Category: Project Management

How to keep track of Salesforce maintenance projects

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Atelier - Project Management

As a busy Salesforce admin, your hands are full juggling update and change requests from across your company to help improve the efficiency of the platform – not to mention testing for each new Salesforce release.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a way to manage all of your own projects?

With Cloud Coach Milestones, you can easily create projects for some of your most common Salesforce projects.

Project 1: Salesforce Release Testing

Salesforce has new releases three times per year. With each new release, you need to set aside time to review the release notes, attend release webinars, and test the new functionality in your sandbox. You may also need to test your existing processes and workflows to ensure that everything still works the way that you expect when the release is pushed into your production org.

With Cloud Coach Milestones, you can build a project with all of the readiness steps you need to prepare for a release. Then copy that project each time a new release is scheduled to ensure you’ve crossed every t and dotted every i.

Project 2: New App Integration

When your team asks to add new functionality to Salesforce, one of the first places you’re likely to look is the Salesforce AppExchange. In order to make the best product choice, you may need to review multiple options with your stakeholders to ensure that your selections meet their needs. Then you’ll have to install selected products in Sandbox, test configurations, and (for paid solutions) negotiate contract terms. To make sure you don’t forget any of the moving pieces, build a basic project plan in Cloud Coach Milestones. Any time you’re looking at a new app integration, copy the plan, add new tasks that are unique to the evaluation, and delete the ones you don’t need.

Project 3: New User Onboarding

As your company grows and changes, you need to add new users to your Salesforce org. With each new user, you need to consider their licenses, permission sets, and which applications they need. Plus, depending on how they’ll use Salesforce, you may also need to train them on your processes. In the same way that you’ve created template projects for Salesforce releases and new app integrations, you can create projects to help with new user onboarding.

Of course, since Cloud Coach is native to Salesforce, you can also customize your projects so they work for you. You can add new fields, leverage processes, and more.

If you need any support with your Salesforce or project management contact us on 08456 525 625 or simply fill in your details here.

App of the Month – Cloud Coach

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Atelier - Project Management, Uncategorised

For January our consultants have nominated Cloud Coach as our app of the month.

Cloud Coach consists of 4 tiers of solutions to enable customers to run projects on Salesforce. These 4 tiers ensure that organisations have the correct tool for them, ranging from Cloud Coach Milestones which most suitable for small teams with simpler requirements to Cloud Coach Ultimate, the full package.

These tiers of project management tools deliver exactly what customers need to plan and execute projects successfully. Based on over ten years of customer-driven research, Cloud Coach includes the most important capabilities project managers depend on to get their job done fast and accurately.

Cloud Coach capabilities include:

Create Projects – From your favorite Salesforce records
Leverage Project Templates – Automate project creation & save time
See Your Projects – In the view that works for you (Gantt style timeline or a Kanban board)
Budget and Track – Your project financials
Visualise Progress – Across all your projects

Using Cloud Coach to run projects on Salesforce will improve teamwork and accuracy of projects ensuring all stakeholders are informed and upto date throughout the project.

To find out more about Appexchange apps and difference they can make to your business call our expert consultants on 08456 525 625 or fill in the form here and we will get in touch.

5 Benefits of Using a Project Management Tool

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Atelier - Project Management

If you are not using project management tools for your projects you may be doing more work than necessary, and not fulfilling your potential. The right project management tools will leave you and your team free to get the real work done. Here are just a few of the benefits you will notice once you start using some sort of project management software.

Use Project Templates

Using project management tool software means your team don’t need to reinvent the wheel for every project. You can create best practice temples which will then enable you to launch new projects quickly and easily. This can significantly save time during set up and also by pre-assigning resources to your projects.

Tracking Budget Against the Project

You’re not just responsible for delivering your projects on time, your executives also want to see your project’s financial performance. Project Management software can give you a complete fiscal picture of your projects including internal costs of delivery. Actuals imported from your financial system in real time give you a complete up to date picture of your project finances.

Work Collaboratively

Most projects involve a number of colleagues and departments working together, which presents a number of challenges. Project management software can allow you to see another users upcoming tasks and see the queue of work which needs doing so you can fill in for someone who is out of office, or help out a fellow team member who is overloaded. You can also use security permissions to keep work private.

Reports 24-7 from anywhere

Never miss a moment or a milestone, and get visualisation into everything happening on your project, no matter the time of day. You can also enable automated delivery of reports straight to the email inbox of you and your team. Create, control, and switch between multiple dashboards tailored to your business so you can view your KPI’s and project metrics in real time.

