Wrike as online bugtracking software: Part II. Creative approach to task statuses
Traditional bug-tracking systems have many statuses with which to tailor software development needs such as "Fixed", "Verified Fixed", "Closed", etc. We are not working on a bug tracking system while we still want to use our lovely and convenient collaboration software for tracking bugs. How did we approach that? Instead of writing a sub-system that makes your life more complex by allowing you to configure your own statuses and then... fail to work in collaborative environment open to everybody our team agreed to use a "deferred" status when the bug is fixed and "completed", when the fix is tested.
Wrike as online bugtracking software: Part I. How to create a new task via e-mail and attach a screenshot to it
The power of Wrike lies in its agility. You can manage your next hiking trips with your friends there. But we can’t do that at the moment, all we have had in our minds is developing the best collaborative planning tool in the world. We are content with using Wrike as a tool to make our dream alive; and since bugs lie on the path to our dream, we use Wrike as a tool to help us fix them. Tracking bugs with Wrike is pretty simple. Whenever I see something I don't like on the screen, I: • create an e-mail addressed to the developer; • put wrike(at)wrike.com in CC (you can put it into To or BCC if you like that better); • describe the bug in the subject filed (it will go into task name); • put [FolderName] in the beginning of the subject (in this case it would be [P1], [P2], [P3], [P4], [P5] or maybe even [Wrike suggestions]); • take a screenshot by pressing Alt+'PrtScr' and paste it into my mail client. The developer will receive the task, which is logged into Wrike so he can't forget about it. I am calm and relaxed, because I know that and I can always check the status of bugs at www.wrike.com. Then, when the developer fixes the bug and marks it as complete in Wrike, I will receive notification.
Try Wrike Free for 14 Days!
Improve your team's collaboration, enhance work visibility, and so much more.
How to Customize Wrike in 1-2-3!
Wrike, in its turn, is flexible by its nature and, therefore, can be easily modified to become truly yours. We invite you to take a walk with us through this short customization guide and quickly shape Wrike to both your personal and professional needs. 1. Adjust Wrike to your tastes Come out of the dark In Wrike, the avatar is a great way to make online communication with your team much more personal, and it also helps you instantly spot who is responsible for a task and who left a comment. So go ahead, find your best photo and let your team get inspired by your broad smile and sparkling eyes. : ) To upload an avatar, simply go to your profile settings by clicking on your name in the top right-hand corner of your workspace. Parlez-vous Wrike? (Oui!) People from 55 countries choose Wrike to collaborate effectively and get more things done together. That's why it was so important for us to make sure that non-native English speakers also feel comfortable using Wrike. So now you have a chance to use Wrike in your native language! Just go to your profile settings and choose it from the “language” drop-down menu. If the language you need is not in the list yet, feel free to join our translation community and contribute to the translation process! What time is it? While you are in your profile settings, don’t forget to check that your time-zone settings are set correctly, as this may affect your tasks’ due dates and the time of receiving your daily to-do e-mails. 2. Adjust Wrike to your work habits How much of a news-geek are you? It’s always rewarding to be the one who learns the news first, isn’t it? That’s why Wrike constantly keeps you up-to-date with the latest changes in your projects by sending instant notifications to your e-mail. However, if you prefer to get your news dose once a day, simply go to your profile settings and change the notification frequency from “immediately” to “daily digest.” And if it suits you better to follow the updates in real-time in the Activity Stream, you can always cancel the notifications by choosing “none” in the same drop-down menu. Ready for your daily agenda? Many of us start our workday with a quick inbox check to get a hold of the current situation. And to help you cover all the nuances of the coming workday, Wrike sends you a daily agenda, and what time to schedule it is up to you! No matter if you are an early bird or a night owl, just schedule your to-do lists to arrive at the time when you feel most productive! To do so, simply go to your profile settings, scroll down and choose the preferred time. And although it’s a very top-notch way to stay on track with your tasks, you can always switch it off by simply choosing the “don’t send” option. 3. Adjust Wrike to your expertise Add custom widgets Wrike’s dashboard conveniently gathers the most important tasks from across the workspace: tasks planned for today and this week, overdue tasks, etc. But what if you want to focus on a particular cut of information? You may want to monitor tasks within a particular project or your teams’ tasks for the current week. With Wrike, you can access the needed data with a couple of clicks, as you can easily create a custom widget to aggregate the relevant tasks in one spot and shape your dashboard to your expertise. Pick your Favorites Wrike makes it easy for you to handle even multiple projects. To quickly move between them, we recommend you to keep the folders you frequently use in a separate folder called “Favorites.” It’s also very easy to keep your most important tasks gathered from different folders there. This way, the needed tasks will be just a click away and, if you wish, no one but you will see them. ;-) Slice-and-dice the latest updates Wrike’s Activity Stream is the slickest way to not only stay up-to-date with the project progress, but also discuss tasks and issues in real time. Want to see what your team has been up to lately? Or maybe just want to check the updates in the tasks assigned to you? Simply apply different Activity Stream filters and see the news cut you need! We hope that this short customization guide will not only make your work more efficient and pleasant, but also make Wrike feel truly yours! To get a brief and visual version of our Wrike customization hacks download the ppt presentation. And don’t forget to share it with your team!
