Full Sail Partners Blog | Sarah Gonnella (2)

For the last decade, Full Sail Partners has been a recognized project-based technology leader in the Deltek professional services ecosystem. We have much to celebrate and we attribute that success to our company culture -- fun, fast-paced, flexible and collaborative. Our team members comment every day how they feel privileged to call many of their co-workers true friends and even family.  

Since our inception, the number of employees has expanded 131%, and over our 10-year history, revenue has increased 145% while completing over 4000+ projects. The firm launched its Blackbox Connector product in 2015 increasing the team’s integration capabilities by being able to connect clients to outside solutions. Deltek and other industry leaders have recognized our firm with 15 awards over its history because of our relentless commitment to cultivating strong customer loyalty and focusing on the customer experience. We accomplished this and more all while being 100% remote, before it became popular.  

We plan to recognize this huge milestone with our clients at Deltek’s Annual Conference, ProjectCon, in November in Nashville, TN. Additionally, as part of our continuing 10-year anniversary celebration, Full Sail Partners will be selling a cookbook filled with recipes from its employees. Each employee that submits a recipe will be nominating a charity of his/her choice. Any funds raised will be then given to the charity that is voted upon by Full Sail Partners’ clients.  

While viewing our accomplishments, you can truly experience the fun side of our culture. We would love to hear from you, our clients, about any experience that stands out over the years in the comments or on social media. Thank you to everyone that has been a part of our journey. We are excited to continue this celebration and enjoy the moment while looking forward to our next milestone accomplishment. Cheers! 

Review our recent press release to learn more about our firm and our accomplishments over the past decade. 

The Vantagepoint Connect add-in with Vantagepoint CRM provides two-way synchronization of your contacts and calendar items within your Outlook email application. Outlook Connect empowers users across the firm to help nurture client relationships and collaborate with your team. While in Outlook, users can pin the context pane, so it remains visible. This allows the ability to view contacts and firms in the context of the active email addresses to provide quick insight to contact and firm information along with activity, pursuits, projects, and marketing campaigns. This visibility provides the entire team with valuable information while emailing and scheduling meetings. Let's take a look at how Deltek Vantagepoint Connect empowers users at your firm. 

Executives Seeking to Unify Their Team 

Sharing critical data easily across the firm is a key objective, yet a challenge for every executive. Managing and sharing data across the organization increases the ability to make crucial decisions across the business. Accessing data in a tool, like Outlook, that the firm uses on a daily basis eliminates roadblocks and redundancies for users across the company. With Deltek Vantagepoint Connect, Outlook allows users to search for and view information entered in Vantagepoint for any firm, contact, or project while in the tool. 

Increasing Client Communication Tracking for Marketing & Sales Teams 

When different departments approach tracking data in different ways, it adds barriers for marketing and sales to attain a holistic view across the firm. Identifying how to provide quick access to users entering and pursuing business across the firm ensures marketing and sales are able to provide meaningful reporting about the firm’s efforts. While using Outlook, team members now have the ability to create firms, contacts, pursuits, projects and activities within Vantagepoint as they are responding or sending emails. Having client data at your fingertips promotes transparency across the firm and improves communication to ensure departments are no longer working in silos. Outlook Connect integration is a vital tool to connect to your ERP to help marketing and sales strengthen collaboration across the company.    

Improving Project Management Productivity 

Project Managers live by tasks and schedules. During a project, a task is much more than just a to-do. It is also the way project-based firms bill for their time. Project Managers additionally need the ability to schedule and synchronize internal calendars and meetings. With the Vantagepoint Outlook Connect, users can now synchronize calendar items between Outlook and Vantagepoint. This eliminates the need to enter data twice.  

Outlook Connect also streamlines the process of scheduling meetings through the Scheduling Assistant. Through the Scheduling Assistant, clients can see the team's availability and choose a time to meet that works with both of their schedules. The client only sees available times and does not see any other details or appointments on your calendar. Alternatively, project managers can also provide specific times that are available for the entire team and provide defined time slots to the client. Once they choose a time, all internal team members will receive an invitation on their calendar. Lastly, when a calendar event is shared with Vantagepoint, users can log that time to their timesheet. Talk about improving productivity! 

