Few organisations can get an overview of the own contracts with one click. It manage even small companies often a variety of contractual arrangements. In industries such as insurance companies or banks are contracts from the cornerstone of business model. An overview of essential contract information such as maturities or notice periods is of enormous importance, Contract risks, but also opportunities, to be able to realistically assess.

Often the real challenge lies in establishing a central contract management in the planning, Organization and change management (See also http://www.locatech-it.com/?p=1730 ). Is defined but the process, so is the technical implementation even without their own IT infrastructure with VM365 for Microsoft Office365 possible.

Based on the platform, Microsoft Office365 and the therefore provided SharePoint online-Platform is available with VM365 a professional solution available, the agreements covered not only the entire life cycle of all the company intuitive maps, but provides important evaluations and also very easily and with little effort on individual Requirements can be customized.

In addition to the actual contract documents, VM365 manages all information, they are relevant for a contract. A variety of possible contract attributes (as z.B. Discount conditions at supplier contracts or condition changes in season leases) have already been preconfigured, GGF. important additional information for your organization can be configured very fast. Changes to contracts or contract documents are automatically logged on the spot.

So is a complete contract file with all contract information, all contract documents and that of the entire operation history. In paper-based form the contract file would correspond to a folder in the filing cabinet, on its folder cover important details of the contract are found and contains also notes or the communication between the Contracting Parties in addition to the signed contract.

Contracts are generally subject to a design process, arise in the course of which many design documents and agreements z.B. by Email be taken. A lease, for example, goes through several stages with changes made by the Contracting Parties in the design phase, the other version is created. Then this final version must be filed on one in an editable version, facilitate subsequent substantive tests by text searches, and so that the Treaty can be used as a template for future contracts. On the other hand, must the legal, signed version in a central folder are kept, can be accessed quickly in the, even if it only, to make copies. VM365 supports all of these process steps, All document management features of the Office365 platform SharePoint online are available.

All steps of the life cycle of the contract are supported:

1. Creating different versions of a contract from design to valid final version
2. Coordination between contractors and processing of designs by various persons, Departments, Attorney or service provider
3. Define access rights to contract data (z.B. protected access to employment contracts) and make sure the correct access permissions. Who may see contracts, who can edit?
4. Filing of correspondence or E-mail traffic to the documents
5. Internal sign-off and approval of contracts
6. Headquarters, secure storage of the valid original Treaty signed in, GGF. Digitizing through scanning
7. Search and recovery of contracts
8. Evaluation and storage of the content of the treaties such, that z.B. Time-limits and risks be made comprehensible and controllable
9. Resubmissions and memories of important contractual dates

VM365 supports you in all business processes, in connection with the creation, Processing and analysis of contracts in an Organization Act:

Contracts mountains often untapped potential. VM365 allows you to extensive analyses, to answer questions like:

• In what percentage of cases are contracts filed several times in different departments (Original and copies)?
• How many percent of the persons involved in the Contract management-Process need to access for daily work on contracts of other departments?
• There are departmental / enterprise-wide arrangements for the storage and search of contracts?
• Are the turnaround for standard contracts known within the company?
• How much percent estimate the throughput times for contracts could be shortened in your company.
• Is that Contract management support in your Department with appropriate software?

Any connections between the covered contract information can be produced any evaluations. To determine potential for optimisation and cost savings.

Use VM365 as an active control instrument for contractual risks. For a variety of possible company- and business risks there are contractual arrangements. What happens in the event of a damage? How does the company with delivery from supplier? How are claims regulated by customers? An overall risk management helps in the overall assessment of risks, increases transparency and enables the predictability for example by provisions. Risk management is required not only for corporate governance, but with the risk assessment the basis for communication in the framework of business relations of the partners, Lenders and other stakeholders for the protection of business projects.

Avoid possible risks, which may result in incomplete contract management:

• Non-observance of the statutory provisions
• Unequal information booth / missing actuality
• Difficult to find contracts
• Content-related risks of contracts
• Loss of contracts/contract
• Failure of deadlines, Contract options, etc.
• Poor editing process
• Not always transparent authorisation / approval process
• High throughput times, No contract controlling
• Balance sheet- and revision security

Who may create contracts or see? Who approves treaties. In what versions exist contract documents, and which contract document is the valid original. You use VM365 to manage

• Access rights to contracts according to your organizational structure
• All contract stands in the form of comprehensible document versions

According to Microsoft standards is a fully functional document management system with a simple, configurable user management available.

Contracts may involve many departments of a company and edited by several people. Who has edited what contracts when, When contracts have been approved by who, what actions in the event of termination of the contract must - be often contract activities must be closely regulated and are subject to defined (and may be audited) Business processes. VMP365 you to manage these processes simply by:

• Configure a treaty- and Dokumentversionierung
• How to configure a notification- or approval workflow
• Configuring for contract-related fields, GGF. subject to specific target groups
• Configure more complex SharePoint Workflows

Contracts are often filed under valid legislation and picked only when cancellations or in case of dispute. Often contracts but contain information, that should be easy to find for an extended user group. A manager should keep any pending deadlines for contracts in the eye, Central contracts with special conditions can be interesting for the entire company or subsidiaries, etc. At the same time the accessing of confidential and protected contracts can be restricted. Set using the permission settings of VM365, which contracts for which persons are viewable or editable. Thanks to full-text indexing and allow privileged users to reports, quickly relevant contracts to identify and use. All information from all contracts are users - in the framework of assigned access rights - on push of a button available.

Price agreements with suppliers, Purchase orders and invoices are often managed with ERP systems. Contractual bonuses- or discount schemes are not often used, If a buyer does not have these at a glance or can quickly obtain. With VM365 you can all costs- manage and retrieve price agreements and z.B. also reminder set up, to compete with suppliers in new contract negotiations. If you define price lists according to a uniform scheme in the contract management, are also cross-supplier cost comparisons possible.

