Data here, data there - this seems to be a continuous issue for professional services firms as more technology solutions designed to overcome specific business challenges enter the market. Luckily, there is an answer to this problem for Deltek Vision and Deltek for Professional Services (DPS) users - the Blackbox Connector. Simply stated, the Blackbox Connector allows users to embrace the power of third-party technology solutions using the data in their Deltek Vision or DPS database. Here’s a look at the current and upcoming integrations available from the Blackbox Connector.

Outbound Marketing Connectors

Email marketing has revolutionized how businesses stay connected with clients. Even more, being able to know who opens and clicks on links in the email becomes valuable business intelligence. With Constant Contact and MailChimp, this information is attainable, and all that is needed for these solutions currently resides in your Deltek database. Click here to learn about email marketing.

With the Blackbox Connector, your Deltek CRM data is easily integrated with Constant Contact or MailChimp. Just create the email in your chosen email marketing solution, and with a push of a button, your target contacts in your Deltek CRM quickly populate the email target list in the email marketing solution. The open and click data for each email campaign will appear in the associated marketing campaign in your Deltek CRM.  

Spend Management Connector

Maximizing your profit means controlling how your business spends money. Spend management requires having timely and actual spend information. The Concur solution allows businesses to automate the expenses process from receipt to reimbursement and to gain visibility into travel expenses. Additionally, the Concur solution provides businesses with the ability to automate accounts payable and see spending before it’s spent. Learn more about spend management here.

The Blackbox Connector for Concur connects these key accounting responsibilities with the accounting tools in Deltek Vision and DPS. The current version of this Connector allows expense data collected in Concur, including receipt images, to automatically populate in the expense module in Deltek Vision or DPS. This enables your firm to take advantage of the powerful expense management capabilities of Concur. The automated accounts payable capabilities from Concur will soon be integrated with Deltek Vision and DPS.

Customer Success Connector

As a firm finishes a project, it doesn’t always mean the client felt it was a success. Ensuring your project delivery was successful requires managing client expectations throughout the lifecycle of the project. The Client Feedback Tool allows businesses to capture feedback periodically throughout the project lifecycle. As a result, your project managers can better manage client expectations. Find out more about client feedback in this article.

Using the Client Feedback Tool Connector, project managers can easily obtain feedback at specific milestones of a project from the project info center or hub in Deltek Vision or DPS. The Client Feedback Tool Connector allows for surveys to send based on multiple criteria such as billing milestones or at a set timeframe utilizing the existing data in Deltek Vision or DPS.

Inbound Marketing Connector

In today’s world, every business is competing to be found on the internet and discovering how your inbound marketing efforts are attracting clients is essential to developing meaningful relationships with prospects. Using the HubSpot marketing software, your firm has access to all the tools it needs to run an inbound marketing campaign. Soon, business development teams will be able to acquire this vital information from HubSpot.

Coming in 2018, the HubSpot Blackbox Connector for Deltek Vision and DPS will allow data collected in HubSpot to populate the associated marketing campaigns in your Deltek CRM. When your inbound marketing efforts generate new contacts, their information will create new contacts in your Deltek CRM. With the Blackbox Connector for HubSpot, your business development team will have great new insight into your firm’s inbound marketing efforts.

Business Intelligence Connector

Having the ability to quickly analyze data to make informed decisions is a necessity to stay ahead of the competition. With Informer 5, users can create, analyze, visualize and collaborate in a user intuitive environment to make data-driven decisions. Informer 5 is a new generation of business intelligence and data analytics.   

In early 2018, Deltek Vision and DPS users will now be able to use Informer 5 to cleanse, merge, and analyze the data in their Deltek database. Firms using the Informer 5 Blackbox Connector will have an edge over their competition using timely and actionable insights.

Integrate Your Data with the Blackbox Connector

Deltek Vision and DPS are powerful solutions designed to help professional services firms win more business and better manage resources by tracking, editing, and analyzing project details. Despite the overwhelming capabilities of an ERP or PSA solution, further technology solutions are sometimes required. This is why the Blackbox Connector was created.  It is specifically designed to allow your firm to maximize the capabilities of your Deltek products, while also taking advantage of these other world class solutions, all along keeping your data in one system. Learn more about how your firm can bring data together.

