Introduction [0:00]
Welcome everyone! Today I’ll be demonstrating how I solved our resource assignment challenges using Klient. We will cover assigning resources to new projects and visualizing a team’s resource allocation as part of today’s demonstration. Talking about key challenges product owners face and how we will resolve them with Klient, Klient is a comprehensive tool that streamlines resource management. It helps in efficient project planning and resource allocation. It enables clear visualization of teams’ workloads and assignments. Now let me take you through a quick demo of adding user stories to a project, adding estimated hours, assigning them to resources, and then visualizing their workload in Resource Planner.

Checking Resource Availability [0:46]
So we will start off by looking at our current resource allocation using the resource planner page in Klient. I manage a team of a few resources and here I can see one of my developers is free starting the week of 1st of July. I already have a project planned, which I would like to assign to him. So on the project page, we have the requirements tab. This is where we maintain the requirements and after meeting with the developers and scoping the project, I will now start adding the stories in the project to the project itself.

Adding User Stories [1:26]
So to do that, I will simply come to the project workspace and start adding those user stories. So in this example, I have two user stories for this project, and the first thing I would do is create two new tasks under the user story branch. From there, I will simply copy the user story name and add that to the tasks that I’ve created. I can now open up the side task panel and also copy and paste the acceptance criteria. I will do the same for the second user story. I can simply click on the second task here and it’ll open the side task panel for that task. I can come back to my requirements document and copy and paste the requirements for the second user story. I can also rename the second task by simply copying the name. Now with this, both of my stories are now in the project. 

Defining Task Type & Priority [2:25]
The next thing I’ll do is I’ll define a task type for them. Here we have a pick list where we can define task types for various types of tasks. For my example, they are both stories, so I’ll tag them as ‘Story’. Next up, I’ll define their priority.

Defining Estimated Hours [2:25]
And then finally, after meeting with the developer, once we have the estimated hours for both the stories, I’ll add those estimated hours. So both of these stories will take two days each. That would mean I need to adjust the start and the end date for the story, which I can simply do by coming into the start and the due date column. So the first story I’m gonna plan from 2nd to the 3rd of July. And the second story, I’m gonna plan from 4th to 5th of July.

Assigning Resources [3:18]
Once this is done, I will simply select both the stories and assign it to the resource I’m planning to give these stories to. Once a resource assignment is done, I will simply go back to the resource planner page and refresh it. This is where now I’ll see that the resource is now fully booked for the week of 1st of July.

Conclusion [3:50]
So this is how easy it is to first visualize the need of new projects for your team, and then assigning them to the projects and finally visualizing their workload. I can do this exercise for the other team members as and when needed. Thank you so much for watching, and as you can see, it only took me about four minutes to scope a project and assign that to a team member. Thanks!

Introduction [0:00]
Hi everyone! I’m a Quality Analyst at Klient, and today we are going to see an episode of ‘How I Solved It with Klient’ for QA management and release handoff.

Key Challenges [0:09]
So the main key challenges as a QA I face is tracking the testing of a project or a task in a different testing environment, how QA can validate if development meets customer requirements, and how QA can plan release delivery on time.

Agenda [0:29]
We know how QA is a crucial part to deliver the best quality product. So I’ll be showing today how QA can manage tasks, day-to-day, using a Global Kanban in Klient. On what basis I pick the task to work on, how do I change the task status, and what are the fields I’ll update as a QA analyst. And how do we do verification and validation. And how QA manages release go/no go.

Managing day-to-day tasks in Global Kanban [1:09]
So this is Klient Global Kanban board. I use this day-to-day to manage my work. So you can customize your view with the various options. I have applied a filter to tasks, which shows me all the tasks assigned to me for QA. So coming to the first point, how QA can manage day-to-day work, now I can see a number of tasks in different status and as a QA I pick the ones which are ready for QA, tasks based on priority and ongoing release. So I’ll pick the ‘Ready for QA’ tasks here.

Updating task status & details [1:51] When I start working on a task, I changed the status to ‘QA in progress’ so it’s easy to track. I can change to ‘QA in progress’ from here or simply drag and drop the task to ‘QA in progress’. So if I click on my ‘Edit’ icon, I can see the details of the tasks here. I can see the details of the tasks here and we can customize this field. And once the grooming of a project is done, we create a task with the descriptions and proposed solution, which I use it as a reference to write my test cases before the development.