VM365 is provided through Microsoft Office365 and is available as a Web application available. These can be opened with any Internet browser, and presents itself in the form of the following or similar:

Use VM365 to manage the following basic information:

• Master contract (can be extended)
• Periods and notice periods
• Other contract deadlines
• Contract costs
• Contract documents
• Tasks
• Dates
• Notifications
• Access rights

The managed contract master data vary depending on the configuration and objective. After installation, the required fields can be easily configured and extended. the collection of master data via a contract mask with multiple tabs. In the management of real estate leases, the mask of a contract might look as follows:

Contractors are subject to a private contractor management, which in turn can get data for example from an Outlook contact list. It is also possible, to manage multiple contact persons per Contracting Party.

Capture a follow-up date for termination of the contract in addition to the terms, so is a constant overview of upcoming Künditungsstichtage available via the termination monitor.

A configurable Benachrichtigungssworkflow lets you automatically provide information by E-Mail, If you want to actively respond to possible changes at termination dates.

Full-text search you get at your fingertips interest contracts. Not only the agreement master data, but also the content of all contract documents are searched automatically, so contracts also for a content search to determine. Search results can be further restricted when large amounts of hits about the master data of the contract.

Analysis on the root of the contract are possible through pre-built or customized reports, for example, after Vertragsverantwortlichen, Follow-up appointments or contract status. These reports are freely configurable by non-technical users in minutes.

Also possible is a further analysis of all contracts for an Excel report.

Contract objects are the objects, Equipment or people/groups, Contracts may relate to the, for example, a passenger in a car lease agreement or a company with a corporate contract.

For contract objects, VM365 supports its own object administration

It is possible through the object management, to manage as many contracts to an object (for example, leases in an apartment building) but a contract to assign multiple objects or (for example, a mobile collection contract for all mobile phones used in the company).

VM365 a comprehensive contract management solution offers advantages:

• A complete overview of all contractual operations with security, to be able to act in good time and proactively.
• Complete overview of the risks resulting from contracts (and also opportunities - negotiations for new contracts).
• Considerable amount of time- and cost savings when you create, Manage, Archiving and retrieval of relevant contract information.
• Immediate deployment of Office365 - not your own technical infrastructure required.

Contact us, We also help set up Office365 and show you our contract management solution in a webcast. A short email to sales@locatech.com or a call under +49 231 9159650 is sufficient!

In addition to the department- structures project teams in companies are becoming increasingly important. Especially, tools for project management and project control are necessary to effectively simplify project management and control. Unfortunately, there is no uniform Project management: also the project management processes are as varied as the tools available. There is also not the Central norm for project management, a variety of national DIN- and international ISO standards abound in this area (CF.. z.B. http://www.gpm-InfoCenter.de/).

The central objective remains the same but: How to reach your project goals as a project manager under optimum use of available staff and resources to defined milestones and dates? This article presents a solution approach, It combines the possibilities of more complex project management systems with easy customization options.

A variety of project management tools and specialized software products are competing for the favor of enterprise customers, while at the same time project managers often manage with the probably most widely used project management tool- Microsoft Excel. In addition to established manufacturers such as Oracle, Microsoft and SAP offer many more companies specialized project management software, and also a number of freely available open source software such as, for example, "project open" (http://ww.project-open.com) suitable for many project management-Requirements. However, the market is confusing, the summaries of the Computer week 2011 or Computer week 2013 only a small segment of the more established manufacturers to introduce.

Excel as a purpose weapon already enormously simplifies project management, but it is problematic, If you want to share project information in the team or central update. However, comprehensive project management solutions such as, for example, Microsoft Project Server require accurate planning and usually undergo a more complicated introduction process, because either the products need to be adapted to your request processes or your business processes and thus your project working methods must be adapted to a new product.

Microsoft SharePoint solution as a project management tool?

If you already Microsoft SharePoint use and may be used as strategic platform in your organization, are you easy ways to, to take advantage of the functionality of Microsoft Excel in the team and to add opportunities for collaboration in the project team. In the simplest case, take over an existing Excel-based project management as a central SharePoint list and have immediate benefits through a central synchronization, Team access, an automatic versioning and standard forms to create and edit project information.

Want to implement but a more comprehensive project management for SharePoint, as with PMOffice365 a complete project management solution for Microsoft SharePoint. PMOffice365 is supported for the platforms Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint Foundation and provides comprehensive project management functionality in the areas of:

• Project management
• Team organization
• Document management
• Project controlling
• Project reporting
• Risk management
• Process management
• Interface management

In the foreground is a uniform structure of projects, Partial projects, Project tasks/requirements, and project teams. For each of the objects of this structure is a variety of project-typical attribute fields available, facilitate a direct commissioning without adjustment. You can add more attributes according to your individual requirements or hide also not desired attributes and adjust to the available masks--simple configuration settings. Also, you can customize the terms used in your language.

User interface in the Web browser

For maps, Dynamic list views available are evaluations and reports, similar to Microsoft Excel sort is, can filter or group.

All direct functions of PMOffice365 are accessible via a Web browser. Edit the different project information in clear masks with tab titles, as for example, when creating a project:

These masks can be extensively configured, many project information management remains open at all times. Depending on the setting, certain riders are available only selected user groups available, so that you can manage, for example, project budgets as project manager, While members of your project team can see only the project basic information.

Detailed project information

After the project with the corresponding projects of part of and a project team is created, can the individual tasks or. Add requirements, Defining dependencies between tasks and teams or. assign individual employees. For the management of the project team itself is its own function module available, and the added project contacts can synchronize directly with Microsoft Outlook.

In the tab Project requirements all currently for the project defined requirements or tasks appear and can be edited directly from the mask or supplemented with new requests/tasks:

Tasks by their very nature are more complex and require a downstream processing with possibly multiple stakeholders, so the tasks for forwarding to a ticket system such as z.B can be. LTRS – http://www.locatech-it.com/losungen-leistungen/ltrs-ticketsystem-servicedesk-microsoft-sharepoint/ enable.

