Full Sail Partners Blog (49)

Is your firm still using spreadsheets to plan your projects? The good news is that you’re not alone, recent research from Zweig White found that almost 50% of AE firms are doing the same. The bad news is that using spreadsheets as an enterprise planning tool is very likely costing you time and money. Spreadsheets, while they are familiar to people and easy to customize, lack the many benefits of an integrated planning system. As I meet with Architecture and Engineering firms we hear common complaints and challenges about their spreadsheet planning “solutions”.  

Do any of these problems sound familiar? If so this may be the year to retire your spreadsheet in favor of an enterprise resource planning system.

Here are 5 Reasons why Spreadsheets are Challenging Your Entire Enterprise

1) Multiple Versions of the “Truth” Haunt Staffing Meetings

We find that firms that use spreadsheets to plan staffing assignments tend to end up with multiple versions of the truth. This tends to create havoc during staffing meetings as each manager has their own version of the truth, creating meeting havoc, and leading to errant meetings that lack focus. Say no to meeting havoc and refocus your staffing meetings on adjusting plans and assignments.    

2) Inability to Show Real-time and Accurate Actuals

Spreadsheets are great to start planning a project, but once the project starts evolving updating the spreadsheet becomes a tedious process that PMs quickly give up on. As the project progresses, spreadsheets struggle to show actual hours and costs spent to date. Even worse, a firm will devote manual hours requiring employees to track this information by hand – rather than investing in an integrated planning system that streamlines this process.

3) Disconnected Month End Processes

During the month end process, spreadsheets create chaos for accounting. The root cause of all this chaos stems from the duplicate and manual labor spawned from disconnected spreadsheets. Firms that use an integrated planning system eliminate the burden of spreadsheets to allow accounting to focus on financial performance; freeing up PMs to focus on project success.  

4) Project Managers and Management at Odds

Project Managers often find themselves at odds with management when it comes to staffing decisions – PMs need new resources; management thinks there is too much overhead. Firms without a way to plan staffing assignments are left with only their best ‘guesstimates’ when it comes time to validate new hires. Successful firms justify new hires by utilizing a single project management system to look at current staffing capacity compared to future assignments.

5) Adjustment Failure

Firms utilizing spreadsheets to identify project profitability goals at the beginning of the project often fail to adjust throughout the project lifecycle. Those that do try to adjust their spreadsheets work with outdated information. This lag in data creates the inability to make real-time decisions about staffing and scheduling that can impact the success of a project. By investing in a project management system connected to financials provides firms the ability to view up-to-date-billing, resource and revenue forecasts.

There is a Better Way with an Integrated Planning System

Imagine if you were able to standardize your planning process across the entire firm. Standardization allows your firm to strengthen communication amongst project managers, accounting and management; providing insight for the firm as a whole. Ready to ditch the spreadsheet? Check out one of the ways your firm can handle project planning and staffing in this upcoming webinar.

 

We all regularly receive requests for feedback. I think I received at least 10 emails last week that were seeking my participation in a survey, most of which were post-transaction requests. For example, I received surveys after purchasing a sandwich, changing the oil in my car, and getting my hair cut. While I don’t really mind feedback requests from these businesses I use regularly, I’m just not very motivated to do surveys AFTER the transaction. The sandwich was either good or bad; the oil change was either efficient or not (preferably WiFi was provided in the waiting area). There’s very little any of these businesses can do to change my client experience after it’s over. 

Delivering professional services is a different kind of “transaction.” The client experience plays out over the period of time in which we are engaged with them as service providers. From the very first phone calls and kick-off meetings, our clients are experiencing what we have to offer – below, at or above their expectations. For those of us in project management roles with direct client interaction, it behooves us to keep tabs on their perceptions, especially the up or down changes as our work progresses so that we can make adjustments quickly and effectively. 

Quantitative tools are helpful, and can help pinpoint our focus on the movement of the client’s perceptions and our subsequent responses, rather than the particular “score” itself. In this context, ask yourself whether you really know whether your services are providing less than, exactly, or much more than what was expected. 

Managing a Portfolio of Client Feedback

Managing a strategic client feedback program in professional services can get pretty intense. Keeping up with many concurrent projects, all the related people who experience your firm’s work, and the needed follow-up can be daunting without some organizational tools. You should save as much time and energy as possible for feedback analysis and follow-up. Find ways to streamline the administrative part of requesting feedback. One tactic is to use as much of your existing data as possible – you have mounds of existing contact, project, and employee data that should be used to help simplify the mechanics of the program. 

