Share ideas on how each of us use Zoho Projects
Hi there - I own a marketing services company, and while I love Zoho Projects, I am sometimes at a loss as to the best way to use the product for MY company's unique needs. We are a virtual company - i.e., no bricks and mortar building, and employees all working from home.
I'm going to share how we're using it currently, and I'm hoping others will do the same thing, so we can learn from each other.
TASKS AND MILESTONES - in the beginning of a client engagement (we do 12-month contracts), I have several task list templates set up, for work we regularly do for each client. For recurring events (like monthly blog posts and e-newsletters), I have a task template I use, then I rename it for the month in which it's intended, and I attach it to a Milestone for that particular month. We tell our employees NOT to email each other when they have client or task questions, but rather, go into a task and add a comment, and checkmark the box to alert everyone, which means that Zoho Projects will send out an alert to everyone. That way, these valuable conversation threads are captured permanently in Zoho Projects, instead of in someone's random email box.
MEETINGS - I get the feeling that this section was originally designed to be used for INTERNAL meetings. However, we use it for any client meeting, whether it's over the phone or in person. That way we all have access to the valuable information passed along to one of us in a client meeting. We sometimes have challenges with this, depending on the "access level" of the person who entered the meeting notes. For example, an employee of mine recently logged a meeting with notes, and I couldn't see it (she was an Admin, and I am Admin/Portal Owner).
DOCUMENTS - we don't use this; we use Dropbox Enterprise instead and I share Client folders with my team.
TIMESHEETS - just now starting to use this. We have different codes associated with time projects, so we put that code into the "notes" section. Unfortunately, this means that our team can't use the "timer" option, because the timer puts start/end times into the notes section, and we need this section for our time codes.
FORUMS - we forward valuable email threads from clients here, using the email option. I WAS planning to use this for a place to maintain lists - i.e., each of our client has about 20 different online software projects with different user id's and passwords. However, if I'm the one that enters that as a Forum entry (and I often am), no one else can modify it, because no one can modify an Admin's entry - not even another Admin. So maybe we'll start using the Wiki section instead? Not really sure, because I don't really understand how a wiki works.
WIKI - no idea!! We don't use it because I seriously do not have the faintest notion of how we MIGHT use it for our type of company.
USER PRIVILEGES - frankly, this confuses me very much! I had originally decided to make all of my employees Admins, to eliminate any "privileges" issues - everyone should have access to change or add everything, right? Doesn't work that way unfortunately. So, I'm still struggling with how to handle privileges.
I would LOVE to hear ideas, suggestions, hints, etc. from others on how you are using Zoho Projects. I think it is an incredible tool and we are committed to using it for our business.