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.

           



                  

Subscribe to UniPhi and win an iPad or Galaxy tablet!

Win an iPad or Galaxy  Tablet!* We're celebrating UniPhi OnSite's first  birthday by giving away an iPad or  Galaxy tablet through a raffle!  So what do I have to do to enter? Simple. Just follow and/or subscribe to UniPhi by clicking the icons below and you will automatically go in the running of the draw! The more UniPhi networks you follow or subscribe to, the more entries you will  have in the draw! The raffle will be drawn on the 30th of November 2014 where the  lucky two winners will receive an iPad or Galaxy tablet!  Tell your friends! Copy us into a referral and we will give you another entry Follow us to enter *Terms and Conditions: To enter you must follow and/ or subscribe to one or more of UniPhi’s networks (as seen on  the follow buttons above). Each follow, subscription or referral to UniPhi by the one person, will achieve an entry to  the raffle draw. Offer may be forwarded to friends or family, who are welcome to enter, by following and/ or  subscribing to UniPhi. Entries close 5pm AEST 29th of November 2014, and raffle will be drawn on 30th of November 2014. Winners will be contacted on the 30th of November 2014, and announcement of winners will  be made online on most of the UniPhi social network sites. By entering, you are giving UniPhi permission to use your name and / or your username on any of the social network site that UniPhi is involved in (refer to above follow  buttons), for the purpose of announcing the winners. Two names will be randomly drawn from a raffle held at the  UniPhi HQ, therefore two winners will be announced and contacted of the news. To be fair, the winners do not  choose between the two prizes, they will be awarded randomly amongst the two prize winners. Offer not valid for  family or staff members of UniPhi.

Problem 13 - Brand Non - Compliance

In this crazy diverse world of branding, it's no wonder that companies need a tool to ensure consistency.

From head to footer, Microsoft Word will allow the user to tweak the look, feel and style of a document; Microsoft Word is there to dress and impress. But it's not just always about the style, it's how you carry it. Let's go back to branding. With all these different styles, companies or organisations often develop one approved style that all employees are suppose to apply to documents they send out. Here is where the problem comes in, how can we make sure the style is carried out smoothly?

  

UniPhi Documents have their style applied by a style sheet when being rendered to PDF. In addition documents are generated from standard templates. These templates ensure that the document's style cannot be altered in any way, right to the last mm. All documents generated through UniPhi, stick to the same look and feel. The templates also allow for auto generation of content, rather than having to waste time filling in all the details on every document.

Normally, if a company changes it's logo or address, it would take months to change all the documents, but UniPhi's templates allows for this change to occur in 2 minutes, as documents are generated dynamically from a referenced logo. While UniPhi won't let you go nuts with the same tweaks as MS word, it does assure that your brand is apparent and consistent. 

 "Make every detail perfect, and limit the number of details to perfect." - Jack Dorsey