UniPhi 19 Feature: Visually rich progress reports viewed every which way you choose

Capturing information through intuitive interfaces that quality control the data into structured database tables is infinitely better than capturing information in unstructured systems like MS Word, Excel and email. This seems obvious and is probably why many B2B web applications are now worth a mint across various industries. However, one thing these systems have always struggled with (and hence the use of unstructured systems) is the aggregation and formatting of the data captured into stylised reports.

UniPhi originally provided functionality to solve this conundrum via our unique document template system. This feature had its own upgrade in UniPhi 19 and you can read about it here. This feature enables you to produce an integrated PDF progress report in anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, rather than the half to full day that this process can take when the data source is excel, email, financial systems, photos on a fileshare, and word templates that you can never find.

However, in 2014, along came Power BI, right at the time we were completing our RESTful API. The two came together in holy matrimony and embedded charts were born. The API plus the embedded framework unlocked the value of Power BI. It made it possible to create visually appealing dashboards custom to your requirements without the need for a developer who was good with SQL. By embedding the dashboard into UniPhi, the resultant reports could be shared with any subscriber to the UniPhi platform and therefore meant no more fees, logins and management of security in Microsoft Workspaces.

However, the issue remained that it was time consuming and frustrating to share these wonderful dashboards of live data with non-licensed users of UniPhi. Along comes UniPhi 19 and thanks to an expansion of Microsoft's Power BI embedded API, we now have the new export to PowerPoint or PDF feature.

Check it out in our latest UniPhi 19 video and imagine yourself delivering this to a client each month via the click of a button.

Want to know what other features UniPhi 19 has to offer? Explore the UniPhi 19 webinar or contact us to find out more.

UniPhi 19 Feature: Email is dead, long live email

Wouldn't it be great if you worked in a world without Email?

UniPhi software is developed as a collaborative platform for the completion of all project management tasks. As such, teams that have access to the platform can complete all their work without the need for 1 email being sent. In fact, at UniPhi, it's a sackable offence to send an internal email! The transparency this provides immediately eliminates tacit knowledge, turning it into shared knowledge. 

However, not all projects are run entirely on the UniPhi platform. Where this is the case, UniPhi provides integration with MS Outlook so that the project manager can still centralise as much communication as possible onto a transparent platform. In addition, users who can't quite let go of email get notified of changes in the UniPhi system via a collective email on a daily, twice per day or 4 hourly rolling basis. 

This feature really is a half way house to best practice as the benefits of the UniPhi platform's task management and status capability is diminished when users are not leveraging these screens and instead only access the system when emailed. However, we believe in supporting the transition from 1990s management tools to truly digital and hence we offer these interim solutions so that reports are still automated, registers captured, costs tracked, milestones monitored and risks mitigated. 

At least now, in UniPhi 19, those users fully committed to the use of the platform can turn off all notifications and live in the blissful knowledge that there will be 4 less emails to read through on a daily basis. 

Leaving, for them at least, the knowledge that email is dead and for the rest, long live email.

Watch this short video to see how you can turn off email all together or at least only get notifications you want:

UniPhi 19 Feature Series

With the launch of UniPhi 19, we have been releasing a series of blog posts for each of our favourite features. This post compiles all the blogs in the series so far.

Blogs:

Automated Reporting Just Got Easier 

The holy grail of automated progress reporting is here!

Columns, Columns and More Columns!

See how you can amend your views in various UniPhi portfolio screens

UTC - You Logged An Issue At What Time?!

Set your local timezone so that all edits and updates are displayed with the correct date/time

Issue Workflows - Change Management Made Simple

Set up questions and route resulting workflow notifications to the right people based on the end user responses.

Data Capture Efficiencies

Improved data capture for portfolio meta data means more accurate benchmarking

We Owe How Much?

UniPhi 19 has more and more contextual data displayed where you need it to be displayed.

Trend Analysis in A Live System

Unlock the ability to track trends and lock in information that has been externally reported.

Visually Rich Progress Reports Viewed Every Which Way You Choose

You can now export Power BI dashboards from UniPhi to PowerPoint or PDF.

Email Is Dead, Long Live Email

If you love the communications module of UniPhi and don't read your email notifications, you can turn them off for good.

We will be keeping this list up to date with links until the series is complete.

Risk Mitigation - Delegation Approvals

Most large organisations formalise their authority and accountability via a delegation schedule. These delegations can relate to numerous functional areas such as regulatory, safety, employment, or financial decisions to name a key few.

Ever have that "Oh no" feeling when the delegation schedule failed because the incorrect spreadsheet was shared, it was the wrong version or was sent to the wrong person? When subsequent invalid approval is made, it's all too late. The money's gone and compliance has not been met!

The ramifications are considerable, potentially costing millions, depending on the size of the project.

This is just one example risk that is eliminated when using UniPhi portfolio and project management software.