A well-designed feedback program will also leverage the nuances of each major type of project you deliver. Engagements that are 100% complete in two days will obviously have different feedback patterns, or “configurations,” than will those which last three years. Look across the landscape of your projects and mentally divide them into piles. Make a separate pile for each group of projects that could use a consistent schedule of feedback events. These events might be major project milestones, billing percentages, or simply a request frequency that makes sense, like every 90 days. Organizing your program in a way that minimizes the administrative burden of getting feedback requests out the door will go a long way. Even with a response rate of 50%, you have to send 2 to get 1 back, so get busy! 

Understand Expectations to Create a Better Client Experience

You had no idea how [great/awful] your client’s perceptions are of your firm’s work. The client, up until now, had been so [negative/positive] in their interactions with your team. The important next step is to engage with your client in an appreciative way to gain clarity on their [rising/falling] perceptions. The information you gather should help you consider adjustments that will more closely align your service delivery with the client’s expectations. 

Adjustments to align with client expectations can move in either direction. Getting direct client feedback in an organized program can help project managers carry out their primary responsibilities more effectively – if you make follow-up a priority. Sometimes a less-than-stellar piece of feedback can turn out to be a simple misunderstanding – dealing with it quickly can have much more influence on the client’s perceptions than the issue itself. Conversely, when the scores are skyrocketing and the clients are saying, “Wow, you gave us so much more than what we were expecting,” it might be time to go back and review your original scope of work. Either situation can help project managers become more effective at delivering 

Feedback is About Client Experiences / Expectations. Not about YOU! 

Professional services firms who deliver great client experiences are adept at using feedback in a regular recurring fashion. The after-the-fact “How Great Are We?” isn’t sufficient anymore. Taking a strategic approach to systematically tracking the movement of your clients’ perceptions, and diligently responding to make adjustments, will keep you in the loop for good! 

So, what’s the most efficient way to gather client feedback? How often do you gather feedback? Most importantly, don’t forget the all-important final question: What do you do when you get their feedback? Check out this whitepaper for answers to these questions and more.

Professional service firms don’t traditionally sell products; rather they sell their time and expertise. Increasingly, they ARE selling products and time, and are spending a great deal of capital on tools to deliver both.

A common problem is that many firms can easily see the profits generated from their services, but overlook the contribution (or lack thereof) of the inventory AND fixed assets used to deliver the service by not managing both.  Even worse, they frequently manage and track them in the same manner.

Inventory management and fixed asset management are not one and the same. Read on to learn the difference between the two and understand the importance of utilizing proper accounting for fixed asset management.

Inventory Management

In the professional services world, inventory management is only slightly different from the retail and the production world. Inventory assets represent the items sold or the materials used to create a final product that will be sold. Inventory assets in professional services firms represent the intangible or intangible assets sold along with the service. This could include software or equipment. This is not to be confused with immaterial items, which are usually expensed as overhead. For most professional service firms, the inventory asset is a relatively small percentage of total firm assets.

Most importantly, unsold inventory appears on the balance sheet as an inventory asset and sold inventory appears in the Cost of Goods Sold on the income statement. This is an important standard of Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP).

Chances are, if you are selling goods as a part of your service offering, you are likely following the standards and hopefully using the Vision Purchasing module for tracking and control. But what about Fixed Assets?

Fixed Asset Management

Like Inventory, fixed assets exist and have specific accounting treatments for professional services firms, retailers, and other types of businesses.

Fixed assets are purchased assets of the firm for long-term use to support ongoing business operations. For example, fixed assets are laptops, desks, software, and vehicles, just to name a few. Since fixed assets are transferable within the company and will be used for multiple projects and multiple accounting periods, GAAP dictates a different accounting treatment than would be used for inventory management. More importantly, fixed assets in professional services firms are typically a large percentage of the total firm assets. In today’s world, the computer, machine, and installed software are the main tools used in delivering the services and often are given the least attention in the firm.

Why Is This Important?

Inventory management is a relatively simple task, but fixed asset management presents several challenges such as:

• Knowing the location of an asset to ensure you can deliver your projects on time
• Maximizing the usage of an asset to ensure the maximum ROI is gained from the asset
• Knowing the history of similar assets to make informed about purchases of new assets
• Tracking the depreciated value of an asset for tax and insurance purposes
• Keeping the Balance Sheet clean and free of historical errors to provide accurate ROI and other metrics

Overcoming these challenges doesn’t have to be difficult and can be easily accomplished by deploying an asset management tracking system. When choosing to implement an asset tracking system, it’s important that the system is integrated with your project management, purchasing, and accounting systems to ensure information about the asset is accurately maintained and easily accessible. 