It's Time to Have Fewer Papers on Your Table: Keeping Memos in Wrike
There's a better way to send memos. Send them to your staff via Wrike, and use built-in tools to track who has read it, send reminders to those who haven't, and even field questions to ensure comprehension. Find out how.
Better Together: Wrike Integrations That Inspire Highly Productive Teams
Just like a game of Tetris, if you don’t stack your tech tools right, you’ll have a disconnected mess that keeps piling on problems rather than solving them. That’s why Wrike Integrate empowers teams to connect 400+ applications. Here are Wrike integrations that will inspire you to build a tech stack for hyper-growth.
How Wrike Uses Wrike... For Fun!
We're not like a regular startup, we're a cool startup. ;) Here's the 411 on work events outside the office: team bonding events are difficult to pull off. They're normally unoriginal or downright boring. At Wrike, we were looking for a way to celebrate a successful end of the quarter with a game that everyone could take part in and be excited about, and we wanted to use a collaborative tool we all know how to use. We decided it was time for... the First Annual Wrike Scavenger Hunt! It started by creating teams of five and choosing a theme and a name for each team — oh, the creative possibilities! On the big day, teams gathered around and the list of scavenger hunt items was revealed in Wrike tasks. Teams had two hours to run around downtown Mountain View, CA and complete the tasks by uploading proof-of-completion photos or videos to the tasks via Wrike mobile app. Some of the tasks included taking a selfie with a stranger, snapping photos of all six downtown bubble tea locations, finding an item that cost exactly $0.49 cents, and completing a water balloon toss. Emeka and Patricia — our scavenger hunt facilitators — were able to get updates in real-time on their phones, so they could keep track of who was in the lead as the clock ticked down. How to Create Your Own Scavenger Hunt in Wrike Step 1: Divide everyone into groups of 2 or more and have them choose a fun name or theme that represents their team. . Step 2: Create a Folder and add a single task. . Step 3: Within that task, add subtasks with the specific actions you want completed during the Scavenger Hunt. Make sure these tasks require teams to take a photo or video they can upload to the subtask before they hit complete. . Step 4: Duplicate the parent task for each of the participating teams. . Step 5: Name each task with a specific team name and share it with them. . Step 6: On the day of the Scavenger Hunt, give all the teams a time limit to complete each subtask. Explain to the teams that they will have to upload a photo or video to each subtask using the free Wrike Mobile App. . Step 7: Follow the Scavenger Hunt progression in real time by watching as the subtasks are completed by each team. The team who completes the most subtasks in the shortest amount of time, wins! . Step 8: Share the winner with us on social media with the hashtag #WrikeScavengerHunt . Have fun and Wrike on! Check out our short video recap of the scavenger hunt to inspire your own team and use Wrike for your own adventures! We're an ambitious bunch, so it was a great opportunity to unleash our competitive spirits while having fun with our co-workers. And we found a fun new way to play with Wrike! How do you use Wrike for fun? Share your own stories in the comments!