Other key benefits realised when using UniPhi include:

1. Real time progress reports with automatically updated data, eliminating any transposing, manual file structuring. Information you can trust for prompt, accurate decision making.
2. Auto generated documentation. With document templates, the structure and coding of a contract is established once.  This secures all subsequent progress claims with the automated workflow of approvals. There is no time, effort or error risks wasted on re-works.
3. Anywhere access. Managers and delegation approvers can track the correspondence of a variation or RFI while in a PCG meeting, clarify and update on the spot in meetings prior to approvals. Monitor in real time from anywhere the status of invoices, costs, budget changes and risks.  Reduce your pressures and save hours of lost productivity per week.

Time saved on tasks can be as much as 30% or more on an overall project and project value dependent, the profits gained can be upward of a 10% increase or more just by the reduced errors and duplication of repetitive administrative tasks.

Book a Demo to see what UniPhi can do to support your delegation team and mitigate the risks.

Workation Update - Bali and UniPhi Week 3

UniPhi - the flexible, customisable software AND the flexible, customisable workplace.

Our Company specialises in subscription based portfolio and project management software with accounting and other software integration capabilities.

Looking for a life change? If you are a productive, 'out of the box' thinker with great skills in project management, sales, business, software development or IT; then why not reach out and contact us? Let us know how you would be a perfect fit at UniPhi.

Work anywhere with UniPhi. Panos is currently in week 3 of his 'Workation' in Bali and how are things going?

Panos's work location

Panos has achieved some great results for UniPhi whilst in Bali, with a few successful highlights:

1. Collaborated to set up a new deployment for a large infrastructure project.

2. Completed a patch test for new customisable fields.

3. Complete a service upgrade for the UniPhi team, which took 5 minutes, minimal disruption, no negative impact.

His goal "...was to see what it was like to live there". Immersing himself in the Balinese culture and lifestyle, as well as the touristy things like enjoying traditional dance celebrations.

We asked Panos the following questions:

Would he do this again? Yes, but most likely for a shorter time period. He loves living in a Australia and his lifestyle and routine here.

What are the Workation perks? Enjoying the relaxed feel of some of the Bali areas he has visited, such as Ubud and the consistent warmer weather.

What are the pitfalls? Very hectic to travel and get around, a touch 'too touristy'.

Overall, so far, the Panos' adventure, and workation with UniPhi has been a huge success. Can't wait to have you back! See you in two weeks.

Panos in Bali... I'm sure he's homesick

UniPhi 19 Feature: We owe how much?

One of the common questions we heard from our clients when Covid hit is "how many projects do we have in this sector or that sector", "What is our largest contractor and what is the exposure", "How much business do we have with client X".

All of this data is contained within the UniPhi data model and because this data comes from the day to day interactions with the software (i.e. the creation of projects, contracts and invoices), you know the data is going to be accurate to the cent.

However, as always, there is room for improvement and prior to UniPhi 19, it wasn't that easy to get access to this aggregated information. UniPhi 19 provides simple interfaces in our Resources module to review consolidated information about clients and suppliers across your project portfolio.

 

Watch this short video to see the new interface:

Want to know what other features UniPhi 19 has to offer? Explore the UniPhi 19 webinar or contact us to find out more.

UniPhi 19 Feature: Automated reporting just got easier

Most project managers, when it comes to progress reporting, are stuck with the task of copying or transposing data from various disparate systems into a PowerPoint deck of MS Word document. This task is so labour intensive that it can take up to 1 day per month per project. If you're a client side PM working on 5 projects then this task alone is 25% of your monthly workload.

As the name suggests, UniPhi eliminates this onerous task through the integration of all it's modules into one reporting platform - the template system. Each template contains template controls that pull data from a module for reporting purposes. Multiple controls combine together to produce PDF reports in minutes rather than days.

The challenge with this approach is to provide the breadth of options required to cover all the reporting needs of our users as well as the flexibility in design to enable subsets of the data to be displayed. Iterative improvements have been made in every UniPhi release and UniPhi 19 has the most significant improvements in years. 

All document template controls have been improved with simpler interfaces and the ability to customise table columns, display charts and format images so your reports look slick and communicate accurate information to your clients.

Dive into this outline of our favourite template controls in UniPhi 19. These new additions speed up the process of template configuration making your systems administrator's life easier. The result is a smooth generation of monthly progress reports, site reports, cost reports or even "Strip and assess" reports. 

Below are three videos showing these new template controls in action.

Customise Table Columns - too easy:

Just the click of a button, you can view all the available columns to include in your table. Now have fun choosing! By checking or un-checking the boxes next to the columns you decide what you want. This feature is now in the Issues, Risks, and Variation Registers - too easy and no longer a time labouring task.

Charismatic Charts:

Out-dated graphics are gone. The charts you need in your documents will populate direct from the Dashboard and Charts in your UniPhi system. A real time charted document looking as current and charismatic as the data it captures!

File Upload:

It's easy to change the layout of attachments in your document. Each change is seen in the preview box to immediately check if this is the best layout for your template. Very useful for several images, as now you choose how they are displayed.

Watch this short clip to see this feature at work.

Want to know what other features UniPhi 19 has to offer? Explore the UniPhi 19 webinar or contact us to find out more.