How to Use Deltek PIMs New Smart Features to Reengage with Your Users

So your company has invested in the Deltek PIM product and has been using it for a while. But perhaps your employees aren’t fully embracing the system for one reason or another. Or maybe you’ve heard rumors of the new ‘smart technology’ that has been infused in the product and are excited to spread the news across your user base. Either way, re-engaging your employees in their use of Deltek PIM will not only help them become more productive, but also maximize your company’s return on investment (ROI).

What Are the New Smart Features?

We have spent the last couple of years talking with customers and conducting loads of research. The ultimate questions we asked ourselves were:

• “How do we speed up the publishing process?”
• “How do we improve the way users manage their information?”
• “How can we help users find information quicker?”

That’s where ‘smart’ comes in. If we can use smart technology to improve the publishing process and heighten visibility into documents, we can vastly increase the confidence in the system and create a better experience.

Let’s first take a look at what those new ‘smart’ features are, then we’ll dive into how to use those same features to re-invigorate the use of Deltek PIM in your business.

Smart Email: Semi-Automated Publishing

The email publishing tool received a new modern interface, as well as some ‘smart’ technology to make publishing emails quicker and easier.

• Publish Original with Reply: Allows users to save their email along with the original email at the same time, eliminating the need to return to your inbox to publish that original email separately.
• Suggestions for Publish Location: The smart email publishing tool scans the subject and body of an email and then makes suggestions of where to publish emails so you don’t have to manually select the project record and/or the document pool.

Smart DMS: Simplified User Interface

The document management system (DMS) now provides an updated and modern user interface (UI) without sacrificing the searching power of PIM.

• Simpler Filters: In the new ‘smart view’, the most used or popular filters are available at the top of the screen to help users narrow their search.
• Introduction of Modes: We have introduced the concept of modes (Document Mode, Basket Mode and Email Mode) to help users find the documents they need more quickly.
• Search for Document Pools: The new ‘smart view’ allows users to filter the document pools displayed via keywords along the left panel.
• Share Documents: Users can more easily share documents via attachment, a link to the document in the Deltek PIM system and now through a downloadable link added to the body of an email message. 
• Additional Details and Tools: Users can perform a variety of actions on any given document, including viewing document details, editing document properties and cloning the document.

How Can I Reengage My Users?

Step 1: Take a Step Back and Evaluate Usage

Start by taking a step back and looking at the business and its processes as a whole. It’s important to understand what’s actually going on now. Perform some analysis, looking at Deltek PIM usage patterns and which teams or individuals are struggling—and why.

Step 2: Solicit Advocates of the System—Even the Naysayers

Create a list of team members to aim the ‘smart technology’ at. When doing so, it’s easy to include in that list the enthusiastic users of technology. But don’t overlook the opportunity to convert a couple of the naysayers of technology. If you can demonstrate to the naysayer how the smart functionality can help them publish and find documents easier than the old way, that person will become the biggest and loudest advocate of Deltek PIM.

Step 3: Consider Your Approach, Using ‘Smart’ as a Motivation

Think about the old processes you want to improve and how the new smart interface can help your teams be more effective with some of those repetitive activities. What are some of the questions your users may ask and how can smart address those?  For example, “I want to be able to publish replies and incoming emails all together” and how the new email publishing tool and accomplish just that.

Step 4: Retrain and Generate Interest

Finally, spend some time showcasing the new ‘smart’ features to your short list of advocates. Get them using the smart interface and sharing what they’ve learned with the broader team. For example, “I found everything I needed in half the time it took me last week.” Once other employees hear the excitement around the success stories of your advocates, they’ll be more likely to explore the same features and incorporating those processes in their day-to-day activities.

Deltek Is Here to Help

What if you want or need some help in reengaging your employees’ usage of Deltek PIM? Just reach out to us! It’s sometimes difficult to navigate the process without some support from the people who are doing this all the time. Deltek offers Optimization Workshops that review your business processes and offer a range of recommendations to improve engagement with the system, up skill employees with system features, and simply offer a fresh approach to maximizing functionality.

We often follow up those Optimization Workshops with champion user training across the business and using them to persist training to the wider range of employees. It's about training people within the business by training the trainer effectively.

If interested in one of these Optimization Workshops, reach out to your Customer Success Manager.