At the end of the training, we reserved some time as a group to discuss next steps: where to start. This tends to differ based on the critical needs are for each group and how they plan to use Workgroups to address them. The nice part, though, is that there are numerous areas within the system that can be set up and running in a short amount of time and with very little effort, but that tend to bring significant value almost immediately. 

Depending upon your own needs, you might consider beginning with any one of the following:

• Manage proofs with Approval Manager: This is one of my favorite places to start. With Approval Manager, the setup is very minimal - simply define internal and collaborative users and then assign access privileges. The result is immediate - you can start creating proofs and routing files through the proofing process. As an extension to this, you may elect to associate proofs with jobs and customers. But even this is minimal - enter a customer code/name, enter a job number/name, and off you go. As a result, proof files are available for review online, proofs are reviewed/routed faster as more internal and collaborative users are engaged in the process, and you have a fundamental management system in place to monitor proofs throughout entire production/approval workflow. 


• Catalog digital assets with Virtual Ticket: Of the four products that make up the Workgroups suite, Virtual Ticket is by far the most extensible and customizable. With this great power, however, comes the potential need for greater planning - determining what fields you'll want to define, formatting the tickets to your needs, etc. But one area where you can hit the ground running is in cataloging of digital assets with Virtual Ticket. Imagine you have a file server with hundreds, thousands, or millions of files. You might have a vague notion of where files are located, or maybe what they are. Or maybe not. Taking these files and simply cataloging them into Virtual Ticket gives you immediate results with absolutely no setup required at all: you can visually see what files are out there, you can search for files (search where the file location contains a job number for example), append keywords and other metadata, etc. Longer-term you could build on this to associate those files with jobs, job tickets, and other data you create in Virtual Ticket, but the cataloging process itself can get you up and running with the system in a very short amount of time.


• Catalog digital assets with Digital Storage Manager: As an extension to cataloging with Virtual Ticket, Digital Storage Manager can make the cataloging of assets even easier to get started with. Digital Storage Manager introduces InterSync - a server agent that can be set up and configured to automatically monitor/catalog your file server and its volumes. There is some initial set up required to tell InterSync what file servers to monitor and how to connect to them, but the results are that files show up in the system automatically when they are added to the monitored file servers. This giving you the same level of benefit found with cataloging digital assets directly with Virtual Ticket, but with even less manual work on your part.


• Track time with Job Manager: Of the four quick-start functions I'm describing in this article, tracking time with Job Manager involves the most amount of setup and configuration, but comparatively speaking, even this is pretty minimal. Certainly there are other areas of Job Manager that you could start with quicker and easier (using Job Manager to start entering estimates or quotes, for example). However, in my experience, it's the time tracking capabilities that give customers the biggest return on initial investment. Setting up Job Manager to track time involves defining users, and defining a base structure for your company: departments, cost centers, and tasks/services your company provides.  It also involves entering a base set of customer and job information into the system. But, if the goal is to focus initially on the time tracking functions, then these steps can be minimized pretty easily (skip the setup of tax structures, shipping options, etc. and just focus on the base areas). The result is worth it. You get a system up that will track what jobs your users are working on, how much time they spend on what, and an endless number of ways to report and analyze this information - review how many hours went into a job, see how much time was spent this month for specific departments, cost centers, and/or tasks, review how much work was performed for a customer, etc.

As a complete solution, Workgroups 2010 is a tremendous product that enables companies to track and manage a multitude of information: estimates and quotes, job tickets, workflow and scheduling, job costing and billing, etc. Each area has its own unique set of features and functionality, with some requiring a more involved setup process than others. With the 'quick-start' areas described above, you can see that getting up, running, and achieving results with Workgroups can be a simple, quick process with requiring minimal effort.

How about your system? Are there some quick-start functions you've found with Workgroups 2010? If so, let us know - I'd love to hear about them!