It’s that time again! Year-end is here and it is time to close out your Deltek Vision system. This blog will provide you with resources and reminders to ensure a successful year-end close out of your Deltek Vision system. Check out the information below, and let us know if you have any questions.

Don't Forget Your Deltek Vision Year-End Processes

As we go through the year-end process there are mistakes we (and others) make that are easy to recover from like entering the 15 page depreciation journal entry “backwards” at midnight sitting in your semi dark office chugging your 15th pot of coffee.  Some are more difficult – like removing all the lower levels of your work break-down structure (did that once – glad our backups worked). So outside of deleting the database, what are some of the items in Vision year end processing that are hard to recover from?

>> Learn more

Stress Free Year-End Process - Yes You Can!

Year-end is always a stressful time of year, but it doesn’t have to be.  As with everything else in the world of Accounting, planning and preparation is the key to a successful and stress-free year end. Check out this article talk provides a few tips to make your year-end close just a little easier.

>> Prepare more

Additionally, check out our on-demand webinar to see how you can make your year-end stress free.  Our panel will provide insight into best practices, tips to close your books with ease, and focus on those “gotchas” on year-end processes. See what our panel says about the following year-end items:

1. How to make your process efficient
2. Avoid disruption to production
3. Communication topics to provide your staff and management
4. Saving money by evading closing obstacles

>> View more

Year-End Resources Available

It is that time of the year and Deltek Customer Care is working to assist you with year-end activities. You can now take advantage of these year-end resources:

Year-End Forums
Deltek Vision has a dedicated board for Year-End Questions. Access the Deltek Customer Care Forums and connect with your peers to ask questions, exchange ideas and share knowledge about Year-End.

Phone Menu
For complex questions, call Customer Care at 1-877-HLP-PROJ with your questions. At the voice prompts, simply select your product's year-end option to get to a Subject Matter Expert immediately.

Year-End Info Center
This is your one-stop shop for easy access to all year-end related knowledge base articles, videos and special offerings during year-end.

Quick Chat
Access Quick Chat for quick questions regarding Year-End. Chat hours are available Monday - Friday from 7:00 AM - 10:00 PM ET.

Additional Year-End Guides and Videos

All Year-End Guides, documents and Frequently Asked Questions are available. To access this year-end information, visit the Year-End Info Center on the Deltek Customer Care Connect website. There you'll find valuable information with step-by-step instructions for closing your year-end.

We hope these resources serve as good reminder. Best wishes from the Full Sail Partners' staff! Wishing you a prosperous 2016.

Important Note Regarding Year-End Regulatory Updates in 2015

Year-end updates in 2015 will be supported only on Vision 7.3, Vision 7.4 and Vision 7.5. Regulatory updates for releases prior to Vision 7.3 will not be delivered.

Check out the Deltek Support Assurance Product Lifecycle on the Deltek Customer Care Connect website for the latest information on your product's status and definitions of the support delivered in the Active, Maintenance, and Sustaining phases.

It’s Time to Upgrade! 

Working in the most recent release of your Deltek solution ensures your firm is benefiting from all the features and enhancements engineered into the latest versions of Vision. Your support and maintenance plan entitles your firm to download the latest version of your product here if you're not up-to-date!

Is Your Firm Prepared for Deltek Vision 7.5?

Are you ready for Deltek Vision 7.5? Don’t worry, our team of experts are here to get you up to speed! Deltek Vision 7.5 includes features and enhancements that are a direct result of your input. Optimize your organization with Vision 7.5 and provide your teams the latest tools and resources to win more, manage more and do more! 

Register to join us for this free virtual webinar as we review the latest enhancements and features introduced with Deltek Vision 7.5.

Did you know in Deltek Vision you can view multiple records at one time through a list view? The list view was a featured added in version 7 allowing you the ability to group, filter, organize and quickly export a list. The List View is listed at the top of any Info Center’s top navigation allowing you to view multiple records.

Be sure to check out our video demonstrating all of the features of Deltek Vision's List View.

 

 

 

I came across an article the other day written by ASCE Past President, Andrew W. Herrmann on the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary celebration. The article Celebrating ‘Built to Last’ – Which Actually Demands a Lot of Maintenance, discussed the investment of on-going infrastructure maintenance and it got me thinking. The AEC industry touts about the government investing in infrastructure and how neglecting airports, highways, and bridges is more costly if it isn't maintained. The IT world has been saying the same about IT systems and databases. Is your firm guilty of not maintaining your IT infrastructure?  

