UniPhi 17 is actually coming!

Apologies for the radio silence, we have been flat chat on new deployments and on completing our newest release, which is finally almost there. To say that this has been a major exercise is an understatement. What was originally planned as a three month development cycle has evolved into one of the biggest releases of the last 10 years. 

So, what's in this behemoth release. Mostly a complete re-write of the contracts module. This is the second re-write since it was first developed in 2007 and it is starting to look amazing. It should be recognised that the current release is rock solid, so what drove the change? Well, originally, we didn't think it was going to be so big but once we started digging and getting feedback from our beloved users it grew and grew. Mostly around user interface improvements rather than functionality, however, there are four major new pieces of functionality as well. "SO WHAT ARE THEY?" I hear you ask with some frustration...fair enough. Below is a list of the features of the new contracts module:

New data entry screen (See 1-3 below)

1) Unlimited levels for contract deliverables and variations (also known as WBS)

2) Spreadsheet style data entry (no more clunky add buttons)

3) Drag and drop style ordering of WBS

4) Drag and drop style mapping of WBS to Cost codes (also known as CBS)

5) New scheduling sub module for cash flow and effort

6) New contract deliverable comments interface

7) WBS assignments by resource classification or person or both

8) New status allocation for contract deliverables

9) New template controls for advanced progress payment documentation 

10) Copy paste from excel for contract WBS, progress claim valuations, resourcing and cash flow

11) New invoice sub-nav

12) Earned value sub-module

13) New charts!

Contract dashboard with chart toggle

14) New dashboards aggregates

15) New correspondence sub-nav

16) New registers sub-nav

New sub-modules of the contract system

If that's not enough for you, we've gone nuts with the charting capability developed as part of the contract rework and have applied new embedded charts across the platform!

Portfolio Issue Charts

And when can you get your hands on all this new gear? 

July 2021! 

Yes, you still have 8 weeks to wait but while you wait, we'll be counting down with regular blog posts on each of the items listed above. We'll also be conducting webinars to demonstrate the new features and will be launching a suite of training material to assist those making the change.

UniPhi 16.1 - New contracts module

With nearly all of our clients now upgraded to version 16, the updates keep on rolling out with our most exciting .1 release ever....

In November, 16.1 will be coming, with the big release of a new contracts module that will transform the way project controls is undertaken.

From new sub-navigation screens to the expansion of our drag and drop functionality, this module update will bring exciting new functionality into your contract administration!

New Sub-Navigation

Users will now be able to:

• Track earned value on deliverables
• Link deliverables to issues and conversations
  
• Re-code and re-order contract codes and deliverables through drag and drop
• Create an unlimited deliverable breakdown structure
• Utilise broader cash flow algorithms
  

New Earned Value Screen

This update will make updating details and navigating contracts much more user friendly and we look forward to hearing everyone's feedback.

Keep up to date with our 16.1 release by following us on LinkedIn and Twitter and get ready to change the way you do contract admin for the better!

UniPhi 16 - Portfolio Importing Via Excel Copy Paste

One of the major features of UniPhi 16 is a new copy paste from excel function for updating portfolio data. 

This feature allows users to import a whole range of data about projects into UniPhi as well as providing a means for mass updating meta data. The workflow in the latter option is to export the project list to excel using the portfolio summary report and then update each project with whatever has changed and then paste this back into UniPhi. 

This is a great feature for if you are setting up your deployment or need to update it and have a whole bunch of project data in an excel spreadsheet. It will also significantly shorten the time needed to edit projects, as in excel you can sort and filter projects in order to bulk update areas (eg. address or location) using the drag to fill option.

UniPhi then automatically recognises and groups data to a project based on the project ID, so copying it back into the system is an incredibly efficient process that avoids any data duplication. 

Check out how to use this nifty new function in the video below:

Keep up to date with all our updates by following us on LinkedIn and Twitter!

New Self-Guided Training!

Do you ever sit at work and wonder how you could better keep track of your workflows including contractual response times?

