Keep it simple- Have an empty inbox

So 1990s

As you may have gathered from my previous blog on the subject of lost emails, I am not a huge fan of emails. I was, years ago I had something of a love affair with emails. I'd code them, and save them and sort them. I'd search through my sent items, and even my deleted items to support an issue, or just to refresh my memory on a particular incident or solution.

A hip new world

But that was years ago. I've since fallen out of love with emails, and moved in. I am now most proud of the fact that I have very few emails stored anywhere! And I'm not alone. All of the staff at UniPhi Australia, including Mark Heath our Managing Director, have managed to wean themselves off the use of emails. Our clients too are rejoicing in the lack of reliance on email, and the ability to collaborate on important issues via the UniPhi Issues module.

UniPhi has always enabled project teams to share information in an open and transparent way, which is  the most efficient way to collaborating.

The UniPhi Issues module is the centralised hub of collaboration. Each team member can see what actions are required to resolve an issue, who has been assigned, and what discussions have occurred to date. Team members can also add their own comments and even save file attachments to the issue.

When we sought feedback from our clients though, it became obvious that the remaining reliance on email came from the correspondence they sent and received to external parties (such as suppliers, regulators, or clients). So a few years ago, we developed the UniPhi 'Save as Issue' plug in. This plug in installs to your MS Outlook application, and allows you to save an email into an issue within UniPhi, attachments and all. Not only that, but the plug in also enables you to create new issues into UniPhi, with all of the information that has arrived via email. It's powerful stuff, and offers immense time savings to our clients that have embraced this feature.

Thankfully, not all correspondence relates to problems or opportunities so we have now added to the save as issue with our just released 'Save as Document' plug in feature. This feature  allows you to save any of your emails into a UniPhi document. Again, you can also include email attachments. An example scenario of how the 'Save as Document' feature can be used to save time and eliminate frustration would be:

You are working on a design aspect of a project. The architect sends you version one of a drawing. You can save that drawing into a UniPhi document (eg Design Drawing) within your project.

You and your entire project team now have access to version one of the Design Drawing document. At a later date, the architect may submit a revised version of the drawing. It is now very easy for you to save the revised drawing into the Design Drawing document, from your inbox, at the press of a button. The document revises to version two and your team is always able to access the correct version. As UniPhi features a fully functional Document Management System, issues such as version control, document identification/location, and correct template usage are all taken care of.

Now that you have broken up the complicated love affair with email, your biggest issue now, is all the free time you will have. So put your feed up, relax and read a book.

UniPhi 11 is here!

UniPhi's Design Philosophy
It's often cited that the majority of projects fail. Statistics and indeed metrics vary, but it is common to hear of project failure rates when either delivering to scope, or delivering the promised benefits.


I read an article in the Business Journal on Gallup.com titled "The Cost Of Bad Project Management" In it the article states that only 2.5% of companies successfully complete 100% of their projects. This probably means that 97.5% or companies have no visibility of the projects that are currently undertaking, or that they have no ability to assess those "good ideas" and prioritize accordingly. Failure ensues.


Of course, the reasons that projects fail are also many and varied. Projects are by their very nature, complex beasts which require business and project teams to adapt and to be flexible. It's hard work, but that's part of the fun.. right?


At UniPhi we have observed and assessed hundreds of projects, and concluded that the common theme in the majority of project failures is a lack of transparency and poor collaboration among project teams. Which is why we place these two aspects at the heart of our UniPhi project management software platform.

The newly released version of UniPhi (UniPhi 11) features some powerful new features, as well as some enhancement to the existing product. With the efficiency of YOUR business, and with our focus on enabling a transparent and collaborative environment in mind, I'd invite you to consider how these features and functions will help to put you into that 2.5% of companies that successfully deliver on their portfolio of projects.

SAVE AS DOCUMENT:

From the convenience of your Outlook inbox you can create a brand new document in UniPhi at the click of a button. Or, you can embed an email, along with its attachments straight into an existing document. Example applications of this functionality include; receiving a tender document via email. Using the Save as Document feature you can quickly and efficiently   save the email and any attachments into a project in UniPhi as a document.  The document that is produced will of course meet your corporate style guidelines, and align with your project management methodology. Tracking and monitoring the progress of your tender document is now possible for everyone on the project.

Harness the richness of data that comes form UniPhi's distributed data capture methodology. As each member of your project team enters data into specific projects (creates a document, updates a task, adds a comment, emails a document) you will be able to view the information that they have created/updated. Of course UniPhi has always made it easy to find information via the documents tab, or the issues tab, for example. But now with the communications tab, finding any piece of project related information is entirely possible. 