Project document management

A tab Project documents upload any project documents, and assign the current project. This is possible also a classification of the document type for later analysis or automated workflows. Also, an automatic versioning of documents is carried out., If you upload newer versions of a document. Even a direct processing of the documents in the PMOffice365 is possible, so that you can configure a central creation and management of all project documents. In this case, a collaboration on the documents in the team is possible, by a documents- and be checked out or by certain types of document feedback- or approval workflows are enabled.

Project team and project staff

For the management of project teams and project staff is a separate module available.

The addition of project team members to project teams, enter the percentage allocation. Over the employee information you have an overview of the percentage utilization of the person at any time distributed across all project teams:

A possible overload of the employee is immediately recognizable and can be avoided by redistributing the tasks possible.

Monitoring, Project controlling, Budget management

Project costs are incurred costs not only through the use of staff in a project, as well as other costs, the z.B. caused by external assignments of project work or costs of infrastructure use. The tab project cost capture and manage all types of project costs and can assign these different types of costs or cost centers.

The accrued costs can be an evaluation - even across multiple projects - as report provides or provided other applications. Manage project costs for example in your ERP system, so it can be passed via a Web service at PMOffice365, so a central charging only at one point must be made. On the tab Project management see immediately, whether the project budget has already been exhausted and how much budget remains.

Risk management

The integrated risk-management module allows the capture and project risk assessment and risk monitoring logging z.B. by project audit. Audit documents can be hung here central to the project. Also the history of the RIS management including the evolving risk assessments is understandable due to the risk history.

Project reporting

PMOffice365 offers comprehensive reporting functions, She both central preconfigured as individual by individual users for their own purposes can be established. Typical evaluations include:

• Cross-project evaluations of project budgets and project workloads
• Evaluation pending resubmissions/project tasks
• Gannt evaluation on the course of the project with the Gantt Web part

 

• Evaluations by project status, Project team or project manager

 

All evaluations can an Excel form- or access query outside of a further analyzed or passed on to third parties.

Full-text searches

With the help of the automatic full text indexing is a search function available, to search not only for specific information from the project administration, but also make transparent information from project documents. So is a Document management already integrated into the standard full-text search feature.

Process management and project workflows

Configurable workflows, you can direct individual structure objects automatically through a defined process of information processing. In the simplest case, this is a feedback- or approval workflow, for example, for a project as a whole, for individual project tasks, for project costs and project documents. You configure comfortably via automated pure Informationsworkflows Email-Notifications.

Interface management

Usually run master data such as for example the employee data to a central directory or cost information in an existing ERP system. Depending on needs to be determined from existing enterprise systems, What information PMOffice365 from another "leading" system provided. Alternatively PMOffice365 can for example planned project costs an ERP system as a source of information to provide. Here possible combinations are generally not directly configurable. However, Microsoft SharePoint offers complete prepared Web services and data interfaces, to process data in other systems to share or even data from third-party systems. Integration with existing systems is possible therefore usually without much effort.

A direct processing of PMOffice365 information in Microsoft Office products (Excel, Access, Outlook, Word) is already possible in the standard without adjustment.

Conclusion

In the combination of Microsoft SharePoint as a universal platform and PMOffice365 as a specialized project management solution to provide all functions, needed for an advanced project management. Not available in the standard functions can be added through configuration, also you can hide unused areas. Also integrate into an existing infrastructure with other internal systems is easily possible.

Therefore PMOffice365 is a very good alternative to a "project management by Excel" and also to very complex project management solutions with complex implementation processes. Basically, also a project portfolio management can be realized in this way.

How to contact with and further steps

Please contact us in connection, the product know to learn and test. We are looking forward to the personal How to contact with and introduce you to the product, with a calculation of costs.

Your contact persons: Rudolf Vehring and Dirk Löhn

Locatech IT solutions GmbH, Bar Opera str. 239 b, 44227 Dortmund

Tel: +49 231 9159650

Email: sales@locatech.com

Web: http://www.locatech.com

Plant: Managed project management fields in the standard PMOffice365 (Configure- and expandable)

Project based data

• Project title
• Project No..
• Description of the project
• Project objectives
• Project risks
• Project activities
• Project Manager
• Project Manager Deputy
• Project Manager Deputy: Phone
• Project Manager Deputy: Email
• Project Manager: Phone
• Project Manager: Email
• Project start
• Project end
• Project days set (planned)
• Project days (booked)
• Project status
• Client
• Client: Contact
• Client: Contact person telephone
• Client: Contact person email
• Contact Deputy
• Partial projects
• Project notes
• Project requests/tasks

Risk management

• Risk monitoring by
• Final audit on
• Audit report

Project controlling

• Project costs
• Project costs total
• Project budget
• Project provisions
• Other project costs
• Project budget (Available)

An analysis of the internal company stands before the introduction of such desks or ticket system Requirements. Although many functions of a ticket system can be standardized, are usually existing processes in your own organization to take into account, GGF. should be connected to third-party systems, possibly several internal support departments should a new, use unified system, short: the requirements should be collected, before you consider a software product in the shortlisted.