Top 5 "A-ha!" Moments When Using Wrike
Wrike has a lot of great functionality to discover. Some are in your face and easy to explore. But I argue that some of our best features are the ones you haven't noticed yet. Whether you're working on your first Wrike project or your 100th, make sure you experience these 5 awesome "A-ha!" moments while using Wrike. 1. Show descendant tasks — If you've ever selected a folder and seen the "27 tasks in this folder but nothing close to your needs" message, then you probably haven't discovered descendants. This message generally means that the folder has all its tasks stored in subfolders. Click "Show descendants" to reveal all of the tasks in the descendant subfolders. If that doesn't do the trick, hover over the "active" filter and click the "X" that appears next to it (more information in #4). 2. Select several or all tasks — When you hover over a task in the list view, you'll notice a small box to the left of the user avatars. Clicking this box selects the task. You can select as many tasks as you like in a given list. If you want to select an entire list of tasks, hover your mouse just above the top-most box. With one click, you can select all. From there, use mass actions to edit your chosen tasks. 3. Dragging folders to tag tasks — In Wrike, a folder or task can live in multiple locations. An easy, often overlooked method to tag a task is to drag and drop the folder on top of the task to add the tag. 4. Clearing filters when searching for information — It's our goal to make it easy to focus on the work that needs to be done. By default, Wrike displays tasks that are "Active" and assigned to anyone. You know this by the blue text filters under the folder title. When searching for completed tasks, you'll need to clear the "Active" filter. Simply hover over "Active" and click it to switch the filter to "Completed." This will display only completed tasks in your search results. Alternatively, click the "X" that appears next to the word "Active" to clear this filter and display all tasks in the folder, regardless of status. 5. Quoting text in comments — The description section of a task is often detailed or lengthy. Quoting makes it easy to ask questions and provide feedback on specific sentences. To quote part of the description for your comments, highlight the text and click the quote icon that appears on the left. This will pull the text into the comments section where you can add your feedback and share your ideas with the team. Want to see these features in action? Check out this short video for a quick overview. Do you have other favorite Wrike tricks that you think your fellow Wrikers will love? Help everyone out by mentioning them in the comments!
Customer's Best Practice: 4 Tags to Prioritize Tasks with Ease
We keep you posted about the best practices of our customers that you may also find useful. Today, a web-design and online marketing agency called “INTERNET IDEAS” shares how they organize their folders to treat important and urgent tasks the right way!We keep you posted about the best project management practices of our customers that you may also find useful. Today, a web-design and online marketing agency called “INTERNET IDEAS” shares how they organize their folders to treat important and urgent tasks the right way! Customer’s background INTERNET IDEAS supplies consultations and services in the areas of online marketing, web development and SEO. It has worked with a number of famous clients, including TELE2. The team is spread across three countries: the United Kingdom, Lithuania and Germany. INTERNET IDEAS’ best practice “I think memorable clients are those from whom you can learn the most because they use your products in a different and new way,” says Martin Jokubauskas, the CEO of INTERNET IDEAS. He is exactly that type of customer himself. Martin’s team uses a special workflow to establish priorities that may be familiar to you from the GTD methodology. The powerful principle of “important vs. urgent” works great for a lot of teams, including INTERNET IDEAS. Here’s how they implement it in their workspace in Wrike project management software: Very important and urgent tasks are obviously the critical issues the assignees should be focusing on first. Very important tasks consist of strategically crucial things, and Martin makes sure team members have enough time to perform them. This group of tasks helps develop the project and the company. ASAP tasks that aren’t important distract the team’s attention away from important ones. If they take no more than a couple of minutes, it’s better to do them right away (e.g., a phone call), reassign them to less busy team members or even outsource them to save your team’s precious time. “As for tasks in the Others folder, currently they are neither important, nor urgent. Since they have no due date, we keep them as backlogged, and the team gets to them if they have some extra time,” Martin shares. “We prioritize tasks in each folder with drag-and-drop, using the “Sort by priority” option, so that the most urgent and important ones are always on top. If the situation changes, we can easily move these tasks down the list or to a different folder,” he adds. Each week, Martin reviews the completed and overdue tasks and rearranges the workload to make sure the latter are completed. Such workflow organization helps Internet Ideas to efficiently juggle multiple tasks and priorities, which leads to splendid work results. Of course, this is just one way of tagging tasks in their workspace, and the INTERNET IDEAS team also has folders organized by project, client, department, etc. Would you like to learn more tips from Martin, e.g. how to make your website stick? Then watch our podcast and find out 5 the main things that will help you create a top-notch website! “I was looking for such tool for years. I even started a new project to develop it myself. But then I found Wrike. What I like most is that Wrike is customizable to everybody, and all team members can have different ways to organize projects and tasks. I bought this product because I know – I already have the best solution for the team time management that grows every day.” Martin Jokubauskas, the CEO of INTERNET IDEAS
Does Wrike Use Wrike?
