Monday, November 2, 2009

Manymoon and Versus Technology



"Before using Manymoon, Versus project managers had to collaborate with colleagues and customers and send important data and status updates using email. Now, the average on-site Versus project team has reduced its email burden by approximately 400 emails per week, per project."


Manymoon is a leading project collaboration application built specifically for customers who utilize secure online tools. Manymoon makes it simple to organize tasks, documents, events, and links with coworkers, customers, and partners. By seamlessly integrating with Google Apps, Manymoon helps organize and track projects so that anyone can efficiently collaborate and reduce email clutter.

Versus Technology Inc. is a leading provider of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Infrared (IR) patient locating solutions for healthcare facilities, providing patient tracking, patient flow management, asset tracking, and real time locating services. Established in 1988, Versus has sold its solutions to more than 500 healthcare facilities, and tracks more than one million patients annually.


Challenge
Versus Technology works directly with their largest healthcare customers to implement RTLS on-site at their facilities, and thus, Versus employees often work remotely and across multiple customer locations. Delivering a successful and on-time implementation requires smooth communications between remote Versus project managers, customer contacts and Versus headquarters.

Versus traditionally used a wide array of files and applications to manage projects. Mindmapping software was used during project meetings with customers to take notes of open issues, spreadsheets tracked customer issues, email messages shared information among project members, and specialized desktop collaboration software was used to distribute project spreadsheets and documents.

But this approach came with some challenges, since these files resided locally on each person's computer and people often lost track of the correct document version to use. It was also difficult to use these solutions with customers and remote workers. As a result people often resorted to using email to communicate open items for each customer project. Multiple emails would then have to be sent just to collect comments or send reminders and the end result was lost productivity while working across multiple customer projects.


Solution
Versus chose Manymoon to streamline the process of tracking open tasks associated with each customer installation.

Manymoon is a project collaboration application that allows anyone to quickly set up an online project, invite people within and outside the organization, begin assigning tasks and sharing documents with each other, and ultimately track activity towards completion of a project. Manymoon's built-in security means that only people invited to the project can view associated tasks, comments and documents. The project administrator can set permissions to determine which people can view project information and who has administrative capabilities.

Because there's no software to install, it's easy for Versus employees to bring both colleagues and customers in to a project. With just a browser and an internet connection, anyone can be invited to the project and immediately have access to the most recent project information.


Results
Before using Manymoon, Versus project managers had to collaborate with colleagues and customers and send important data and status updates using email. Now, the average on-site Versus project team has reduced its email burden by approximately 400 emails per week, per project. All information is neatly centralized in Manymoon and easily accessed by all team members, crucial in situations where Versus employees and customers are in different places or using disparate systems. Additionally, Google Calendars and Docs are automatically shared with customers and colleagues within the context of the deliverables and projects to which they relate.

Liz MacManus, Implementation Project Manager at Versus says, "Manymoon has allowed us to efficiently track a large number of customer projects without sacrificing customer satisfaction."