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Consider the following scenarios:
In each of these situations, a cloud-based document management system can prove to be an essential part of your firm’s tech stack. The anywhere, anytime access such a system provides doesn’t just allow your staff more flexibility; it creates a more accurate, consistent product and facilitates a better client experience.
Whether your goal is to grow by adding new services, retaining 100% of your current clients, or simply finding ways to help yourself and your staff practice better work-life balance, the right document management system is a valuable tool to help you get there.
Many firms are moving to CCH iFirm Document Vault and Client Portal with digital signatures. Feedback from our clients who have undertaken their own research of many offerings on the market is that CCH iFirm is the preferred choice when it came to functionality, efficiency gains, productivity, and cost.
CCH iFirm Document Vault is a dynamic, integrated, cloud-based document management solution, built for the CCH iFirm eco-system, enabling integration with Contacts, Jobs, Client Portal, Intranet and MS Office apps. Enabling seamless digital document flows with your colleagues and clients, CCH iFirm Document Vault improves efficiency and promotes collaboration between colleagues and clients.
When you have to be right
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January 29, 2020 09:00 ET | Source: Access Corp. Access Corp.
Woburn, Massachusetts, UNITED STATES
TORONTO, Jan. 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Access, the world’s largest privately-held records and information management (RIM) services provider, today announced its continued push to serve Canada from coast to coast with the latest acquisitions of Command Records Management (London, Ontario), Shredder’s, Inc. (Halifax, Nova Scotia), Access Records & Media Management (Victoria, British Columbia) and Butler Box & Storage, Inc. (Vancouver, British Columbia). In 2019, Access acquired a total of six companies in Canada.
With these new acquisitions, Access now offers a deep and broad portfolio of information governance and information management solutions in more than 60 Canadian markets. Operating coast-to-coast in Canada, Access serves most major cities and surrounding areas including Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Saint John, Halifax, and St. John’s.
“The need for information governance, data protection, and records management has never been greater, as digital data grows exponentially and most companies still operate using paper documents,” said Chad Bevington, Access’ Executive Vice President for Canada. “For those doing business in Canada, we’ve got you covered. Our complete information lifecycle solution includes safe, secure, and efficient offsite storage, document management software, secure destruction, and IG (information governance) consulting capabilities. We help clients reduce their risk and operate more efficiently.”
Bevington continued, “Access’ mission is to advance how the world manages information with the very best service. As we roll out our brand and solutions across Canada, we are excited to share our partnership approach and innovative thinking with our Canadian clients and with prospective clients. Our website, www.accesscorp.com is a great resource for those looking to learn more about information management and Access’ full suite of services, expertise, and technologies.”
Access now has more than 300 team members across Canada, operates more than 30 records centres and has more than 120 vehicles with the Access logo. All told, Access has acquired and integrated 14 separate companies in Canada in the past two years, establishing a strong foundation for its continued growth and investment.
About Access
Access is the largest privately-held records and information management services provider world wide, with operations across the United States, Canada, Central America and South America. Access provides transformative services, expertise, and technologies to make organizations more efficient and more compliant. Access helps companies manage and activate their critical business information through offsite storage and information governance services, scanning and digital transformation solutions, document management software including CartaHR, CartaDC, and CartaDC Essentials, and secure destruction services. For 11 consecutive years, Access has been named to the Inc. 5000, the ranking of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. For more information visit https://www.accesscorp.com.
For more media information, contact:
Lisa Hendrickson/LCH Communications for Access
516-767-8390
lisa@lchcommunications.com
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by Maricel Rivera | Updated Aug. 5, 2022 – First published on May 18, 2022
Image source: Getty Images
Project management involves many moving parts, and project managers must apply an assortment of knowledge, project management tools, techniques, and skills to deliver projects according to specifications.
So that new project managers don’t get overwhelmed by the extent of the knowledge they must have to fully understand their many responsibilities, the Project Management Institute (PMI), through the PMBOK Guide (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge) — a collection of standardized project management guidelines, best practices, and terminology — has divided project management into 10 knowledge areas, specifically:
In this guide, we’ll talk about project integration management, which is a key project management basics component, the phases or processes involved, and some of the best project management software options to consider for your integration management plan.
Project integration management brings together all of the different aspects of a project into one cohesive whole. It’s a necessary success factor in project management, particularly when different business areas or departments have to work together on a project.
Every department has its own way of doing things, which is a double-edged sword.
On the positive side, they don’t have to learn new methods and techniques to get things done; they can stick to what they know delivers results. On the other side, different departments implementing different tools and processes can make project collaboration extremely difficult.
Then, there are large projects with numerous parts and pieces. To successfully complete a project, each piece must function like a jigsaw puzzle piece that aligns with all of the other pieces. Otherwise, the project will have trouble meeting deadlines or quality and budget requirements.
In some cases, projects will have to be shelved so organizations don’t suffer further losses.
Project integration management coordinates all of the different processes that a project has to undergo to create consistency from beginning to end. It follows six processes.