As I travel around and work with clients implementing Vision Resource Planning, the issue of what makes a good project manager (PM) is often discussed. The PM track has always been perceived as a measurement of success in one’s career. As employees become more tenured within a firm, there seems to be a natural progression to the PM role. However, not everyone who is strong technically is able to effectively manage projects. Based on my experience, to be a good PM requires proficiency in certain key areas.

Scope Management

A good PM must be involved in defining the scope of the project and needs to play a role in the proposal process. Scope can be narrowed down to what has been promised to the client, or in other words, what is to be delivered. The various components of scope are usually defined and controlled by a project’s work breakdown structure and can include interim deliverables and milestones. 

Equally, if not more important, a good PM should be aware of what is not in the scope. Scope creep is the number one killer of profit. To avoid this, a good PM needs to be very familiar with what is in the contract and when to ask for change orders. 

Schedule Management 

Schedule is the order in which the scope needs to be delivered. This is also called a critical path which defines what and when things need to happen to ensure all interim and final scope delivery. A good PM needs to understand the concept of task dependency and how delays and disruptions can impact future delivery. Scope and schedule management work in tandem and scope creep can impact a schedule. 

Team Management 

A good PM needs to be a committed leader. While “leading by example” may seem cliché, it is a solid guideline to follow as a PM. Even more, a PM must make sure the entire team understands scope and schedule and will keep them inside the white lines to avoid scope creep. 

Financial Management 

To make prudent, yet quick decisions about the financial health of projects, a PM should be provided reliable data. A good PM should understand what indicators are needed to make this health assessment. I believe earned value is the best indicator. By comparing a project’s physical to financial percent complete, a PM and others can measure the “direction” that the project is heading. Once again, scope creep should easily be identified using this measurement.

Client Management 

The human component of project management can be challenging. A good PM should be able to make every client feel important while also filtering and prioritizing so that the scope, schedule and financial components of all projects are properly tended too. A good PM must also be effective in communicating scope creep to the client and should utilize the relationship to secure the change orders that are warranted. 

Quality Management 

Finally, a good PM must have his “hands” on the product whether it be a report, widget, skyscraper or bridge. He must have the technical knowledge to guarantee the product can pass inspections and be accepted by the client. He must also be able to trouble shoot issues, manage challenges that arise, and always be cognizant of the scope to ensure the work performed is within the contractual obligation to avoid scope creep. 

Are Your Project Managers the Right Fit? 

All the above must be considered to determine whether someone makes a good PM. A PM may not have mastered all areas, but needs to be effective in each. These key areas are interrelated and critical to one another. Strong technical knowledge does not necessarily translate to successful PM skills. How do your PMs stack up?

Charles Darwin once said, “it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” In the 21^st century, with constantly evolving technology and ever present social media, competition for the same resources has dramatically increased. Firms must adapt to their new environments or risk extinction. Change management, the approach used to prepare, equip and support individuals to successfully adopt change and thus drive organizational success, is vital to a firm’s continued existence.

Reasons for Change

So, in today’s environment, what are some reasons firms must change? Well, there are many different reasons change is necessary. It could be to improve productivity or the quality of products to meet customer demands. Perhaps change is necessary to reduce costs or increase revenue to keep up with the competition? Maybe revised processes are required due to the enactment of new policies or laws? Regardless of the reason, change is necessary and is a constant.

Overcome the Challenge of Change

Of course, often hearing the word “change” strikes fear in the hearts of many as an employee. It is inevitable that the rumor mills will begin and embellished stories will be passed around the firm. The best way to thwart the challenge of change is for leadership to be proactive using a change management strategy. Change management includes several key components:

• Clear vision from management
• A detailed action plan
• Transparency to minimize uncertainty
• Employee involvement
• Skills and resources provided for employees to handle the change
• Buy-in from employees

As long as these components are part of your firm’s change management plan, it is up your particular firm’s discretion to choose the method to handle the specific change required. If needed, there are several models available for review by firm leadership.