One of the most telling questions you can ask a software company is: "How do you use your product internally?" If they quickly throw out several compelling ways they use it, great! But often you hear: "Well, we use it, but we use lots of other tools too" and they can't give specific examples of how they're using their own tool. Why don't companies use their own product? Or why don't they use it well? Is it a question of belief or reliability? To customers and potential buyers, using your own product is a way of saying, "Yes, we love our product (and we hope you do too)!" Here at Wrike, not only do we believe in our software, but we're bona fide fanatics who use it every single day. Yes, We Use Our Product Everyday! We get the question, "How does Wrike use Wrike?" all the time. To answer that question, I'm sharing my example of a big project we completed using Wrike when I first started: I joined the marketing team at Wrike in January 2015. As a marketer, my team and I live and breathe in Wrike. Brainstorming, writing, editing — you name it, it's done in Wrike. And one of my first projects was part of the effort to develop example pages on our site. My priority was to provide customer stories, so people could see our product in action. During my first week, our international creative team was in town, and they had a huge role to play in the development of our new pages. We had a quick kick-off meeting with our Head of Creative and the project lead, our VP of Product Marketing. Within minutes we had created a task in Wrike to collectively brainstorm which example pages we wanted to develop and which took top priority. We used Wrike to schedule when each example page would be published, and created subtasks delegating to our teams what needed to be completed for each page. Then, we created a template from our first task structure, so we could use the same workflow for the rest of the example pages. The entire project planning meeting took only 30 minutes. Although the kick-off meeting consisted of only 4 people, the whole project required input from 15 team members. Since all my initial meeting notes were in Wrike, everyone could see our detailed project plan without needing to call me or tap me on the shoulder to ask a question. My teammates could add questions or suggestions to the kick-off task, and then simply @mention the appropriate person to get their answer. 3 months later in March, we had completed all five example pages on time without ever having to jump on another call or schedule another meeting. Everything between our content marketing, product marketing, design, and development teams was done through Wrike. This was an "A-ha!" moment for me as a new employee; I saw the power of our product in action. After our project was completed, our VP of Product Marketing sent out a congratulatory message. Always making a little time to celebrate our wins! "This is an amazing example of Wrike in action. In January, we laid out the project plan in a 30 min meeting and here we are today delivering exactly on time with 10+ people involved in these pages and 0 status update meetings. There were at least 5 individual pages created as part of this project. In the typical creative process, this would have required at least 3 rounds of review for each, and we did it all in real time through Wrike." — Brian Thome, VP of Product and Product Marketing at Wrike ...And Here Are Our Wrike Tips: 1. We take notes in Wrike so project plans are accessible in real time We don't wait until the end of the meeting to record next steps or primary goals. Instead, we open up Wrike right when the meeting begins and take notes in real time. This allows us to document every detail and create/assign tasks appropriately. Since everyone involved in the project has access to these notes, it helps keep the meetings short and only requires key players to attend. 2. We assign tasks to document accountability Since all the information is in one location, assigning individuals to tasks helps us track accountability. In the example above, each example page required a number of tasks to be completed by different team members. In Wrike, everyone saw who was responsible for which task, so if there was any delay we could comment on the task to see what the hold up was. There was never confusion on who was responsible for any work. 3. By receiving daily updates on projects, we cut out meetings Whenever there is a change to a task, everyone on that task is notified immediately. So while creating the example pages, all project tracking was done through Wrike. There was no need for status meetings or conference calls. If our director was curious about our progress, he could just glance at Wrike to see what was still in motion and what had already been completed. 4. Consolidating project data in Wrike allows us to plan around the clock With our team spread across the globe, we use the "follow the sun" technique, allowing the U.S. team to get tasks done during our work day, and then pass off the work to our international teammates to keep progress moving as we sleep; the project never stops moving. And since we keep all our progress and work in Wrike, there's no need to send emails asking for updates or documents, and then wait day (or more) for a response. Our teammates' work is always accessible. 5. We create templates to save time We love creating templates and copying folder structures in Wrike so efforts aren't duplicated. For example, we created five example pages — all with different content, but developed using the same process and with similar components. We duplicated our tasks and subtasks structure, so the process for the individual pages stayed consistent. It helped us prepare for the next step on each page and reference what worked last time. Want more on how Wrike uses Wrike? I hope you enjoyed this account of how we use Wrike internally! Check out some of our case studies to see some examples of how our customers are successfully using Wrike! You can also see How I Run a Marketing Team, 8 Lessons in Increased Productivity from Wrike Customers, and How Wrike Uses Wrike... for Fun! for more examples, or see other examples of Wrike use cases. Are you a big Wrike fan? Tell us your favorite reason to use Wrike in the comments!
