Projectmates Blog

Projectmates University!

We have recently updated our Projectmates University page to include a more in-depth variety of coursework and programs.  These include programs for both Retail and Construction users as well as Admin trainings.  Our training videos now conclude with a brief quiz to help evaluate your progress.  At the end of each course, you will have the option to send an email to Projectmates including your quiz results.  Make sure you send this email and include your name in the body, as this is how Projectmates documents each users progress for certifications.  Once an entire Program is completed, Projectmates will send you a certificate in the mail.  Administrators can now require that new users get "Projectmates Certified", by taking certain courses and completing the online quizzes.

To check out this new page, go to www.projectmates.com/projectmatesuniversity and click on the "Attend Webinar" link next to a course you would like to view.  You will be prompted to login to view the presentation.  This login is NOT the same as your typical Projectmates login.  If you have not already done so, you will have to register for an account to access these training courses. Just click on "Register here" and fill out the required information.  Once you recieve an email confirming your account has been activiated, you will be able to login and view these seminars.

Training Your Users

Many users struggle when they are beginning to use Projectmates because they haven't yet been trained or they do not know what is expected of them.  In many cases, Projectmates Administrators end up receiving numerous support calls or users become exceedingly frustrated and do not use the system.  Many of these issues can be avoided by creating your own personalized training and help documents that users can access at any time. 

For our clients with their own server(Total Control and Installed Solutions), I recommend creating a separate Project entirely dedicated to Projectmates Training and Support.  If you are an asp user (i.e. you login to www.projectmates.com) you can simply create a separate tab in an existing project for storing your Projectmates training documents. 

Even though Projectmates comes with detailed, user-friendly help guides, every company should create their own brief help documents specific to their processes.  Simply download the Projectmates guides and edit them to suite your needs.  For example, you may be able to eliminate the section related to Prime Contracts if you are not using that particular module. You could also separate out each module's help information so that you have separate files for RFI help, Schedule help, Change Order help, etc. Also, make sure to add information that is specific to your company.  For instance, you may need users to enter a specific number into the RFI Internal Tracking Number field in Projectmates.  Be sure to explain these types of procedures in your documentation.  Then, upload these documents into your newly created Projectmates Training and Support Project.   

Once this is done, users should be able to easily find a Help Guide specific to their needs that outlines what is expected of them.  These documents could be written files or recorded video presentations.  You could also setup a discussion or RFI/Issue Tracker thread for responding to users questions or posting FAQs.  It would also be a good idea to include links on the Project Home Page where users can link to the Projectmates' University page where they can view and download pre-recorded training seminars created by Projectmates' Training and Development Staff.

Keep in mind that as soon as you add a new user to your system, they receive an email from Projectmates welcoming them to the site and giving them a link to login.  When adding a new user it would be a good idea to also send out your own email (create a template for this) that lets them know exactly what they are expected to do in Projectmates.  Also include information about your new Projectmates Training and Support Project so users know how to get support and training!

Getting Started

So you've just signed up for Projectmates.  Congratulations! You're one-step closer to low maintenance project management!  You're probably now wondering, 'What's Next?'

Below are 5 simple steps to getting started with Projectmates.

Step 1 - Installation:  If you have purchased Projectmates as an Installed Solution, you will need to get your server ready and register your Projectmates URL.  If you are a new Total Control client, we will do this for you.  For all of our new clients, we will install Projectmates and design your Portal, or Login, page.

Step 2 - Admin Training:  Projectmates' Implementation and Training team will train your administrators and conduct interviews with key players to get a feel for your company's processes in order to get the most out of our software.

Step 3 - Create a Template Project:  Creating a Template is a crucial step in Projectmates Implementation.  This template will contain all of the tabs, menus, and user permissions that will be common to all of your projects.  Once this is done, creating new projects will be as simple as copying these settings from your template and adding the appropriate users.

Step 4 - User Training:  Now it's time to train your users.  This step may consist of several small trainings targeted to specific groups of users.  For example, you could have separate trainings for your various departments or for outside vendors.  Although Projectmates has very detailed and user-friendly help guides, it is also a good idea to create your own training materials and help guides specific to your company's practices.

Step 5 - Launch:  Now you're ready to launch your projects.  You should first do a 'soft launch' with a single project with only a handful of users.  Work on this project for a few weeks and document any concerns or issues.  Our Implementation Team will be in constant communication with you to address any concerns and, if necessary, process customization requests. Once all issues have been resolved, you can launch all of your future projects in Projectmates.

New Features in Version 8.2

Version 8.2 was just released on May 3, 2008 with new features and upgrades.  Here are a few of the highlights:

1. The ability to add comments/time/flags to Subcontract items:  You can now add comments, time tracking, or flags to all of our Subcontract modules (Packages, Contracts/COs, Purchase Orders, and Invoices).  This works the same as comments/time/tags in Action Lists.

2. The ability to update existing Budget line items through Excel:  Now you can export your Budget to Excel, update items or add new ones, and re-import them into Projectmates and existing items will be updated.  No need to delete existing item before uploading any more.  All of your links to Packages, Contract, Pay Apps, etc will remain intact.

3. The ability to send multiple items from your Budget to your Pay Application Schedule of Values:  No more opening each item in the Budget and checking a box to send that information to your Schedule of Values! Simply, check off the items that you want to include from the Budget Log, and click "Add to Pay Application."

For more information on recent upgrades in version 8.2, as well as past versions, click here or login to a Store/Project in Projectmates and click on the "What's New in Version 8.2" link on the Projectmates Corner.

