“Do you use teamspace yourselves?” – the answer is a clear yes. Without teamspace we could shut up shop: we run all our administrative processes 100% in teamspace. This field report shows what for – as inspiration for what is possible in your own company.
Invoices and order processing
- For every customer there is at least one active order holding service and licence data. When an extension comes in, a separate order is created, converted into a project and scheduled through project management.
- Invoicing is triggered from the project: the person handling it reports completion or handover – with a single click.
- A check “for peace of mind”: we display all times and costs that have gone unbilled for more than three months, so that nothing slips through the net.
- Through the banking interface, teamspace checks in the background every day whether invoices have been paid; if not, after a few days’ grace payment reminders go out automatically – with no manual intervention at all.
- External projects always follow the path quote → order → project: we have practically no project without an order, and hardly an order without a quote beforehand. Most of the effort goes into the quote; everything after that is “at the push of a button”.
Internal projects with Scrum
Because every adaptation to the standard software has to be tested, we plan updates quarterly and work with Scrum:
- Four milestones a year represent the four releases. To these we assign resources (employees), sub-projects and work packages.
- teamspace shows in advance how many developer hours are available for the next release and how many hours sit in the order pipeline.
- If employees call in sick or go on holiday, we see the impact immediately and can bring another project forward.
- From this the backlog takes shape; the sprints run fortnightly and are planned around the assigned capacities – so in the end everyone knows what needs doing.
Support
Every request – by email or phone – opens a ticket or is added to an existing one. Through the SLAs agreed with customers, the ticket knows how much time it has left; when in doubt, the one with the least time remaining is dealt with first. Paid support is logged straight onto the ticket and billed automatically through the support contract. When a customer gets in touch, we see their open tickets, projects and quotes straight away.
HR
Holiday planning, time tracking, parental leave, contract management, who works in which office or from home, who has booked which parking space – and the whole of expense management: all through teamspace.
Sales
If someone requests a test account on the website, a sales opportunity is created automatically in teamspace (along with the contact, if needed). We see straight away whether two colleagues from the same company are enquiring, which consultant is looking after it, what requirements were mentioned and where the opportunity sits in the sales funnel. teamspace even hints at the likelihood of closing and at the phase in which most trials fall away.
The many small, helpful things
- The shared calendar, where we quickly add a Teams meeting with a customer and a colleague.
- Internal communication: when discussing a quote we send each other a notification; tickets are sometimes passed from one person to the next like a “challenge cup”.
- A favourite with many employees: the commission notification, triggered when an invoice is created in certain situations – very motivating.
Notes
- The report makes one thing clear: many business processes could not be carried out at all, or not as efficiently, without teamspace – because everything comes together in one system.
- For a concrete look at what the billing process involves, see From quote to invoice.