How FYB uses Teamwork to build a transparent process

FYB provides information governance and solutions so that clients can harness the power of their data. Diverse industries across Australasia depend on FYB’s services to capture, manage and store their information, while still protecting their privacy and security.

Michael Grech, Manager of Professional Services at FYB, told us how Teamwork has helped the FYB team to recapture lost time and has given them tools to develop strong relationships with their clients.

Lost time, misplaced information

When FYB opened its doors in 2004, Microsoft Projects was the first project management tool the team used to track tasks and share information with team members and clients.

For the most part, the platform handled projects well, but the on-premise software prevented FYB team members from collaborating with clients in real time. Schedule delays and miscommunications inevitably cropped up when changes had to be made through a series of phone calls, document swaps and messaging systems.

They soon realized that email was one of the biggest thieves of productivity — and profit.

Not only was email a very slow method of communication, but conversations were muddied with complicated reply chains. Locating specific comments or important Excel files was often a time-consuming hunting expedition that left everyone frustrated.

“Client feedback from those days told us that while clients were thrilled with the results our team delivered, our process for getting there was letting us down,” Michael said. “We needed software that wasn’t so complicated for our clients.”

The team at FYB knew that cloud-based software would have solved a lot of their problems, but that wasn’t the only obstacle they needed to clear. Onboarding new employees into Microsoft Projects was difficult for new employees, which siphoned time away from valuable clients and projects.

Easy onboarding to a single source of truth

The FYB Project Management Office selected several project management solutions and did a side-by-side comparison of features, ease of use, flexibility, search functions, and collaboration tools.

After working internally with Teamwork, they decided to test it in real time by working with an existing client who had never used Teamwork before. At each stage of the project, the client gave them positive feedback which cemented their decision.

Rollout within FYB was gradual, starting with team members and then moving to include each client. “The whole process was much smoother than we expected. One of the best things about switching to Teamwork was how easy it was for our team and clients to become experts at using the software without the need to spend time and resources on training,” Michael said.

Today, team members at FYB use Teamwork to manage multiple internal and client-facing projects — as many as 60 running simultaneously. Some of those projects are only 10 tasks long, while others have as many as 250 tasks.

Setting up new projects is greatly simplified with the help of project and task list templates, which allow them to prepopulate new projects with a list of tried and tested tasks from a similar project. “It used to take us hours at the outset to set up a project, and now it only takes a few minutes,” Michael said. “That alone has made a huge difference.”

Within Teamwork, the FYB team uses the Board View option to visually organize tasks and give team members clarity over their responsibilities in one glance. Everyone immediately recognizes which tasks need urgent attention, and deadlines are always readily apparent.

Instead of wrestling with on-premise software, team members and clients now have a cloud solution that allows them to store all the information they need for each project. One sign-in gives them access to the documents, tasks, conversations, images, and time tracking.

Profits, productivity & peak collaboration

The intuitive platform gives clients all of the tools they need for an easy-to-manage process, but FYB is seeing even greater rewards. Improved transparency for each project has given them more control of their time — and increased profits.

Managers used to spend hours drafting progress reports and answering questions for clients. Now, those clients have access to real-time project information and reports from any location.

Team members have cut out repetitive work using automated workflows and simplified workflows, freeing them to invest more energy into creative work and building relationships with clients. The increase in billable hours and decrease in administrative costs has given the entire company a measurable boost.

Diving further into Teamwork’s features, the team at FYB used the platform’s open API to build CM2Teamwork, a custom integration between Micro Focus’ Content Manager and Teamwork. This integration allows them to publish and maintain revisions and versions of documents from Content Manager to Teamwork.

The integration streamlines sharing and collaboration of project documentation internally and externally with stakeholders while meeting recordkeeping compliance requirements for the storage and management of documents and records.

“This integration has eliminated so much of the confusion that happens when changes need to be updated across platforms. Fewer steps in the process makes it easier for everyone,” Michael said.

And with these improvements to their processes, FYB has found that projects are completed in less time, client satisfaction is up, administrative hassles are down, and team members are sharing information smoothly.