 - The new Communications tab brings together all interactions and events into one place

- The Communications tab presents you with an almost unlimited number of options to filter for the exact piece or pieces of information you require.

- As well as the existing core UniPhi filters, the communications tab has new filters which allow you to filter per specific role, per type of communication, and per category.

- A powerful extension to the existing set of filters in UniPhi.

- Presents each and every custom drop down list that has been created via your Methodology tab.

- Filters can be defined and easily modified by you, as they are often unique to your organisation.

ACCOUNTING INTEGRATION:

- New and improved, seamlessly integrate your MYOB and Xero data with UniPhi.

- The MYOB integration feature in UniPhi updated following the changes that MYOB have made to their software.

- Synchronisation options are now configurable and administrative from within the Admin/Accounting Integration tab.

Enhancements:- Costs and Fees can be defined at the chart of accounts level, down to any level of detail you require. Just keep adding additional layers of cost/fees breakdown. Not only that, but you can specify numerous chart of accounts!

See screen shot above.

- Prompts you to enter your budget information at the level of detail specified via the Chart of Accounts- This effectively mitigates the risk that costs could all be grouped at the project level with no visibility or understanding of the assumptions that have been used to derive the budget amount.

- Use Excel to import and export project budget details.

- Determine which contract deliverables to display on your output document.

- Greater flexibility when generating claims, or invoices.

- Identify the status of all invoices.

- Materials on Site, Extension of Time, and Contract Adjustments available on Revenue contracts.

- See what timesheet deliverables relate to specific contract deliverables.

- Configurable presentation of information shown on Invoices or Progress Claims.

- Enter information at the Organisation level, and it will populate each of the Sites within the Organisation

- Portfolio Summary has two view options to display Financial or Portfolio information.

- Issue categories can be applied to specific criteria, such as Sector, Project Type, Service Line, and Location.

- And project lifecycle phases can be aligned with specific criteria, such as Sector, Project Type, Service Line, and Location

- Project custom fields phases can also be aligned with specific criteria, such as Sector, Project Type, Service Line, and Location.

- Define multiple project life cycles, and specify the type of project the life cycle relates to.

- Configurable password policy, logging capability for failed logins, and ability to change your own password.

- Issue details and issue summaries that appear in UniPhi documents include the category that the issue relates to.

- Use external MS Word files as UniPhi templates.

- Draft documents can have a watermark applied to them when they are rendered as a PDF document.

- Language translation can be applied across the entire system

- See the contracts Principal, and Supplier from the documents tab.

- Programme Contract Progress by Project report: contracts, deliverables, status, and claimed value.



















- Improved Project Analysis Report allows you to filter per role or per resource.

- Improved Project Analysis Report now shows Profit in Period, and Profit Margin to Date.

- Project Cost Report Detail shows contract deliverables, and variations per chart of account code.

The Team at UniPhi hope you enjoy all of the exciting new features of UniPhi 11!

New Feature! 'Save As Document' Outlook Plugin.

For some time now we have had a neat integration with MS Outlook that has allowed users of our web based software applications to log emails into the application via what we call the "Save as Issue" Outlook plugin.

Well now we have the 'Save As Document' plugin for Outlook. With this additional functionality we believe we now have the ingredients to eliminate the dreaded In Box pile up. One CEO our MD worked with recently had over 2,000 emails in their In Box and over 200 were unread! Imagine what was being missed!?!

Simply put, to save your email as a document in Uniphi, all you have to do is click the icon we have designed for you, and your on your way!

The plugin also offers document preferences, once you have clicked onto the 'Save As Document' icon, a window will pop up and present you with a number of selectable options: Category, Template, and Status of the document, that you are about to save your email to.

Screen shot example of  'Save As Document' plugin
being used in Outlook

Once you're ready to Save and view into your document, all the content that you just saved from your email can now be found in the document that you have either freshly created or amended. And of course, if you wanted to keep working on your document, all you have to do is click on the edit button in the document (as you normally would), and you're free to add or change anything in the document. 

Screen shot example of editing a document in UniPhi, after attaching an
email with the new plugin

Since using UniPhi, I didn't have a need for email, but of course, like many other organisations, there will always be external communications, who may not have discovered UniPhi yet. From my first hand experience using the plugin, I can tell you that it was such a relief to have a tool that allowed me to store emails quickly and easily into a document.