A project charter, also known as a project definition document, contains the project’s preliminary objectives, goals, and scope. It establishes the authority of the project manager, identifies who the key stakeholders are, the teams involved, and their responsibilities.
The project charter is used throughout the project life cycle as a reference document.
The project management plan outlines the different project management steps and processes necessary to efficiently bring the project to completion.
It also defines the project’s budget, scope, and schedule, individual team members’ roles and responsibilities, how risks will be managed, how scope change requests will be handled, and so on.
Essentially, the project plan details what needs to be done and how it should be done.
This is the process of managing and executing the various work components, methods, and standards defined in the project plan, including implementing approved changes.
The goal of this process is to provide overall management of the project so that it ultimately meets agreed-upon requirements.
Alongside facilitating project execution is monitoring and control. This is important because if you’re not tracking actual project performance versus objectives, quality may suffer, or the project may exceed its allotted budget or time.
Requests that will affect established baselines should be carefully reviewed, and preventive actions, such as training certain members on certain tasks so they can take over in case someone gets sick or is transferred to another project, must be undertaken to prevent delays.
This is where all changes — hence the word “integrated” — are assessed, analyzed, and decided upon. Depending on the organization, a change management board may be needed to review change requests.
Typically, once a change is requested, a preliminary impact analysis is carried out, the result of which is then relayed to the client or project sponsor.
If the client is willing to pay more, push back the deadline, or make quality compromises, whichever is applicable, a more detailed analysis is done before the change is approved or rejected.
Once complete, the project must be closed. All deliverables and final documentation are submitted. The goal is to ensure that all contractual obligations are fulfilled.
The closing stage also includes reviewing or looking back at all of the processes the project undertook from start to finish, and then determining whether these have been successful.
Every change or detail must be documented for future projects to reference.
Imagine this scenario: A project is due a week from now. The person in charge of quality evaluation got sick and is on medical leave. What does the project manager do? That person must do a series of things:
In this hypothetical scenario, the project manager is integrating several different project aspects, making the project integration management process crucial to project management success.
While project cost management only deals with managing the financial aspects of a project, and project human resource management only deals with the team members involved in a project, they don’t operate independently. Any change in one area can affect another.
For example, adding more people affects the timeline, budget, or both. The project manager, through project integration management, communicates all changes to the concerned parties — in this case, that could be the client, department head, staff or employees, and the budget coordinator.
When different teams use varying project management techniques and tools to complete tasks, consistency, which we all know is the key to productivity, can be difficult to achieve.
Project integration management coordinates and directs all activities toward the project’s ultimate goal.
Project management deals with multiple processes and involves various elements. Project integration management unifies and consolidates them all to successfully achieve the project’s overall objectives. It’s the thread that binds them all together, so to speak.
Project managers are like jugglers who must keep several objects in the air, a feat that requires specialized training, skills, and mastery of different tools.
In project management, such tools include a feasibility study for gauging the viability of a project, work breakdown structure charts to visually decompose the work to be executed, and the critical path method for estimating the project’s completion date.
There’s also project management software to facilitate work, monitor budgets, and ensure seamless collaboration between departments and teams. The following are some software options.
Projects run on schedules, and tasks are scheduled to achieve maximum productivity. monday.com allows users to create task lists. Each task can be assigned to multiple columns if you want it more detailed and to better track its progress.
Customizable task templates are available so you don’t have to start from scratch.
Visualize your team’s workload with monday.com. Image source: Author
monday.com also provides visibility into the workload of each team member, a necessary feature so that work is distributed evenly and no one gets overloaded.
Effective financial management is essential for projects to stay within budget. Tracking expenses, generating accurate reports, and providing timely updates are just some of the tasks that the right project management software can do for you.
ActiveCollab is a feature-packed collaboration tool that has the financial features your project may need, including budgeting, invoicing, and generating work estimates.
ActiveCollab’s invoicing tool automates invoice creation. Image source: Author
ActiveCollab is easy to use, which means teams and departments don’t have to spend much time learning its functionality.
For midsize to large project teams with very specific needs, Podio is a great choice. It’s extremely customizable and comes with all of the features inherent in project management platforms, such as time tracking, task scheduling, and project templates.
Podio’s standout feature is social collaboration. Work notifications are delivered via a Facebook-like activity stream. Team members can ask questions, post updates, and share images, documents, and links.
Podio’s activity stream allows team members to post updates, share files, and ask questions. Image source: Author
Podio Chat supports video calling and instant messaging. Plus, Podio natively integrates with GoToMeeting for when you need to schedule and organize online meetings.
A project involves many complex parts, numerous processes, and different stakeholders.
Project managers need to manage people, risks, schedules, timeline, quality, and so many other things. In large organizations, the different departments’ techniques may have nothing in common.
Project integration management is the system and framework that provides order and direction for all of these constituent parts.
Maricel Rivera is a software and small business expert writing for The Ascent at The Motley Fool.
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