Accessing Financial and Project Client Communication History   

Many times, firms may overlook finance’s need to access client data from Outlook. Finance always seems to be in the ERP system working on billing, AR and financial reports. However, Outlook is something they also use on a daily basis. One key way finance may find value from Outlook Connect is its ability to log email or correspondence related to billing. Outstanding AR, project contract documentation and contract changes should all be logged in your ERP related to the client, contact and project. Documenting correspondence and keeping client communication up to date guarantees all team members have access to the latest client communication history.   

Enable Your Professional Services Team 

Data has the potential to transform professional services firms' business when users share information across their entire company. No matter what role you are in, getting helpful data into the hands of your users enables them to make informed, data-driven decisions. Check out our past mini-demonstrations to see how Deltek Vantagepoint + Outlook is changing the way CRM is managed by professional services firms. 

Click the image below to learn how Full Sail Partners can help you Synchronize Your Business Outlook Calendar with Deltek Vantagepoint. 

We are excited to celebrate our 10-year anniversary! Clients, partners, employees, and family have all embarked on this journey with us, and in so many ways, we have grown together. For this reason, we plan to recognize this big accomplishment and continue to make great strides together in 2022! Cheers to another amazing year full of fantastic projects and collaboration! We invite you to be the first to see our new 10-year anniversary logo and check out our new resource pages providing you content by role.

Since the creation of Full Sail Partners in 2012, the number of our employees has expanded 131% allowing us to become the technology provider when it comes to project-based solutions. Over those 10 years, our viewership has expanded 785% and we have received almost 23k website submissions. We have shared more than 540 blog articles, 293 web pages, and 132 webinars. So, in celebration, we are listing the top content based on viewership. Enjoy!

Most Viewed Thought Leadership Blog 

>>>7 Ways to Overcome Obstacles<<<

Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that the most viewed thought leadership blog was about overcoming obstacles? These past several years brought many challenges to our work and personal lives. When faced with adversity, it sometimes can be hard to breakdown how to handle it. In this blog, we discussed 7 tips to overcome obstacles.

Most Downloaded Whitepaper 

>>>Deltek AE Clarity Report<<<

As a Deltek Platinum Partner, we promote Deltek’s annual survey focused on the Architecture and Engineering (A&E) industry. The report is one of the world’s most sought-after A&E research findings each year providing in-depth analysis about the industry’s financial condition and market outlook. 

Most Webinar Submissions 

>>>Things We Love About Deltek Vantagepoint So Far<<<

Our webinar with the most submissions was a presentation back in 2019. This webinar is still getting a lot of attention! Firms were excited about the release of Deltek Vantagepoint, and this still holds true today. During the webinar, we covered the Top 10 Features along with some honorable mentions. The webinar was so well attended, we were asked to do an updated version a year later: Deltek Vantagepoint: The Best All In One.

Webinar with the Largest Attendance 

>>>The Project Lifecycle of Deltek Vantagepoint<<<

Professional services firms need a system that takes them through the entire project lifecycle from lead identification to pursuit and final project execution. So, it makes sense that this webinar had the largest attendance in our 10-year history, especially with the enthusiasm surrounding Deltek Vantagepoint. The webinar took firms from beginning to end and compared the similarities and differences between Vantagepoint and Vision. 

Most Viewed Webpage 

>>>Our Crew<<<

Other than our home page, our most viewed webpage is about our crew. Just like with every professional services firm, our employees are the heart and soul of our company. More than 31,000 people have checked out our staff, which averages out to about 7 people a day. Everyone at our company believes we are the best at what we do! We have an amazing, collaborative, and talented team that also makes work fun. This is best illustrated by our professional and fun photos showing another side to our team.

Most Requested Blackbox Connector Solution

>>>Quick Insight to Maintain Contacts<<<

Everyone loves FREE stuff, which probably explains why our newest solution on our Blackbox Connector page sky rocketed to become our most requested page. Full Sail Partners presented on a contact and email management tool for Deltek Vantagepoint in December, 2021, to help firms clean-up their data. The tool searches for duplicate email addresses, duplicate names, and emails with bad formatting to help users target records needing clean-up. The best part is this tool can be used whether you have Vantagepoint CRM or not!

Most Time Spent on a Blog 

>>>Exception Reporting<<<

Research shows the average time spent on a website page is about 45 seconds. So, when you have a blog that users are spending on average 7.4 minutes reviewing, you know you have content worth reading. It might seem ironic that the blog that had the most time spent on it was about how to spend less time analyzing data. However, that doesn’t come as a revelation to us. The most common complaint amongst professionals is they don’t have time to analyze the data, since they need to just get the job done. If you haven’t checked it out yet, learn more about how exception reporting can save firm leaders and their employee’s valuable time.