Change Management Models

Here are three change management models:

• The Eight Steps to Successful Change by John Kotter - begins by establishing a sense of urgency and ends with institutionalizing the change
• The Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle by W. Edwards Deming - four steps
• Change Management Foundation - shaped like a pyramid with leadership at the top setting direction and people implementing change at the bottom 

Don’t Fear the Change

In the words of Winston Churchill, “to improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.” Firms will spend years in pursuit of perfection as the world continues to evolve. However, with a change management strategy in place, your firm can continue to successfully tackle the unknown without fear.

The long-term success of a sports team cannot be determined by looking at just one factor. For a sports team to truly excel, it must triumph on many fronts. From scouting the best talent to strategizing offensive and defensive plays for cohesive team execution, the team manager must create a winning formula that, when utilized, brings continuous success for the team. This is also true for professional services firms, and finding the right formula for your team can become less of a guessing game with the tools available from Deltek. Let’s see how Deltek can help your firm knock it out of the park.

Winning the War for Talent

We all know that finding and attracting the best players for your team is a time-consuming process. Even more, tracking their training and development can be laborious. With Deltek Talent, however, professional services firms can easily overcome these challenges.

Deltek Talent provides a complete view of the entire human capital management process. From recruiting new talent to career development and employee performance management, Deltek Talent is a unified talent management solution designed to help your firm recruit and retain top talent. Using this Deltek tool, your team will be a group of all-stars.

Winning Repeat and New Business

Taking advantage of every opportunity and identifying every weakness in your opponent is how to win a game, and the same can be said for acquiring business in the professional services industry. Using Deltek CRM, your firm will gain visibility into the entire business development process, from prospect to opportunity to gaining the new business. Most importantly, presenting your winning solution in a compelling way to your key contacts is vital to setting your firm apart from the competition.

With Deltek CRM, you can access the actual past performance of similar projects you’re bidding on with the data stored within Deltek Vision and Deltek for Professional Services. This feature easily allows you to create proposals based on actual firm performance, and they are quick to produce with the proposal automation capabilities of Deltek CRM. Now, that’s a game changer.

Winning with Project Delivery

To build your game plan, you must first know who is available to play or whose injury would prevent the best performance. The same goes for project management in a professional services firm. Using Deltek Vision and Deltek for Professional Services, your firm will have the resource planning capabilities needed to ensure staff utilization is being maximized so that you are never blindsided in your projects. Even more, instant access to project metrics and performance data helps guarantee projects will stay on track.

Win with Deltek

In Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis, there is a Pete Palmer quote, “Managers tend to pick a strategy that is the least likely to fail, rather than to pick a strategy that is most efficient. The pain of looking bad is worse than the gain of making the best move.” Fortunately, professional services firms don’t need to play this guessing game when using Deltek tools. Let Deltek help your team find the right formula to win on all fronts. Wouldn’t you like to have the upper hand?

Welcome to Deltek for Professional Services (DPS), the next generation solution for professional services automation (PSA). If PSA is a new term for you, think of it as a specialized system like an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution except specifically designed for the professional services industry. Also, check out this short article to learn more about PSA.  So, what can DPS do for your firm? Let’s see how this new cutting-edge solution will add value.

What is Deltek for Professional Services?

At its core, Deltek for Professional Services is a solution to assist your professional services firm with overcoming industry challenges and give you the tools needed to gain a competitive advantage. Whether it’s winning more work, recruiting new talent, providing top-notch project delivery or accurate forecasting of final performance, DPS will help your firm stay focused on the future. As a complete and all-inclusive package, DPS will positively affect all the core areas of your business by streamlining your processes.

Intelligent Business Development

Knowing if you have enough pipeline to meet your firm’s future goals is critical to measuring the success of your business development efforts. With Deltek for Professional Services, you can eliminate business development shortcomings by providing your team with a collaborative platform to enable every team member to stay engaged and up to date. Even more, DPS is an integrated solution that allows your business development team to create proposals based on the historic performance of your firm. As a result, your firm can create actual target revenues per account and realistic revenue forecasting.

