Sage Coretime Blog

Without proper employee training, appreciation and understanding of a project management system, the system will be underutilised, cause employee frustration and be a drain on an organisation’s resources.

A strong organisation and management system are important to any business, no matter what the size and no matter what the industry. If employees are not given proper training in new systems, they can quickly end up being unused and left unattended by staff across your business making it a waste of your time and money setting one up. It can also be frustrating for employees who are unable to adapt to new systems when they have not been given proper training and being forced to work them into their schedules.

When looking at implementing any new system into the workplace it is important to asses which project management systems will work best for you. You must ensure that these are flexible enough to meet the needs of your business, while at the same time being easily implementable for your staff. Once you know what package you want, after examining your options, it’s highly beneficial to provide staff with a walk through of every step and every facet of your chosen system. While some things may seem obvious, many staff may have differing levels of technical abilities and it’s important to make sure that even the basics of your project management system are explained. Easing staff into new routines is also an important step. Many people work off their own systems for managing their time and their day so it’s a good idea to make sure that people move their resourcing over to your new system while not dropping their own, as this allows people to build up some familiarity with any new piece of software. While you might want to let people ease into any new management system, it’s a good idea to set a deadline; this means that you allow people a period to adapt to their new project management software while giving a cut-off point for your business to move to a more efficient project management system.

Untrained staff will only end up not using systems which you have bought, many companies which introduce new project management systems without proper training and change-over periods often encounter difficulties as staff find that their own systems work better and that learning to use any new management software takes up too much time and may not be done correctly which can lead to further problems down the line. Many project management systems require time and effort, in order to choose the right one for your business, by not ensuring your staff are properly trained you also end up taking your time and money into something which won’t be used.

Sage Coretime is an easy to use solution to Project Management for your company, providing comprehensive and user friendly software which allows you to keep track of your staff and projects.

With on-going economic and financial turmoil in Ireland, it’s easy to see why budgets come under a much greater level of focus than in previous years. Before the global economic crisis, there was always a certain level of focus placed on budgets, however with growing market uncertainty and Ireland on the rocky road to recovery, this has become all the more important. Publicly we can see this focus with every news report of a new project being developed, such as a new motorway or most infamously, the Metro North in Dublin. Increasingly as plans look to go ahead, budget considerations are higher, and can be the make or break of any project. Often large, expensive projects are discarded in favour of more flexible, cheaper alternatives. As well as civic projects, the same can be said for small and medium sized businesses.

Delivering a project under budget at the expense of time and spec shouldn’t be the holy grail for businesses and it shouldn’t be the case even in today’s economic climate. A well managed project can achieve all three. The key is to do away with waste and efficiencies that were allowed to creep into almost all industries that operated in the Celtic Tiger economy. There was more money available but ironically this seemed to pollute the operating environment resulting in projects coming in late and over budget. With banks unable, or unwilling to lend and small business’ struggling in the current climate, budget management has come into sharp focus. With that in mind, it’s often important to keep a close eye on how projects are being managed internally. By ensuring that your staff manages time properly for projects, you can make sure that they are not only delivered on time, but also under budget.  Any effective project management system, especially a web based solution will allow you easily to see your budgets for each project and how well your staff is able to work within those. Project and time management can be essential in making sure that staff can work in a co-ordinated manner, to allow them to work on projects collectively to, what are often in today’s economic climate, strict budgets.

The new business environment means there is an increased focus on achieving efficiencies and cost savings but a well-managed project can extend these efficiencies to include time, reporting and ensuring specifications are met. One such cost effective, web based solution to project and time management is Sage Coretime. It’s a cost effective and manageable way to allow your teams and staff work on projects where budget is a serious consideration.

Web based software is becoming more and more commonplace in today’s working world.  The main difference, from a purchasing point of view for web based software is that unlike buying a physical CD off of a shelf, which you own – you will acquire the rights to use the software online, by subscribing to its services.

There are several advantages to web based project management tools over those purchased in store. For one, they can be used immediately. Once the software is downloaded to the machine you want to run it off, it’s ready for use and this can be done simultaneously across multiple computers in your business.  Not only is it quicker to set up, but there’s also a smaller operational cost. Because the software is hosted externally and you do not own it, you don’t need to invest in IT infrastructure or updates to the software packages as these will all be done remotely by the hosting company and helps save you time and money. Web based software can be extremely flexible when used for Time and Project management. Allowing users to log onto the system remotely, from home or out of the office; employees can carry on their work as information about projects is all stored in the one location, allowing teams and individuals to easily see updates on various projects and more efficiently manage their time with everyone working from the same location online and updating the system as they go. This means that it can be easier for updates on projects and time spent on different tasks to be generated, giving you a better idea of the work being done on each project. Another subject of great importance when choosing a time and project management software solution is that of security. Web based software tends to be much more secure, undergoing regular security updates to ensure peace of mind for users. This again, saves costs, allowing you to free up time and budget from what would otherwise go into upgrading your office IT infrastructure.