Blog with the Most Social Media Shares

>>>9 Ways to Connect with Employees<<<

Each employee has different needs from a job and an employer. Sometimes those needs are in alignment with their employer and sometimes they aren’t. How can employers best connect and create a culture that empowers their employees? In this article, we discussed 9 ways to connect with employees to ensure they feel valued and enthusiastic about their position.

We hope you enjoyed being taken down memory lane or even discovered content that you may have missed. From the inception of Full Sail Partners, our goals were to ensure we had a passionate, dedicated, and collaborative team and to be known for valuable content amongst the project-based industry. Based on comments from our employees and clients, we think we have lived up to those goals. Thank you for joining us on our journey, and we look forward to continuing our endeavor with you and to see what the future holds.

Full Sail Partners has worked with 200+ firms related to their Deltek Vision to Vantagepoint upgrade process in different capacities over the past two years. Full Sail Partners’ goal is to help our clients gain more insight on how to have a smooth and successful upgrade. From the experience and insight gleamed from helping these firms, these five tips have been developed to keep your firm calm.

However, there are two big caveats to consider before diving into the tips for a calm upgrade process.

One of the biggest challenges faced when working with clients is misinformation. It’s like the game telephone. Someone whispers something to the person next to them and it keeps going down the line. By the time it gets to the end person, the information is completely different. This is happening with information regarding Deltek Vantagepoint. Full Sail Partners strongly encourages firms to get their information from the source. Ask Deltek, Full Sail Partners, or another approved Deltek partner.

Next, is to take a deep breath. Some of our clients come to us in a complete panic. Some clients are concerned about how they will get through the Vision to Vantagepoint upgrade process. Some other clients are worried non-stop. So, let’s all take a deep breath. Understand that firms are not alone. Remember, Full Sail Partners is here to help as a trusted partner.

To quote Martha Lira with Impact Sciences that upgraded from Vision to Vantagepoint. “It was easier than I thought. It was smoother than I thought.”

Tip #1 – This is an Upgrade, Not a Migration

One thing to remember is this is an upgrade not a migration. This is a key point to understand and communicate to the rest of the company. Misinformation can come from anywhere. It’s important that the company’s primary contact is communicating to others within the organization.

Furthermore, there is an installer that allows the company to push every single Vision field over to Vantagepoint. This even includes custom field, tabs, and user defined info centers. There is work involved, but significantly less than there is when starting from scratch for a migration.

For finance the processes are very similar. There might be some things that are moved around and there are added enhancements to make it easier, but the learning curve is minimal for finance.

For project managers and CRM users, Deltek has been listening. All the things you have been asking for over the years are being answered. Items like:

• Streamlined flow for project managers,
• Improved usability,
• User-friendly, modern look and feel,
• Improved Outlook integration; and
• AI capabilities with Hey Deltek! to make doing tasks easier.

Tip #2 – Take Advantage of All the Resources Available

Deltek and Full Sail Partners have many resources, most of them free. If you haven’t viewed any resources, you are doing yourself and team a disservice. Share the resources to all departments of your company. These resources include:

• Deltek’s Vantagepoint Readiness Portal | Firms can access this through their customer care login. Inside there is an upgrade checklist along with training videos by role and Vantagepoint updates.
• Preparing for the Upgrade Series by Full Sail Partners | This is a webinar series that provides clients with the answers and clarification on how the upgrade will impact their firm.
• Client Assistance Program (CAP) Program | This program, hosted by Deltek, reviews the upgrade checklists found in the readiness portal. Over several weeks, it covers each area of Vantagepoint and how to prepare in moving from Vision to Vantagepoint.
• Powering Project Success Mini Demonstrations created by Full Sail Partners | Not only has Deltek provided videos available on the readiness portal, but Full Sail Partners has taken it a step further. Mini demonstration videos range from four to 21 minutes and show different areas of the system and how different users would utilize those areas. The videos focus on sharing new features and functions.
• Vantagepoint Upgrade page | Visit this page to find all the resources in on place including those mentioned above and to schedule a consultation with a member of the Full Sail Partners Crew.