QA Completion [2:46]
So I’ll now use those test cases here to verify if the development has met the customer requirement. So if everything goes right, I can change the status here from ‘QA in progress’ to ‘QA completed’. And I can also open this record in a Salesforce view to check more details and I can change the status from here as well. Once everything is done and there are no issues, then I’ll change the status here to ‘Scratch’ org and mark this as ‘QA completed’ and also we have a field called ‘Demo video’ where I record the test cases and I paste it in this field for the future reference.

Release Management [3:43]
So this is the ‘Demo video’ field. So once it is filled, QA completed, I post a Chatter to the developer saying this is QA completed so they can carry on with their PR request if there is any pending one. And I can also log a timeframe here, like a time and how many hours I have worked on this particular task.

Tracking Release Progress [4:13]
So here I can go to the release. This is the planned release, 49.8, and it shows the details of the ongoing release or the upcoming ones, like ones we have planned and everything. In the related cases, we have all the tasks and projects which have been tagged to this particular release. If I view all and click on ‘View all’, it shows me all the tasks and if everything is QA completed, we give a go to the deployment team saying it is done from our scratch org and they can proceed with the package. So we have different testing environment cycles, like testing and scratch org, and SIT and sandbox. According to each phase, I changed the test environment. So this helps me to track the QA completion in all the phase. Once everything is done, the release will be generally available, and this is to be deployed in the Klient org.

Conclusion [5:15]
So this is how I use Klient as a QA to complete my work. Thank you so much for your time. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at [email protected]. Thank you!

Introduction [0:00]
Greetings everyone! Dominic for another ‘How I Solved It with Klient.’ On this one, I want to answer a question from a user that wanted to remain anonymous. “How can we visualize time off requests?” So I’m going to be showing the time off feature from Klient and also a neat trick leveraging the Salesforce platform to display overall time offs in our business.

Creating a Time Off Request [0:23]
Each user will be able to create a new request by reaching the Global Action list or the object itself. After you’ve selected the type of time off, their date range and provided some notes for context, you will be able to review and send for approval. This will be routed to the proper person based on the context.

Approval Process [0:50]
As an approver, you will be able to review using a list view or reaching to your notifications and look at the approval request directly. From here, you can approve or dig into the request to get more details. Once satisfied, you can either approve or reject, providing some comments for context.

Resource Planner View [1:14]
As time offs are approved, they will be visible on your Resource Planner for a global understanding of the impact of those time offs. Expanding for each resource, you’ll be able to see the projects that would need to be reviewed either to delay, reassign, or take some action based on the time off that were added. Holiday dates from each resource’s calendars are also visible on the Resource Planner.

Timesheet Sync [1:40]
As a consultant, your time off will be added automatically to your timesheets once it’s approved, so that you only need to submit once you’re done.

Calendar View [1:52]
And my final trick, use Calendar to represent all time offs that have been approved or submitted so that you can have that into a calendar view. So using a list view from time off splits for approved or submitted, you can also list that into that form for your benefit of having a global understanding of everyone’s time offs requested.

Conclusion [2:16]
Thanks. Have a great day!

Introduction (0:00)
Greeting everyone, Dominic for another ‘How I Solved It with Klient’. In this one, I want to answer a question from everyone which is ‘how do project resources know what to work on next?’ So for this I’m going to go through different tools from Klient that can help a resource.

Homepage Dashboard (0:18)
First, the Homepage, leveraging some dashboard components. Using the Consultant Execution Dashboard as a reference point, can be helpful to see what you’ve been doing and what you should be doing and working on, showing my active tasks and active projects.

Global Kanban (0:56)
The Global Kanban is also a very good place to live in as a consultant, so that you can see all tasks that are assigned to you, using filters and presets so that you can easily switch in between context. The easy access to the right side panel will provide information on the scope and what it is expected, maybe using the descriptions and so that you can also document what you’ve been doing in the Proposed Solution field using hyperlinks and other rich text information. The checklist is also a very good area where you can list anything that need to be completed and use it also to track completion of items. Chatter is obviously a nice place to interact with your team, letting them know that you’re done with a task or asking for any questions. The Time tab is also a good way to track your time directly on your task, whether you’re using the timer or simply entering your time and comments, so that it saves on your timesheet.