Ticket features

• Process file: All emails and information and communications to a ticket must be automatically structured and clearly visible under the respective ticket number.
• Files and documents, as z.B. PDF documents, you want to assign to a ticket.
• The system allows to carry out at any time, who has made what changes/additions to a ticket when (History/versioning). Earlier of a ticket can viewed and if necessary. be restored.
• Printing out a ticket including ticket communications
• Resolves an issue from a ticket, so should the solution be marked and highlighted can.
• Link related tickets via comfortable search function
• Ticket master tickets/summary – Multiple tickets can be assigned to a parent master ticket
• Zusammenführen (Merge) several related tickets to a ticket
• Typical functions like assigning tickets to agents or accept a ticket be carried out quickly with few clicks
• Once closed tickets can be opened again
• External customers a customer portal will be made available, the form-based capturing new tickets and can currently in edit existing tickets to see with the status.
• Right write function
• Expense management/time tracking: The time required for processing a ticket should be recorded and evaluated can
• Error messages from other IT systems (Software or hardware) should tickets be cast automatically - based on the supplied information will it be possible, Auto-mapping to make (z.B. Priority, Editor)

Operation and interface

• Tickets should be about Web forms created and edited.
• Users will automatically be recognized by the system (Single-sign-on)
• The operation will be simple and intuitive, so that no comprehensive user training required
• Ticket creator a customizable Web form for the collection of tickets to be made available
• Ticket agents can buy tickets form based comprehensively capture (z.B. in a phone call to the support
• Personalized home pages available are for ticket creator and ticket agent
  • Ticket creator see "their" tickets along with their current status
  • Ticket agents see tickets assigned to you (their "queue") and a list of new, Unassigned tickets
• All popular Web browsers to be supported, so no installations are required
• Incoming calls on central support number should be collected as in the ticket system ticket.
• Multilingualism: What language versions to the ticket system support (z.B. German/French/Italian for support service providers in the Switzerland)
• Mobile devices (Smartphone/Tablet) are supported

E-Mail integration

• Automatic creation of a ticket when email arrives at a central support email address
• Customer receives automatic notification, that request is received and will be processed, incl. a ticket number
• Automatic Email-Notifications upon receipt of tickets, Acceptance by a processor, Solutions and closing of tickets.
• Collect the E-Mail communication to a ticket in a total ticket operation
• Questions of the customer/ticket creator by E-Mail are possible and are automatically mapped to the respective ticket
• Automatic detection/mapping of E-Mail senders to lookup information (Phone number, Service level...)
• The proper agent is informed automatically incoming replies by the customer
• Support multiple post input trays (Support1@firma.com, Support2@firma.com …)
• External customers should use the ticket system email.
• Reminders for upcoming expiration dates

Ticket fields/attributes

The ticket system is to provide a set of fields for the acquisition and structuring, as well as the subsequent evaluation. This is important to ensure, that on the one hand are enough boxes available, to run later meaningful evaluations, on the other hand the number of fields is not too big, Since this increases the data entry effort and can represent also an additional entry hurdle.:

Workflow/notifications

• Automatic notifications from support staff at ticket entrance, Assignment, Questions etc. The relevant texts should be configurable.
• The reporter or editor will be informed by E-Mail about changes in the ticket.
• New questions/tickets can be assigned to a staff comfortable
• Closes a ticket, so must be possible, This later if necessary to reopen.
• Editors should see any tickets, can edit and apply
• It should allow an escalation function, Ggf tickets. automatically be forwarded to an escalation level, If certain conditions are met (z.B. "Settlement to" expired date, no response within the agreed response time...)
• Follow-up function
• Cooperation in the support team
  • Automatic notification of all support- Staff for new tickets
  • Concise display, what tickets are assigned to which agents
  • At any time traceability, What was edited by whom when a ticket

Search/research and analysis/reporting

The system is intended to provide easy-to-configure evaluations and reports, z.B.

• Tickets can be purchased by any parameters such as z.B. Customer, Editor, Searchable category or keywords
• Full-text search
• Search for tickets to certain customers
• Search for covered fields/categories
• Searchability of filed documents
• Tickets, you are assigned to the current editor
• Tickets by category
• Tickets to status
• Average response times
• Relationship of open to being edited tickets
• Edited tickets per customer
• Graphical evaluations (Bar/pie charts) -configurable
• Controlling evaluations (z.B. for further calculation performance)
• Knowledge Base/WIKI: the system can used base knowledge, Alternatively a new Knowledgebase article can be constructed from tickets simply
• The ticket system must have KPIs. Z.B. How many tickets can be solved per day/week/month, closed tickets vs. Open tickets, identify peaks, …
• Should be possible to sort by multiple criteria, GGF. also multiple levels. For example, you to can see at a glance, which customer has open what tickets, which are strongly, When they were created and when they are to solve.
• Export of ticket statistics for external evaluations

Permissions and roles of people

• Simple permission control
• User login accounts are managed centrally via the Active Directory. The system will use this login (Single-sign-on).
• Groups of users (possible "Reporter") are actively managed in Active Directory. The system recognizes this assignment and assigns permissions system (Creating tickets, Display an individual overview page "My tickets").
• An editor can see all tickets / edit.
• For reporting will observe any. set a group of evaluated.
• The system is designed also by external users (Customers) can be used by E-Mail

 

Interfaces

• Tickets to can be imported as simply as possible from other systems (Excel import)
• Tickets to can be exported easily to outsiders (full export of tickets with all ticket communications)
• Customer relationship management:
  Customer data should be recorded in the system and managed- These data to a third-party system such as an ERP system are alternative, SAP or Dynamics CRM manages and should automatically be in the ticket system available
• Telephony support:
  • Comfortable fast entry of incoming phone support incidents
  • Automatic ticket creation for left voice messages

Adaptability/configurability

• Own evaluations have can easily be created
• The entry page for ticket agents or ticket creator must be easily customizable
• Catalogs/categories/master data can be maintained simply in one place
• Company-internal fields/attributes can be added easily
• The labels for tickets and fields should be administratively customizable
• Defining your own workflows should be possible
• Forms for the collection of the ticket should be easily adaptable
• Made adjustments must be preserved during updates

Comments

Not all of these requirements are essential requirements, may your core requirements are not as comprehensive. When assembling the requirements you should gather very aware not all wishes from all internal surveys, but this prefilter and prioritize suitable. Just to keep the chance, with a standard product to cover all important requirements. If you try, all possible wishes and requirements into account, can afford probably none of the standard products this. All ticket system products probably do not cover the requirements 100 Percent off. Have defined your requirements, can decide very quickly during a product demonstration, whether the necessary cover is given.

