Using WorkBook Hierarchy to LevelUp with Consistent Reporting

Accurate reporting is key to providing the data and insights you need to LevelUp and continually improve agency operations. And without the right hierarchy built into the structure of your agency management system, you’ll struggle to get consistency and accuracy in those reports.

That’s why WorkBook gives you the ability to create the simplest or most detailed hierarchy to fit your agency’s specific workflow, so that you can easily pull the reports you want and be confident that you have the most accurate data you need to make strategic decisions.

Setting up the right hierarchy to match your agency’s workflow allows you to LevelUp from manual multiplicity to proactive project management and begin to track the right KPIs on your path to business maturity. 

This means:

• Your agency can have many Clients. 
• Clients can have many Projects.
• Projects can have many individual Jobs. 
• Each Job may have many different Phases within their schedule. 
• Each Phase can contain more than one Task.
• And you can get real-time data at every step!

Just take a look at how this hierarchy structure can help you clearly visualize your agency’s dimensions and pull more detailed reports.

In the example above, with this level of detail, you can pull real-time data on the most granular metrics using different dimensions, like utilization by task, or higher-level metrics like utilization by department. 

Here’s how to set it up:

Clients & Projects

To find active Projects or Retainers on a Client, navigate to the Resources module and find “Clients” in the filter search bar, double-click the desired Client to open the Client detailed card.

In the Client detailed card you can add or delete Projects or Retainers, and see the associated Jobs within each. Note that Projects that already have Jobs associated cannot be deleted but can be de-activated instead.

Projects & Jobs

Once the Project has been defined, you can create Jobs simply by using the “New Job” button in the Jobs List (or via the Quick access menu). Select the Clients to find the Jobs you’ve created. You can have as many Jobs per Project or Retainer as you like.

Phases & Tasks

Once a Job has been created under the desired Project or Retainer, you create a schedule made up of Phases and Tasks. WorkBook makes this process easier by allowing you to create the schedule from the approved Price Quote, copy a similar schedule from another Project, or build a schedule from scratch.

Each schedule can hold multiple Phases and each Phase can hold several Tasks.

From the toolbar within the Tasks tab you can add or delete Phases, insert default Phases and give each phase a color.

Once your Phases have been set up, you can now add Tasks.

A Task can be added in many ways. In this example, from the Task toolbar, you can select a Phase and use the “New task” field to enter a Task name or simply right-click a Phase to have a context menu show.

From this view, you can add new Phases if need be. You can even book Resources to a Task and allocate hours across the Task’s team.

At this point, you have now created a work breakdown structure that will provide you with the real-time data you need at every level.

Again, if your agency’s workflow doesn’t require this many levels of hierarchy, you can build a simpler structure. WorkBook is configurable to your agency’s specific needs.