Tip #3 - Engage All User Groups

This is the opportunity to become the “hero” of collaboration by bringing in other departments and users. This is done by understanding that the upgrade from Vision to Vantagepoint is less technical and more about inclusion. Vantagepoint is a complete ERP and ERP is about the company, so every role needs to participate to have a calm upgrade process.

Engage with them by sharing the resources in Tip #2 that are related to their responsibilities. Require users in all departments to view and engage with those resources. Take time to understand how each team member will be part of the project lifecycle. Some may be at the beginning. Some at the middle or others at the end. Making sure each of them understands how their information and actions impact others–from marketing to project managers to accounting.

This is a great opportunity to get new employees and people not previously involved with Vision to become ‘bought-in’ and advocates for Vantagepoint.

Tip #4 – Trust the Process

In assisting 200+ firms in their Deltek Vision to Vantagepoint upgrades over the past two years, Full Sail Partners has fine tuned the upgrade process for firms. While each client’s process is specific for them, Full Sail Partners has worked hard to remove the mystery to create a transparent process. This process includes:

1. Personalized Readiness Report - Readiness Report – This is a tool run against Vision and reports the specific things that the firm needs to address. Every firm is different. The report shows exactly what to clean up. Firms have found this priceless.
2. Train the Team and Make Adjustments – Get your system in gear and refine the team’s knowledge of managing Vantagepoint for a seamless transition.
3. Make the Shift to Full Production – Leverage transition copy scripts to automate the conversion process from preview environment to production.

Tip #5 – Manage Attitudes and Messaging

With every process, change management is always important to plan for. A big part of change management is attitude. The attitude impacts the success or failure of the change. And, when firm leaderships approaches change negatively, the team will pick up on that attitude. If leadership approaches it positively, the team will feel more confident about the change. Success is impacted by the attitude displayed when approaching the change. Promote this change positively because it’s really a good change. Get others excited. The only ways things can be successful is excitement, positivity and getting people to understand benefits they get that will help them in their role. Deltek has been listening, and these changes with Vantagepoint are happening because of feedback from firms like yours.

Next is to prepare the internal teams. Communicate to them that it’s important to understand that this isn’t a month-long process. Take a deep breath and remove the worry first by taking the time to know what needs to be tackled as part of the upgrade process. Use the Readiness Report to know the areas to be addressed and outline the steps required. Identify team members responsible and a target date of completion. Then start working on cleaning up data, as needed. It’s always better to tackle dirty data sooner rather than later. With the upgrade, firms can clean up data before or after the upgrade, but Full Sail Partners has found it better to do it before. Don’t forget to outline training and remember this is a great time to take time to make your processes even better.

Make sure to celebrate milestones and the end success. This can be done by letting others in the firm know about those accomplishments and be sure to thank those that dedicated their time and effort along the way.

Keep Calm and Just Breathe

Often, users tend to build up unnecessary worry and think things are going to be worse than they really are. The best way to tackle worry is to write down the challenge and then break it down into smaller steps. Hopefully using these five tips will show the way to a calm Vision to Vantagepoint upgrade.

In the professional services industry, reporting is key. The common complaint amongst professionals is they don’t have time to analyze the data, since they need to just get the job done. Time is always of the essence, but true efficiency incorporates being proactive and taking the time to evaluate the data and determine what to pay attention to or worry about. This is where exception reporting comes into play. 

Many times, though, professionals aren’t really aware of the robust capabilities of exception reporting and how it can save firm leaders and employees valuable time. Oddly, there seems to be some disconnect about the real benefits of exception reporting to their firm’s bottom line.

What is Exception Reporting?

Simply put, exception reporting can indicate a red flag to a business. Within the professional services industry, it is especially important to receive exception reporting related to projects and people. An exception report can be a report, alert and/or dashpart that notifies a user, department, or business about data that is outside of a defined expectation of what is typically acceptable. This notification indicates action should be taken. With an ERP or business intelligence system, exception reporting can be programmed to highlight parameters of values that appear outside of a defined criteria range. 

Why Use Exception Reporting?

With growing professional services firms, the more projects a firm wins, and the more employees hired, means managing more projects and employees. Anyone in the professional services industry knows that there is no such thing as a perfect project. Whether managing projects or employees, it’s important to know what needs closer attention and when to adjust a project or processes. With the ebb and flow of projects and availability of resources, those adjustments can come at any time. When done right, exception reporting can ensure a firm is addressing potential problems or weaknesses before they wreak havoc on the bottom line. 