Workspace (1:58)
If you prefer lists over cards, you also have access to the Workspace that will get you the list of tasks that you’re assigned to with capabilities like the Kanban, with filters and presets so that you can have an easy switch between context. It also provide you with a quick access to the right side panel like we’ve just seen in the Kanban, providing access to Details, Chatter, Checklist, and Time.

My Timesheet (2:23)
And finally, the My Timesheet where the Task component can be exposed, showing you any tasks that you’re currently assigned to this week. And using the ‘Copy from schedule’, you bring, you can bring them over on your timesheets to just enter your time and the comments to save and submit.

Conclusion (2:42)
So we’ve seen different ways that Klient can help your project resource know what to focus on next. A combination of the Homepage using the Consultant Execution Dashboard, the global Kanban, the Workspace, and the My Timesheet with its Task Assignment Schedule component, will help your project resource tackle the next task and communicate with its peers to make sure that you document your projects correctly. So if you have any questions or comments, let us know. It’ll be a pleasure to help you further. Reach out at [email protected] for us to continue the discussion. Thanks, have a great day!

Introduction (0:00)
Hi everyone! In today’s video, I will be talking about ‘How I Solved It With Klient’ to managing my work as a developer. In today’s agenda, I would like to share some insight into how I efficiently manage my work list, collaborate with my team, and ensure that I close out my planned work efficiently.

Agenda (0:20)
The foundation of productive work lies in meticulous planning and organization. To manage my work list efficiently, I start by prioritizing tasks based on the urgency and importance. For this, we have a priority field on tasks, which states the importance and urgency of that task. We have a status field, which states the current status, and we have a description field, which states the requirement for the task. No project can be completed in isolation, teamwork is important. So informing QA to test the story and informing my manager that the story is ‘dev completed’ and it’s ready for QA now, and any other discussion related to the requirement. For this, we have Chatter tab to easily make communication and teamwork within an organization. Closing out my plan work includes logging the hours I spend developing that task. For this, we will go to the Time tab and directly log my hours or we can use the My Timesheet to log the hours against the task.

Managing My Work in Kanban View (1:22)
Let’s jump to Klient and see how I do my work using Klient. We have a Kanban view in Klient, which shows all the tasks related to the projects and all. We have a task filter with ‘My work’ by which we can easily get the work assigned to me. The first thing I do, I will look into the task with priority. This task has the ‘high priority’ and this task is assigned to me for today. So first thing I will do is prioritizing this task over any other task to do. Second thing I will do, I will go to the ‘Details’ tab and look into the description and the requirement of this task. I will go through all the requirement, and understand what I do in this task.

Team Collaboration with Chatter (2:13)
If I have any doubt or any query related to this task, I will just Chatter. I will just do a Chatter post to my colleague and ask any question. The second thing, when I start this work I will mark it into ‘In progress’. Once I complete this task, I will mark it ‘Ready for QA’. Next, I will go to the Chatter and inform my QA colleague that this task is ready for QA now, and she can easily come to know that this task is completed and it’s ready for QA. Once she completed the QA and make it ‘QA completed’, I will again go to the ‘Details’ tab and raise the changes in GitHub and create a PR for that. I will create a PR and copy the PR link to this task and make it available for everyone to get it merged.

Logging Time (3:31)
The next thing is logging my time against this task. So I can easily go to the ‘Time’ tab and log the hours against this task I spend doing.

Conclusion (3:53)
So we can see how easily I can do the work by using Klient and we can efficiently manage my work list, collaborate closely with my team and delicately closing out the planned work. We can achieve our goals and drive our project to a successful completion. Thanks everyone!

Introduction (0:00)
Greetings everyone! Dominic, for another ‘How I Solved It with Klient’. I’m kind of cheating a bit today because it’s more of a ‘how to’ based on a question from Marjorie, asking about the different scheduling modes that can affect the task assignments. So that’s what I’m gonna cover, starting with the normal mode, then the fixed duration, fixed effort, the good old percentage actual workday, which is by the way a recommendation, a feature request by Marjorie, and then the manual mode that we have. So let me show you how it works in Klient.

