The Project Information window serves as the foundation for creating and managing projects within e-manage|ONE. It holds essential details about your projects, including their name, status, project manager, salesperson(s), scope of work, and associated contacts. In this guide, we will delve into the various components of the Project Information window and explain how each piece of information is used in e-manage|ONE.
Accessing the Project Information Window
You can access the Project Information window through multiple methods:
Double-click: Simply double-click on a project from any grid or tree that lists projects to open the Project Information window.
Right-click: Alternatively, right-click on a project from any grid or tree that lists projects to access the Project Information window.
Quick Search: Use the Quick Search feature located at the bottom of the e-manage main window to search for and open projects quickly.
Function Key Shortcuts: Make use of Function Key Shortcuts to swiftly access the Quick Search and your Project(s).
Project Name
The Project Name field is essential as it is searchable in various areas within e-manage. Ensure it contains meaningful information that helps other users identify the project in Current Opportunities, Backlog, and other grids.
This field is mandatory during the initial project entry, and we strongly recommend establishing naming conventions for consistency.
Corporate Division
The Corporate Division dropdown list contains divisions defined by your administrator, based on your access permissions.
Choosing the correct Corporate Division is crucial, as it impacts dropdown lists available for the entire project and determines the QuickBooks file for orders and vendor invoices.
This field is required when creating a new project.
Project Type
The Project Type dropdown controls whether a project requires implementation and influences available workflow Action Items.
This setting allows you to customize the workflow based on project types, ensuring efficiency in your processes.
Project Types also determine the available Surveys, which are built by administrators.
Status
The Status dropdown sets the project's status, making it searchable and usable as a criteria in analysis queries.
While you can set the Status here, it can also be adjusted in other areas of the application.
This field is mandatory during the initial project entry.
When building analysis queries, you can use the Project Status to pull lists of projects back by status along with other criteria.
Probability
The Probability dropdown represents the likelihood of the project becoming an order.
This value also influences the Factored Value on the Current Opportunities grid for projection purposes.
The Probability field is mandatory during the initial project entry.
This is a screenshot of Current Opportunities Factored Value based on Approximate Value and Probability
Project Manager
If your organization designates project managers, this dropdown allows you to select one.
This field appears in grids displaying projects, allowing filtering by project managers.
This field is typically required.
Decision Date
The Decision Date is the expected date when the customer will decide whether to proceed with the order.
This field is mandatory during the initial project entry.
Approximate Value
The Approximate Value represents the estimated sale value before generating a quote.
After creating a quote, this value updates automatically with the estimated sale price.
While zero is a valid value, it's recommended to enter accurate estimates for projection purposes.
When quotes are made, the first one made is the Most Likely by default, but changing the most likely quote will update the approximate value with value of the quote. This is a screen shot of the BOM window showing quotes.
Scope of Work
This text box should contain a comprehensive description of the project to facilitate quoting, ordering, billing, and installation.
A Scope Builder is available for reusing common items in the scope of work. (See Using Builders.)
Requires Installation Checkbox
This checkbox is automatically set based on the chosen Project Type but can be adjusted manually.
Tax Exempt Checkbox
Tax exemption status is determined by the end user Company Location Tax Exempt status. See here for more information.
Users may or may not have the ability to modify this checkbox based on permissions.
Direct Bill Checkbox
Used for Direct Bills to manufacturers and Government Sales. See here for more information.
Next Touch Type and Date
The Next Touch Type drop down list box and Touch Date Box is a set of tasks that a salesperson can set for themselves to keep the project moving through the process (the values in the list box are set by your administrator, if you think the values should change, see your administrator). Salespeople do not generally have action items that assign to them, so this is a way to set an action item like task for them. Next Touch information goes onto the Salesperson's Events Calendar once a Next Touch Date is set. Once set, the Next Touch can be dragged and dropped on the calendar to reschedule. You can also set the Type and Date by right clicking on a project from any grid or tree where projects are listed. See Using Next Touch Functionality in this manual for more information.
Touch Date
The Quote Date drop down calendar box can be manually filled out, however when a quote is printed, this value will update itself with the date the quote is printed automatically. The quote date shows on the Current Opportunities grid, Backlog Grid and all Project and Order based Analysis Grids.