In this context, also the adaptability of the system WINS great importance. What effort is expected, If certain, not yet of the investigated product features provided to be configured or programmed must.

Advertising block

A small block of advertising is permitted. Of course, we are pleased, If we can assist you in selecting a ticket system. We offer LTRS/SharePoint an own product as a ticket system/service desk at. On the basis of Microsoft SharePoint is LTRS a standardized solution for the processing of requests and tickets and at the same time highly configurable. You will find more information here.

Contracts in companies strategic importance. In larger organizations, contracts are often managed in different departments or even different companies. Often, it is not transparently obvious, what contracts are valid for which divisions, whether contracts were concluded with the same suppliers at different conditions, planned or actual costs with contracts are connected or when which contracts can be renegotiated or terminated.

Contract management – Keep notice at a glance

In a number of projects we could larger Contract management-Systems on the basis of Microsoft SharePoint introduce and have this experience, the less the technical implementation as rather organisational set up of the project, the Project management and the right, to the success of the project relate to leading how to. This article describes some of these experiences and offers also a small checklist for organizations, deal with the introduction of a central contract management.

The term"Contract"can be very broad in larger organizations, possible specifications ranging from strategic framework contracts for letter of intents to normal rental, Work, Maintenance contracts. But also non-disclosure agreements (Non disclosure agreement) are contracts, that is not only stored, but must be found quickly in the event of a dispute and evaluated. Even orders by suppliers, Performance tickets are contracts or contract elements.

This makes the introduction of a comprehensive and transparent contract management easier, be completed but orders and orders generally by ERP system, While the various treaties in different departments with different tools are managed. And additional important information such as customer data or orders can be in an SAP system, Staff- and organizational information in an Active Directory, Contract lists in Excel files etc..

In addition, access permissions play a special role in contracts. For each type of contract, there is usually a defined user group, create the contracts, Edit, or see a. Also confidential contracts may be subject to special rules of confidentiality.

Finally, privacy considerations are introduced a contract management, and also, the Works Council must be included with, but for many contracts, personal data stored and processed.

It all depends on the Organization

A centralized contract management can therefore not be introduced "just". For an introduction to successful, are the following organisational prerequisites essential:

• A clear Mandate of the management, that a central, comprehensive contract management will be introduced. Such an introduction is a change management project, and without a clear commitment of the management team, an implementation can not succeed, because working methods must be changed and resistance and delay trends are expected in departments.
• A project team equipped with this mandate, combines the organizational and technical skills, with a strong enforcement project manager.
• Use one of Steering Committee of all stakeholders. This should be no roundtable discussion with representatives of all departments, but a small circle of companywide shall Manager, support the introduction and promote.
• Headquarters strategic objective for the entire company. What advantages will a centralized contract management for the entire organization? These objectives must be formulated for all transparent and clearly and regularly communicates, the effort for the implementation of, Implementation and changes to justify. Typical, overarching goals are for example:

• Increase the transparency of signed contracts and thus creating Verhandlungsspielräumen (z.B. with suppliers)
• Terms controlling: Automatic reminders to notice and deadlines
• Savings when you enter, Approve, Search contracts
• Comprehensive reporting
• Avoidance of contract risks

Interests and interested – the “Stakeholder”

A strategic project such as the introduction of contract management, the project always in aware should be, which stakeholder on the project are interested in and also what interests you. In larger organizations, stakeholders are most

• The Executive Board or. the Executive Management
• Project management
• Representatives from one or more departments, stand for the first implementation pilot departments available
• Central IT/system support

Also, the potential impact of the introduction in terms of should already in the design phase to

• Privacy policy
• Brought/Works Council

be evaluated. Because in general personal data are processed and increasing the transparency of the work, such introductions are subject to a participation and need to be evaluated by a data protection officer. By an early evaluation you can avoid later delays or complex adjustments in the actual project.

Who actually wants what?

An assessment is not to be underestimated, which parties pursue what interests. Not always the State of the request is given - all stakeholders pull together-. A good internal communication is important, a teambuilding with all stakeholders and the removal of barriers. So, for example, the IT Department should be clear, that an external service provider not a competitor, but is a temporary team addition. And if employees legacy systems support, that should be replaced, should these be convinced in the run-up to the advantages of new system and support the project.

These considerations apply to all major IT projects in course, but are the introduction of contract management of particular importance, because many departments are affected and because of business-critical documents.

Checklist and phased plan

Prior to the introduction of a process solution for Contract management must the Requirements be defined in a solution. For such purposes, a small checklist is elaborated, It will help you, the necessary preparations to meet. Thus effectively reduce the total cost of an introduction, but a large part of the effort by organisational issues and the often smaller part resulting in the technical implementation.

The following checklist is not exhaustive, but offers an introduction and should jointly answered with your service provider or. be complemented.

1. Target rules

What are the key objectives for the contract management? We would these prioritize goals? Examples as shown above:

• Increase the transparency of signed contracts and thus creating Verhandlungsspielräumen (z.B. with suppliers)
• Terms controlling: Automatic reminders to notice and deadlines
• Savings when you enter, Approve, Search contracts
• Comprehensive reporting
• Avoidance of contract risks

2. Initial situation analysis

The departments concerned should be questioned in detail about, how you manage your contracts so far and what attributes / They need information on the contracts in the future, to find, for example, documents. The requirements of each Department are usually individually and are then configured in the form of various types of contracts in the contract management.

• What kinds of contracts or. to be managed with the software?
• There are how many contracts per contract type (Order of magnitude)?
• In what state (Paper, Scan)?
• What additional information (Cover letter, Communication) have been managed so far, together with the treaties and. are to be managed in the future?
• How did times so far, Notice periods etc. managed?
• Who are the parties? Contact lists already exist in electronic form?
• There are (each contract type) a currently carried out contract management, where the essential characteristics of the contract such as z.B. Deadlines, Conditions, Validity, etc. be kept up-to-date? In what form is the management (Excel, ERP-system...)
• For what types of departments/contracts to the software in the first implementation be implemented?

