WORKING SMARTER EVERY
DAY
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Work-To-Do:
Work On-Line for Editing, Reviewing, and Printing
Schedules
Remember
when everyone thought that using computers would
eventually mean "the paperless office?" Didn't
happen, right?
Clients & Profits is dedicated to printing less
paper. By using Work To Do for both reviewing and
editing scheduled tasks, your office saves paper
and some trees! And you'll get staffers involved in
keeping schedules current.
Choose View > Work To Do. Select the parameters
of the scheduled tasks you want to appear: only
tasks you are assigned to and for a certain date
range, for example.
After clicking Find, your scheduled tasks appear on
your computer screen. Review start and due dates,
job number and name, task, and how many hours are
estimated for the work.
To read any task specs or edit any details about
scheduled tasks, just double-click on a task. The
Job Task window opens.
An important aspect of task scheduling is marking
tasks as finished once completed. When finished,
tasks no longer appear on scheduling reports which
keeps staff focused on current work. Tasks are
easily marked as finished by checking the Finished
button.
What you're looking at on your screen is easily
printed, if needed. Or you can check your schedule
for changes periodically throughout the day and not
print out a hard copy. (The trees will thank
you!)
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By Mark Robillard
It's almost time to schedule into the 21st Century. Clients
& Profits is leading you there with scheduling features
that are visionary--and practical, too!
As your shop grows, sometimes
more than one staffer works on a single task. You can
schedule more than one staffer to a task by using sub-tasks.
Sub-tasks appear on only scheduling and work to do
reports.
The Job Schedule Timeline's
strong visual component creates a compelling printed report.
It clearly represents the developmental flow of work by
showing the time between each task's start and due dates as
a solid bar.
Each staffer has their own
Weekly Task Planner to easily review and edit scheduled
tasks. The current week's tasks appear automatically. And up
to three weeks in the future can be reviewed and edited, if
necessary. The Weekly Task Planner can be printed, too.
As
you create schedules, a pop-up calendar lets you
drag-and-drop dates, so you don't have to type them. Review
dates for any month--this year or next--right in the
schedule window.
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What happens when you're
working on a schedule and need a task that isn't part of the
job? New tasks are easily added to the schedule (and the job
ticket) by simply dragging them from the Task Table Lookup
List. And keep focused on only the tasks that require
scheduling by selecting what "kind of task" a task is.
Jobs are rescheduled instantly
at the press of one button. If a job has started but is now
delayed or an old job is cloned, just enter the job's new
start or due date and click ‘OK.' You don't have to
adjust each task individually.
Everyone is working toward the
same end--great advertising at the right moment in time, on
time. With Clients & Profits scheduling features, you
have the tools to successfully schedule into the 21st
Century.
Mark Robillard developed Clients & Profits and
is a cofounder of Working Computer.
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