Executing projects successfully and on time requires good teamwork and thorough communication with your team members who are working on-site.
Primary project communication begins with assigning project tasks to Field users and scheduling them as events. Project communication may also be required between Office users or between Office and Field users to provide support during the project.
On Cloud, you can choose from various project communication capabilities. You do not need to configure anything in the app to enable the communication capabilities. They are enabled by default.
Email communication
Email communication is typically used when an immediate response is not required. On Cloud, email notifications are pushed to users when they are involved in opportunities and projects.
Emails contain a link stating the purpose of the email. When users click the link, they are redirected to the Cloud app. Actions that result in email notifications also generate in-app notifications and entries on the Cloud Dashboard.
Here are some of the scenarios when email notifications are generated.
Adding users to projects and opportunities
Emails are sent to the users when they are added to opportunities and projects.
Assigning tasks and events
Tasks are used to break down the overall work involved in the project into smaller, trackable actions. They are primarily intended for Field users.
Events are how you schedule the tasks and assign them to Field users.
Emails are sent to Field users when tasks are assigned and events are scheduled.
Updating opportunities and projects
On Cloud, projects and opportunities track every change made in them. These are available in a project under the "Activity" tab and the opportunity details view.
Some of the activities tracked are changing the opportunity stage, adding and editing quotes, marking a proposal as accepted, and scheduling project tasks as events.
In many ways, activities provide a log for opportunities and projects.
You can also manually add notes and to-dos in opportunities and projects. Notes and t0-dos are not tasks but things to remember, oversee, inspect, track, or support the tasks.
Notes
The notes functionality lets you communicate with your team members during quoting, project scheduling, and project tracking. You can also add important supporting information to projects as project notes.
You can use a built-in text editor to add notes. Notes also provide the “@ Mention” functionality to get the attention of one or more specific team members. Adding @ mentions in a note sends an email to the mentioned users.
For example, A note with a @ mention for the Depot Manager to check the product delivery status and update it in the app.
Check out this article for more details.
To-dos
To-dos are like notes but allow you to set priorities and due dates and assign them to one or more team members. You can add to-dos to opportunities, quotes, and projects.
For example, a to-do for the Installer to check product availability at the depot a day before the installation task.
Check out this article for more details.
Configure email notification preferences
Email Notification preferences can be configured at the level of a user account. You can enable notifications only for the most important activities and suppress notifications for others.
Check out this article for more details.
Interactive communication
Use interactive communication when your team members require quick clarifications and solutions to issues, mostly while at the site. For example, an Installer finds out that a product is defective and wants to ask the Project Manager if the product can be replaced tomorrow. The Project Manager can check and then schedule the event for replacement.
You can always use phone calls, third-party video conferencing, and chat tools for real-time communication. If you want to communicate inside Cloud, use the Chat feature.
Chat supports both one-to-one and group communication. Chats provide a rich messaging experience with support for file and multimedia attachments, static geolocation sharing, reactions, and a wide range of emojis.
Check out this article for more details.