Web based software can be adapted easily to fit any industry, be it Architecture, Engineering or Archaeology!  Web based services offer a cheaper, simpler and more secure system for your company to better project manage. Companies and small businesses which employ web based solutions can increase their efficiency dramatically thanks to the simple and adaptable nature of the systems.

Sage Coretime is a flexible alternative to other services. It ensures a simple and secure system by which your business can better manage projects and staff time.

Does on time, on budget, on spec mean that that you have managed a project that delivers true value?

It is quite certain that if you, as project manager, don’t deliver these you will have failed.

There have, however, been many projects that have achieved these items. And many of them are undoubtedly highly successful and deliver benefits far beyond the expectations. Equally, there have been many that achieved these items but are looked upon as failed projects.

So, are these then the only things that can be measured, are they the only items that define success, or can we get a better idea of what success looks like?

Yes, time, budget, output are important and should be managed and indeed monitored to ensure that all deliverables are met and costs re-covered – but what else could be measured to define a successful project?

Here are some possibilities from my many years in the field:
• Client satisfaction – not just by the sign off document at project’s end as then it is too late to turn niggling issues into resolutions, but as a constant feature of the project throughout its lifetime.
• Employee Satisfaction – measuring of their engagement with both the company and with the project itself. Testing their commitment to the project’s success.
• Milestones – has each milestone been achieved? Did each milestone reflect real value and be something to celebrate.
• Total Cost of ownership – reflecting not just initial costs but on-going support and maintenance for the expected life of the project.
• Total Return on Investment – reflecting not just improved income but savings made. These are direct benefits but indirect benefits or costs should also be included.
You can be sure of one thing, your reputation with your boss may be reflected by time, budget and spec but for real success, both in your field and with your team, you need to deliver on far more.

As we reach the end of one financial year the Coretime team are full on in the product planning for the next 1 to 3 year period.
This means a re-focus on where we want the product to be, how it should integrate with other products, are there major functionality issues outstanding and are there technical deficiencies that would impact future development.
This planning process is not the ‘techies sitting in a corner dreaming of what they want to do next’ but an across the board review beginning with the Sales team strategies but also involving other teams as to their plans and requirements, the ongoing input of the support teams and business partners and the review of where the industry is both product wise and in the wider technical area. Add into this those comments and suggestions made by clients, the review of where sales were missed due to shortfalls and the ideas suggested by the professional bodies we work with it can be seen that it is not a quick or easy process.
All this takes some months to pull together as work cannot cease in any particular area and the whole planning process and output is subject to continuous review and polishing.
As the teams behind the product take great pride in what they do and their professionalism in doing their job they know it is only by constantly revisiting their work can quality and relevance be maintained, and they are extremely grateful to all who take the time to add to this endeavour.

This is from Brendan McCarthy, one of our development team

Running a 1,000 miles in 50 days to raise money for breast cancer research

In 2007, my sister Tricia at 27 years of age, was diagnosed with breast cancer. For three years, she fought a courageous battle against the cancer. Many a time, she was close to death’s door but she always managed to pull through. Despite all the hardships she went through, including long chemo treatments and a mastectomy, she always managed to remain upbeat. Sadly on the 8th of February, 2010, she passed away.

Although it is too late for Tricia, I felt that I had to do something to prevent this happening to other families. So, from the 13th of August to the 1st of October, I’m running a thousand miles in fifty days (twenty miles a day) for charity. The money raised from this will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Research Institute where it will be used in the fight against breast cancer.

You can find out how the run is progressing by visiting -http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=145659082124810
To see how many miles I’ve run, please visit – http://nikerunning.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikeplus/en_US/plus/#//challenges/detail/274836489/

To donate, please go to http://www.mycharity.ie/event/tricia_mccarthy

I have recently been in the Middle East training on Coretime which was a learning experience for me possibly even more so than for the people we were training.
It is always exciting to visit a new part of the world and doing it in a training environment allows for a very pleasant mix of the comfort of a hotel with a familiar training routine contrasted with the people with a different cultural outlook and a place that is quite different from the familiar home surroundings.
One of the great things about this is the friendliness of the people – not only this but their willingness to accept you and any differences you have and any mistakes you make with what could be perceived as cultural gaffes.
Altogether a great experience for me and a recommendation for others.
So, is there any difference between Coretime for the Middle East and Coretime for the other regions. Very little, English is the business language of the Middle East and so in that way there was no changes, functionality was added to allow for alternative names that could accept the Arabic script. As with many clients, they had their own reporting requirements which were integrated into the system. Other items would be of benefit to many users and was implemented into the main system and will filter through for all users everywhere.

