At Advantage, we’ve always had our employees spread out around the country and working remotely, so we are no strangers to what has to happen to keep business going and everyone informed.  We want to share some tips and techniques that we've used over the years using our software to make communication seamless.

 At a very basic level, it’s all about communication

This means keeping everyone informed on what they have to do, when things need to get done, and tracking it all so you have a full history of everything that has taken place on projects is essential.  And, of course, you need to track time to analyze productivity. Below are three typical scenarios, and some best practices on how to keep everyone in the loop.

Scenario 1: Storing Details of the Virtual Meeting

When you need to let the team know about a virtual meeting for a specific job, most of us create meetings on our calendar and invite attendees. Sounds great, but there’s no information in your project management system about the “who, what, where and when” of the meeting.

Instead of sending the invitation directly from email, send it from an integrated calendar. All participants will receive notification and any materials for the meeting – plus much more. A truly integrated calendar can show a real-time view of meeting details including the associated job. When changes such as date, time, attendees are made from the calendar, they are automatically updated everywhere in the system, ensuring consistency. This is a huge time saver as it eliminates the need for manually entering data from an external calendar into a project management system. With the ability to assign hours to the meeting, it adds resource management features and connects an integrated timesheet to the calendar.           

Scenario 2: Collaborating and Reviewing a Proof

Email is commonly used to create a comment thread on proofs, but there is a risk of someone dropping out of the loop. Plus, the comment thread isn’t included in the job jacket.

The solution is simple. Create a non-routed assignment with the proof attached and send it to all reviewers. Everyone will receive a notification. Need everyone to reply by a certain date? No problem. Assign a due date to the assignment. To ensure nothing falls through the cracks, add a checklist to the assignment.

The assignment will appear on everyone’s desktop, and the comment thread will automatically be captured in the job jacket in real time. Hours can be associated with the assignment and used for resource management; and everyone can log their time right from the card!

Remember the integrated calendar? The Assignment also displays there. Since it’s integrated, changes are reflected everywhere in real time, providing the transparency you need.

Scenario 3: Routing a Team Assignment from Person to Person

You need copy created for a website.  Your copywriter will write the copy;  then it’s ready for the proofreader. After that, the AE will need to approve the copy before sending it to the client for final approval. Of course, everyone is working from home.

An auto-routed assignment can automate the process. The entire workflow is set into motion from the job jacket. When the first assignee marks it complete, it automatically routes to the next assignee and so on. Everyone receives notification when the assignment is routed to them.

And like other integrated features, hours can be used for resource management and time can easily be logged from the assignment. Everything, including any comments and associated documents, are stored within the job jacket.

These are just a few real-life scenarios.  Working remotely makes no difference on how the communication works. No matter where you are, you and your team have complete access and visibility to projects.

The Advantage agency management system is an all-in-one solution purpose-built for agencies and creative teams of all sizes.

We’ve been exclusively focused on helping our clients maximize productivity, efficiency and profitability for over 40 years, with almost a thousand agencies counting on us to help run their business every day.

With Advantage you get a team of US-based agency veterans supporting you every step of the way.  All implementation and training is done by experienced Advantage staff, and all clients have unlimited access to our live customer support line from 8am-7:30pm Eastern every business day.

Find out how Advantage can help you by contacting us for a complimentary demo or discussion about your unique needs.