Wrike Adoption Tip of the Month: Define Your Wrike Goals
Wrike is a tool that helps make your project management process more efficient, but it's not enough to just know about all of Wrike's features. Without a clear process in place, things will still fall through the cracks. In order to help your team successfully implement Wrike, you need to create a clear picture of your end goals, determine how certain features will be utilized, and communicate new processes with your team. Define Your Goals for Wrike Because Wrike has so many features, it's especially important to have a clear plan for what you want to get out of the tool. So make sure you get a good idea of the specific goals you want to achieve using Wrike. Do you want to boost work velocity and get things done faster than before? Do you want to increase visibility and collaboration between team members? Whatever your goal, having a defined objective will help you ensure Wrike is doing its job. Clear goals also make it easier to gauge how Wrike has contributed to your team's productivity and overall success. One of our customers — a project manager leading her team — used Excel spreadsheets before coming to Wrike. She wanted to increase the number of tasks the team completed on a weekly basis. Having a defined goal made it very easy for her to measure the success of their Wrike implementation: she simply compared the number of projects done with Wrike to the number of projects completed when they formerly relied on Excel. She showed this tangible benchmark of success to upper management, and they were very excited to see the jump in productivity. Decide How Your Team Can Maximize the Features This is generally true for most software, but with with a tool as flexible as Wrike, it becomes crucial that you figure out and really define what certain features mean for you and your team. For example: Wrike lets you mark tasks with a "deferred" status, but what does "deferred" mean for your purposes? Are you reactivating that same task later on, or giving up on it completely? In the same vein, when do you use the “Cancelled" status? And when do you simply delete a task that is no longer needed? Deciding ahead of time will save confusion. And when it comes to rescheduling tasks, should it be standard operating procedure for your team members to @mention the person responsible for the project, or can they simply reschedule the tasks on their own? Furthermore, how will you use milestones? Will you only set milestones for the final due date of a big project, or will there be multiple milestones along the way? Will the people working on the project come up with the tasks in between? Spend some time considering the best processes and most helpful features to enhance your team's everyday work. Creating some standard usage guidelines will give them direction and help establish consistency to prevent them from feeling overwhelmed by unfamiliar software. Communicate Processes with Your Team Once you've figured out the best working processes and most helpful features for your goals, communicate them with your team and get everyone on the same page. Here's an example: Let’s say your goal is to encourage your team to share knowledge with their colleagues, so you're setting up a company knowledge base within Wrike. Instead of actionable items, each task represents a piece of information that your team can use for reference. Since you want each piece of information to be easily accessible, you don't want these "tasks" to be marked as complete. If you’re setting this as the rule, communicate it with the team and explain the reasoning. For larger companies, consider distributing a reference guide, (e.g. a PDF file listing all rules) especially regarding features in Wrike that are the most beneficial for your team. And if there are features you won't be using, be sure to communicate that as well. Keep in mind that there is no right or wrong way to use these features. Since you are the one most familiar with how your team works, you must put some thought into creating an intelligent way to integrate Wrike with your team's habits and workflow, culminating in a holistic process. Only then can you truly adopt Wrike and attain the overall goal of increasing your team's productivity. NOTE: This is the third in a series of posts I’ve written regarding adopting software in general, and Wrike in particular. For more adoption tips, here is the first in the series, and here's the second.