Check out the 'Save As Document' plugin for yourself. 

This is just another way that UniPhi has emptied out your inbox, and stored your important data safely for you to edit, and access any time, any day, without hassle! 

Keep it simple - Configure UniPhi to meet your organisational needs

One of the challenges of buying off the shelf or software as a service is limitations in being able to tailor the software to the nuances of your business. BUT, customisation is a dirty word in our office. We like to listen to clients and provide new functionality to all of them. The logic being that what one wants others will as well. This provides us with one code base and the ability to let the UniPhi community assist each other in developing a better product for all to use.

Obviously, our software can't be a one size fits all so we've tried to solve  this by simplifying workflow where possible and by providing interfaces for end users to configure the system to their needs. We believe this has been the key in allowing our clients to use the same software to run a $1,500 site audit contract through to a $1bn roads program.



Now let's take a peak into the tailored options in UniPhi. To start off, in the Methodology tab, this is where it all happens. When creating a document in UniPhi, there is the option to use a template. These templates are tailored by you and your organisation.

As you see in the screen shot below, there are several options for features that you can add to your document. Let's take a look at this example of 'File Upload (Multi)'. When selecting this option, this allows for the user to upload several files into the one document. And you can even title this section of the document. It can be something as simple as 'photos' as seen on this example below (or you can tailor it to the terminology understood by your organisation).  You also have the option to set the document with heading styles, page break options and page orientation, to suit your requirements.

If all these options aren't enough for you, and you still are not finding the feature that you want to include in the document, why not create your own designed section with our 'rich textbox' option. This allows you to put pretty much any kind of pre- made graph, table or report that suits your organisation's needs. See example below: 

  

Even though the rich text box is a blank canvas for you, it still assists you with tools to create things like a personalised table. 

After clicking on the table icon, as demonstrated, you are able to modify the width, column, cellpadding, row, border etc. The possibilities don't end here though! You can even go into the advanced option and choose things like, putting in a background image, frame, border, background colours... How great is that! 

Now that you have created your template, you don't have to keep re- creating it every time you need the same document. Simply click save and it is available for users in your organisation to create documents. This will satisfy the organisations need for consistency. Imagine how much time and money you could save with these saved templates. 

Another feature which can be personalised for your organisation, are the custom drop down lists (when filtering for locations, project types, name of projects, lifecycles, and sectors) Personally, I find the drop down for the project name, such a time saver. Instead of looking through the endless issues from all the different projects, I can filter for my specific project, and hey presto! I'm in the right spot in just a few seconds. Take a look at this example below. I have filtered for the project I was looking for and I am now able to click into the necessary issue. Don't forget, the drop down list is tailored to your organisation, so any time you want to add projects or filter anything else in the drop down list, just head to Methodology and your on your way.

Going back to the Methodology tab, there is also the ability to customise roles, issues, risks, change requests, prioritisation and contracts. The possibilities are almost endless.

Enjoy!

Mark Heath to present at Sydney PMO Meetup

Mark Heath will be presenting at the Sydney PMO meetup in April this year. The hot topic of the night: 

"How the PMO needs to develop new standards for complex projects"

Save the date!

Thursday, April 2, 2015

6:00 PM to 7:30 PM

Ambition Recruitment

5/55 Clarence St, Sydney NSW 2000, Sydney

(map)

Here is a quick preview of Mark's upcoming presentation...

"In today’s diverse work environment, organisations must have the ability to optimise their performance and efficiency through collaboration and innovation."

"AECOM was particularly interested in benchmarking cost estimates. Cost plans were generally created in a cumbersome client application installed on the desktop of the cost manager’s computer. UniPhi’s adaptive platform allowed AECOM to consolidate cost plans from thousands of projects to achieve benchmark pricing, arming its consultants with critical cost information at a moment’s notice."

"UniPhi provides adaptive solutions to complex problems. It bridges the gap between on-the-job effort and project value, and allows organisations to stop improvising solutions and start maximising opportunities in an unpredictable, emergent marketplace."

- UniPhi Managing Director, Mark Heath

Come along and join the PMO community, the group is informal and welcomes all skill levels! No matter how experienced you are in your profession, there will always be a topic that will either educate or challenge you (or both!). For more information, or if you are interested in becoming a member, click here.

See you there!