What about how to track and manage RFIs, defects management or design reviews? Ever had issues keeping on top of contractual compliance and complying with securities of payments? Or perhaps you've onboarded some new staff and need them to get up to speed ASAP.

Did you know that all of the above can be done in our Issues Management module? That it's not just for tracking tasks or issues but can be set up to manage a whole variety of workflows and project types?

Well now you can find out exactly how with our new online self-guided training course!

Our new Issues Management course covers everything from the basics of creating issues to all the different use cases of the system. It's particularly great for discovering how our various clients are using the system in different ways to manage the workflows and projects mentioned above. 

Self-Guided Training - Issues Management

This course has been been broken down into sections which is perfect for picking and choosing what you want to cover and when. 

Progress Tracking

You can easily start and stop whenever you like (it handily keeps track with a progress bar) and pace the training to a schedule that suits you. If you've already got the basics covered, you can also skip to whatever part of the system you want to learn from the sections below:

1. Introduction
2. Issues for Planning a Project
1. Create a Project
2. Issues for Project Planning
3. Issues for Workflow
3. Issues for Tracking a Project
1. Issues for RFIs 
2. Issues for Defect Management
4. Review Issues, Tasks & Correspondence
1. Reviewing Tasks & Communication
2. Close out Issues

So what are you waiting for? Whether you want to learn the basics or discover new ways to use the Issue Management system - get started on our Issues Training course today!

This course is run on Udemy and can be found at the following link (or links above): https://www.udemy.com/course/issue-management-for-projects-with-uniphi/ 

We would love to hear what you think of our first self-guided course, so if you have any feedback or questions, feel free to contact us at support@uniphi.com.au

Take a tour of our new office

Last week was one heck of a week..

UniPhi 16 went live, we had three new recruits start and we moved into our new office.... and we're loving it.

From level 45 we have some pretty good views facing south. Even if I'm scared of heights, everyone else loves peering out the windows trying to spot our old office and homes.

I also don't know about everyone else, but I've personally enjoyed eating my way around the block. In one week one tea shop already recognises me (I don't know if that should be embarrassing or not)...

So without further ado, here are some photos for our new office on Level 45, 680 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000:

Communal lounge and kitchen area

All set up and ready to work

Window View

Trying to spot places in South Sydney

Working hard

Getting caught taking pictures of window washers (hence the blurry quality)

Keep up to date with all news UniPhi on LinkedIn and Twitter!

UniPhi 16 - New API End Points for Power BI Dashboards

After a slow start, our integration with Power BI is starting to be utilised to its fullest by many of our clients. This has been very exciting for us as we get to see the sorts of reports and data analytics end users really want with the data they input into UniPhi. This is driving great ideas for our UniPhi 17 release where we plan to embed small visualisations throughout the application to assist users to gain insigths into their work, project or portfolio of projects just as they add more content to the system.

To assist this, we've had to rapidly build out our API. New end points included in our 16 release are:

• ForecastToComplete
• MilestoneHistory
• PersonRate
• TimesheetForecast

And some extra fields added:

• ClassificationCode field to Person endpoint
• Current cost and charge rates to the Person endpoint

If you don't know what we're talking about in terms of Power BI and UniPhi, check out the various videos here:

Check out the rest of our UniPhi 16 updates on LinkedIn and Twitter!

We've been on a hiring spree!

Instead of end of financial year shopping, we decided to go on a recruiting spree.

We're pleased to be welcoming 4 new recruits to the UniPhi and mbh training team!

From left to right we have Andrew, Freeda, Matthew and the spirit of our fourth recruit, Panos.

Freeda and Andrew are our new front-end developers. Andrew is yet to graduate university - just one keen bean, whilst Freeda has had over a decade of work experience working as a software developer and business analyst.

Matt, has founded his own company, pivoted from data scientist to software developer and is joining us as our new back-end developer. Panos will be joining remotely in a couple of weeks as he is stuck in Melbourne! Keep safe for us Panos!

This new group's first project is to create a new training admin system for our sister company mbh training. Our colleagues at mbh are excited to get the first major upgrade to their current processes in 17 years!