Designer / Furniture Dealer / Architect or Contact 1 & 2
The Furniture Dealer / Architect or Associate 1 / Associate 2 boxes (the labels will differ depending on your industry) allow you to associate company locations with the project and analyze how many projects (or which projects) outside companies have been associated with. This list box is populated by setting the Architect, Furniture, or Associate checkbox on the company location window (see Company Settings for additional info). You can only choose from the list with these boxes, you cannot just type in an arbitrary company name. You can also supply a contact you are working with from these by typing in a name in the contact box underneath each drop down list box. The contact field here is a free-form and does not save anywhere to the system except for in the Project Information.
Project #
The Project # is automatically generated by the database when the project is initially saved and is unique to this project. You cannot type in this box, however you can select the text and copy it by right clicking or using the CTRL + C method of copying.
Job #
The Job # is set at the Order Entry stage of the process and cannot be typed in this window. In most cases, our customers choose to have the project number become the job number (Admin Setting) and follow all the way through the project, however job numbers can be set manually when the order is booked.
End User
The End User Company Location will be filled out initially with the Company Location (or the contact's Company Location) you started the project from. You can change the end user at any time. See the Company Labels section of this manual for more information on how to change it.
Sales Credit
The Sales Credit / Access grid allows you to add salespeople to be able to access the project or to share a project with another salesperson. If you are a salesperson, and the Primary Salesperson is not set on the end user company location, you will be added to the grid automatically when the project saves at 100% credit. The salesperson and credit % are editable inside of the grid using drop downs. The credit MUST add up to 100%. If there is a Primary Salesperson set on the Company Location they will automatically be added no matter who starts the Project.
Add salespeople by clicking the "Add" button. Delete by clicking the "Delete" button with a row selected in the grid. These buttons may be grayed out after the initial save of the project if you do not have the rights to modify sales credit.
Project Contact(s)
The Project Contact section allows you to associate any contact already existing in your database, no matter what company they are associated with, with this project. This allows you to find projects in the Main Search tool by looking up the contact record of any associated contact and switching the "Search For" to "Projects".
If you started the project from a contact or a lead record, the contact will automatically be added to the project when you save it for the first time. Adding contacts after that is as simple as dragging and dropping from any grid or tree that lists contacts, or you can simply click on the "Add Quick Contact" button (recommended) to the left of the Project Contacts Grid. The Add Quick Contact window will pop up and will initially be populated with all of the contacts from the End User's company location no matter which location they are associated with (on the lower portion of the Add Quick Contact window). The Add Quick Contact window can also be used as a search to find any contact already in your database by filling out the First and Last Name boxes and tabbing out of the last name field. You can also simply fill out a new contact by filling out the form completely and pressing the "Save" Button. If you want to use one of the contacts from the grid (either from the initial company list or by searching), highlight the contact(s) you want to add and then click, drag and drop them into the project contact grid.
Inside of the project contacts grid is the Project Contact Type. This is what type of contact this is to this particular project. For example, an architect would be an "Architect" contact type, but to this project they may be an "Influencer". You can set Project Contact Type by adjusting directly in this grid. Setting these values will help others down the road in the business process to find the right contact for their purposes without having to ask for information from the salesperson especially your Installers as this information carries through to the Work Order / Delivery Ticket.
You can set the Primary Contact of a project by highlighting the contact and then clicking the "Mark As Primary Contact" on the panel to the right of the grid. There can only be one Primary Contact per project, so if you already have a primary contact set, setting a different one will undo the first selection. The first contact you add will automatically be set as the Primary Contact. This info carries over to the Quote as the “Prepared For”. The check box is NOT an editable field.
Remove a Contact from a Project
You can remove contacts from this grid ONLY by highlighting them in the grid, then clicking the "Remove Selected Contacts" button to the right of the Project Contacts Grid. If you have the rights to Delete a Contact you can right click & delete but this will permanently remove the contact from the database unless you run a query to undo deletion.
Schedule an Event
Using the "Schedule an Event" button to the left of the Project Contacts grid while a contact is selected will take you to the Events Calendar (which is connected to your Outlook calendar if synced properly) where you will select either some time slots or a day and then click the "New Appointment" button. The event will automatically be tied to the contact and the project (it will show up both in Event History for the Contact and Event History for the Project).
Mail Merge
Using the mail merge button while one or more contacts are selected opens the Perform Mail Merge window and places all of the selected contacts into the recipients list box. For more information on mail merges, see Perform Mail Merge from a Contact. This is one of only 2 ways to get project information to merge into a mail merge.