Customer Tip of the Day: Organize Tasks by Person and by Project
Qualitek Solutions provides software and systems for improving quality and productivity for manufacturers in the world-wide paper converting industry. Their engineering and software development teams, run multiple projects at once, each at a different stage of completion. Learn their tip on how to organize your workspace and deal with client resource management in an easy yet powerful way. Background Half the team is constantly on the road, communicating with clients, and observing the implementation of their solutions, making it difficult to keep everyone on track and meet deadlines. As the team brought all the tasks and project data into Wrike project management software, their data flow became 100% transparent, and it became easier to organize the work. Now they share and track all the important project updates from their laptops and smartphones on the go. This way, people who are out of the office and people who stay at the office are always on the same page, and tasks get properly scheduled with regard for people’s workload. Productivity tip from Qualitek Solutions "With the ability to put one task into several folders, we’ve organized our workspace in a very simple, yet powerful, way" says Brent Bowman, Operations Manager for Qualitek . "In our workspace, we maintain two main folders called Engineers and Projects, shared with everyone in the company." In the first folder, each engineer has a personal subfolder where they keep all the tasks he or she is currently working on and updates them. In that Projects folder, all projects and jobs are organized by the sales order. "This structure enables us to see tasks from different points of view – in the context of the team member’s personal schedule and in the general context of the project. An engineer tracks and updates his tasks in his folder, while the project manager stays on top of the overall project progress in the relevant folder. We also grant read-only access to the Projects folder to some of our clients, so that they can check on the project’s status themselves anytime they want." Each team member also uses his or her folder as a personal working space, creating his or her own tasks and attaching the necessary documents to the folder info. As a result, the team stays on the same page. "We also organize our work better, as we can take into account a person’s schedule. When we need to assign new tasks, it’s convenient to switch between projects and team members’ folders in the timeline view. Then we can see which engineers will be busy implementing the solution on the client’s side next week and assign tasks to the correct person. This prevents us from doubling up engineers on the same job or putting one person at different jobs at the same time. When you have multiple projects with each at a different stage, Wrike’s flexible structure is a boon!" “Wrike’s a very powerful tool, and I think it’s going to get more and more valuable to us, as it has made our interaction so much easier. We are able to give everyone on the team some insight into where each member is and what has been done so far. Now I really cannot imagine how we used to keep all these things in our heads and mark them on the calendars in our office!” Brent Bowman, Operations Manager at Qualitek Solutions
How to Set Up Your Folders in Wrike
One of the most common questions we get asked by new users is: how do I set up my folders so I can use Wrike effectively? It's a valid question, because when you first start out in Wrike, you are given a blank slate to organize as you wish. For some, this freedom can be a minor roadblock resulting in questions like, "How do similar companies set up their folders?" or "How do you suggest we organize our Wrike account?" Here's some guidance for setting up your account.
Wrike Adoption Tip of the Month: Find Your Power Users
Adopting a new software can be difficult, but it doesn't have to be. Last month I talked about the importance of habit-building during the initial stages of Wrike adoption. This month, I'll talk about our second Wrike adoption strategy: finding your power users. Power users are Wrike experts who have learned the ins-and-outs of the software and the accompanying best practices. Because they're comfortable working within Wrike, they can help answer questions from colleagues and provide training for other users in the company. Not that I'm biased (okay, just a little), but Wrike has one of the most helpful Customer Support teams around, available via 24/5 live chat, email, or phone. Though what would be even more helpful than contacting our amazing Customer Support team is having your own power user in the company. This approach has many benefits: 1. Power Users can Provide Perfectly Customized Help While our Customer Support team can help answer specific questions about Wrike, we are not necessarily familiar with your team's unique workflow. And since Wrike is a project management software, it's important to be able to customize it to fit your needs. Since a power user is a part of your team, he or she knows how your team operates. Every answer and explanation they give will be relevant and can focus solely on the essential features for the team's workflow, glazing over features that are less integral. For your other users, it means they won't be overloaded with unnecessary information, and they'll have an easier time learning how to use Wrike. 