TimeMerlin ensures data security

In TimeMerlin, we expect the users to manage several types of confidential data including project pricing, client information etc and accordingly we have designed the system so that the users can control who sees this private information. We use couple of layers of security and we would like to tell you how they work.

 

Secure Browser Connections

The TimeMerlin host server features Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocols. That means all the information sent between your computers and our host server will be encrypted. This keeps your confidential data safe from external parties.

Secured Browser Connections with TimeMerlin

Customizable Permissions

In TimeMerlin, the admin decides who get to see what and who gets to do what. With one click, the permissions can be granted or denied. This includes viewing or modifying data, running reports, entering time worked, creating a project, etc.

Hierarchy Filtering

Hierarchy filtering prevents users from viewing or editing data outside their own department

Password Restrictions

The overall data security is increased when users use complex passwords and change them regularly. TimeMerlin helps you follow best practices in this area.

Idle User Session Timeout

Use our automatic timeout feature to choose how long TimeMerlin can be left idle before the system automatically logs the user off.

Challenges of Project Management made easy with TimeMerlin!

The project manager role is challenging and tough. The project manager not only has to assign the tasks and manage the employee scheduling but also has to report the progress to the management. The project manager faces a lot of issues in a product development life cycle. I have tried to list them along with the solutions that I have tried at couple of instances.

Lack of Communication

Now more and more organizations have teams that are spread across the globe and are handling multiple projects simultaneously. Our team is based at three locations X, Y and Z. We were always on our toes to ensure that all the team members communicate with each other and also with the top management. One solution to this problem was very frequent conference calls among the interested parties which sometimes happened as frequents as twice or thrice a day, which is ok as long as it is not eating up your profits. For about year we did that also, but slowly and gradually employees were getting tired of explaining the same details to different teams. Along with the profitability, the productivity was also going down as a major chunk of time was spent discussing the issues. But the major issue was that though we were able to share the issues we were not able to track the issues. Then came the email era, we shared the issue with different groups in one email and our profits were also better because international calls were cut down considerably. Repetition to explain the issues also went down, employees were sending the details of the issue at their own convenience. Still we were not able to track the issues. It was quite a pain tracking who was doing what and what stage of the project the particular team was at? After lots of struggling and juggling with the issues, we realized the need of web based employee time management system. Now in TimeMerlin, our project groups are divided into projects and projects have users with their specified roles under them. With a simple timesheet/status report the status is updated into the system. Anybody can log into the sytsem and view the status. These are discussed in our daily “scrum” meetings. Issues can be tracked and project scheduling can also be handled.

Defining the Project Scope

Another major hurdle is defining the project scope. Even when the project scope has been defined initially, there are quite a chance of increase or decrease in the scope. Either ways it will lead to change in employee scheduling. To avoid invoicing blunders one solution is to wait till the start of next cycle of invoicing to make the changes or other way is to have a centralized employee scheduling module that can be shared by the project management group and accounting team.

Multi tasking

Project managers have to deal with situations where an employee is part of multiple projects. Though I am not who is very much in favor of a multi-project scenario because personally I think only jugglers are best at multi-tasking. Especially in the IT industry juggling becomes little risky because of the rate at which the scope is revised. It demands very frequent employee rescheduling, thus impacting multiple projects. What project managers in multiple project settings suffer from is that people do not know Tim is only 40% allocated to CNS and only 35% to YMCA analysis. (What is happening with rest 25% of his time?) In the meantime, Stephen is sucking up and is 60% assigned on Sony and 55% assigned on Sales. This happens every single month, and errors are caught only when invoices are going to be sent out. Thankfully, these were handled and caught at the right time by our project tracking module in TimeMerlin

Employee churn rate

Employee churn is another issue arises when the economy is very fast. People tend to hop from one job to another. Project managers should have team building activities or specials events lined up in their agenda to maintain adequate employee engagement. Apart, from that it is very important to have processes in place. The vaccum created by an employee should not lead to project lag.

Expenses

Expenses need to be managed. If an employee has submitted an expense sheet, the reimbursement should be disbursed as quickly as possible. Simply because the project manager is at a different geographical location cannot be an excuse for the accounts department to delay the disbursement.There can be a centralized expense management system to handle such situations.

