QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
|
|
|
GUARANTEED
GREAT IDEAS!
Traffic management tips from the Clients &
Profits experts
Some
of our Clients & Profits consultants share
their tips for better job management:
Great creative begins with great input "It's hard
to meet a deadline that no one knows about," says
Bill Kimball. "And it's hard to write great copy
about 'Info to come.' Make sure that your AEs get
you all of the information up front so the whole
agency team has the information (and time)
necessary to do its best work. Also, hold regular
WIP Sessions (Work in Progress, not whip!) to keep
your jobs on target and on schedule."
Keep your timecards current "In order to manage
your jobs to the estimate, all time (and costs,
expenses, and POs) must be current in C&P,"
says Marty Pennoni. "When a production manager or
anyone assigned to manage jobs views job reports,
the data has to be accurate. I've seen AEs look at
a job report, think they have more staff time
available to put into the job, but in the end be
over estimate because entries weren't current.
Motivate staff to add time by getting top-down
management buy-in, explain why keeping time is
critical to the shop's profitability, set a
time-entry performance standard, and train, train,
train."
Make rush jobs profitable " When it comes to
finishing jobs - especially rush jobs - maximize
your return," says Donna Lynn Johnson. "Before you
take on the job, take inventory of your resources:
staff availability and talent, necessary equipment,
and your relationship with outside vendors and the
client. Before saying 'yes' to a rush job,
calculate the return. Look at billable revenue as
well as ways that don't involve cash, like breaking
into a new industry, earning a client's trust, or
testing how well the team holds up under
pressure."
Got a traffic tip you'd like to share? Join the
Clients
& Profits Online User
Group
and e-mail members for input, feedback, and
laurels!
|
|
|
Q. How can a traffic manager identify
problem vendors?
A first step is to use the vendor diary to record
interaction with the vendor, whether phone calls, e-mails,
or meetings. A quick scan of the Event/Action column should
flag a pending problem. If needed, add an A/P pop-up note.
This message appears when adding a new PO or A/P invoice for
a vendor warning people about pending issues or need for
management approval. If a situation worsens and you need to
stop using the vendor, place their account on-hold,
preventing new POs, A/P invoices, and checks from being
added. (A customized message can also appear if someone
tries to add new work for a vendor so they know what's going
on.) Both the A/P pop-up note and on-hold setting are added
in a vendor's account info window.
Q. How do subtasks differ from regular tasks?
Subtasks can't be estimated, costed, or billed. They exist
only within the scheduling realm. Their purpose is to
provide a way to schedule more than one staffer to a task or
to break down a single task into smaller steps. Subtasks can
be renamed to make them more meaningful (e.g., instead of
Edit, rename the subtasks to First Edit, Second Edit, etc.).
|
|
Q. How can we use status code
e-mails?
All status codes can have e-mails associated with them to
automatically contact the key staffers to notify them about
an important turning point in a job. For example, when a
newly-added job's status is changed to "Estimate pending" an
e-mail is sent to job's traffic assignments with a message
asking for creative input. Status code e-mails should not be
added for all status codes nor sent to everyone, so be
selective when adding them to the Status Codes window.
Q. How do we track of all art, documents, and other stuff
generated for a job?
If you are using Clients & Profits Pro, Job Tracker, or
C&P SQL, you can electronically link a job with its
"stuff" through using the Asset Manager. The Asset Manager
can automatically create a job folder on your art server for
each new job added in C&P. Save all of the job's
tangibles (e.g., PhotoShop, Quark, and Word files, or even
PDFs of C&P reports) to its folder on the art server.
(If you use C&P Classic, you can duplicate this concept
manually.) You can launch any job asset file (and it's
application) right from C&P. The Asset Manager also
keeps track of important legal details about the files, such
as usage rights, ownership, and more.
Q. What happens to a job when I postpone it?
Assign the job a priority and status code for of
"Postponed". Don't worry, you won't lose any staff
assignments, schedules, notes, or other details. When the
job is back on, assign new start and due dates, and change
the job's production status and priority.
|