What's the best way -- or ways -- to organize a project?

After we roll out Salesforce to replace our Contact and Sites databases in Lotus Notes, the next thing I'll be working on is the Project "form," called an "object" in Salesforce. I'm creating the Project object there to replace the Project form in Dexter so that when you create a Project in Salesforce you can use the account, location and contact information from Salesforce in the same way as you use the company, site and contact information from Contact and Sites in Lotus Notes.

So that's the beginning. But ultimately I'd like to move us into the cloud for all that we do in Lotus Notes. That does not necessarily mean, though, that it makes sense to just re-do everything in Salesforce that we currently have in Dexter. As glad as it makes me that the databases in Notes which I created have helped Pivot employees to accomplish their work for all these years, I'd be the last person to say they are perfect. Well, nothing is perfect. As much as I wish it could be, Salesforce is not perfect, either.

But here's our chance to stop and look at how we work, and see if it makes sense to try a different way. A big piece of what we do in Dexter right now is project management. We create a project, and then a bunch of forms, requests, information and communications about that project. We use other programs for the project besides Dexter: Cap, Autocad, our network file storage, Khameleon, our time tracking spreadsheets or forms, email, faxing, scanning,...more? Lots of items are created that make up the project. Lots of steps make up the project process. What's the best way to organize those items and steps?

I am looking into different possibilities of tools we could use for our project management -- and then I'll be asking our managers and employees to look at them, too, so we can decide what makes sense for Pivot. There are lots of possibilities. Some examples:
- We could create a project in Salesforce, attach all the related files there in that project rather than on the F: or Q: drive or wherever we're storing them now. We could also do all our emailing right from that project. We'd need to figure out how to request others to do things such as create quotes/proposals, work requests, labor requests, etc. Use objects similar to our Notes forms? Or templates similar to Word & Excel templates? Automatic emails?
- We could create a website or a web page for each project and store all the files there.
- We could purchase an application that manages projects using a Gantt chart kind of flow, with milestones determining the flow of one process after another.
- We could do some kind of automation based on a project workflow.
Those are just a few possibilities.

It's fun to try to think about what we do with a clean slate, not assuming we should do things the way we do now, even if they are working. Have ideas? Pass them along!

Is that Mom or my IT Manager??

I read this article, "Mom's Voice Packs Soothing Power," and it made me think of  how someone at work once told me I had a calming influence -- in my role as an IT Manager. I do notice that everyone is very relieved to see me when they're having IT issues. I remember once driving to our San Francisco office because they were down. When I walked in the door, there was a cry of, "Mavis!" I thought to myself, "Little do they know I have no idea what's wrong or if I'll be able to fix it." But it's nice to create that feeling in others anyway.

I'm sure Paul has experienced this, too, and people in other professions have the same experience. When you're stranded on the side of the road and the mechanic shows up. When the doctor or nurse walks in the door. It's a beautiful thing.

But wait, there's more!

There's a lot more in Salesforce than the pieces that replace Contact (Accounts, Contacts & Opportunities). I haven't learned how to use all of the features yet and I'm not even sure I know what all the features are yet!

This morning there was an article in the San Jose Mercury News about IM (Instant Messaging) coming into the enterprise. They featured a lot of information on Microsoft's Sharepoint which will include IM in their next version. Salesforce already has that. They call it "Chatter" and it was released this Spring. I saw a demo of it at Dreamforce, Salesforce's annual users' conference. Besides being able to "chat" with people, as with all IM programs, in Salesforce's Chatter, you can chat with objects. So, for example, you could mark an Opportunity to let you know any time someone updates it.

I'm eager to learn more about Chatter and see how it can help us here at Pivot. As we move more of what we do in Dexter into Salesforce, I see even more opportunity for Chatter to be a very useful tool.

Another new feature released this Spring is "Answers". I've just started looking into this but it looks like a way to post questions to a community, then as people answer the questions and answers are kept on the web. I'm thinking this may be a good alternative to those emails the salespeople often send out asking, "Does anyone know where I can find....?" I think being able to keep all those questions and answers, and search in them, will be very useful. I could see the designers, and others, building up an excellent knowledge base with "Answers", too.

There's a Quotes module, too, that I plan to check out. Also a Self Service Portal that I believe we can use both for our customers to be able to see and submit certain information and for our vendors. There's a big module called Content for uploading and sharing files which will be very useful for marketing but also potentially for sharing files among ourselves, perhaps creating a vendor library online. There's an object called Cases which looks like it might be something we could use for our service and warranty work. And who knows what else there is in this cloud?!

I'll be reading, watching videos and learning about more of Salesforce's features as time goes on, and I'll be encouraging you to, too. In June I'm scheduled to attend a 4-day certification training on Salesforce and I'm hoping I'll come back for that bursting with new ideas and things to try.

Opportunities Will Really Matter

In Contact we have Opportunities and we'll have them in Salesforce, too. I have a feeling, though, that many people will find they matter a lot more in Salesforce than they did in Contact.

Why? Well, because in Salesforce Opportunities are the ONLY way to forecast. There is no such thing as the 3 month forecast form we have now, where you write 3 numbers -- how much this month, how much next month & the month after. With Salesforce, those 3 numbers will be computed mathematically from the Opportunities.