2. Power Users can Ensure Consistency in the Way Wrike is Used Because there are so many ways to use Wrike, it's important to have processes in place to ensure consistency in the way your entire team uses it. Power users can put those processes in place. This approach helps avoid compatibility problems, such as each user setting up his own folder structure or workflow in Wrike, only to find out later on that his folder structure is not compatible with the rest of the team. 3. Power Users can Provide 1x1 Training Last month I addressed our natural resistance to change. For some users, the thought of learning the ins-and-outs of a new software is unpalatable. They give up before giving Wrike a chance because they don't know how easy and intuitive the tool can be. In my experience, having someone sit down for five minutes with "resistant" employees to show them how to create folders and tasks is all it takes to demystify the software. This approach is more interactive than watching help videos, participating in newcomer webinars, or attending online training sessions. Face-to-face interactions eliminate communication barriers and facilitate the Q&A experience that comes with learning anything for the first time. Did you catch our productivity proverbs back in March? Number 9 reads: "Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand." With the help of power users, one-on-one training can be more hands-on, making it easier for your employees to adopt and internalize their new Wrike habits. 4. Power Users Spread the Habit But what if you have a large team and it's just not feasible to do one-on-one sessions with the power user? As power users train more of the team, some of these newly-trained employees will become power users themselves, armed with the ability to spread their knowledge. This extended network of power users expedites Wrike adoption throughout the company. If there is a technical support division in your company, it could be helpful to turn your own Customer Support agents into power users so that they can provide ongoing internal support for employees new to the system. There is no shortage of support material published by Wrike, and you are highly encouraged to take advantage of our resources. But we've found that the most successful Wrike adoption cases are the ones that have power users in their company. Interested in becoming a power user? Contact our Support team, and we will be more than happy to give you the tools to make your company's Wrike adoption a success! More adoption tips are on the way. Check out the third post in the series next month: setting defined goals.
Too Many Meetings? Here's How You Replace Them With Wrike
We've all had unproductive days. Sometimes it's because we're preoccupied with a big project, sometimes it's from trying to multitask — which (shocker) doesn't actually make you more productive. And then there's the most common culprit of productivity loss: meetings.
Task Dependencies vs. Custom Workflows: When to Use Each in Wrike
Wrike is an incredibly flexible tool, offering several ways your team can set up your projects, track your progress, and reach your goals. But have you ever had too many options? Using Wrike can be like walking into an ice cream shop with 20+ flavors and wanting to try all of them. One of the most common choices Wrikers deliberate over is "Should I track project progress using a Custom Workflow, or should I rely on a chain of task dependencies?" We're here with some helpful tips to help you decide. And keep in mind: this isn't solely an either/or case — you can leverage a combination of these methods to effectively manage your work. When to Use a Chain of Task Dependencies in Wrike Creating a chain of separate tasks linked together using dependencies allows you to show which tasks are happening at what times, by whom, and in what exact order. It's of enormous importance and value to any project-based and deliverable-oriented team (and if you think your team doesn't have projects or deliverables, spoiler alert: you're wrong). There are two reasons you should consider setting up your work in this way: 1. Auto-adjusting timelines Dependencies in Wrike tell you the order in which tasks need to happen. For example, you could have 5 tasks that must happen in a specific sequence (Task 1, then Task 2, etc.). Auto-adjusting timelines helps you automatically update due dates on linked tasks when plans move forward or backward. If Task 3 ends up taking a few days longer than planned, you can update its due date accordingly, and the start and end dates for Tasks 4 and 5 will be pushed back in kind. Alternatively, if we realize that Task 2 can be finished more quickly than anticipated, shortening its duration and moving its due date forward will automatically shift Tasks 3-5 earlier as well — no point in sitting around waiting to start your next steps! 2. Up-to-bat emails One of the biggest bottlenecks in a project is not realizing you're supposed to start on your piece of the project puzzle. Because unless you're keeping a close eye on your colleague's progress (which they won't like, promise), or they came to you immediately to tell you that they finished their task (which they won't do, pinky swear), you'll be waiting until your next status update meeting to learn that you could have started your part three days ago. Instead, you could use a chain of linked tasks in Wrike to get notification emails when someone completes the task you've been waiting on. Set up dependencies between the tasks and make sure you're assigned to the task you're responsible for in the workflow; as soon as Jack hits 'Complete' on Task 1, the assignee for Task 2 will get an email saying it's time to start work. Now your team won't have to hawk over everything to make sure work is getting done as quickly as possible. Just remember, setting up a chain of dependent tasks may be overly rigid for your team. If you aren't married to your original timeline, it's not as easy to manipulate your workflow as using the