BrightWork 365 out of the box can satisfy the most critical aspects of project and portfolio management and can be configured to provide the added flexibility your organization may need. To take the solution even further, and to provide even more capabilities as your organization's needs adapt over time, BrightWork offers paid solution customization services. This article provides a catalog of some of the customizations that have been successfully deployed for customers.
We hope this article helps you think of new and interesting ways that BrightWork 365 can be used to power your projects. Please contact your Customer Success Partner for additional information.
New customization examples will be added to this article periodically.
Requests
Request Assessment Tab
Requirement
Solution
Request approvers require a good deal of extra preliminary information in order to make an informed approval decision.
Additional data is required for the decision-making process, so projects are not incorrectly approved or denied, due to lack of sufficient planning information.
Creation of a custom Assessment tab in a request template, with all the necessary fields required for the organization to make the correct approval decisions.
Request PMO Tab
Requirement
Solution
After an initial assessment of a new project request is completed, the next level of stakeholders (Project Management Office, Senior Executives, etc.) require an additional set of data in order to make the final approval decision.
With the addition of a PMO tab on the Request form, additional information can be gathered and reviewed to further inform the decision of whether or not to approve a new project request.
Projects
Stakeholders Tab
Requirement
Solution
A method for keeping track of all stakeholders on projects, along with their contact details and other pertinent information.
Project stakeholders need to be in a table of their own so as not to be confused with other types of team members.
Creation of a Stakeholders table conveniently exposed to users as a tab within a project form.
The Stakeholders table contains contact details and other important information about the stakeholders.
Ability to categorize whether the stakeholder is internal or external to the organization.
Lessons Learned
Requirement
Solution
A proper process or location to store critical lessons learned gathered from the project team at the conclusion of a project, to mitigate the risk of repeating mistakes or actions that require improvement.
Creation of a Lessons Learned table conveniently exposed to users as a tab within a project form.
Fields included in the table to capture critical information in a consistent manner.
Sub-Projects
Requirement
Solution
There are sets of projects that are all related to one another, each one a sub-project of a larger initiative, and there is a need to link the sub-projects together for viewing or scheduling purposes.
There's a requirement to view all the sub-projects conveniently together in a single tab.
Add a custom Sub-Projects tab to a parent project for the easy inclusion of the related projects.
Chosen sub-projects automatically appear in the parent project's Gantt tab for visualization purposes, and to manage them in a manner similar to typical Gantt tasks.
Percent Complete Auto Calculation
Requirement
Solution
An alternative to manually calculating project percent complete, which is not always the preferred method for indicating a project's schedule progress.
Create a custom flow for the solution that automatically calculates project percent complete based on Gantt task progress. Include this value in the Status tab and Status Reports of projects.
Project Creation and Final Stage Completion Emails
Requirement
Solution
Email notification options for when a project is created, and when a project completes its final stage.
Create custom notification flows for emailing specific individuals, or whomever is selected for various project role-related fields, i.e., Project Sponsor, Project Manager. Attach the flows to project templates, or to projects that are children of specific programs.
Capture Stage Related Key Performance Indicator Values
Requirement
Solution
Ability to review Key Performance Indicator values for previously completed project stages.
Automatically capture the values of specified KPIs when a stage changes in a project. On the project form there is a listing of the KPIs together with completed stage names and their associated KPI status at the time of completion. The KPI values are locked down so they can no longer be updated post stage completion.
Work Assignments
Timesheets
Requirement
Solution
An easier method for organizations to keep track of all the work that gets done across a portfolio of projects, by many different resources.
Account for person hours that are often left unaccounted for due to the myriad assortment of tools different team members use to keep track of their time.
Administrative control and oversight that makes it easier for confidential billing related content to be seen only by authorized people.
An easier way to report on hours that get captured across various tools.
Timesheets that get created automatically for select users given a specific security role (does not need to be every user).
Security enhanced - the standard role can only see their own entries. Confidential billing info can be configured to be hidden from unauthorized team members.
Automatically detects open assignments and creates timesheets in the relevant week.
Allocate people to a position which has an Hourly cost pegged to it.
Hours & Costs reports at the project, program, and portfolio levels.
Project Assignment Email
Requirement
Solution
Make it easier for Project Sponsors and Project Managers to check for their new assignments.
Custom automated notifications that are sent whenever new projects are assigned to these critical members of the project team. The messages can be altered as part of the customization work.
Status Report Reminder Email
Requirement
Solution
Make it more feasible for project managers to remember all the due dates of Status Report submission.
Creation of automated reminders that are triggered at various relative dates to send custom reminder messages to the relevant managers.
Work Assignment Email
Requirement
Solution
Team members are often unaware when new work items get assigned to them, and as a consequence the start of work for these new tasks gets delayed.
It is inefficient and unrealistic to expect the person assigning tasks to notify each team member of new assignments.
There are some projects that require instant notifications of new assignments, and some for which this would be counterproductive.
Team members receive an automated email at the time of work assignment.
Flexibility to turn notifications on and off within Project Settings.
Convenient direct links to assignments to obtain additional details and to make updates.
New Work Assignment Email
Requirement
Solution
Resources of assigned work have a difficult time keeping up with the volume of new work assigned to them from across all the projects to which they are contributing.
The planning and commencement of newly assigned work can be delayed due to a lack of awareness of the assignments.
Create a custom email report that neatly lays out all of the new assignments created in the previous 24 hours.
Flexible scheduling of the sending of the email that can be set to whichever time works best for the organization.
Overdue Work Email
Requirement
Solution
It's very difficult for team members to stay on top of the myriad of work assigned to them. They need a notification of overdue work to avoid affecting the execution of projects.
An individual overdue work report can be scheduled to be emailed to any team member who currently has work that is past its planned finish date.
Convert Risk to Issue
Requirement
Solution
Risk management is a critical component of managing projects, yet escalating a risk that has occurred into an issue is often not done, due to lack of process and/or inefficient methods.
If the list of issues is missing risks that have occurred, there can potentially be a very large impact to the project.
Inclusion of a switch within projects to enable the easy conversion of risks to issues.
Risks automatically get set to Occurred and Inactive status, and the issues automatically get created in the project.
Dashboards & Views
Project Stage Status View
Project:
View:
Requirement
Solution
It's time consuming and inefficient to find and click into every project that uses a specific Business Process Flow in order to check project stage progression in real-time.
With a custom stage status view, stakeholders can very quickly find all projects that share a specific Business Process Flow and check stage status all on the same screen.
Power BI - Charter Dashboard
Requirement
Solution
It can be time consuming and inefficient for some stakeholders to have to enter each project individually in order to view Project Charters and high-level Progress Updates.
Organizations need to use their own specific nomenclature in the dashboard.
Add a new Project Charter Power BI dashboard tab to the app for quick and easy access to this customized content for individual projects.
Power BI - Status Dashboard
Requirement
Solution
Senior executives would like a one-page dashboard report with very specific status elements they and the larger stakeholder community require to make informed decisions.
Creation of a custom Power BI dashboard report that brings in content from across many different records.
Power BI - Status Update Dashboard
Requirement
Solution
Organizations can have their own specific requirements as to what should be included in individual Project Status Update dashboards.
A custom Status Update tab is necessary for how the organization's meetings are run, and for how they efficiently keep stakeholders informed.
Add a new Status Update Power BI dashboard tab that meets the organization's specific needs.
Power BI - Project Notes
Requirement
Solution
Stakeholders may find it time consuming and inefficient to have to enter many projects individually in order to view their project Communication tab notes.
Add a conveniently accessed Project Notes tab to a Power BI dashboard for a consolidated view of Communication tab notes from across many projects.