We decide what Opportunity amounts to include in those 3 numbers, and that's a topic we'll be discussing as we prepare Salesforce for roll-out and, I imagine, re-discussing as we begin using it. There will be several stages of an Opportunity and we will determine what Opportunities in which stages will we include or exclude from our Forecasts.

The stages, at least at this point, are:

1. Prospect
2. Qualify
3. Cover the Bases
4. Expecting to Close
5. Closed Won
6. Closed Lost

I expect that we will include the Opportunities in stages 4 and 5, those that we're expecting to close and that have closed -- and been won.

How does that sound to those of you who forecast now? Do you feel you'll be able to create Opportunities and manage the stages with this type of logic?

For sales reps, the Opportunities also play into the Focus Four form and discussions you have with your managers. I plan to design a dashboard in Salesforce that will show the opportunities in the Focus Four quadrants so that you don't need to create the Opportunity in Salesforce and turn around and write it again on a Focus Four form.

Using the Opportunities in this way will fit into one of the goals set by the sales department, to have a better, more detailed view of what is in the "funnel" (the opportunities out a ways, waiting to be funneled into real sales).

Location, location, location

I promised to write about some of my customization plans in Salesforce.com. One of them is regarding locations.

In Dexter, as you know if you use Dexter, you can pick a billing location from Contact and a jobsite or shipping location from the Sites database. There are times when that scheme doesn't work so well. If a client has several billing locations, you have to create the company several times in Contact. And then when you're making Contacts you have to decide, which Company will I put this Contact under? Sometimes you might have to decide to put the same contact under two companies. Not good!!

In Khameleon, it's set up that every company can have as many locations as needed, and they can all be under the same company. One issue in Contact, though, at least as I understand it, is that if you need to put in a different "Attn to" name, you end up having to create a new location for each "Attn to" name. Not good!!

I'm hoping to avoid those issues in Salesforce by having one Company -- in Salesforce they're called Accounts -- and a custom object called "Locations". You will be able to create as many Locations for each Account as needed, and then you will be able to choose whichever location you want in the Projects you create (another custom object I'm creating in Saleforce, more on that later). And you'll create all your Contacts under the one Account, and, again, be able to choose whichever Contact you want, wherever you want, on the Project.

In my current plan, I'm keeping the Account object (in Salesforce there are "objects" rather than forms) very simple, not even requiring an address. That way you won't have to create an Account, put all the address info in, and then have to create a Location and put that same address info in there. When you create a Contact, you'll have the option to associate him/her with Location(s) but it won't be required.

Sound good?

One concern I have, though, is whether at any point we'll wish we had the address information in the Account. What if we're looking at a report or dashboard of a bunch of Accounts and we wonder where they are? Should I require putting in the city and state at least? But what about when there are billing addresses in several cities & states? Would it be okay if you had to pick one "best" city and state for each account, probably the headquarter's? Would you resent having to put the city and state in on the Account object, and then still having to create the Location and put that same city and state in again??

Such deep, philosophical questions!

Next I'll talk about one of the biggest changes -- for some of you -- in Salesforce: Opportunities. No more 3 Month Forecast forms, only Opportunities. Change is a-comin'.

I've looked at clouds...

I sent out an email a while back saying "Pivot's moving to the cloud!"

I like this cloud computing stuff. My use of it started with my work at my church. (On Fridays I work as a "techie" for my church. When I found out that you could get Google Apps for free if you're a non-profit, I immediately thought that'd be perfect for a church -- no servers to maintain, no worries about the fact that the minister and the youth leader have Macs while the rest of us has PCs, no back-ups. Sounded great. And it has been good for us. I wrote an article about it for a networking website I use.

Here at Pivot, our first foray into the cloud is with Salesforce.com. I'm glad that Pivot is moving to this technology and also personally happy that I get to learn more about Salesforce.com.

Why do I think it's a good thing to move to the cloud, you ask? Well, since you ask, I'll tell you. Personally, I have always preferred the software side of IT over the hardware. I enjoy making databases work, creating processes through technology, getting feedback from users on what helps them work better and implementing that through software. I'd do those kinds of things all day rather than update or build servers, take apart computers, hook up monitors and cables, blah, blah, blah. I know some people tend to think of IT people in a similar way as mechanics, but that mechanical side of things is what I have to do, rather than what I really like to do.

Cloud computing, therefore, is right up my alley. There is no hardware. Well, there's no software, either. In fact, Salesforce.com's tag line is "no software", as in the image at the beginning of this post. But, even though there's no software to install, it functions like software, except through a browser. The fun part of Salesforce.com for me is the designing part. I can create custom fields and objects, arrange them in the way that makes the most sense, and also do more advanced things such as creating work flows and automated tasks (which I still need to learn how to do).

Salesforce.com, like Google, also offers their product to non-profits for free so I began using it when I got it for my church. One thing that impressed me greatly is the way I could do so much customization, yet not "break" it. You know how Khameleon has a bunch of Herman Miller customizations, and because of that when Khameleon is updated, we lag quite far behind because they have to do a bunch of testing to make sure the HMI customizations will work with the new software upgrades? With Salesforce.com, they've done a great job of making it so that the customizations continue to work even as they're adding new features all the time.

In my next blog, I'll talk about some of the customizations I'm working on in Salesforce.com for Pivot. I'll be interested to hear what you think of my plans.