Project Management Solution

The unique software facility within the eLink Advantage business management system is the Project Management Solution. It is this extra dimension that enables the eLink Advantage system to rise above all the rest, this really is software for teams.

Special project data-tables can be set up for the different types of projects needing different information to be held and used by people in different divisions or departments and there’s no limit to the number. On-screen for any individual user it’s convenient to work with a maximum of eight project tables with each having a maximum of eight sub tables. 

Projects are accessed from and linked to:

• People belonging to suppliers, partners, customers, sub-contractors, with contact details, email addresses, notes etc, giving you the ability to email them all simultaneously from any document or action

• Users, who are:

 people within the organisation or within a broader project team who have authorised access on-line to information about the project

 people directly responsible for making the project succeed

 outside parties who may have an interest in the project and who are allowed a (restricted) view of progress

• Companies and other organisations, showing contacts (with job titles and links to other contacts); an audit trail of all actions and diary entries; an audit trail of emails and other documents; (other) projects;  other companies they are linked to; plus telephone nos, website URL

• Diary entries with shared calendars for arranging meetings, booking, annotating re sickness or other absence

• Diary entries for allocating resources to the project (see Resource Management solution)

• Actions and Tasks for controlling the project and for ensuring collaboration between the team members and that milestones are achieved

• Emails, documents and other files eg .msp, .ppt, cad, pdf, jpg, gif

• Timesheets, Sales opportunities, Sub-projects, parent projects

• Automatic notifications to relevant users attached specifically to an action, document folder, company, contact, or when it is amended or updated by another user, with a direct hyperlink to the record amended eg an action has been taken to the next stage and been passed to another user.

Each project and sub-project has its own date / user stamp for extra notes in the memo field and each client has a special set of data-tables for holding all the data that is critical to their business process.

The whole can be organised so that you can use eLink TaskCentre with the information to create automatic emails, automatic (exception) reports, or whatever you need to improve the performance and effectiveness of the project team and the project process.

There are a minimum of seven ways of using the eLink Advantage project management solution for example:

• Strategic projects eg moving office etc

Business Process management projects, planning and controlling the delivery and execution of providing what was actually sold to the customer, including workflow scripting to automate some elements of the process

The Corporate Filing Cabinet for all the logical filing of everything for running the business starting with the business plan, Board Meetings, reports and accounts

Assets and Risk Management requirements

Accumulating sales and purchase invoice details, Sales day book and Purchases day book, accounts files, for simple book-keeping and accounts purposes

Marketing materials, brochures, logos with version control opportunities

ISO 9000 and IIP documents and reports, an on-going project

Documents are also attached to each project and these document files can contain any type of electronic files from Word documents (.doc), EXCEL (.xls) PowerPoint (.ppt) Images (jpg and gifs) brochures etc (pdfs), CAD files, Sound and audio files (.wav) to MS Project (.msp)

The benefits of using the eLink Advantage project management solution are:

• Increased productivity from all team participants because the plan, all the elements that make up the project plan, all the players, all the documents and actions are immediately visible to every authorised person anywhere anytime, together with a multiplicity of hyperlinks to help users move around the information quickly and accurately

• The delivery period for a project has a higher probability of being achieved because all the Actions, Tasks and Documents are presented on-line by user or by group so that everyone knows what needs to be done, showing personal responsibilities and showing ‘deadlines’ for each action

• Improved productivity because there are shorter delays in updating other members on actions and achievements

• Improved productivity because elements of the workflow can be automated

• Improved productivity because it acts as “The Corporate Filing Cabinet”, one with electronic searching capabilities, always on-line always available

• Risk protection because the data is all building the Corporate Knowledge Base, which is held in a resilient system maintained in a high security data center

• Improved morale and commitment because it integrates outside people fully into the project team and this all leads to

• Achieving planned project time frame

• Earlier sales invoicing

• Earlier cash received

• Improved profitability

The system stands on its own as your project management solution or, because of the interconnection with other modules available within the eLink Advantage business management system, it can be used as a starting point for a more comprehensive business management solution.

Your initial solution can be amended and extended by you on-demand, live on your system at any time, it will grow and adapt to match how your organisation grows and adapts to your market needs.