How to Jump Start Your Project Management in Salesforce

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2016/06/10

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Let's face it: project planning is next to impossible with an unorganized and underutilized Salesforce platform. Inconveniently placed data is a major frustration for anyone tasked with the responsibility of running reports. We have a few add-ons to Milestones PM+ that will enhance your project management workflow. We’ve also compiled a few use cases for each of the various add-ons below along with install instructions to make the process even easier:

Lookup Helper:

To use Lookup Helper, you must install it first from our Lookup Helper AppExchange listing.

  • Display Milestones PM+ Project Tasks Under An Account (or any other CRM Object)

    • Use Lookup Helper to automatically populate the packaged account__c field on the project task custom object based upon the project’s account value.

  • Link Projects Underneath Geographic Regions or States

    • If you report on your projects by state or region, you can use Lookup Helper to automatically group all your projects under a single region or state. With this scenario, you use the account’s billing state to set the project’s state. You can then roll-up and easily report on project information by state or region.

  • Link Projects Automatically To The Program Object

    • If you already have a picklist, formula, or text field that identifies what you would consider to be a program on your project object, you can use that field value in Lookup Helper to automatically set the lookup for the Program and attach it to the Project. This allows for Program-level reporting and roll-ups for program and portfolio managers/directors.

 

Rollup Helper:

To use Rollup Helper, you must install it first from our Rollup Helper AppExchange listing.

  • Use Rollup Helper to help build custom embedded analytic reports on any page in Salesforce. For example, the following embedded report chart was created using a Projects report type to report on the quantity of unresolved project issues and risks graphically.

Bar chart with total open risks and issues

  • Use Rollup Helper to customize % complete tracking. For example, with Milestones PM+ out of the box, the percent complete field is based upon the number of tasks completed / total number of tasks. If you would like to calculate a percent complete field for milestones completed, you would need to use Rollup Helper in order to complete the calculation. This is because you will need to be able to count the total number of milestones under a project, and count the number of milestones that are completed.

What's your biggest project management gripe? Let us know in the comments or reach out on Twitter.

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