Simplified Project Management   

Using Deltek for Professional Services, building a project plan has never been easier. With an improved user interface based on iAccess for Deltek Vision, DPS allows project managers to develop plans based on the performance of similar projects. Managers can simply build key performance indicators (KPIs) and milestones into these plans which can track the success of a project. Furthermore, these KPIs and milestones can be used to develop a project management dashboard that lets project managers see all critical project information on a single screen.

Improved Financial Insights

Tracking project profitability can be challenging. However, Deltek for Professional Services makes this process simple by eliminating the guessing game with dashboards and alerts to let you know how a project is faring. DPS allows you to monitor the key metrics that can determine the success of a project like margins, utilization, and cash flow. With this tracking system, you can keep your finances on target.

Transitioning to Deltek for Professional Services

Ready to make the move? Deltek has a plan to transition your firm to DPS if your firm is currently on Deltek Vision. Contact us to find out more about preparing for the migration. If you’re not currently using a Deltek product, Full Sail Partners can help your firm determine if DPS is right for you!

Full Sail Partners is pleased to announce that the Blackbox Connector for Concur and Deltek Vision is now available in the Concur App Center. The Blackbox Connector for Concur and Deltek Vision provides Concur clients who use Deltek Vision with a solution to more effectively manage project expenses with near real-time exchange of data between these two industry leaders, allowing bi-directional synchronization of projects, work breakdown structure, employees and completed expense reports.

“We selected Concur because they are the best in class for expense reporting both for end-user simplicity, as well as the breadth of customization and options for the accounting staff. We are excited to have our Blackbox Connector available in the Concur App Center. This will allow our clients to marry the elegant user interface of Concur and the power of Vision to reduce their time spent on submitting expense reports, and provide more control and visibility on spend for the company,” said Tanya Drake, Director of Add-on Technology for Full Sail Partners.

Concur is the world’s leading provider of integrated travel and expense management services and solutions. Offering apps with streamlined integration with Concur Travel, Expense and Invoice products, the Concur App Center delivers innovative functionality in key categories such as finance, regulatory compliance, enterprise identity, traveler productivity, travel management and much more. For more information, visit https://www.concur.com/app-center.

Additionally, having completed training by Concur on Concur methodologies, Full Sail Partners is now a Customer Success Partner with Concur. As a Customer Success Partner, Full Sail Partners is now better equipped with insider information and deep product knowledge so you can spend less time setting up Concur and more time enjoying faster deployments and greater returns on your Concur investment.

For more information, please contact Full Sail Partners’ Marketing and Communications Department. 

How does your company measure up to the competition? Are you performing above the industry standards or below? Are you achieving the objectives necessary to continue to grow and operate successfully? In order to answer these questions, management must have a way to track performance. Evaluating the progress of individuals, projects, and specific departments is important, but management also needs an in depth look at the company as a whole.

The two most popular methods for measuring performance are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Benchmarks. Both KPIs and Benchmarking are used to motivate employees by giving them measurable targets to meet. By meeting these targets, the employees help to increase the overall performance of the company. So, if they are both used to measure performance, what’s the distinction?

Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators are measures of how well a company, individual, business unit, or project is performing compared to specific strategic objectives or goals set by the company. KPIs that are well constructed provide direction leading to a clear understanding and awareness of current performance. KPIs often differ from company to company or department to department within a company based on the goals of the specific company or particular department.

A company’s desire to measure the indicators often dictates the KPIs put into practice. When developing a KPI, how that KPI relates to a specific business objective needs to be considered. Here are a few examples of KPIs that you may use for your business:

• Staff Retention
• New Customer Acquisition
• Timeliness of Projects
• Financial Growth

Planning is key when dealing with KPIs for measurement. It is important that they are significant, understandable and current. Using customized KPIs will provide great insight into your business.