The identified types of contract, What additional information (Meta-information) to be maintained for each contract type? Examples of possible fields below.

3. Collect and consolidate the requirements

Focus in the specification on one or two pilot departments. Even though the requirements/needs of all departments should be included, is the restriction on a pilot Department very useful, to shorten a long - perhaps never-ending - request discussion. A structuring of the requirements might look as follows:

Contract storage

What types or classes of documents to be managed? Examples include contract designs, signed original, Price lists, Correspondence, Resignation letter, Confirmation cancellation, Documents/presentations of the contractual partner, etc.

Contract attributes

The following list is an example and includes the most common attributes (our project experience)

• Contract title
• Contract dealer
• Contractor/contractor
• Contract status (What is the status can a contract have (GGF. differentiated by type of contract)? Example: Active, Dormant, Expired, Announced, Resubmission, Inactive, Interrupted)
• Contract type (Lease, Lease agreement...)
• associated Department/Division
• Contract number (Number ranges of created departments, The contract partner number)
• Contract key/category
• Contract responsible persons
• Scopes for contract (for example geographical scopes for globally operating companies)
• Associated/related contracts (Framework contracts, overarching contract regulations, separately managed systems, z.B. Performance tickets)
• Contract dates (Completion date, Term of contract, Cancellation deadlines, Extension options, Resubmissions)
• Undersigned persons/Unterschrifstdatum
• Place of storage of the original paper contract
• Language of the contract
• Contract costs (Once/periodic/variable)
• Contract currency
• Terms of payment

Depending on the constellation, a lot more contract attributes may be desired/useful, and ggf. certain information in third-party systems such as z.B. an ERP system manages. Important here is a balance and balance between

• the desire, to be able to perform later comprehensively as possible all types of evaluations
• the effort in capturing contracts

Only attributes are basically fully evaluable, that must be entered as a mandatory. One often sensible approach is, to prescribe minimum required fields for creating a contract, to enable a quick first version, only when the contractual status more fields specific to provide, for example, if a legal agreement will be filed.

Document management

• Editing and automatic versioning possible/desirable?
• Approval workflow?
• Import/export documents?

Compliance requirements

• History/versioning of all changes to contracts and contract attributes?
• Given revision security? What is revision security defined in your organization?

Privileges and responsibilities

• What people have which roles in relation to the contract (Person in charge, Accounting clerk, Supervisors, legal contact).
• For who is a contract relevant/valid?May these people see the contracts or even edit? Only insight in the contract attributes (Evaluations) or in the documents themselves

Reporting

• What types of evaluations are needed?
• Simple create/expand reports

Search/retrieval of contracts

• Full-text search
• Search for categories/attributes or. Combinations
• Entry pages
• To do lists

Notifications

Automatic notifications of specific changes, z.B.

• early expiration of notice
• Changes made by others

Multilingualism

Is there a central corporate language, or must the system be multilingual? What languages should be supported?

Interfaces

What third-party systems to provide data? For which third-party systems must data be provided. Examples:

• Can person master data from an SAP system or from a directory service (Active Directory) come
• Contractual partner master data can come from an ERP system
• Contract information must be provided if necessary. other systems can be deployed
• If other contract management systems in use and should be replaced immediately, is a contract information synchronization to ensure
• Contract files need for third parties (z.B. a law firm) provided/exported can be

Data migration

The data to be migrated must be planned carefully in the course of separation from other contract management systems. This is usually a small subproject.

4. Implementation timetable

The creation and adoption of an implementation roadmap (called also roadmap) is of crucial importance. This plan should take into account organisational and technological aspects

• Request catalog
• Internal conception of the project
• Tendering/evaluation product manufacturer/service provider
• Selection process and budgeting
• GGF. Pilot project with provider(n)
• Development of fine concept / Implementation specification together with supplier/service provider

Following should be started with the classic implementation. In this first phase, "Selling" the benefits of a central is contract management inside at least as much as the choice of the "right" partner and service provider.

These hurdles are taken and sit a stakeholder, Project team and external partners really in a boat with a common goal, then, nothing in the way of a successful launch.

Summary

Unfortunately, many implementation projects are still longer than planned take, be more expensive or very scheitern. Ultimately, there is no guarantee recipe for the successful introduction of contract management, but experience shows, that you repeatedly underestimated the organizational hurdles. The organizational conditions are good and the service provider is competent and both technically as well versed on organizational, easily manage these projects. Are not given the organisational requirements, failure even the best project team.

Finally made it, the new version 2.0 our ticket system/service desks for Microsoft SharePoint is shipped out of the quality assurance and our existing customers. A lot has changed in the new version. As I have already in a previous article described, It is located at LTRS to find a solution, ITIL compliant cover all the processes and procedures used to edit tickets or service requests and at the same time completely in Microsoft SharePoint is integrated. LTRS is varied through the SharePoint integration, customizable comfortably and easily to the needs of your organization. In the standard almost all typical support incidents are already covered but after installation.

Edit requests/tickets in the Service desk

What's new? – ITIL Problem Management

How, for example, here defined LTRS covers all aspects of the ITIL problem management fully off of the Problem identification, Kategorisierung, Prioritization, Diagnosis, Solution, Monitoring, Conclusion, Evaluation, Review and Reporting. New to the Previous version are u.a. the following functions:

Automatic mapping/classification of tickets/questions via rule management

The implemented in LTRS Rule management allows the automation of workflow and assign queues by rules, that will be applied when you create or edit tickets. Dependent of the sender/ticket creator, of the title or the description of a ticket agent or support team can, Priority, Category or a free-form day for a ticket will be set automatically. Also, you can define, If the automatic E-mail delivery for certain ticket creator should be disabled or certain Email-Footer to be removed upon the email receipt.

