-years experience.  We are here to be your partner in success. Posted Nov 02 2010, 10:23 AM by jenkohlman with no comments Filed under: non-licensened user, Resources Consultant, cost-saving