Before explaining Job Management and how it can help job or project-oriented businesses such as construction, here's a little bit of background for you.

Virtually all businesses need some form of diary management, email to communicate internally and externally, some form of contact management to keep a record of what's been done and needs to be done, plus task management to help ensure that what needs to be done gets done on time. Typically, most businesses are trying to use Microsoft Outlook to do this. Some are using specialist contact management software such as ACT! or Goldmine as well as Outlook, increasing the number of applications on the desktop. 

Sharing information - a traditional four dimensional view

Most businesses can benefit from having all this information easily shareable, readily available and tightly integrated. Microsoft Exchange can help provide this functionality for Outlook users. Exchange is a robust application that will scale to thousands of users across multiple sites. Arguably, it's this very scalability that can make it a complex solution for SMEs. Also, it does not necessarily provide all the contact management functionality required.

Contact management software can go some way to plugging this gap. However, ACT! and Goldmine were originally developed as single user products, primarily for a sales environment. Accordingly, they are still very sales-focused and, in our view, not at their best in project-oriented and collaborative environments.

A combination of Microsoft Outlook and Exchange Server and a Contact Management solution should provide a four dimensional view of all your business interactions - by company and individual contact, by user and by time period.

Project planning and tracking - a further requirement

Construction and other job or project-oriented businesses require some kind of project planning and tracking. There is a range of construction and engineering specific solutions that can address this. However, the market is dominated by Microsoft Project. Project can be used for pretty much everything from simple, duration-based scheduling through to being a key component of a sophisticated programme management solution, run by a specialist programme management office. So, now we potentially have three applications on the desktop. However, still the job is not quite done.

The need for a fifth dimension

The four dimensions referred to above are simply not sufficient. Construction and other project-oriented businesses require a fifth dimension: pulling all interactions together by project (or job, assignment or asset). Historically, with paper-based systems, this fifth dimension might have been provided by project files or job bags. Sareen Software call this "Job Management," to distinguish today's electronic version of this from the traditional project task planning and tracking provided by Project Management solutions. Job Management pulls everything together on any job or project that you work on, regardless of user, company or contact. This is because every note, document, email, appointment, meeting and task can be associated with an individual project (or job) as well as with a contact, company and user without any duplication of data.

Sareen believe that Job Management's project-based view of everything that goes on in a business is fundamental to the effective running of any construction or other job or project-oriented business. It is only with such a project-based view of what is going on that everyone within the organisation can efficiently establish the status of any job at any time.

However, whilst this job based view is fundamental, the requirement for other views of the information can be just as important. It is usually as important to see all interactions regardless of project with an individual customer, supplier, sub or main contractor, or planning department / officer as examples. So Job Management is not a replacement for any of the other dimensions that we require on the information that we hold.

Job Management - a new take on a tried and tested concept

With Job Management, the objective is to include all relevant tasks, actions and interactions, providing a complete picture of all of the "soft" as well as "hard" transactions (such as  contract information, work requisitions and purchase orders) that are required to complete projects on time, as required and within budget.

This concept has, perhaps, been most successfully executed to date in legal firms, in which "cases" or "matters" closely parallel projects or jobs in construction and other industries. Case Management solutions such as Amicus Attorney and Time Matters have ten's of thousands of users worldwide, although predominantly in North America.

Could job management be relevant for your business?

At Sareen Software, we have identified eight key questions, the answers to which will indicate if some form of Job Management is relevant to your business, regardless of the industry sector in which you work.

There are no absolutes in deciding whether job management could be right for your organisation. However, the more questions to which the answer is "more" and the greater the "more" is, the more likely it is that some form of job management could help your business run more efficiently and effectively:

.The length of time over which the job runs (less to more)
.The information to be held about the job as a whole (less to more)
.The number of people involved in each job within our own organisation (fewer to more)
.The number of external organisations involved in each job (fewer to more)
.The number of people involved within each external organisation (fewer to more)
.The number of tasks, actions or interactions within a job (fewer to more)
.The number of jobs live at any time (fewer to more)
.The number of jobs completed in any year (fewer to more).

Sareen Software's OfficeTalk Version 4 Professional edition has moved to the fifth dimension and introduced new Job Management functionality alongside diary and task management, contact management and e-mail, all in one application. The Professional edition also includes simple, bar chart based project planning and tracking, providing a comprehensive project-oriented business management solution in one application.