Application examples:

• Incoming mail from a computer system or a third-party software such as SAP can be associated automatically a reviewer or a support team on the basis of your email subject.
• Tickets/requests certain people can height automatically with a priority are provided

Association contact information, Inventory information or defined service level agreements with the SharePoint master datamanagement

LTRS supports the automatic addition of tickets with information about the creator of a ticket. So you can for example tickets from specific people or specific email addresses (z.B. all mails with the extension @firma.com) automatically information such as company name, Phone number, Type of service level agreements or are automatically added to the deployed hardware/software.

The master data required for this purpose are recorded in any extensible master list on the LTRS website. This can be for example a default contact list, which is automatically synchronized with your Outlook contacts.

Graphical evaluations

SharePoint integration, any evaluations with SharePoint Board funds could z.B already in the previous version. be generated through configurable views or Excel reports. The now possible representation of LTRS evaluations in graphical form is new. A graphical representation of various evaluations (z.B. by category, Ticket creator, affected companies and priority) could look like this:

Graphical reports with LTRS ticket system/Service desk

Link tickets

To be described in a ticket a problem, that has already been described in one other ticket, similar to, can you assign the new ticket the already existing ticket. This convenient search options available are, You can search for any keyword, for example, related tickets to identify and assign to each other. Resolves a ticket, so the associated tickets can be identified immediately.

Universal form to quickly create a ticket / request

As an alternative to the SharePoint form and E-Mail a ticket WebPart available available now, that you can universally make available on any SharePoint page users. The fields displayed in the form can be configured, so that you can embed a form to quickly submit of a request to the support for example on a central intranet site.

LTRS quick form

Meet LTRS

These are just some of the new features and many improvements in detail. The new version also offers a print preview, advanced forms, Advanced email functionality, and much more. Gladly we introduce LTRS in a webcast and provide a 30-day trial for your system environment.

A call (Tel: +49 231 9159650) or email sales@locatech.com is sufficient. We look forward to the conversation.

The team of the Locatech IT solutions

After a very busy summer in the location, we are finally, unser seit April verfügbares Produkt LTRS für SharePoint vorzustellen. Mit LTRS steht Ihnen ein umfassendes Service Desk / Ticketsystem auf der Basis von Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (or also SharePoint Foundation) available.

LTRS extends the capabilities of SharePoint to a processing system for employees of the IT department or an IT service provider, to requests, Problems or IT tasks with complete Email-Support for users and editors to organize and work out. Tickets will be assigned to this individual problem cases or requests, a simple, largely automated and structured editing, and solving problems to enable.

In addition, supports the establishment of a knowledge database or KnowledgeBase LTRS and is varied on its own Requirements customizable and extensible. This article provides an overview of the main functions of LTRS.

LTRS ticket system as SharePoint Portal solution

Email support

LTRS offers extensive email support. User requests to a configurable email address and automatically notifies you, When changing the status of their request, or a support professional provides a complementary information or queries about the service request.

E-Mail Templates

The amount of email notifications can be configured through Central settings or changed. Also the employee of a ticket can decide each case, whether a piece of information to a ticket to the user is or not sent.

A central E-Mail address is stored for the ticket system, can be sent to the requests by E-Mail. To open a ticket, senden Sie einfach eine E-Mail an die zentrale Support-E-Mail-Adresse, and make the necessary information in the subject line and the email itself. GGF. You can add meaningful documents or screenshots as attachment to this E-Mail.

The ticket agent will receive a complete overview of the entire process when opening the ticket and can reproduce at any time, When the information with what content has been sent.

In any case, all communications to the ticket is stored centrally in the SharePoint Portal and is also in the frame (permission-driven) Full-text search. A KnowledgeBase is created in combination with a wiki system and a central repository of tutorials and FAQs, the – graded by permissions – for IT support and also for the user be provided can.

More, to any other fields, responsive email notifications can be configured freely with our notification WebPart. This configuration is possible for fields of information you yourself added.

State management, and pre-configured workflows

LTRS offers a variety of function-controlling status, -configurable - trigger actions and effectively complement the communication process to the ticket processing or. automate. The naming of the status fields is adjustable, and also more status for specific requirements/analysis can be complemented as. The actions can be configured individually using a central configuration page.

Tickets received after applying first a raw status "Pending", He changes the processing of tickets in a processing status and after you complete a ticket in a completed status. It also supports different intermediate States. In the fields on this tab, you enter, what text should be used for the different status in forms and in email communications.

Forms

Form to create a new ticket

Creating a ticket is both by E-Mail as well as possible forms-based. The link to invoke the creation form can be referred to differently depending on the configuration of your system. Also, you can freely choose the labels used in the form, and configure.

Open a form for creating a new ticket directly from the Central Administration of the ticket or from configured location within your SharePoint environment.

You can add files or screenshots as attachment. You can format any descriptive text with the built-in Editor.

 

Evaluations and surveys

Easy-to-define evaluations

LTRS allows the creation of any evaluations and surveys, similar to the possibilities, You, for example, in Microsoft Have Excel. You can set up user-specific or General reports and filter these according to your wishes, sort or group. The evaluation after you set, additional fields is possible without any problems.

 

Ticket management

You make the settings for the ticketing system on the Web page management of SharePoint. The ticket system has its own management page, all other settings are made with standard SharePoint features.

The assignment of a unique ticket number via a configurable number range. This serves as a reference ID in the remainder of the ticket processing partly automated email communication.

Permissions and user management

First, you must decide, which groups of users of ticket forms may edit or display evaluations. With this information you then set the permissions and user groups in Microsoft SharePoint. LTRS is fully integrated with Microsoft SharePoint permissions management. This includes also the search function, so that only authorized users search results from the LTRS.