What Are Examples of Exception Reporting for Professional Services Firms?

Exception reporting can be simple or more in-depth for professional services firms. Below are some examples of the most commonly used exception reports along with some that are less common, but highly effective within the professional services industry.

Identify Unsubmitted Timesheets with Ease

Having timesheets completed on time allows for timely billing and improved cash flow. Additionally, having the ability to list the staff who have worked less than expected hours for a selected time period lets managers know who to focus their efforts on and helps avoid mass emails to the entire company. Below is an example within Deltek Vantagepoint. Managers can identify which of their employees need to receive notifications or reminders and can quickly send one. Accounting and principals will also find it helpful to know which managers are underperforming. Additionally, business intelligence tools, like Entrinsik Informer, can provide insight in a visual way to alert those department managers who have the most employees slacking on their timesheet.

Draw Attention to Accounts Receivable (AR) at Risk

Accounts receivable “at risk” refers to the likelihood that a client or project is beyond the expected timeframe. For some firms, this may be 45 days and others may deem more than 60 days as being unacceptable. The longer the DSO (days sales outstanding) cycle, the more likely a business is offering credit to its clients. The longer the bill goes unpaid, the more likely a firm may not collect 100 percent of what is owed. Providing accounting, project managers and principals a list of “at risk” accounts allows a firm to focus just on those that are beyond the normal threshold. 

A project manager might be managing 50 projects. With an exception report, the PM can quickly see that they have 10 projects that need attention related to AR. For accounting and principals, an exception report may be one showing which project managers, principals or divisions have the most AR “at risk” to narrow down individuals or groups that need further attention.  

Resource Allocation Balancing

Another example of an exception report is one providing management information to demand the resources they need. With a resource allocation report for a project-based business, it outlines competing priorities required to execute on projects. It provides those overseeing projects the ability to determine who is over and underutilized allowing them to readjust those out of balance to maximize the effectiveness of the firm’s resources.

Spotting Projects in Trouble

A projects in trouble report is another exception report that identifies variances from the plan or project data. This type of report identifies the reason(s) a project may potentially be in trouble. The Blackbox Connector for Entrinsik Informer has an out-of-the-box BI reporting solution that can report on common reasons a project may be in trouble and includes:

• Over budget or approaching budget
• Low gross margin ratio percentage
• AR is at risk or getting old
• Percentage of time used is beyond expected days
• Actual hours exceed budget
• Low expected revenue
• Project past expected completion date
• No current activity

Project Feedback to Manage Expectations

Listening to feedback from clients about a project is essential to ensure project success. Projects require adjustments along the way and the best way to ensure a project is meeting client expectations is to provide a method for clients to provide quick feedback. The most effective method for professional services firms we have seen is the Client Feedback Tool by Client Savvy. This electronic feedback is quick, effective, and provides indicators when someone records a low score. As a result, an exception report alerts the team and leaders that follow-up is required, and potential mentoring of their employees is needed.

Reduce Employee Turnover with a Burnout Report

In professional services firms, a commonly used phrase is “our employees are our greatest asset.” This is true for so many reasons as they are often the primary contact with our clients. They also have the project knowledge as well as the technical skills required for project success. Having to replace an employee on a project costs time and money and can potentially result in a poor product or project delays. Ensuring that employees are maintaining a work life balance goes a long way to keeping productive staff. Providing executives and managers an exception report on identifying employees that may potentially be burnt out can help reduce turnover. In a burnout report, criteria might include employees that have:

• Not taken PTO in the past 6 months
• No PTO scheduled for the next 6 months
• Consistently working more than 8 hours a day

Being Proactive with Exception Reporting Adds to Bottom Line

Training project managers, principals and teams on project details to look for across the board is essential. Exception reporting is a great way to quickly identify variances between what is expected and what is happening to help identify potential issues sooner. Utilizing business intelligence like exception reports offers firms the chance to proactively make adjustments and reduce data analysis time. Exception reporting can be a positive thing to help achieve better processes or avoid costly issues and should be a part of professional services firms’ operational strategies.

Since the spring of 2020, many firms have had to transition to a remote only working environment. Learning to deal with this new operating style was certainly a challenge at first, but hopefully, these same firms are embracing the changes which could help to streamline the whole Human Capital Management (HCM) process. Let’s check out how HCM can be successfully done remotely with no office required based on our own experience at Full Sail Partners.