Normal Scheduling Mode (0:43)
So to show that, I have a project here with five different tasks being set with the different scheduling modes available. So let’s start with the normal mode. Basically, this is the more ‘open’ one where for each assignment we will be providing either a number of hours or a percentage of time that they should be spending between those two dates based on each resource’s available hours in a week. So it’s based on your schedule from the project resource. In the mode here, it means that if you are assigning hours, it will spread hours across the period that we have defined for the task, and if ever we go in the resource planner and we are assigning additional hours, we’ll see that in the normal mode, let’s say I’m adding an additional 8 hours in the planner, the normal mode, the dates of the task will extend based on the hours added. So if I go back to my project, I’m going to see that hitting refresh, and just removing this, you’ll see that the task did extend here. It was 2 weeks, now it’s longer because I’ve scheduled hours outside. Same if I was to come back and delete those hours because I don’t want them, then the project will adapt and shorten based on the current assignments. So that’s the normal mode. It’s kind of the broader one where you have the most flexibility.

Fixed Duration Scheduling Mode (2:04)
Now switching to the fixed duration mode. In this case, we are protecting a period. Let’s say the use case is we have a system maintenance and we have a 2-week shutdown that we can do that, while people are on vacation, that cannot derive from that period. We cannot extend, people are going to be back and the system needs to be back up by the end of that task. So we cannot assign resources outside of that period because it is protected. So in this case, going back to my resource planner, and then if I try to assign hours to the fixed duration outside the period, I get an error message because it’s protecting that period. For the assignments themselves, if you go to the Schedule tab, you will still have the same behavior, either assigning a number of hours or a percentage of a resource. So if you assign the first one, the percentage is calculated. And if you assign the percentage, then the hours are calculated, always based on the work week of each project resource.

Fixed Effort Scheduling Mode (3:06)
In the case of fixed effort, it will be based on the available hours from the resources assigned to that task. So we will rely on the total estimated hours. That’s how the calculation’s going to be done. 8 hours need to be completed for the task to be marked or to be considered as done. So if I come into the assignment, in this case, 8 hours need to be done. So in my example, if I say my resource is only available 10% of their time to work on this, then you’ll see that the hours or the dates are going to be impacted by the number of resources working on the tasks. So if you crash the task and you add more resources, this will reduce. If you dedicate more or less time from each resource, then the date will be adjusted accordingly. So we calculate the duration based on the total number of hours available and dedicated to that project.

Percentage Actual Workday Scheduling Mode (4:11)
So for the next one, the percentage actual workday. A good use case could be that you want to dedicate a percentage of your work hours to supporting sales, doing training, or working on pet projects, but you don’t necessarily want to maintain that each and every week because it just needs to represent a certain percentage of your work week. So in this one here, we would be assigning a percentage to a resource so that it will automatically calculate the hours that we want to assign. But the twist here is that if you add subsequent time offs, PTOs, or holidays, this percentage will be recalculated. The hours that it represents will be recalculated based on the percentage assigned. So if I flip here to my resource planner, I’ll see that for the percentage actual workday, I have 20% of my time. So the first week is 8 hours because I work on a 40-hour schedule, but the second one is only 6.4 because I have a holiday in that week. So 32 minus 40 minus eight gives 32 hours available to work. 20% of that represents 6.4. So that’s going to be calculated automatically and if you add further holidays and PTOs, it will get recalculated. The other ones, we are considering the PTOs and holidays when we first schedule, but we are not recalculating because we, we expect that you have some decisions to take. Uh, if you’re assigned to a task, you go on holidays, you might need to either postpone the task or assign someone else. So there is a decision for the other ones to take. Percentage actual workday, we consciously know that it’s just something on top of what we’re doing and then we don’t want to manage it. So a good neat feature that was requested by Marjorie’s business and that was implemented somewhere last year.