UniPhi for the Designer

I started at UniPhi as a Creative Consultant back in August 2014, so I am still quite new, but I wanted to write this blog entry to highlight my first-hand experience of how I’ve managed to utilise UniPhi to simplify my working processes, and improve my efficiencies. The creative world is full of stimulative, imaginative, innovative ideas, (it’s what we do, it’s what we love,) but perhaps the biggest challenge for creative people such as myself is the reliance on technology in order to get things done. Sometimes technology just adds complexity, and delays. Where is the genius behind the control of these ideas...?

To start off, let me take you through the typical processes used by designers such as myself:

1. Idea generation, which involves noting down draft ideas or concepts, and saving those into a folder on a network, or onto a computer hard drive.

2. Sort and prioritise all of these ideas, and then start turning them into reality via the magic of applications such as Photoshop.

3. Save the work in progress file into a folder named 'design'.

4. Send preliminary prototype designs via email to colleagues in order to get feedback- having to change the file size and type so it is not too large for an email.

5. Incorporate the feedback that has been provided into the next iteration of the design. This may involve creating a new design folder, or saving the design as Version2, and version 3, etc....

It doesn’t take long for the design folder to become long and unwieldy, not to mention the numerous interim files that get saved to the desktop. I personally save so many files to my desktop that after 1-2 weeks of design changes, I no longer know what my desktop picture is- all my design change files have dominated the desktop. Not only that, but I had other folders from previous works named 'design1234' and so on. Basically it can become a large and confusing mess. Of course there is also the age old problem of sending the wrong or outdated version of the design.

But then… I found UniPhi! Because UniPhi is so flexible in the way that it can be used, I have managed to create my own processes for managing the creative work that I am doing. For example, I was recently tasked with designing a flyer for the awesome UniPhi mobile app (it’s called OnSite, by the way – read more about it here) and instead of using email to seek feedback and collaborate on my ideas, I used the issues module. UniPhi Issues module is the central reference source for team collaboration via feedback and iterative development. Despite some members of the UniPhi team being based off site, or working out of the office I wasn't alone! I had direct input and assistance from all of my fellow colleagues. All I had to do was assign them all an action to 'give feedback' and hey presto! Here is the result...

How amazing is it to see how much the design evolved from the first to end result. I couldn't have done it without the help of UniPhi!
After a few more weeks using UniPhi, it occurred to me that I could use it to manage my Photoshop files? So I was introduced to version control on the documents module. Basically every time I had a new design or updated it, I would delete the previous one, and load in the new one. This was great because the file was never 'lost', it was simply stored in the previous version of the document. As you can see below, these designs I was working on had 67 versions! That means I must have updated it 67 times- imagine all those unwanted files on my desktop! UniPhi's document module also allow for multi-upload. So, for example, say you need to upload all the photos you need in gif, and your designs in Photoshop files, it's possible to have them all stored, saved, and controlled within the one document!

Look at this beautifully organised document. How refreshing to have this.
I find it so handy to have my files uploaded into UniPhi's document module; when I'm ready to keep designing the current version, I can just upload it from the document, so much easier to find, rather than 67+ docs on a desktop. What a relief!
So all you creative brainiacs can relax now, stop looking for those various files, folder, version, and email and let UniPhi do the hard work.

Keep it simple - Sharing large files

UniPhi’s cloud based document management software provides a solution to the all too familiar issue of sharing or transmitting large files. Many organisations needs to get information from one point to another. Whether this is a technical drawing, a graphical image file, or an installation executable file. Typically email was the default method for sending files, but as covered in this post; email is rarely the best solution. Email can fail for a number of reasons such as; file size, and security restrictions, or by simply not sending the email to the correct recipient - see didn’t you get my email!?

More recently “cloud based” offerings such as DropBox and Google Drive have provided an alternative solution. Unfortunately services such as these are single point solutions, and simply add to the long and growing list of technologies that project team members must rely on.

UniPhi is different as it is a fully integrated management platform, all information is stored within the context of your organisations specific projects, and is also available for re-use. Additionally all information is available to each member of a project team, which allows teams to collaborate in a transparent and efficient way.

There are several features that enhance the way documents are shared in UniPhi. Some of these are:

• Meta data is automatically captured  
• Filtering and searching across projects 
• Version control is automated
• Users can link documents to issues they're trying to resolve
• Users are kept informed of changes to the document
• The final document can be digitally signed off via delegations of authority

Files saved into UniPhi are immediately available from any web browser, or mobile device. As files are saved into UniPhi, your files are stored behind a firewall and accessible via a secure login. All data being transmitted is encrypted meaning you remain safe and secure, no longer worried about an unreliable email system!  

