New Feature: Automatically Collect Real-time Data on Projects and Have Them Run on Auto-Pilot with SmartBeats
Back in the pre-pandemic days, when everyone worked from an office space, water coolers and break rooms used to be the primary hub where project managers would casually catch up with their team members to understand project progress, identify potential bottlenecks, and get the project pulse that is not captured in the traditional project management software or spreadsheets.
But now, when the majority of teams are working remotely, managers need a better way to get real-time insights into projects and understand how their team members are spending their billable hours.
This is why we built SmartBeats in our very own self-driving PSA, Polaris.
SmartBeats are instant updates on task progress sent from a task owner to their project manager. It is an advanced project automation tool that continuously harvests data from users and systems to provide real-time visibility into projects and tasks. Business leaders and managers can use these real-time insights to make proactive decisions and agile responses for rapidly getting and keeping resources, projects, and finances on track.
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Solve Project Problems Before They Occur with Project Automation
Fire fighting is one of the most common problems facing many project managers. While managers are busy putting out fires every day, without real-time data and a holistic view of the business, the fires will either leave a spark or run so wild they’re unable to be contained. Project managers need to get a sense of how their projects are progressing at every minute in real time to identify potential problems even before they manifest.
With SmartBeats, managers get current insights into the work completed, tasks that are due, and the estimated time needed to close the project successfully. It gathers comprehensive details about the project from the task owners, also called a “beat,” including comments on how confident they are in closing their tasks on time. Project managers get an instant understanding of all critical project metrics, including hours, cost, financials, and other details, to ensure that the project is on track and that they’re able to easily identify opportunities for optimization. This level of granular insights helps the managers pinpoint the source of problems and fix them before it’s too late.
Leverage Live Business Data to Improve Efficiency
Enterprises need up-to-date centralized data to monitor critical business metrics that influence the path to successful project delivery. This requires consolidating operational data and then making the right decisions based on accurate and real-time numbers. SmartBeats harvests data from users and the systems they use to provide the most accurate information and 360-degree visibility into your organization’s work.
Users can easily update the status on the tasks they are working on using the web, desktop, or our modern mobile interface. Additionally, SmartBeats automatically pulls task updates from collaboration tools like Slack, Jira, Asana, Microsoft Teams, and more to get a live pulse of the project and the business. Timely alerts on the true pulse of the business help managers and business leaders take necessary action for keeping projects, resources, and finances on track.
Project managers can approve or edit user’s time record and even give feedback to users on work done, remaining work, and estimates to complete. This helps them identify early warnings of project derailing and plan course corrections. Also, the instant feedback enables team members to re-prioritize their tasks to maximize productivity and efficiency.
Also, SmartBeats enables auto-population of timesheets — work hours the task owner includes in their beat are added to their timesheet automatically. This makes completing timesheets easier — and more accurate since beats are submitted immediately after work was performed. This instantaneous submission of accurate timesheets can speed up client billing and payroll processing.
Here’s What SmartBeats Can Track for You
Now that you know how SmartBeats uses project automation to help you truly manage your projects in real time with live inputs around effort and completion estimates, let’s dive into the specifics of what you can track:
- The number of hours a resource worked on a task for a given day. This gives project managers a sense of how productive their members are.
- The number of additional hours that will be required to complete the task. This value is an estimate the task owner provides considering the amount of remaining work.
- Task owners can provide the estimated completion date for the tasks they are working on.
- Estimated hours to completion are automatically calculated considering the total hours worked to date and the work remaining estimate from the SmartBeat.
- Task owners and project managers can use comments to share feedback on the status or progress of the project. To make the interface user intuitive, SmartBeats supports color-coded symbols to represent the task’s status.
- Once the tasks are complete, the task owners can mark them done. This officially closes the task.
Experience the Power of Automated Project Management with SmartBeats
SmartBeats are sent daily to project managers to help them stay up to date on the task’s status, so they know right away when project schedules begin to slip, allowing them to quickly intervene. These live inputs help managers to truly manage projects in real time and take control of project delivery with automated project management.
SmartBeats is available for all Polaris users. Sign up for a live demo to see how SmartBeats can help you manage your projects better.
The Self-Driving PSA Solution That Will Empower Your Enterprise
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