Pre-Hire

First off is the interview process which can still be done face to face, just virtually. Searching for talent is different when you work remotely. The location of potential new hires doesn’t really matter. It is more about skillsets and the fit of the person with the company.

You will also want to ask different types of questions about working from home such as questions towards working autonomously and communication skills. You need to see signs of motivation and the ability to self-motivate with any candidates you interview. Some key questions are “Why would you want to work from home?” and “Can you handle IT issues on your own?”, “Do you have internet?”, and “Do you have a quiet place to work from”. These types of questions will help you determine whether a particular candidate can handle a remote only position.

Onboarding

Once you’ve found the talent that seems to fit your remote work environment and the offer letter has been accepted, it is time to prepare for this new hire. Working remotely, a very important place to start is with the IT aspect. Having a standard online checklist of items that IT should prepare for is super helpful. Deltek Collaboration and Microsoft Teams are great solutions that allow you to copy a template that includes a list of standard tasks or assignments. Don’t reinvent the wheel each time you have a new hire. Everyone needs a computer and login info for different types of software. Send that info ahead of time so new hires can be ready day one to start learning more about the company. Also be sure new employees are provided with contacts within the company that can be approached for different needs. Working remotely puts the onus on the new hire to seek out the answers, but they should have a list of resources.

Another significant way to start on good footing remotely involves setting goals. These goals will have details about expectations to accomplish. The goals should focus on steps that are required to be successful. We find establishing 45-day, 3-month, 6-month, and 9-month goals can ensure the employee knows exactly their priorities and allows them to proceed forward with confidence. A supervisor should meet with the employee at the end of each of these time increments to discuss where they are in meeting their goals and determine if further mentoring or training is required.

We get it! Working remotely, far from coworkers and isolated, can make for tough work attire choices. Well you spoke, and we listened! In our ongoing attempts to unify, team build and reduce decision fatigue, we are proud to announce our new corporate dress code. Introducing the universal, one-size-fits-all-in-wonderful, versatile, and fashionable Full Sail Partners' Speedsuit!

Perfect for:

Working from home!

Working with clients!

And leisure.

The Full Sail Partners’ Speedsuit is machine washable, wrinkle, stain, and odor resistant to accommodate any lifestyle. The official Full Sail Partners cap is the perfect accessory for bad hair days whether you’ve just gotten up or not slept for 3 days. We’ve got you covered! Together, the Full Sail Partners uniform will be a key lynchpin to success.

But wait, there is more! Clients can get their own Full Sail Partners speedsuit to show your support. Contact us now for more details.

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS’ DAY!

“I can’t find anything in our CRM system.”

“Our CRM system isn’t user friendly.”

“Our CRM system doesn’t provide me the data I need.”

The statements above can apply to any Client Relationship Management (CRM) system. Yep, you heard me right. These comments are shared with me daily by prospects and clients alike. These complaints may seem valid, but the truth behind why your CRM system sucks is much harder to swallow and admit. Deep down inside, you know the real reasons. Today I’m going to share with you why your CRM system doesn’t work and what you can do about it.

The main reason why CRM implementations usually fail isn’t because of the system, it’s because of you. I told you this was going to be hard to swallow. A CRM system is meant to provide a place to house all of the important information about your clients and opportunities. However, many firms purchase a CRM system thinking it will miraculously do the work for them with no effort required. 

A CRM system can work for you, but not if you haven’t set it up or implemented it with forethought. More importantly, it can’t work for you if you don’t actually touch or use it. So stop pointing your finger at the CRM system and placing the blame. As the saying goes, when you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back at you. 

If you want a successful CRM implementation, here are some things to consider. 

Stop Focusing on the Wrong Things about Your CRM 

Your CRM system should focus on a few reports to make sure sales people are generating business for your firm. Each of those reports need to be automatically sent to you at the same time every week, month or quarter. As a Sales Manager, you need to know: 

1. Do we have enough pipeline?
2. What opportunities require follow-up?
3. How are we getting new deals?
4. Why are we losing deals?
5. Who previously spoke with the client?

No system in the world can save you if you haven’t set up a way of monitoring these core activities. No bells and whistles of a new system will accomplish this essential task. Stop whining and making excuses. The fact is, if you don’t have these key reports, you haven’t established your processes. Take a step back and identify what really matters first.

Whip It! Whip it Good!