Benchmark Indicators

Benchmarking compares other organizations in your industry to your own organization. Benchmarks are often measured by studying the results of other company operations that have best practices put in place to achieve exceptional results. The goal of benchmarking is to improve your processes to strengthen company performance, enhance customer satisfaction and increase revenue.

Performance benchmarking and strategic benchmarking are commonly used by firms. Performance benchmarking generally compares products and services with target companies in your industry allowing your firm to measure your economic position. Whereas strategic benchmarking involves observing and evaluating how other companies compete (which may include those outside of industry).

There is a significant amount of benchmarking data already gathered and available for companies to allow them to measure themselves against industry peers. The Deltek AE Clarity report, for example, is done annually. Sometimes there is a fee associated with acquiring benchmarking data, but it is easily recouped by the savings of resources and time in not having to do your own research.

Benefit from Key Performance Indicators and Benchmarks

Both of these methods allow management to identify areas where the company excels as well as areas that need improvement. However, to benefit from using KPIs and Benchmarks, a company needs to be willing to set objectives, make changes and follow through. Keep in mind, it is vital for company growth and success that those objectives are set both based upon internal history as well as industry standard criterion.

Yep, you read that right. I said free resources are available for Deltek users. Using these free resources, you can become more familiar with Deltek products and keep up with the newest features and how they work. Even more, Full Sail Partners and Deltek both offer these free resources for your consumption. So, what are these useful yet complimentary tools and where do you find them?

User Groups 

User groups are a great way to network with your peers, learn tips about how they utilize their systems and perhaps better ways to accomplish specific tasks. User group meetings are led by a Deltek expert and you will enjoy an interactive environment where you learn more about a feature and get questions answered in real time. Additionally, user groups provide the opportunity to talk with other users about challenges you may be having so you can discover solutions. Look for a user group in your area and check out our upcoming list of user group events.

Webinars 

Both Full Sail Partners and Deltek offer webinars on a variety of topics presented by subject matter experts. These webinars can be attended live or viewed later on demand. You can ask questions during live webinars and walk away with the answers you are seeking. Additionally, webinars can be attended from anywhere that has internet access making them extremely convenient. Check out a list of upcoming and on demand webinars here.

YouTube 

Full Sail Partners also offers short training videos and demos for Deltek Vision users. These give you the ability to learn as your schedule allows. In our YouTube videos, we show you how to complete time saving tasks so you can quickly move from novice to power user. The videos are packed with valuable information to benefit all users. Make sure to check out and subscribe to our YouTube channel. 

Blogs 

Our weekly blogs cover hot and relevant industry topics. Each blog is written to provide helpful insights and tips with the intention of keeping users up to date on all of the latest information available. You will find links to our blogs in our monthly newsletter or you can check out our blogs on our website. 

Stay Tuned for the Latest Free Resources

While you can always visit our website daily, there are other ways to keep in the loop. We use Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to spread the word about our new educational resources. Also, make sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter where you can find lists of new blogs, webinars, and events.

First off, you’re thinking what does this perplexing term, professional services automation (PSA), actually mean? Well, before we jump into the need for it, let’s first look at what determines a professional services firm. At its core, a professional services firm sells knowledge and time as opposed to an actual tangible product.

As a result, tracking revenue to product sold isn’t as simple as selling a “widget” for a predetermined amount to ensure a profit. Instead, time must be tracked to a project to ensure the professional services firm is able to make a profit from the services they provide. Therefore, the purpose of a PSA is to help streamline the delivery of those professional services.

Enterprise Resource Planning Versus Professional Services Automation

All bourbons are whiskey, but not all whiskeys are bourbon. That’s right, and not all enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools are PSA tools. This is because many ERP systems aren’t designed to meet the specific requirements of professional services firms. Instead, many firms try to piece together their own systems using a variety of generic tools such as an off the shelf accounting product and a homegrown project management solution, or in other cases, using a generic ERP and trying to customize it to meet their needs.

PSA systems, on the other hand, are designed to meet the unique requirements of the professional services industry. These systems come complete with all of the tools a firm needs to manage its business. More importantly, all of these systems communicate with each other. Thus, firm leaders have a 360-degree view into their business.

