Client Specific Processes & Protocols
We have a medium-sized client that requires us to use a different work process than other clients. And, these processes require us to use file storage and delivery outside of XTRF. Ugg.
Question, does anyone know a way to set up flags or alerts that informs the PM that a client needs an alternate work process? Of course, we'll have training and onboarding for our PMs, but we don't want the success of this client to be dependent on our PMs remembering to do something unique for this client, and we don't want to create complicated work processes for all of our PMs because of the unique nature of a few of our clients. It would be great to be able to have flags in XTRF that are client-based that popup information for the PM, or allow for custom links to an external workflow, or allow for custom file sharing.
Any thoughts on this?
Customer support service by UserEcho
- Include client-specific process templates in the drop-down list of the Process card of SmartProjects (offer predefined process that can include special process steps outside of XTRF; doesnt help with delivery though)
- Supplement this with an API-driven alert that is injected in the Client Notes or Internal Notes of the project
Good thoughts. Question...
1) Can process templates be tied to specific clients? If not we'd still be dependent on PMs selecting a specific process template or a specific service. Right?
2) As for supplementing this with an API... This could be done, but I'm trying to think of what the trigger would be. Could you have an XTRF trigger that is when client X has a new project, add text Y to the note section? Not ideal, but maybe it could work.
Thanks for the ideas!
1) There is a workaround to achieve this by creating client Services, which are listed when the PM first creates a project. These Services can be linked to Process templates, which in turn can be linked to memoQ templates, if you integrate with memoQ. If you don't use this approach, the PM will have to select the correct process after having created the project, which is the way we operate. We have found this to be sufficient, because we differentiate processes into General and XYZ (for customers); they are thus listed alphabetically and easy to identify for the PM.
2) Thanks Dennis for fielding this question. We are using such APIs more frequently now. By using the client ID as an identifier you can build a simple spreadsheet in the background and have any text injected in the relevant field, even determining whether it is injected at the top or bottom of the notes field. Call me if you need more details.
Regarding 2) For a trigger, you could look into the Subscriptions API. There you can subscribe to project_created or quote_created. After receiving the signal, you can have a filter for specific clients in your code and add the text to the note section.
This is interesting. Thanks Dennis and Sancho. I'm going to look into this and if I need some more brainstorming, I may just give you (Sancho) a call. Good info!
Hi Mark,
if we're talking one or few clients with such special requirements, another proposition could be Categories or Custom Fields.Let's say, you receive a quote from such a client, with Category/Custom Field "External Process" or something like that.
You can customize a view for your PM's Dashboards, that will only show Quotes/Projects with this category. Or only allow these clients to choose from predefined services, tailored for them, from Customer Portal.
To be able to answer better, I'd need more info - do you use integrated workflows with these clients, smart/classic projects
Thanks Mateusz. I'd be happy to give you more details if you'd like.
These are good ideas. However, we already have six custom fields for projects. And the usability of custom fields doesn't work that well for this purpose- PMs don't intuitively view custom fields when they deliver files. We put a lot of functionality into these six existing custom fields, and if we add more, they get diluted and more cumbersome for the PMs. It's the same thing for dashboards and views. We also have a number of predefined services for specific clients, but again, as you add more, it gets harder to use. As for the dashboard views, we also have a number of these but again, PMs don't look at views/reports at file delivery time, so it would not be an intuitive solution that's not an additional work step. In this situation, ideally we'd have more functionality around the file delivery options, but at this point I think trying to update the internal notes (which PMs always read) is probably a better and more flexible improvement for us.