Every system needs someone dedicated to managing it. In the AEC industry, QA/QC is a must with projects to avoid potential failure. Your CRM system is no different. Make sure each area of the system has someone that “owns” it to ensure there is integrity with the data. Give these people some whipping power! Management must stand behind them, it is expected that everyone will update their own clients, contacts and opportunities. Above all, these system “owners” should know the system inside and out and take full responsibility for its success.

Making Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

Firms that are successful at CRM make it a part of their culture. It’s not an option to use the system, but rather a requirement. Don’t let excuses stop your team from using the system. Provide them training and support to learn the system and expect in return that employees use the system as designed. Anyone can find a reason why they can’t or won’t. However, accepting excuses won’t provide your firm the information needed to make informed decisions about sales pursuits.

Don’t Let Your CRM Suck

So what are you going to do? Are you going to keep making excuses and blaming the system or are you going to take the necessary steps to whip your system into shape? We at Full Sail Partners are available to help firms successfully implement their CRM. We expect all of our employees to practice what we preach and will work hard with you to ensure that your CRM no longer sucks.

Are you thinking about needing a new accounting system or ERP? If your firm is still on Deltek Advantage, Sema4, or FMS or even on Quickbooks, Protrax or another system, you might be evaluating options to figure out which solution is right for you. We receive questions from prospects asking about the differences between Deltek Vision and some other product. Additionally, during our conversations over the years, we have heard many myths about Deltek Vision and we thought it was time to set the record straight, as we see it.

To start, what we have found is some software providers say they have a feature, but the quality and capabilities are completely different. Some people might say we are biased. You know what, we probably are, but for good reason:

1. We use the product we sell. We know Deltek Vision inside and out. Can our competitors say that? Ask them.
2. We aren’t just sales people. We care about the success of our clients and that’s not just rhetoric. We’d rather turn a sale away then have an unhappy client.
3. We have done extensive migrations of all kinds of software. What we have found is many of our competitor’s software are done on the cheap or just completely leave out industry standard capabilities.

Below are the top 4 Deltek Vision myths:

Myth #1 - Deltek Vision is only for large firms.

Fact #1 – The numbers don’t support this claim. As a Deltek Premier Partner, the majority of the firms we serve are under 50 employees. Of those firms on Deltek Vision, 57% are under 50 employees; 33% are 25 employees or under; and 17% are 15 employees and under. Most importantly, the size of your firm should have no bearing on the solution you choose. What is more important is choosing a solution that fits your staff’s needs, the information you need to make business decisions and your firm’s growth plans. Deltek Vision fits firms of any size. Additionally, in 2012, Deltek came out with a cloud option (SaaS) for Deltek Vision that made Vision simpler to deploy at a lower entry price for any size firm. Check out this 10-person firm’s story.

Myth #2 – Deltek Vision is so expensive. 

Fact #2 - A recent 20-person firm looking at another AE ERP product was surprised to find that Deltek Vision’s cloud software option was less expensive. In fact, Deltek Vision has had a very comparable software pricing for small firms ever since the SaaS option became available. Additionally, the basic package of Deltek Vision’s SaaS offering includes 5 users of CRM for marketing and business developers and 5 users of Resource Planning for operations. The choice for us seems simple. For about the same price you get a much more robust system with Deltek Vision. Where the differences in pricing may come is with the services that are provided. Here are some key items to keep in mind when receiving an implementation quote to ensure you are getting the same level of service: 

1. Does the quote include migration? Our experts have been doing migrations for almost 30 years and we are proud to say we probably have some of the best in the business. When it comes to migrating your data, we highly recommend importing your historical data. The level of import can vary, but it’s important to make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Will bringing over the beginning balances be enough? This is only a question you can answer, but our experience has been firms rarely want this option unless that is their only option. Do you really want to lose all of your historical information?  
2. This is more than a transaction. You are not just buying software, you are buying a solution that needs to address the specific capabilities your firm’s needs. More importantly, you are buying into a relationship. From our perspective, we aim to make sure the software is the right fit. If it isn’t Deltek Vision, then we will raise our hand and tell you. That is why we take a consultative sales approach and conduct a discovery to uncover what is working well and identify if there are bottlenecks or inefficiencies that could help you improve your business. The discovery process should identify the output needed. More specifically, what data (reports, alerts, dashboards, etc.) is needed to make business decisions? These specific capabilities should drive what you are looking for. Make sure you are talking to a consultant during the process, not just a sales person and take time to establish a relationship. We are here to help you today and tomorrow as your firm grows. 

