Recent studies have concluded that Project Staff spend an average of 5.5 hours per week searching for Project Information, and 52% of rework is caused by poor communication. Clearly, effective Document Control plays a critical role in mitigating this problem, but what about Project Email?
Microsoft Outlook is by far the most popular email application, used by more than 90% of project participants. But despite the structured view it provides, and the facility to create folders, it is essentially uncontrolled communication, with no audit trail in a project context. Further, email history stored in a PST file becomes even more of an issue if a project team member leaves.
So the question is … how do you track and file email communication relating to all aspects of a project, or a sub-contractor, for example, on an automated basis, so that the conversation is recorded and easy to locate, even after the original email has been archived or deleted?
IPM Project Management, utilizes features of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 integration with Outlook, contained in the IPM platform, to enable project users to nominate the project context to automatically file an email string. Having nominated the project context in an outgoing email, IPM will continue to save the ongoing dialog, including attachments. For example, you can go to Outlook, create and send an RFI to sub-contractors, using a word template already created and stored in IPM, then IPM will recognize responses and file them as they are received. IPM will also track and report on outstanding requests.
IPM has a large footprint … Document Control, Cost Control, Procurement, Field Reporting, HSEQ, Resource/Equipment Management, comprehensive Reporting & Forecasting and Timesheets ….
IPM administrators can customize documents, reports and workflow, as well as the user interface itself.