Anlaysis and Reporting

Another most time consuming management overhead activity is preparing reports and analyzing them to put data in the presentations. Phew! How much I used to dread that! But now with TimeMerlin my life is much simpler. Most of the reports that I need to analyse and use in my presentations are ready made, I just need to run them and then export them into excel file. Life is so much easier! TimeMerlin’s project tracking module is very simple and easy to analyze. The TimeMerlin web application generates, analyses and produces the reports in the form of graphs and the pie charts that can be easily incorporated into the presentations.

TimeMerlin follows an integrated approach that aims to minimizing redundancy, reducing time wasting, avoiding inefficient communication and wrong expectations.

TimeMerlin

A complete web based platform for managing employee timesheets, appraisals, expenses and assets.

Common wealth games 2010

Commonwealth Games 2010 in India has actually turned out good feed for writers, numerologists (read the article), astrologists who have now written and analyzed it extensively its scandalous and sordid affairs. But I have been more interested in it for its lesser known facts about the poor project management  and improper employee and contractor schedule . Gaps were tremendous; employee scheduling should have their number one priority task because labor is not a shortage in India and if the employees and contractors had been scheduled properly for the various projects the situation for their over time would not have arrived at first place or would not have been so critical that now almost every project is running overtime. Poor employee and contractor time management led to uncontrolled expenses as well. The committe should have spent about 50% of time on management and planning of the various projects and rest 50% on execution. Proper project management and expense management would have been a good answer to all those corruption allegations on the committee. Actually even if they had taken bribes in all those handshakes but would have delivered the best and in time, I am sure even press would have also ignored all those handshakes.Failure to deliver what you promised is not forgiven easily! So wake up all the corporates take your project managers and management more seriously.

Timesheets and more!

TimeMerlin offers employee time management software solutions for employee time sheets, status reports and project tracking. Used in SME's, TimeMerlin can offer managers timely information when assessing time and cost budgets of any project.

TimeMerlin not only helps you to manage your multiple projects with its much appreciated employee time sheets and status reports but also it helps to track holiday time, expenses, invoicing and performance reviews.  

Best Self time managment tool

The simplest of all the self management tools and also the best of all of tips that I have practised and stuck on has been a plain paper and a pencil. There are no constraints involved, I can practically do this anywhere and anytime. And best of all that it can be easily folded and saved nicely in the wallet and then taken out again when needed.
Also I have realised that listing the tasks/activities are more important than priortization. Once the tasks have been listed and the most important ones identified, then only they should be compared against the time frame.
The most important ones take priorty and the rest can be categorised depending upon the time frame.
Once the most important ones or "must do" have been identified; I like to idenitfy the ones that can be delegated and eliminated. The handfuls that are left can now be adjusted to the availability of time.
I start my day with a fresh peice of paper and carry over the "left ones". With just a piece of paper and a simple pen, I have managed my all tasks very nicely and effeciently.
But most of the times I have really found myself struggling with the tasks that have been delegated.How do I keep a track of the activites that have been assigned to whom and with what deadline ? I have struggled hard to keep track of who is at what stage of that activity. My pen and paper failed me here. I needed a "time magician" - timemerlin. It was simply designed to get the day end status reports and timesheets.

TimeMerlin Introduction

http://www.scribd.com/doc/34042485

Strengthening from within - strengthening the communication process with TimeMerlin!

The ultimate goal of the business is to succeed. Identification of this core need is simple, what is more complex is the way to consider the factors that affect the overall output. The overall output depends upon performance which in turn depends upon how effecient and effective the internal processes of an organiation are. One of the most important internal process that most of the times goes ignored or overlooked is internal communication.

TimeMerlin makes the communication a linear process. The manager and other concerned persons gets to know the complete thought process of an individual working on the project. It breaks down the barriers of the distance.

True insight into performance comes when we complement raw data with quantitative data. Thus it is imperative that an organization spends some time on documenting the communication (raw data) which can be later translated into the numbers to evaluate the over all performance. With more and more virtualization happening around the globe; the concept of "one office team" is shrinking. The teams are spread not only across various offices but also various geographic locations. The more quickly an organizatiion can identify the linking factor, the more easily they can control the communication and hence their internal processes. A platform should exist where all the indiviual performers and team members are able to submit the details of the modules they are working upon. In a layman's language, all the employees should submit their timesheets. These timesheets are the raw data and these can be analysed to reflect the employee productivity which in turn reflects into an organization's performance.