Here's to 2014

The end of another calendar year, like most people and businesses, has given us time to reflect on the past 12 months. It has been a watershed year for UniPhi, two years into it's existence as a stand alone business and we managed our biggest achievement to date: Winner for innovation in the 2014 Australian Business Awards. This was such an incredible achievement and in no small part thanks to the continuing support of AECOM. Thanks Barry Laycock and Karen Wood for your sponsorship and management. Working with you has continued to be a pleasure.

We are hoping that next year will continue the recognition of this partnership as our latest app for AECOM, GUIDE (Global Unite Indicative Design Estimator), has garnered interest from Exxon Mobil. A pilot use of GUIDE will commence in January 2015 in London.

Major software developments for the year included:

1) The creation of "N" levels of codes when creating charts of accounts and the ability to customise this code structure per program/project. This was a major request from project managers wanting to import entire cost estimates down to the door knob and rivet.

2) Integration with the major small business accounting systems (MYOB and Xero) via their newly published APIs utilising our soon to be publicly available UniPhi API

3) The focus on our Outlook integration with a "Save As Document" feature to go along with our "Save As Issue" feature. The outlook plugin has been so popular with our end users and led to the expanded functionality. We are now approaching both new and existing clients with the focus on eliminating the INBOX either by utilising outlook integration or by creating a common platform for projects within UniPhi and using the document and issues functionality to share large files or collaborate across geographic and organisational boundaries.

4) The expansion of our mobile app UniPhi OnSite on Android and iOS to include iPhone support to complete the full suite of devices on these two prominent platforms . This app is generating great feedback from end users with one user saying "the mobile app as it stands clearly satisfies our requirement for onsite capture of surveillance records".

None of these features would be as good as they are without the ongoing support and feedback from our clients. Special thanks goes to the team at CBRE and HammersmithDC in Brisbane who have provided wonderful ideas for the product throughout 2014. We'd also like to thank the users at Jacobs both in Queensland and Victoria for feedback and support on various large programs of work that we have continued to support throughout 2014. And finally Davis Langdon's Independent Review team who have helped make the OnSite app a simple and yet powerful tool for their business.

We wish everyone a Happy New Year and look forward to sharing with you another fantastic year.

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.” 

― Edith Lovejoy Pierce 

 Bring on 2015!!!!!

The problem with problems

Here at UniPhi we've had something of a revelation regarding our problem series...

The problem with problems is that they start off with negativity. I mean, the word problem itself doesn't sound very motivating. So lets introduce opportunities for a simpler way of life. On that note the problem series is no more, we will instead focus on the way that UniPhi simplifies your life.

Instead of coming up with solutions to problems, we have decided to come up with inspirational solutions to simplify your life.

Out of simplicity comes efficiency, and time! UniPhi is all about efficiency and time management. Why not spend that extra hour or two on something worthwhile, rather than trying to find that lost email or track down that important piece of paperwork!

So, stayed tuned, UniPhi is here. Let us inspire you to make your life simpler.

  "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler"- Albert Einstein

Problem 14 - Where's the Defect?

After a long few months, that big construction job you have been losing sleep over, is now complete.

Or is it? Issues always arise, even when we think that a job is done, so when these issues do come about, we want them to be resolved in the smoothest and quickest way possible. Now let us look at the common scenario:

1. Contractor goes onsite with the Architect and/ or Project Manager and takes photos of the defects/ issues.

2. These photos then need to be catalogued vigorously into a word document. 

3. When issued to the trade to fix, the tradie needs to try and find the issue. This is both difficult and time consuming. Not only is it not clear where the issue is to the tradie, but now he has to figure out what the issue is. Wouldn't it be great if there was a system to smooth-en this process?

Good news, there is and it's called UniPhi Onsite! 

UniPhi OnSite is a mobile app that links with the UniPhi web application. Accessible through both iOS and Android on both tablet and phone. The app not only streamlines the defects process, but any on-site process by:

1. Automating the linking of a photo to a document (see where's that photo blog post)

2. Automating the linking of the photo to an issue that describes the defect, and has a resolution date, and facilitates conversation through to close out.

3. Automating the capture of meta data to the defect (e.g. the project, location and specification).

UniPhi, and Onsite, mean you no longer need to feel harried through the defects liability period. Instead you can manage this process as successfully as you managed each of the preceding phases of your project since its inception.