Myth #3 - Vision is complicated. 

Fact #3 – This fact is easily debatable. Driving a stick shift is difficult for some people, but for others it is simple. So the word itself is relative. We argue that Vision is not complicated, but rather it’s scalable. What can’t be debated is that Deltek Vision is great for growing businesses. Businesses are constantly changing and no one has a magic ball to predict when these changes will occur. Here are some key points to keep in mind if you are a growing firm looking for a new solution: 

1. Firm Evolution - Should your firm have different contract work types; need to expand your business; or face evolutionary life cycle challenges, like ownership transition and retirement scenarios, Deltek Vision can easily accommodate growing firms. It has all the utilities, under the hood to handle these contingencies.
2. Acquisitions – Should you acquire a new firm, all of the data can be accommodated in Deltek Vision. The same cannot be said about our AE ERP competitors. In fact, in addition to a push button conversion for Advantage users, Full Sail Partners has created push button conversion tool for Ajera. Additionally, we have a very streamlined process and economical migration price for Quickbooks. The same cannot be said of our AE ERP competitors. Because Deltek Vision has the ability to create custom fields, tabs, grids, and User Defined Info Centers (UDIC), all data can be represented. To put it simply, Deltek Vision can represent all data from other databases. However, if a firm was on Deltek Vision and tried to migrate to our competitor’s software, you would in fact lose data.

Myth #4 – Other AE ERP Solutions have the same capabilities as Deltek Vision.

Fact #4 – The differences between Deltek Vision and other AE ERP software are vast and go beyond just multi-currency capabilities. Here is a breakdown of some of those differences: 

1. Audit Trail - Deltek Vision has an audit trail. When changes are made in Deltek Vision, all changes are tracked and you know who made the change and when. This is not only important from an accounting perspective, but very important for firms that have government compliance requirements.
2. Multi-Company - If this capability is needed, Deltek Vision allows the set-up of multiple companies including reporting with a single sign-in. One financial report can be run to see how each company is doing. Other solutions have tried to resolve this issue on the cheap by creating separate database instances requiring multiple logins. Keep in mind, you will not be able to share financial reporting for all companies and there is no automated Inter-company billing process, therefore, each company reporting is separate.
3. CRM - If this capability is needed, Deltek Vision has an integrated, seamless CRM and proposal automation module that has a single sign-in. Additionally, Deltek Vision integrates into other marketing tools, including Constant Contact, MailChimp and Hubspot. Other AE ERP solutions may integrate with other CRM solutions. Because of that you will have a separate system that requires two separate logins. The process is far from seamless and none of them integrate with other marketing tools.
4. Security – Deltek Vision provides the ability to lock down any field in the system and make it read only. Unfortunately, security in other AE ERP solutions are not as robust as Deltek Vision.
5. Built-in Capabilities – Deltek Vision contains tools that provide flexibility and allows users to streamline processes and clean up data on the fly without any programming knowledge. Because of the open architecture, the system is built to grow with your firm. Here are some examples of some of the built-in capabilities that can be utilized:
   • Custom Fields – Deltek Vision provides the ability to create user defined fields, tabs, grids and info centers as your firm sees fit. As your firm grows, you may need to track further information.
   • Workflows – Deltek Vision provides the ability to streamline processes through workflows. For example, sometimes data needs to be represented in two locations. However, you never want to a have dual entry process. In Vision, you can have data entered into one location and the data flows to the other location. View this webinar, to learn more about the power of workflows.
   • Utilities – Vision has built-in utilities to handle contingencies to easily clean-up and move data without a migration or custom expert.  
     • Need to move billed time to a new phase? There’s a button for that.
     • Need to combine two clients together? There’s a simple to use conversion tool to do that in seconds.
     • Need to move data from one location to another? There’s search and replace utility that is simple to use.
     • Have more than 999 projects and need to add another digit to your project number structure? There’s key formats for that.

Choosing the Right ERP 

Finding the right ERP solution for your business is not an easy process and is full of misguided information. Therefore, asking the right questions is imperative to get clear answers. Formulate your questions based on the needs of your firm. Then find out and compare how each ERP solution manages these requirements. Make sure there is substance. Those shiny features might just be an illusion to distract you from the lack of robust capabilities. Some AE ERP solutions try to act like Vision, but they don’t perform like Deltek Vision.