Manual Scheduling Mode (6:13)
And then the last one, the manual. In this case, we’re disconnecting the resource plan from the project plan. So that if you’re changing dates on your project plan, it is not going to recalculate the assignments. So if you’re in a mode where you’re a bit more granular, assigning resources to the day or you want to do very precise planning on the resource planner, you don’t want that to be recalculated whenever you change dates. Manual will be your mode here. So if I’m adding 8 hours here, it is not going to recalculate my project plan. It’s not going to extend my dates from my project. Same if I ever change this to make it in the future, extend. If I come back to my resource plan, it is not going to change my hours here. So it’s really detaching project plan from resource plan. It’s the manual. In the case of manual, the whole project and all tasks should be in manual. It cannot be separate tasks for architecture reasons.

Conclusion (7:22)
So hopefully that helped. If you have any questions, reach out to support. It’s always a pleasure to help you. Thanks.

Introduction to Project Templates (0:00)
Greetings everyone! Dominic for another ‘How I Solved It with Klient’. This one, I want to talk about project templates and how they can be used to generate better estimates and proposals.

Challenges of Not Using Project Templates (0:15)
First, challenges of not using project templates. If you’re generating proposals from scratch every time, it is time-consuming and labor-intensive. It is slowing down your proposal generation process, delaying responses to potential clients with longer turnaround times. It also results in content inconsistency. Different team members may have varying writing styles or design preferences, leading to inconsistent proposals, making your business look less professional. Also, there’s a higher risk of errors with proposals showing incorrect information, outdated content, or important sections being left out, reducing the completeness and the effectiveness of your proposals. And finally, it will bring scalability issues in the long run. Without templates, it becomes challenging to manage and increase the volume of proposals efficiently, potentially limiting your ability to scale your operations and handle more opportunities simultaneously.

Best Practices for Using Project Templates (1:20)
So, a few best practices that I want to convey with this recording here is that first, we’ll see how we can start the proposal estimates with project templates, leveraging your business knowledge and making proposal generation quicker. Using the project to define and track the scope of the discussions and what you’ve been discussing with your customer in the discovery session. Estimating your revenue with the placeholders, so that will generate beneficial information for pipelining and forecasting your resource utilization. And ultimately, generating the document right from your proposal record, making sure that you have clarity across the team and the customer.

Creating Proposals with Project Templates (2:03)
So let’s see how we can do that using Klient tools. From your Account page, as soon as you have the opportunity that you want to track with a customer, you should create a new proposal if you’re not using Sales Cloud. The opportunity is where you’re going to interact with your team and track any discussions with the customer. When you’re ready to do a scoping for what needs to be estimated, spin a new project using a project template in the ‘Import project’ section. This will create a reference based on the template for you to modify and tweak if you need to customize it. The project being created, you can easily do any adjustments, either on the timeline on what you expect to do, remove any sections of the project that you might not need, or add any customized tasks to that project. What it should include is hours, an estimate of when this task should be occurring and who would eventually be doing it on top of the scope of that task. So here I’m going to add that new task and assign some hours so that I can adjust my expected revenue. That being done, my expected revenue on my proposal is already updated. Now I can just leverage some information from the project and generate a document, using a document generation tool that you might already have in your system. Here I might include information about my scope, my timeline, and why not leverage the information from the task scope and the description that we’ve put for each of them. That’s it. Then you can send it to DocuSign for an easy completion.

Benefits of Using Project Templates (3:50)
So as you’ve seen, there are several benefits of using project templates earlier in your sales cycle to generate your estimates and your proposals. First off, you’ll have enhanced sales forecasting. It provides a clearer picture of potential future work, helping more accurate workload forecasting and revenue projections. It also offers better visibility into your entire pipeline, both for sales and the delivery team. It also helps for better communication and collaboration. Early project creation greatly improves clarity within the team, ensuring that everyone is aligned with the project goals and timeline. Also, you can focus on customization. With the basic structure and standard content in place, you can focus on customizing each proposal to address the specific needs and preferences of your client. This will increase the relevance and impact of your proposals. It will improve your efficiency and be a time-saver, as the templates streamline the proposal creation process, allowing you for a swift generation of service offers. And finally, you have the famous continuous improvement that should be part of every process of your business. As the team is maintaining the project templates, as part of the project closeouts or lessons learned, each new proposal benefits from your latest successes.

Conclusion and Call to Action (5:16)
So let us know if you have any questions or comments, if you found anything insightful within this recording, it’s always a pleasure to discuss with you. So reach out to [email protected] if you have any further questions. Thanks, have a great day!