Let's take a look at some on-going maintenance that your firm may be overlooking:  

Backup Mistakes

Unfortunately, for municipalities and governments, there is no backup for when a bridge or building falls apart. That is to say, there is no way to restore the bridge with a click of a button in the same way your firm can to restore lost data. Preparing for failure and implementing a reliable backup plan is essential to maintaining the integrity of your data.

The problem is many people believe this is an easy and mindless task, but often make some very common mistakes.

1. Many firm’s only test their backups periodically, and it either becomes a forgotten task or done improperly. Verifying backups is a useful practice to ensure data is intact, readable, and can be restored if data is ever lost.
2. Many firms that have their own servers tend to only backup data and not the server’s operating system and applications. While this practice saves time and valuable memory on the server, it can often be more costly in the future if the server itself fails. For example, it is much easier to restore the operating system, the applications and then the data than it is to manually install the operating system and setup the applications.   

Server and Hardware Failure

Normal wear and tear of the roads and bridges is the primary reason for the need to perform ongoing maintenance. It is required to ensure physical integrity for years to come. Likewise, many firms overlook the parts of their IT infrastructure that are prone to wear and tear. Although most of the components of servers and hardware are electrical, they also contain a few mechanical parts that tend to be more prone to failure. The reality is, as these components age, they tend to experience wear and tear that will inevitably result in a failure.

Interesting enough, failure can be avoided if you’re aware of common warning signs.

1. Servers and hardware are designed to operate while creating minimal noise. If you start hearing a clicking or grinding sign coming from your server or computer, it’s likely you’re going to experience a failure soon.
2. Mechanical failure is the result of wear and tear, plan on replacing servers and hardware more frequently to avoid the unexpected and dreaded failure.

Avoiding Updates

An ACEC whitepaper titled, Our Infrastructure Crisis – Your Turn to Act noted that one of the consequences of under-investment by municipalities and governments is an aging and outdated energy infrastructure. Aside from the inefficiencies of using outdated technologies, the cost to update the energy infrastructure is going to be massive. The problem is that the energy infrastructure has to work in sync, therefore updating one component means other key components will need to be replaced so the overall system can continue to work in harmony.  These same consequences can affect a firm using outdated software.

When deciding to update your antiquated software, you may also have to update other enterprise software your firm uses and maybe some hardware as well.

1. Firms using older software that runs on unsupported operating systems, such as Windows XP, will have to update their hardware to support the new software.
2. Also, even if your operating system may support some newer software, those can potentially impact other software that are reliant upon them.

The take away here is that using supported and current software versions might seem expensive, but in the long run, it pays to stay up-to-date. By not being on the most current software, your firms' productivity and efficiency can greatly deminish. 

The Big Picture

Just like municipalities and governments failing to maintain the roads, bridges and airports, AEC firms can experience significant costs for failing to maintain their IT infrastructure. The big picture is that maintaining your IT infrastructure requires you to ensure you backup your information, proactively prevent server and hardware failure, and most importantly, stay-up-date.    

 

Introducing the Deltek Vision Constant Contact Connector! Full Sail Partners unveiled a new breed of Deltek Vision connectivity at the Deltek Insight Conference.These ready-to-go solutions included an integration to Constant Contact. This cutting edge technology allows firms to integrate to Constant Contact at a fraction of the development time and cost needed to build out a similar solution from scratch. Any Deltek Vision user can utilize this solution no matter if they are in the cloud or on-premise. 

When developing the solution, our own team was challenged by the manual process we had to go through on almost a weekly basis and heard of many other Deltek Vision users faced with the same challenge. During the development of the solution the Full Sail Partners team sought to: 

• Allow users to utilize the existing Marketing Campaign functionality to associate contacts and leads
• Eliminate the manual push of contact and lead data to Constant Contact
• Provide visibility and searching capabilities to unsubscribe, open, clicks, forwards and bounce data in Vision
• Report on single email lists in one Marketing Campaign for all email mailings or single mailings, i.e. newsletters
• Weed out duplicates and poorly formatted email addresses prior to mailings 

We invite you to view our video to learn more about our Deltek Vision Constant Contact Connector. Additionally, Full Sail Partners has partnered with Constant Contact to also offer new Constant Contact clients a discount off your subscription. Happy marketing!   

Interested in Connecting Your Deltek Vision System to the Outside World?