Custom Statuses & Workflow method. Anything non-standard that gets thrown into the mix (an extra step, unforeseen time off, etc.) will impact your timeline and need to be factored into your chain of dependencies, which can require some re-work. We strongly recommended that anyone employing this dependency-driven methodology spend some time taking at least a rudimentary course in formal project management to learn about things like critical path, scope creep, and risk management. Advantages of Task Dependencies: Laser-focused timelines with easily anticipated due dates and delivery milestones Crystal-clear delegation of responsibilities — everyone knows who is working on what, when, and in what order Layered visibility allows PMs to oversee complex initiatives, while individual contributors only have to focus on what they're personally working on that week Baseline Chart will show you how the team delivered on your project compared to the original estimation Great for linking just two or three dependent tasks when you want to get the up-to-bat email notifications Disadvantages of Task Dependencies: Reliant on strong project management practices and team agreement on timelines and responsibilities Requires ongoing monitoring by the project owner to ensure no changes to the plan are needed Does not easily accommodate projects with unforeseen back-and-forth such as approvals, reviews, or multiple rounds of edits When to Use a Custom Workflow in Wrike With Wrike Enterprise, you can leverage Custom Workflows for more flexibility in your workflow. There are two rationales behind moving a single task through a series of unique statuses in a Custom Workflow: 1. Preserving information If you're producing content and the final outcome relies on input from multiple people, you would hate wasting time using a chain of tasks. You'd attach your version of a file to a task, mark it complete, and notify the next person in line; then the next person would be forced to go back to the previous task, download your file, edit it, attach it to their own task, mark their task complete, and notify the next person, ad infinitum. Instead, by only changing the custom status and assignee of a single task, you can use Wrike's file versioning feature to consolidate all files and versions in a single location, thus streamlining your team's workflow. Similarly, any notes taken in the description field that need to pass from person to person will be easier to find, modify, and collaborate on when they're preserved in a single task, instead of being moved around and duplicated between tasks. You don't want people to spend (i.e. waste) time scouring through tasks looking for the most recent version of the information when you can easily consolidate it in a single task. 2. Non-linear processes When getting from A to Z, sometimes you hit A, B, C, and all 26 letters in order just once before finishing your project. More often, that isn't the case at all. You need to square dance around and switch back and forth between steps, people, etc. before reaching the final Z. That can be a perfectly normal and productive workflow, but if you've set up your chain of tasks to follow a prescribed path, it makes work messy. Instead, by relying on a Custom Workflow you can bounce between statuses, moving 'forward' and 'backward' with ease, passing off the "next step baton" to individuals as necessary. A great example is, again, generating content. Often, content generation will begin with an idea, then copy will be drafted, edited, designed, approved, and published. However, each piece of content can go through any number of revisions, edits, and designs, so it's nearly impossible to determine ahead of time how many 'Review' steps you'll need. If you use a Custom Workflow instead of a chain of tasks, your content can easily move from 'In Draft' to 'In Review' and back again as many times as needed, each time changing who is assigned and responsible for the current stage. Advantages of Custom Workflows: Amazing flexibility (as shown above) In-depth reporting, especially with Dashboards, shows exactly where a task is in a certain process, and managers can easily glean what is currently 'In Review' or 'Needs Approval' Color-coding to make task progress easier to ascertain at a glance Fewer tasks cluttering your workspace Clearer progress markers mitigate the need for extra status update meetings Disadvantages of Custom Workflows: Due dates are not tied to status changes, meaning that you need to continuously change the task's due date to reflect when the next step must begin Very minor, but worth noting: Assignees are not tied to specific statuses, meaning that if someone is responsible for writing and someone else is responsible for reviewing, you either need to (1) both be assigned to the task and know who is responsible for each stage, or (2) switch assignees every time you switch a status. Learn More on How to Use Custom Workflows & Task Dependencies That's why we built them! Relying solely on managing a long chain of task dependencies can be complicated without proper project management training. Don't forget that these two methodologies can always be combined for incredibly effective collaboration! Certain steps along a project timeline may need specialized statuses to best manage their progress, and they can sit within a longer chain of tasks connected by dependencies. Ultimately, different projects will have different needs and we are here to support however you work best. If you still can't figure out the best way to use Custom Workflows and Task Dependencies for your team and you'd like to learn more, reach out to our Support team or talk to us in the comments below! We're standing by to answer all your questions.