Control Access Based on Profiles

Not everyone in your business has the same needs for their day to day job and you may wish to restrict certain pieces of information from different users. Project management software allows you to have full control over which type of users can do what. You may wish to restrict visibility by department, only delivering the most relevant information to your teams. For security reasons you may need to hide financial data from end users, make KPI data visible but not editable and control access based on user profiles…this is all possible with project management software.

To find out more about project management software and difference they can make to your business call our expert consultants on 08456 525 625 or fill in the form here and we will get in touch.

CRM Business Analysis

Posted on March 9, 2017 by Atelier - Business Analysis, Business Process, Project Management

Business Analysis. Method without Madness

Effective business analysis is required before funding a project that impacts your business processes. For example, a system implementation, process automation, new process introduction, or a compliance initiative.

Business Analysis will ensure:

Your needs and requirements are clearly specified
You can quantify the benefits or return on investment of the desired solution
You can deploy a solution with least risk, cost and duration
Your solution is properly adopted by your users.

Many projects fail, because of inadequate business analysis. This is often because organizations lacks the relevant business analysis skills or the willingness to because to fund the business analysis phase of the project.

Effective business analysis will reveal

Where things go wrong and why
Wasted effort, time and cost
Simplification options
Automation options
Behavioural change requirements
New or modified processes

And will enable you to prepare a Statement of Work to deliver the required changes

This note describes the business process methodology that we use when planning CRM deployment for our clients.

The Business Analysis Process Map

We recommend Elements Cloud, a powerful and elegant process mapping application that is available at no charge and which integrates with Salesforce.com. We have created a business Process Map shown below that describes the Business Analysis process that you are welcome to use. If you would like complimentary access to this detailed process map, please register to access the Xenogenix Ltd map space by clicking on the following link: https://app.q9elements.com/signup?team=58bd8d063fa4ae054975b438&partner=XA1044

Here is an image of the process map that is available to you;

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Fig.1 Level 1 of Business Analysis

The process map offers a pictorial narrative of each sequential activity step of the process . The ‘Activity Boxes’ are triggered by an input state or condition and will have one or more output states or conditions.
Each activity box will have one or more associated resources. These may be either human or system resources.
An activity box such as box 1 may have a highlighted upper left corner, which signifies that there is a more decomposed level of process detail available on a lower hierarchy of the map. This level of process detail can be reached by clicking on the highlighted corner of the activity box.
For example level 1.1 of this process map reveals the following process detail.

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Fig. 2 Initiate plan approve Project

Step by Step Business Analysis

The overall process contains the steps as in fig.1. . We show the steps required if
a) current processes have already been mapped and analysed (see the link from box 1 to box 4 ) and
b) if the current ‘As Is’ processes need to be analysed. (see the link from Box 1 to Box 2)

Initiate , Plan and approve the project

Inevitably it is tempting to avoid running a Business Analysis work plan outside of a formal project structure. This temptation will often lead to project failure so we advise that you avoid it!

The project Sponsor should initiate and source funds for the project and appoint the Business Analyst and, if required, a Project Manager. These resources should confirm the project Stakeholders and appoint the rest of the project team.
We find that a Business process change project will often require some sort of survey of the stakeholders to get an understanding of the effectiveness and understanding of the current processes and what future changes or improvements are most important.
The survey results will inform the goals, objectives and scope of the project.
The Project manager can then define a viable project plan for approval by the sponsor.

Map Current Processes for Business Analysis

Fig. 3 Map Current or ‘As Is’ Processes

Once the project is approved, the project manager should appoint people to the team who have a thorough grasp of how the current processes work in practice.
This team can then create an ‘Enterprise’ process model that shows the interdependency of all the processes. The drill down on box 2 shows an example enterprise process model for a B2B entity.

Fig. 4 Enterprise Process model framework

Once the Enterprise model is defined, the project team can define those processes that are in scope for this Business Analysis project.

Capture In scope processes.

The Elements cloud application and methodology makes it very easy to capture processes that can be easily understood.

Fig. 5 Map in scope processes

Each process starts with one or more Input conditions or states which are captured on flowlines with an arrow termination.

An activity that follows an input flowline s described (using subject verb object phrase) in an activity box. Resources are added to the activity box.
Once the process flow is mapped (end of box 3) then it may be required to capture the CRM data object field information that is needed at each activity step. (See section
Also you may need to add procedure notes, activity step notes to some of the activity boxes in the map.