Technology and architecture

LTRS is completely a solution integrated with Microsoft SharePoint and uses or. expanded list, Forms and email functionality of SharePoint. All features provided by SharePoint such as browser access will be, Security- and permission mechanisms, Search functions, Support for workflows and views and evaluations.

System requirements

Requires LTRS SharePoint Server 2010 or the free SharePoint Foundation with the turn required Windows Server environment. Basically, LTRS in a virtualized environment can be easily operated. In addition, the E-Mail function must be established by Microsoft SharePoint, so that SharePoint can send emails and receive.

LTRS is installed as a SharePoint solution initial through us and configured together with you. Further adjustments in the connection can by the customers themselves, be carried out by us or by one of our partners.

Licensing and cost

LTRS is based on licensed by the number of the ticket agent and in a Home Edition (bis 3 Bearbeiter), Business Edition (until 10 Editor) and Enterprise Edition(Number editor unlimited) offered. To support a freely configurable email notification to customer-specific fields is observe any. the Licensing our notification WebParts required.

Depending on the desired customizing request Workshop costs, Customizing, Installation and ggf. Training on.

The next step

Please arrange a webcast or a prior on-site appointment with us, to learn about LTRS. For evaluation purposes, also a test installation is possible on your SharePoint platform. Depending on the usage scenario in your organization we provide you gladly an individual offer.

Write us to sales@locatech.com, or better yet, call us: +49 231 9159650

Its LTRS team

————- Update ————–
You can find this article as a printable PDF in Link to the PDF document

————- Update ————–

The handling of complaints takes many companies Yet the role of a, that she deserves. Finally, a company of the customer business thrives, and a complaint indicates, that something, at least from the point of view of the customer, is not in order. Complaints are "bad news", that prefer to be replaced. Especially in bad news but is a tremendous opportunity, Finally can on the basis of a complaint processes to the test set and - in terms of all other customers-. Also, companies should those customers, claim that a delivery or performance, be thankful. This behavior shows, that, basically, the customer has interest, to work with the company.
continue reading…

—————— Update 08/2012 ———–

A current, You will find here further articles about the organizational challenges in establishing a contract management:

http://www.locatech-it.com/technologien-plattformen/sharepoint/einfuhrung-eines-zentralen-vertragsmanagements-in-unternehmen-leitfaden-und-checkliste/

—————————————————

Prior to the introduction of a process solution such as a system for the Contract management the existing processes have illuminated and the Requirements be defined in a solution. For such purposes we have developed a checklist, It will help you, the necessary preparations to meet. Thus effectively reduce the total cost of an introduction, but a large part of the effort by organisational issues and the often smaller part resulting in the technical implementation.

The following checklist is not exhaustive, but it provides a good overview and should together answered with your service provider or. be complemented. Subsequently, a solution - such as z.B can then. the on ECSpand based SharePoint Contract management -be implemented very cost effective.

1. Target rules

What are the key objectives for the contract management? We would these prioritize goals? Examples:

• Better deadline, automatic notifications
• Analysis/reporting of contract data
• Compliance
• Faster retrieval

2. Initial situation analysis

The departments concerned should in detail about interviewed, how you manage your contracts so far and what continue reading…

With Office 365 offers Microsoft its customers a – compared to the previous license jungle – very simple subscription model (per user per month) on, with nearly all Office functions hosted cloud platform by Microsoft on the desktop, as well as a can be used. This aimed Microsoft Office 365 both small and medium-sized companies as well as corporations and large organizations.

Office 365 has essentially

• the access to Email, Documents, Central contacts and calendar functions almost independently of the device (PC, Mobile, Tablet...
• the simple, protected information sharing for the cooperation with other employees, Customers and partners
• Microsoft Office for the desktop in combination with Web applications
• According to the plan (see below) a simple community support or a comprehensive IT support around the clock
• Data center operations with 99.9% Availability, geographically distributed redundancy of data centers and other safety features
• Functions for enterprise portals, Extranets, Websites, Instant Messaging, Video- and Web conferencing

The costs flat only depend on the number of users and will be charged monthly. In Office 365 are the following products included

• Microsoft Office Professional plus + Office Web apps integrated
• Exchange online
• SharePoint online
• Lync online

Usage scenario 1: Office 365 for small organizations (up to a maximum 50 User)

Organisations/companies with maximum 50 Paying users and very limited own IT infrastructure $5.25 per user per month.

For this you will receive:

• Office Web apps
• Exchange online e-mail, Mobile Access, Calendar, Contacts , Anti virus, Anti-spam
• SharePoint online for team sites, Access database services and simple public Web sites
• Lync online for instant messaging and online meetings
• Support only via moderated Internet forums

Usage scenario 2: Office 365 for larger companies and organizations

Here, there are a number of 'Plans' for different usage scenarios. All a high uptime guarantee is shared by 99,9 % for the IT infrastructure and IT support via phone/Web/E-Mail, reasonably large mail boxes (25 GB), Active Directory use, the latest version of Office Professional plus in combination with the Office Web apps, Anti virus- and anti spam protection, Instant Messaging, Online meetings, Video conferences, SharePoint team sites.

Organisations or companies, that previously used the online services from Microsoft and the Office Professional plus as desktop software with all available features of Exchange, Combine SharePoint and Lync online, pay €22.75 per user per month.

Free test: Can be quickly and easily for a free trial of Office365 unlock.

• Here is your invitation link.

More information to Office365 can be found here.

Conclusion

This will be exciting. Raises but real pounds behind Microsoft, to at the Cloud computing his claims to unplug and take the wind out of the sails in particular the Google Apps. The combination of Office software for the desktop and the new cloud services Microsoft is trying, Cash cows “Office” as a hosted solution to make the money ass. And for those companies, that is still not their entire IT infrastructure in the cloud would shift (and most of these are currently) is the perfect cloud gateway drug available with the combination of Office desktop and Office/Web.