Well the new version (2.4.0.120) is finally available. It was (for us) a long time coming due to calls from other departments for developer expertise which (according to those departments) would be so limited as to have no affect on your timelines.

So, what was the aim of this release – as with most major releases this covers a number of areas

1.  Bug and Issue fixes – while not detailed here the full list is available on www.coretime.com – this being those issues found by us or our clients.
2. Enhancement requests – generally these come from our clients and address specific issues they have and our analysis team review with them and similar client to find the best way to address the issue
3. Feature requests – these are generally driven by either clients in new sectors for us or by research into new sectors to allow a better fit into those sectors. In this instance work has been done to expand the international scope of the product amongst others.

However, back to the key features of this release as summarised below:-

General

1. Option to select your start day of the week.
2.  Currency – allow for those currencies where two decimal points is not the norm.

Time Entry

1. Scroll on piano time bar will fill in the gaps on the piano bar as separate time entries. This makes it easy to fill in the gaps when entering time for a day
2.  Can now set the system to not permit time entry after the current year end date.

Project Management

1. Default Budget Type – All new Projects created have the specified budget type set a the default budget type.
2. Ability to flag a Project so as expenses cannot be raised against it.
3. Default Projects – a facility to add a new project against all clients (or a subset of clients) at once.

Invoicing / Statements

1. New Tag All button to enable quick Invoicing.
2. Bill Texts – New Unit Price Formula to allow for use of formula (i.e. * 12 ) when raising Invoices with Bill Texts
3. New Copy Invoice Functionality – Setup using system Option Use Copy invoice in WIP Screen – When enabled have option to save an Invoice including Bill Text details as a Favourite Invoice – Then you can re-use this Invoice template when raising new Invoices.
4. Auto Fee Outlay – The System Option Use Auto Fee Outlay must be enabled – Under Client Utilities the Outlay for Fees screen now has By Percentage option – So if an Invoice is raised this will add an outlay invoice line with a value calculated as a percentage of the total amount – So if the Percentage is 10% and the total invoice amount is 100, then the added Outlay fee line with be for 10.
5. When running the statements, multi project payments should appear as one line when the ‘Show Client Only’ option is ticked.
6. With Statement MS Word Template – documented details on option to copy main table details onto extra page / remittance slip – Setup of this is documented in Statement Word Template Detail.doc

Reports

1. Day Book Reports – New Show Client Vat No option allows Client Vat No to show on Day Books Reports.
2. Aged WIP report – New Include WIP values above option – This allows reports to be run for a Wip balance greater than a certain value (i.e. > 500).
3. Project Overview Report – allows for high level review of key data.
4. Overtime Report – Reporting specifically on the overtime worked by employees.
5. Client period Report – Time spent on a client for a selected period.
6. Portfolio Report – another high level project report highlighting key data

Staff Planner

1. Staff Planner now shows ‘+’ if dealing with multiple entries on the same day of a display line.
2. New option to add a Planner Task to All Employees, or All in a Department, or all in a Position.
3. Filtering of views by analysis group.
4. Enhanced checks on new entries.

Links

1. Sage 50 link – When bringing in Purchase Invoice detail from Sage 50 if there is a specific Cost Code it will match that against relevant Expense Type in Coretime rather than the default Expense accounts Journal.
2. Export For Vision – New Employee Analysis Grouping report selection option on the report.
3. Accounts production – Outlay items will now include costs.
4. Accounts Production – allow for the bringing over of the customer name on the invoice.

For more details on how to upgrade, please contact our support team.

I am the secretary of one of the local sports clubs for children. The most important task that I have is to ensure that the information on fixtures, courses and events reaches the coaches of all the teams and from there can be sent on to the players.
I though this would be a comparatively easy part of the job until I asked for email addresses so I can send information on.
The blank stares surprised me as I found that less than half of the coaches used email.
The computing sector is so fast moving that it can be difficult to keep up and easy to be sub-merged in the latest technology and the jargon that goes with it – and this can be one of the great dangers of writing software. All of these coaches used computers at work but used them to perform a specific task, just another tool that they used, rather than as a communications device.
So it was back to earth with a bump and a stark reminder to maintain touch with our clients. Yes, use the latest technologies if needed, but always remember that our software is written to make other peoples lives easier, and that they, the users, are an integral part of the journey the application.