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Project Management Module : Add time slip to Checklist Items
The advantage of the TP Project Module to us is that all our employee's have remote access to it from the field. This means that we can have Field Service Engineers (FSE) get online and check off the items they've completed from our Checklists. Unfortunately, those checklists don't allow for any time recording. For instance, the checklist could involve several tasks, some of which take much more time than others. We envision the table for these checklist to be similar to time logs but with a little less functionality. i.e. they would only need the Estimated vs. Actual time and then a comment section so the FSE could explain the differential. No log reasons or anything of that nature would be required. If we had an Estimated vs. Actual time entry for each of the tasks, we could accomplish a few things:
1. We currently have to copy our Checklists to Microsoft Project just to provide an estimated time for each task. As you might guess, this is a real pain as it requires two products, one of which, (MPP), most employee's do not have access. And it requires double the administrative overhead. With the ability to track the time for each Checklist Task, we wouldn't need MPP.
2. Time in TP PM is only kept in the Phase level. It's not tenable for us to add a phase for each task in our checklists. But with time tracking on the checklists, we could get reports, presumably, that will allow us to automatically create a true picture of the average time it takes for each task. This would enable us to automatically create average install times for the Checklist Items/Tasks which would be great for estimating future resource requirements for installations.
3. FSE personnel would have access to this Checklist/Task based time tracking and there would be no delay in them entering the data and the Project Manager having access to the information, providing the ability of the Project Manager to keep tabs on the status of the project and fill out the Completion % on the actual phase.
Relative to item number 3 above, it would be VERY helpful if the percentage of completion of any particular phase were related to the times in the Checklist Tasks. Since each task would have an estimated time, the percentage of Phase completion could be easily calculated from those times for Checked vs Unchecked task items. And of course, the 'Actual' times would override the 'Estimated' time in any calculation.
Another item, but of much less significance, that would be appreciated is the ability to mark and move or, mark and delete, multiple checklist items at one time. (Some of our Phase Checklists are quite long)
What do you think? Is any of this possible? It would really make the Project Module much more useable for us!
1. We currently have to copy our Checklists to Microsoft Project just to provide an estimated time for each task. As you might guess, this is a real pain as it requires two products, one of which, (MPP), most employee's do not have access. And it requires double the administrative overhead. With the ability to track the time for each Checklist Task, we wouldn't need MPP.
2. Time in TP PM is only kept in the Phase level. It's not tenable for us to add a phase for each task in our checklists. But with time tracking on the checklists, we could get reports, presumably, that will allow us to automatically create a true picture of the average time it takes for each task. This would enable us to automatically create average install times for the Checklist Items/Tasks which would be great for estimating future resource requirements for installations.
3. FSE personnel would have access to this Checklist/Task based time tracking and there would be no delay in them entering the data and the Project Manager having access to the information, providing the ability of the Project Manager to keep tabs on the status of the project and fill out the Completion % on the actual phase.
Relative to item number 3 above, it would be VERY helpful if the percentage of completion of any particular phase were related to the times in the Checklist Tasks. Since each task would have an estimated time, the percentage of Phase completion could be easily calculated from those times for Checked vs Unchecked task items. And of course, the 'Actual' times would override the 'Estimated' time in any calculation.
Another item, but of much less significance, that would be appreciated is the ability to mark and move or, mark and delete, multiple checklist items at one time. (Some of our Phase Checklists are quite long)
What do you think? Is any of this possible? It would really make the Project Module much more useable for us!