This article will help you implement the Project Management functionality on D-Tools Cloud.
Before you start
◢ Some features, such as project task scheduling and Field user, described in this article, are available only with a paid D-Tools Cloud subscription plan.
If you are on the Free plan, you can try out the inventory management, purchase order, change order, and collecting payments features, which will still give a good understanding of the Project Management functionality.
◢ You cannot "create" a project on D-Tools Cloud. A project is created from a "Won" opportunity. If you don't have a Won opportunity in your account, check out this QuickStart article for instructions about creating an opportunity and marking it as Won.
If you have any questions or need assistance from our Support team, click the Green chat icon in the lower left corner and message us. We will respond soon.
We recommend signing into Cloud while reading this article and completing all four steps. You will be prepared to implement the Project Management functionality by finishing all four steps.
1️⃣ Check product stock availability
Checking if the products in the project are in stock can help you place purchase orders for products that are in insufficient quantity right away.
There are 2 ways in which you can check product availability on Cloud.
#1 Integrate the product stock tracking capability into the Cloud catalog
Cloud has an Inventory Management functionality to track product stock and show product availability in real time. Once you enable the Inventory Management functionality, configure the inventory locations, and select the products for inventory tracking, the inventory of the selected products is tracked and shown in real time without any manual effort.
Inventory Management is also tightly coupled with product allocation for projects and the Purchase Order functionality.
If you want to set up the Inventory Management functionality before trying out the Project Management functionality, read this QuickStart article on Inventory Management and set it up.
#2 Use the project Bill of Materials (BoM) and manually check product stock
In the Project Details view, you can download the project BoM as a CSV file containing the complete list of products and labor items in the project.
By sorting the CSV by name and expanding the "Name" column in the CSV file, you can get a decent view of the products required for the project. And then you manually check if you have enough quantity of products for the project.
Check out this article for more details on downloading the BoM as a CSV file.
In this article, we will assume that you have all products in stock.
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Purchase order - Add out-of-stock products from the Project Details view or the Inventory view to purchase orders and send them to suppliers.
2️⃣ Plan for project execution
Here are a couple of things you will need to do before executing your first project on Cloud. These are one-time and can be used for all future projects.
◢ Set up company holidays and working hours to show the actual availability of your field resources to work on projects. The scheduling workflow will limit the scheduling to working days and hours.
(Available only with a paid D-Tools Cloud subscription plan)
◢ Add Field users, the product installers who will work at the customer site. They will need their own accounts on Cloud to view their project tasks, log time, and signal task completion. Once added, they will be available in the scheduling workflow, and you can assign them tasks.
(Available only with a paid D-Tools Cloud subscription plan)
Here are the things you will need to do for every project you execute.
◢ Reserve products for the project from the inventory to allot the required product quantity. This is required only if you have enabled the Inventory Management functionality. If you have not enabled the Inventory Management functionality, you can skip this.
◢ Add project tasks to break down the overall work involved in a project into granular and trackable work activities. A project task will have a due date, effort estimate, product(s) to be installed, and, optionally, a checklist.
(Available only with a paid D-Tools Cloud subscription plan)
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Customized project stages - Rename the default project stages we provide (New, In-Progress, and Completed), add more stages, and even organize groups in project stage groups.
Task templates - Create multiple templates of task groups and tasks within them by project type. Apply a suitable template to the project, make minor modifications to finalize the tasks, and save time and effort. (Available only with a paid D-Tools Cloud subscription plan)
Tools to communicate on projects - Use emails, notes, to-dos, and the Chat feature for communication within the project team.
3️⃣ Schedule product installation
Once you have confirmed that the products for the project are available and completed all the requisites to execute the project (as listed in step 2), you can schedule product installation using the scheduling workflow.
Here is what you need to know to create the installation schedule and track it to completion.
◢ Event is how you will schedule the execution of tasks (product installation, programming the product, etc.) by assigning one or more Field users and a time slot. You may need to create multiple events spread over multiple days to complete the tasks in the project.
(Available only with a paid D-Tools Cloud subscription plan)
◢ Field User view is where the Field user who is assigned as the resource for the event will see the details of the associated task, the customer site address, and the option to use a timer to track their effort on the task.
(Available only with a paid D-Tools Cloud subscription plan)
◢ Installation status is what you will use to keep track of product installation. When a product is installed, change the status to Installed; this will count towards calculating and showing you the overall installation status of the project. You can use the Installation statuses, Staged and Picked, to track the different phases of installation.
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Project Overview dashboard - An actionable dashboard with key project metrics such as phase-wise execution status, change orders, billing and payments, and job status.
Change order - Create change orders to track the addition or removal of products in the project.
Job Cost report - Track and compare the actual product and labor costs incurred for a project with the budgeted product and labor costs as in the proposal.
4️⃣ Collect term payments
When you have reached the first milestone in the project execution, it is time to collect the payment for the relevant term payment. The project will have the payment terms that the customer accepted in the proposal. You can change the percentage and dates of the terms if needed.
Invoicing is easy on Cloud. Under the "Payments" tab in the Project Details view, you can create an invoice for a payment term.
The invoices are numbered and can be emailed or downloaded as a PDF if you want to deliver them to an address or hand them over in person.
The invoice shows the addresses, billing and due dates, relevant project term(s), taxes, total, and has an option to add a text note and attach files.
If you have enabled electronic payment options, they will be shown on the soft copy of the invoice, and the customer can make the payment via the invoice.
You can generate an invoice for:
One payment term with the complete amount of the term.
Multiple payment terms and the total amount of the terms to be paid in one transaction.
One payment term with a partial amount of the term, and collect the payment for the term over multiple invoices.
Check out this collection of articles for more details about collecting payments for a project.
Cloud uses statuses to track payment terms and invoices. Cloud automatically changes the statuses of the payment terms and invoices from when they are created, up to the payment for them being overdue. If you want to further automate the collection of payments and their statuses, consider using D-Tools Payments, a payment processing solution developed at D-Tools.
Once you have completed all the tasks in the project, you can mark the project as "Completed" on the Projects page.
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Invoice email template - Use the invoice email template we provide or add your own email template with dynamic data fields that will be auto-picked from the project details.
D-Tools Payments - Enable D-Tools Payments to collect payments for projects electronically. D-Tools Payments is a payment processing solution that provides many automation features to drastically reduce your efforts for collecting payments and updating the accounting records on the supported accounting integrations on Cloud.
Time entries - Track the time spent on executing project tasks across all projects in one place, and use this for payroll, and if your customers request time sheets.
Now, you are good to try out the Service Management functionality by proposing service plans for a completed or ongoing project, or by adding service plans to the quote and sending the proposal 😊