Portfolios - Get Automated Reports in Your Mailbox

Having automated reports sent directly from Projectmates to your mailbox is just a few simple steps away!  Imagine the convenience of scheduling a financial report delivery for the first of every month, or a report of all outstanding RFIs for every Tuesday.  Your reports could be waiting for you in your inbox the moment you need them.  Just follow these 3 simple steps to set up your deliveries today!

Step 1:  Open the report you would like to have delivered.  Be sure to have it filtered and sorted just the way you want to view it in your mail.  Projectmates will remember these settings, so the report is delivered exactly the way you need to view it. 

Step 2: Click on Schedule Delivery. Change the title and enter the number of occurrences OR a Finish Date. Fill in the information for Recurrence to determine the frequency of the delivery. For example, if you need the report delivered every third Monday, select Weekly -> Every 3rd -> Monday

Step 3: Choose the format you would like the report delivered in such as PDF, HTML, Excel, etc. and the delivery type (Web or Email Delivery).  Web delivery would require that the user login to Projectmates to view the report, while Email delivery would email the report directly to your Mailbox. Enter in the email addresses of the desired recipients, and click SAVE.

Now, just sit back and wait for your reports to be delivered directly to your mailbox!

Smart Quotes and Other Formatting Pitfalls

Have you ever tried to copy text from a Word Processor into Projectmates, only to see "???" or some other unexpected characters displayed on the screen?  This sometimes happens when copying text from another application, such as Microsoft Word, into Projectmates.  Many applications have formatting options, such as smart quotes (Smart quotes format the quotation marks to differentiate between the starting and ending quotes), which Projectmates does not recognize and cannot display properly. 

It is always best if text can be typed directly into Projectmates instead of copied from another application, but if this is not practical, here are a few other suggestions:

1. Turn of smart quotes:  If you are using Word, click on Tools -> AutoCorrect Options -> AutoFormat As You Type -> and uncheck the box next to "Straight quotes" with "Smart Quotes"

2. Do not use auto formatting for bullets or numbering.  You may type numbers into lists yourself, but do not use the AutoFormatting options that many Word Processors offer.  To turn this feature off in Word click on Tools -> AutoCorrect Options -> AutoFormat As You Type -> and uncheck the boxes next to Automatic bulleted lists and Automatic numbered lists.

3. If you have used other formatting in your text such as bold, underlines, font colors, etc. copy your text into Notepad before copying it into Projectmates.  This should remove most of the formatting for you.

Note: As of Version 8.1, smart quotes should display properly in most of Projectmates' modules; however, if you have used smart quotes in the past, this formatting issue may still rear its ugly head in the Portfolio module, so look out!

Next Generation FlexForms!!!

When we introduced FlexForms in 2004, it became such a popular feature of Projectmates! We could design the FlexForms for the customers in matter of a day or two. It provided clients the ability to have their own Transmittal forms, Online Survey Forms, Project Pipeline sheets, etc. as a part of Projectmates within their projects. FlexForms are also accessible from mobile units such as Pocket PC, Treo, or Blackberry which gave users an ability to be on site and fill out the surveys from right there.

Our Next-Gen Flex Forms allows you to create your own forms and use them in Projectmates. I know our development team is genius, but this is really awesome. Just pull up your Microsoft Office Suite, create a form, upload it to Projectmates…. and Projectmates will convert it into a FlexForm! All automatic - no more programming required! How cool is that? You can add logos, drop down menus, radio buttons, calendars, automatic calculations, you name it.

I have been using a beta version of this and it is sweet! Easy to use and gives hundreds of possibilities. More details to follow…

Logging Into Projectmates

Does the following text look familiar to you?  "Compatibility Testing... If you can see this text for more than a few seconds the test has failed..." How about "Invalid username or Password"?  If so, then you've probably encountered a common problem while logging into Projectmates. While, for some of us, this task requires very little work on our part, for others, it can require several changes to our Internet Settings.

For those of you that have received an invalid username or password error message:  First, make sure that you do not have CAPS LOCK on as Projectmates' passwords are case sensitive.  If you do not remember your password, you can click the "Forgot your password?" link to retrieve it.  Simply type in your username, and your password will be emailed to you. If you have forgotten your username or you did not receive this email, contact your Site Admin, since you may not have a Projectmates account, or your information may have been changed.  Your Site Admin's contact information can be found on the login screen.

If you have successfully entered your username and password for the first time, you will be taken through a Projectmates Compatibility test to verify that your Internet Settings will work with Projectmates.  If you've followed the directions on the screen and are still unable to move past that test, here are a few additional tips. 

You may also want to watch our E-Learning video on Logging Into Projectmates.  Just click the image to begin viewing!

Once you have completed Projectmates' Compatibility test, you will be logged into Projectmates, and you should not be required run this test again.

Projectmates Emails

Have you ever had trouble viewing emails sent from Projectmates?    If you're unable to see images in Projectmates' Emails, your Email application may prevent automatic downloads of images.  If this is the case, you should see a horizontal bar across the top of the email that says something like, "Click here to download pictures..."  If you see this, click on it, and then select to add the domain to the safe senders list.  See Example. (The wording may be different here.  It may say something along the lines of "always download images/files from this domain).  Doing this will allow files sent from people with the same domain (ie. everyone whose email ends in systemates.com or companyABC.com) to be automatically downloaded and displayed.  Your Projectmates emails should now look the way they were intended!