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I find myself confused about the OF workflow. My plan was to use OF really as a CRM. I haven't gotten that to work and don't know how, so thought I'd use it to manage jobs. I've tried several things but none make the task any easier. Let me throw out a few things to you and maybe you can show me how it could be done.

The setup: I'm managing a landscape company. I have crews that go to properties (contexts?) and do maintenance (which includes a variety of tasks, or actions, sometimes on a weekly, monthly, or less frequent basis). Some crew members do specific things (i.e. fill out and turn in paperwork, manage equipment, go to the dump, etc.).

I have construction crews too. Their "projects" are as needed but usually follow a similar process each time (i.e. getting equipment there, sometimes renting, prepping the site, building the wall/patio/walk/drive, planting plants, etc.).

One or more of us work on the designs. I handle sales and make sure the accounting gets done, the payroll gets done, the customers get responses to their questions, the social websites get updated, the blog gets updated, the materials get purchased, the crews get scheduled, the training gets completed, the computer network keeps running, the building gets repaired, etc. Oh, and I have a personal life when there is time, so that has to be managed in there too. (Are these contexts?)

OK, the trouble (I think) comes when I use the iPhone version and want to use the contexts with locations. I am assuming they can help me schedule routes for the crew and where I have to go next. If I use contexts for job locations I will have to enter hundreds of job locations. On the other hand if I used "projects" for customer jobs I really don't have location based contexts for them. In either case, I run into another problem of duplicate titled actions. Say Mr. Smith who lives on X St. needs to have his lawn mowed, trimmed, and beds weeded this week. Now say Mrs, Butterworth who lives on Y Rd. only needs the lawn to be mowed and trimmed. Last but not least, Ms. Tankard needs the lawn mowed but doesn't want the clippings picked up, trimmed, beds weeded, shrubs pruned, and it has to be done by Thursday at 4:30. Oh, and she only wants Steve to do it. She lives on X St. too.

After the fact, I need to make sure we get paid. Mr. S pays at the end of the month, Mrs. B leaves a check or cash, and Ms. T has to be sent an invoice (delivered by Steve).

How do you suggest using OF in these situations, if at all?

Last edited by Don1; 2010-11-29 at 10:03 AM..
 
No, really. I'm looking for help on this.
 
This seems like the kind of business that could be modeled in OF but it may be worth experimenting with grouping Clients as Folders with job projects in Folders and alternatively grouping Tasks Types (Design, Construction, Yard work) as Folders with Folders for each client (there may be a folder for each client in each Task Type). Once you have all the jobs entered, you can experiment with moving them around various organizational hierarchies.

I'd start with a Folder for Work, a subfolder for "Web Site" and another for "Clients", another for "Payroll" and other subfolders for whatever other areas of responsibility you have. A Project would be the goal to accomplish, some of which will repeat (Mow this guy's lawn, file payroll this month) and other which won't (design that guy's retaining wall). While a Client can have their address as a default context, there will be some projects and actions in that folder which use other contexts, as you've mentioned--no harm in that.

Then you can use Context view to get a list of things for a construction guy to do or a focused Project view when it's time to sit down and do payroll.

Don't give up. Let the hierarchy grow out of how you actually work. It's takes a second to make a Project a Folder and another to change your mind if it's not working for you. You may well have hundreds of Clients folders and their addresses as Contexts, but isn't that what computers are for?
 
Happy to help, Don1, and welcome to the forums. Just so you know, the Omni folks here read the forums as we're able to on top of our other duties, but for a few days after a holiday weekend, we may not be able to do so.

That said, if you want a rapid/guaranteed response, feel free to give us a call (800.315.6664) and/or email us and we're happy to help. Even after the 4-day Thanksgiving weekend, we've been able to respond to everyone that emailed or left a message within 24 hours.

I think taking advantage of nested contexts will help here. Customers are a context, with the job sites that are associated with each nested inside. I'd make your coworkers into contexts, as well.

That lets you assign the job sites locations, while still telling which customers they're associated with. The parent context also gives you a place to put actions like "Ensure we got paid for Mowing Ms. Tankard's lawn". (Assigned to her context.)

I'd also make contexts for your coworkers, to store actions like "Make sure Steve mows Ms. Tankard's lawn." (Assigned to Steve, with a due date sometime on Thursday.)

Those previous two actions could easily live in a folder/project structure like pjb describes.

(Support for template projects is one of the ideas we're kicking around, but in the meantime you may want to take advantage of Curt Clifton's Populate Template Placeholders script.)

Does that help?
 
 


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