Want to learn more about this new breed of API connection tool that can be used on-premise and in the cloud? Full Sail Partners the first and only solution provider to bring you applications that can immediately connect to your Deltek Vision product with little to no effort from your IT department. Start doing more with your Deltek Vision system!

 

 

Full Sail Partners is proud to announce that Anderson Hallas Architects, PC was a finalist for a 2015 Deltek Project Excellence Award in the Biggest Business Impact Category. Deltek specializes in providing project-focused enterprise software and information solutions for professional services firms and government contractors.  

Deltek’s annual Project Excellence Awards recognizes firms that use Deltek products to achieve remarkable success in various categories. This year, Deltek honored selected firms for five categories, and Anderson Hallas Architects was a finalist for the Biggest Business Impact award. This award recognizes organizations who received the biggest benefits and ROI using a Deltek solution.

During 2014 and 2015, Anderson Hallas Architects migrated to Deltek Vision with the assistance of Full Sail Partners. This migration from their existing disparate systems to Deltek Vision allowed them to centralize and integrate their financial, operations, marketing and business development, project data, and human resources into one system.

“We used to track everything in separate places (timesheets, marketing, labor utilization, weekly status, personal project memories, etc.). Each category of information had its own ‘home’ – a custom program, an Excel spreadsheet, a Word document or our individual brains – there was a lot of time, effort and duplication in updating and retrieving information. Now, it’s literally the click of a button,” explained Nan Anderson, FAIA, LEED AP, Principal with Anderson Hallas Architects.

As a result, Anderson Hallas Architects now has increased visibility into firm-wide metrics, improved cost control and resource planning, and delivers more projects on time and on budget. The implementation of Deltek Vision has influenced their thinking about how to approach marketing and business development and provided a centralized and integrated business better able to serve and respond to clients. 

“For a firm their size, Anderson Hallas aimed for massive transformation in information management, and achieved it,” stated Sr. CRM Consultant, Kevin Hebblethwaite, FSMPS, CPSM. “They demonstrated what is possible with unified goals and commitment - working with them was a blast.”

Learn More

Ready to learn more about the features offered in Deltek Vision CRM? Sign up for our virtual webinar:

Full Sail Partners unveils new custom solutions and integrated offerings for Deltek Vision® ERP at Deltek Insight 2015. The Vision Connector Suite includes ready-to-go solutions focused on keeping professional services firms centered on efficient production by connecting their critical business systems.

The Full Sail Partners Vision Connector Suite allows quick connections from Deltek Vision to other API capable applications. This next generation framework allows both Deltek Vision cloud and on-premise systems to seamlessly integrate with best-in-class cloud applications like Constant Contact, MailChimp, SharePoint for Office 365, Client Feedback Tool, and more. This cutting edge technology allows firms to integrate critical business systems at a fraction of the development time and cost needed to build out similar solutions, with none of the traditional network topology restrictions. Solutions include:

Automated Feedback Process

Full Sail Partners is releasing version 2.0 for the Client Feedback Tool, a cloud solution built to help firms collect and incorporate feedback from their clients throughout the project life cycle. Leveraging the Vision Connector between these two systems was ideal for a prebuilt integration. A team of experts developed an automated process to reduce redundancy and improve efficiency while adhering to the feedback philosophy set forth by the Client Feedback Tool. Full Sail Partners integration with the Client Feedback Tool allows Deltek Vision clients to deploy surveys on-demand or through a batch process, as well as, view the survey response status directly in Vision.

Email Marketing Connectors

Deltek Vision now integrates with Constant Contact enabling firms to populate data directly to their email marketing tool from Deltek Vision CRM in a matter of minutes. The Connector maintains consistency between the two applications and eliminates manual importing and exporting of data. This mutual relationship between data will save marketing teams hundreds of hours each year. The solution provides tracking capabilities through the Deltek Vision Marketing Campaigns Info Center providing visibility that can be leveraged throughout the system. 

Deltek Vision Meets SharePoint Office 365

The SharePoint Connector is a quick and easy way to bring data in Deltek Vision and SharePoint into harmony. Beyond basic connectivity, the SharePoint Connector also integrates with Gig Werks’ ProjectReady Suite of Applications’ best in class SharePoint solutions built for the AEC industry. This bi-direction data synchronization ensures data accuracy and consistency across all of your projects.

“We look forward to expanding our investment in business productivity and integration offerings,” said Peter Nuffer, Director of Solution Development at Full Sail Partners. “We’ve effectively established a layer of functionality on top of the Vision API that will allow Deltek Vision administrators to setup easy point and click ready-to-go solutions with low costs and high tech results.”