We've been working away behind the scenes on a very exciting new feature. We’re happy to reveal that we’ve revamped how you can manage projects in Capsule.
While we were investigating how we could make our project management tool, Cases, easier to use, it became clear that users struggled to understand what it was based on the name alone and didn’t really know what it was used for. With this in mind, we’ve renamed Cases to Projects and extended the features that are available. If you’re currently a Cases user, don’t worry, you’ll still have all of the flexibility that you’ve always had to use Projects how you want to. If you're using the Capsule API that won't change either.
Our customers told us they loved the visibility that the sales pipeline gave them and wanted the same visibility for their workload - they wanted clarity of what work they had on, where things were up to and where there was opportunity to take on more work. With this in mind, we designed Project Boards that you can add Projects to. You can define the critical stages that make up Project Boards and with our Growth, Advanced & Ultimate plans you can create multiple boards.
Sales opportunities contain many details that make up the project work. It made sense to us that you should be able to manage that work in the same place as you manage the deal.
Our goal when redesigning Projects was to help customers deliver as much of their work as possible and easily communicate with their customers about what's going on without having to switch between tools.
Having a CRM with built-in project management features means you don't need as many tools to get the work done. It also increases visibility into workload and priorities and enhances collaboration between employees.
Let’s recap the project management features Capsule already had and take a look over the new ones too.
Create a Project
You’ve made the sale and you want to continue to deliver an exceptional customer experience. When you close the sale in Capsule, you’ll have the chance to immediately create a linked Project. Creating the project straight away means no details slip through the cracks. You can also add any Projects to a Board and Stage if you have them.
Customizable Project Boards and Stages
To make use of the new features in Capsule, you’ll first need to decide on a process that’s broken down into stages. You could have a process for onboarding clients and another one for delivering the work. Or you could have different Project Boards for different teams in your organization. The choice is yours. Once you’ve created the board with these stages. You’ll then be able to add your Projects to the Project Board.
If you don’t know where to start we’ve given you a helping hand with a sample Project Board template to get you started.
Defining your own processes means that you can deliver an efficient, consistent service every time. It also can empower team members to take the next step as they’ll know what to do next.
Kanban Board
The Project Board acts in the same way the sales pipeline does. You can add Projects to the Board. Once on the Board, you can move Projects to different Stages or to completion. What’s more, the Board gives you powerful filtering options. You can filter by Board, Owner, Team, and Tag. You can also transfer Projects to different Boards.
Having your projects laid out on one Board gives you increased visibility into your workload. If you’re managing a team or project you can see the project’s status and the team's workload. Any team member who is communicating with the client will also have greater visibility into where the project is at and can communicate with the client.
Project Summary Cards
On the Boards, you’ll be able to see a summary of the Project including the organization it relates to, who owns the Project, the expected close date, and the number of related tasks, documents, and notes.
Progress Bar
When viewing a Project, you’ll now be able to see a progress bar to see how far along your project is and how far you’ve got left to go before you complete it.
Projects List View
Just like with Cases, you’ll still be able to view Projects in a list as well as on a board. There are now columns for the board and stage they are on and can even be filtered by those too.
We hope we've given you a greater insight into Projects and that you're keen to try them out. We believe that Projects will allow for greater collaboration between team members, greater accuracy when storing project information, and an enhanced process that enables you to deliver the best service possible.
What type of work can Projects help me manage?
There are many ways that Projects can be used to help you and your team manage their workload. Projects is a flexbile feature. Here are just some of the ways you can use it:
Post-Sale: Manage work when the deal is done
Imagine you've just sold a service to a customer, you can then turn that Opportunity into a Project and all of those sale details are linked to the Project. You can then manage any agreed work with Projects. As the work goes from planning to completion, all the details are there for your whole team to see and whoever is responsible for keeping the customer up-to-date can do it easily.
Events: Keep all your information in one place
A Project provides you with an area for keeping track of all related communication, tasks, attendees and files when you're hosting or attending an event.
Marketing: Warm up your leads
Before your sales cycle begins you can use Projects to nurture leads, for storing marketing materials or for planning marketing campaigns.
We have also found different industries who use Projects in their own ways. Here are some industry examples:
Travel
Travel companies use Projects for managing different tailored tours.
Real Estate
Real estate companies create a Project for each of the properties they have for let and sale and then move them through their Project Board based on where they are in the selling or letting process.
Construction
Construction companies use Projects to capture specification details for building projects, while running the job from start to finish.
Accountancy
Accountants use Projects for managing tax returns and year end processing.
Technology
Technology companies create Projects for managing the beta period of new features.
Check out our support article for more information on managing Project Boards and Stages and if you need any help with Projects or Capsule in general then you can reach out to our support team.