Analyse Current Processes

Once the in scope processes have been mapped, the processes can be analysed for problems and improvements.

Fig 6 Analyse current Processes

We recommend the creation of a scoring matrix to evaluate the relative priority of each problem or issue. The example matrix shown below assesses:

• the relative impact of the process problem on critical performance objectives for this client, and
• the degree of difficulty in the proposed solution

Fig 7 Example Scoring Matrix

Once the Scoring matrix has been agreed, then in Box 2, the process team should ask themselves ‘ What are the problems with this activity step?
Box 3: They should express the issue as a problem statement and estimate the impact that this problem has on each of the issue attribute. and summarise the analysis in a ‘Data Table ‘ attachment on the respective activity record.
Box 4: Having identified the problem statement, the team should create a solution statement and estimate the potential difficulty of implementing the solution.
The following example map , box 8 contains such a data table attachment

Fig 8 Example map with data table attachment

When clicking on this data table the business analyst can create a data table record similar to the following example:

Fig 9 Example data table

Design Future State Process(es) and Solutions

This process is identical to the process to capture as Is processes. However it is more important to capture the Data Object field requirements for each activity to build a Data Dictionary for each System Data Object.

System Integration : Map Inter system data flows

This is not an easy task, but we advocate the following method:

Fig 10 Map system Data flows

Box 1: Create a process flow map for activities performed by the system(s)

Box 2: If there is System UI available, then screenshot each UI page and attach to each relevant process activity box

Box 3: Document the field attributes and data transformations used on each activity step. You can use a Data Table to record the field attribute data

Build Data Model and Data Dictionary

You can use the elements map to create a data model schematic. Here is an example.

Fig 11 Example Data Model

To build a data dictionary, you may choose whether to complete a spreadsheet template or use a Data Table such as the example shown below:

Fig 12 Sample Object Data Table

Prepare Statement of Work

Once the processes and data flows have been defined, the analyst can prepare a statement of work which will define a costed work plan to deliver the solution.

Close the Project

Once the SOW is accepted, then the project manager should close the project.

If you need help with your CRM business analysis, we can help!

Give us a call on 08456 525 625 or fill in your details:

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The Role of a Project Sponsor

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Atelier - Project Management, Uncategorised

The project sponsor makes sure that the project is aligned with the strategic goals of the organisation. The sponsor shapes and approves the project brief which sets the direction for the project, defining what should be accomplished, how much risk the organisation is willing to tolerate, and what limitation will be placed on the project (deadline, staff effort limit, spending limit, other constraints).

Most project teams start their projects without a project brief and have no clear direction for the project. This can create massive rework further down the line and may result in a dissatisfied customer at the end of the project.
Very few organisations have their functional goals aligned with the project goals. This makes it very difficult for the project team to meet the project’s objectives.

The project sponsor balances the needs of the organisation with the needs of the customer. Sometimes these needs are in conflict and it’s the sponsor’s job to make the call between the two.

Most sponsors are unaware that their role is to mesh these two sets of needs. As a result, the needs of the customer often dominate the process.

The sponsor acts as a liaison to the organisation’s projects steering body. It is the steering body that selects and prioritises projects and then allocates resources to those projects based on their priority status. Without adequate resources, no project can be successful.

Many organisations do not have a steering body and do not allocate available resources to projects – instead they allocate resources without knowledge of whether or not there are resources available.

The sponsor chooses the project manager. The sponsor is accountable for the success of the project manager and the success of the project. In order to fulfil that accountability, the sponsor fulfils his role as sponsor and acts as a coach and mentor to the project manager.

Most project sponsors leave the project manager to primarily fend for himself.

The sponsor removes obstacles and resolves issues that cannot be resolved by the project team. This requires the sponsor to take an active role in the project, when asked.

Active sponsors want to micromanage rather than support. Passive sponsors avoid getting sufficiently involved

The sponsor provides oversight to the project – reviewing and approving the project plan, change requests, having status meetings with the project leader. The sponsor reports back to the steering body on the progress of the project. Sponsors need to ensure that standard project processes and documentation is used to manage all projects

In many organisations, IT may have a method but admin or NPD uses a different method or no method at all.

Category: Project Management

How to keep track of Salesforce maintenance projects

App of the Month – Cloud Coach

5 Benefits of Using a Project Management Tool

CRM Business Analysis