We're excited to have such a great mix of new employees and are looking forward to the new ideas and skills they'll bring to UniPhi and mbh.

In three weeks our latest intern program will kick off with a very exciting project focused on data analytics and machine learning....watch this space.

Check back in on our LinkedIn and Twitter page to keep up to date with all our new projects.

UniPhi 16 is live!

It's now August and as promised, UniPhi 16 is here!

This is what we are calling our fairy bread release because we have made 100s and 1000s of updates across the system to improve the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI). 

Us sprinkling on the improvements

We hope all our users enjoy these updates, as many of them were born, tested and improved from user feedback and suggestions.

We've been posting these updates throughout July and will continue to do so throughout August. There were too many great ones to stop now, so keep on checking LinkedIn and Twitter to keep up to date.

Updates we've already posted about that you can catch up on are:

• Document Template Reports
• New Embedded Dashboards
• New SQL Reporting Services Reports
• Our FIVE Different Reporting Platforms
• Profile Pictures and Preferences
• Hiding Content
• Drag and Drop Files
• Track Changes

Many of you will have already had UniPhi 16 deployed but if you haven't and would like to get yours up and running today, contact your account manager today!

UniPhi 16 - Document Template Reports

UniPhi has an in-built template engine that allows you to compile PDF style reports dynamically using the data that is stored in the various modules. The first step in creating one of these reports is to develop the base template. Within these templates are document objects that have predefined formats and queries that pull in the data. For example, you can use the "Budget" document object to automatically pull in the budget of the project into a document as a table (Note there's also chart document objects that would display the budget elements as a column graph).

Over the years we have focused more and more on increasing the flexibility of these objects when presented to the ultimate end user who is using the template to generate the document. This has included things like the ability to hide or display a column, edit column headings and hide rows.

The benefit of this reporting tool over the other 4 is the ability to add commentary and integrate a whole range of content. Hence it is used for two main types of reports - simple notices or letters to external stakeholders and detailed progress reports that explain how a project or portfolio of projects are tracking, The resulting document that is generated isn't really a document but a number of database records but it can be rendered to look like a document using the in-built PDF engine that will transform that data from database records to a PDF document of high professional standard. This includes applying your carefully developed style guide to the document, inserting the appropriate headers and footers, page numbers and controlling versions so the latest and greatest is the one that is sent out.

UniPhi 16 continues on this path with the following changes:

1) Added Expenditure columns to Project Costs document object. This object replicates the contracted view of the costs module but now also displays the expenditure columns that are included in the MS SQL Reporting Services project cost reports that can be run from the reports module (see the previous SQL blog).

2) Budget approval documents will now indicate if an original or approved budget snapshot will be created on sign-off. This helps approvers of budgets to understand better the implications of signing off a document

Budget for approval options in Documents

3) Budget template control now has a rounding option for the total column. This includes displaying the values in thousands, millions etc and is a reflection of the scale of some of the projects being managed in UniPhi.

Round Budget Options

4) Contract Deliverables and Contract Variations document objects now allow the cost code to be displayed as code only, description only, or both code and description. This can be changed by editing the relevant document template and by the end user of the template.

Code Format - Contract Deliverables

5) If a budget document will create a new budget version on signoff, do not allow the current approved budget version to be selected. This was crucial to make sure you didn't create a zero sum budget change which was not the intention of the end user and is linked to item 3 above.

6) Issue Selector document object now allows multiple issues to be selected. This is a game changer as you can now link in all site issues that relate to a variation rather than being limited to one only. The integration of issues with variation valuations, emails and approvals means that a UniPhi project manager is way ahead of the rest of the built environment when it comes to explaining why costs have changed and an adjusted contract sum is what it is.

Document Select - Multiple Issues

Multiple Issues Document Output

7) Progress Claim document object will now include Organisation name in the Supplier list.

8) An upgrade of the PDF engine to remove the annoying double line on tables that would appear on screen but not when printed.

Each release will continue to  enhance and improve the document objects that can be used in UniPhi to get the data you have gone to the trouble of adding out and presented in a neat way. Find out more on our LinkedIn and Twitter.