Benefits of Professional Services Automation

Firstly, PSA systems support new business development by integrating the client relationship management tool with the entire system that maintains your business. This integration makes it easier to take a lead to opportunity and finally create a project.

Secondly, resource planning and strategy development are based on past project performance data. The data ensures that your bid for a project is representative of how your firm delivers its services. Consequently, your firm can rest assured that, at the end of the project, the projected profit will be close to the actual profit.

Lastly, PSAs bring all of your business components together in one system. This reduces operational complexity and shortens the amount of time spent on many of your critical business processes. Not only is the time savings a benefit, but smooth operations for back office personnel are ensured which supports improving the client experience and satisfaction.

Moving Your Firm to a Professional Services Automation Software

Implementing a PSA solution can increase your firm’s productivity and ability to deliver projects on-time which guarantees accurate project planning. However, don’t go at it alone. Make sure you pick a solution that meets the majority of your firm’s needs and choose a trusted partner to assist with the implementation. Trying to force the wrong system to work for your firm will only lead to wasted money and poor usage practices from employees. 

In today’s world of technology, computer users are faced with the constant threat of security issues. One wrong click of the mouse and your computer can be instantly crippled. It is not only important that you are aware of the types of threats that are out there, but you should also be familiar with the steps you can take to protect yourself.

Such security threats are collectively known as malware. The term malware is short for malicious software and references a variety of forms of intrusive software. It encompasses ransomware, spyware, viruses, email spoofing and multiple other malicious programs.

What’s Lurking Behind Your Next Click? 

Here’s a look at the different types of threats and the damage they do to your computer:

• Computer Virus – A computer virus is a self-replicating program that can be spread via email or also by inserting copies of itself into other computer programs or documents. Viruses can lead to the inoperability of your computer and spread quickly to the computers of everyone you share files with or correspond with via email.
• Ransomware – Like it sounds, ransomware literally holds a computer ransom by rendering it inoperable and attempts to extort “ransom” money from the unsuspecting victim. Ransomware is typically acquired via email messages and can be spread rapidly throughout the network.
• Spyware – Spyware is an executable program that is extremely difficult to detect and has the ability of secretly gathering personal information about you or your company. Generally, it is not created to cause damage to your computer. However, it is utilized to monitor keystrokes, copy files and gather information about you. Spyware is most often installed on your computer with something you have clicked on, such as a pop-up ad, browser add-ons, or piggybacked on another software installation.
• Email Spoofing – Email spoofing refers to sending emails with a sender address that is forged to make it look like it is sent from someone or somewhere other than where it came from. The sender of the email is hoping that the recipient will believe the forged address is from a legitimate person or company and will open it. Generally, spoof emails are more of a nuisance than anything, but they can contain links which install spyware, ransomware or viruses.

Protect Yourself from Malware Attacks 

The good news is that it is relatively easy to protect yourself from all the above-mentioned security attacks. In most cases, your IT person will have already taken measures to protect the network by installing firewalls, virus protection software and deploying DNS protection. The real question at hand is what can you do to help with the security of your information?

Here some of the measures you can take to be sure that you are doing your part:

• Careful Clicking – Do not click on email attachments or links if you do not know the sender and you are not expecting the document. It is always best to open a browser and manually navigate to the website rather than click on a link which may or may not take you where you intend. Also, take a moment to run a virus scan on any attachments prior to opening them.
• Smart Surfing – Always utilize pop-up blockers within your web browser and never enter personal, financial or any other sensitive information into any web browser that you have not manually navigated to.
• Perform Routine Scans – At times, spyware threats and viruses can slip through the active protective engines due to the sheer number of new threats that are created daily. It is crucial that you update your malware protection and run system scans consistently.

Happy Clicking and Surfing 

Take these simple precautions to protect yourself from a software security breach. While all of this malware fear may seem a bit overwhelming, if you educate yourself, remain alert, and follow the measures listed above, your surfing and clicking will be worry free. Remember, keeping your data safe and secure is easily manageable.