Archive for the ‘mas90’ Category
Google Tasks As A Free and Quick Implementation Checklist Generator
Whenever I go out onsite for a client upgrade or implementation I think how much easier life would be if I had a standard checklist in electronic format.
Isn’t that something we all promise ourselves that we’ll do – someday? Create that master checklist that guides us through routine tasks such as upgrades.
There are numerous paper checklists publishers provide – however the items are often tediously redundant and it seems so 1980′s to be flipping through 15 pages of photocopied instructions.
Today I’m off to upgrade a straightforward MAS 200 system and I’ll be trying Google Tasks as my checklist generator.
Google Tasks is free – and located in your Gmail account listed on the left side as “tasks”. It’s a decidedly bare bones way to keep a list of items you need to complete.
Before I leave I’ve created a Google Tasks list on my desktop computer. Using software for the iPhone I synchronize the tasks in real time so that I can use them while on site with the client.
If I find that I need more items in my task list — I can add those on my iPhone and they’ll be synchronized back to my desktop list of tasks.
What I hope is that with a little tweaking that I can soon have a set of tasks that become my master implementation guide that also travels with me wherever I have my IPhone or access to the web.
You can easily drag, drop and add items just about anywhere on your Google Task list.
There are also Apps you can download to your iPhone – such as GeeTasks (shown above) which will synchronize your tasks so you can use your list deep within a server room that gets no cell reception.
Craigslist As A Lead Source
This morning I spotted a posting on the free online classified advertisement site Craigslist for MAS90 MAS200 EXPERTS!!!
You can click the image on the left and read the whole advertisement. The bigger question for most consultants is whether these types of free advertising sites work to attract prospects?
Yes! This advertising works. It will attract responses. You may even be busier than you ever imagined – so long as you don’t mind working for three kinds of people (and they all share a common distaste for paying for consulting fees).
Here are the three primary types of prospect you’ll be sure to attract with a free advertisement that primarily offers low cost services.
Publicly shared Google Apps documents will now be indexed by search engines
Beginning sometime later this month Google will start to index any spreadsheets, documents or presentations that you’ve created in your Google Apps account AND have shared publicly.
This doesn’t mean your documents will be shared with everyone. Rather Google is notifying their users that only publicly shared items will be indexed. Users should double check on any publicly shared items to make sure that they really should be public (here’s how).
While on the surface this may seem like an invasion of privacy, and it might be if you haven’t taken care to make sure you have not shared sensitive items, it also could be a great way for web visitors to search and find your site. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re not offering support plans then your clients are stealing your time
The best way to assure that you never make any money on support is to promise you’ll create a prepaid annual support plan for your clients — some day.
That mythical ”some day” never seems to arrive for most of us.
Because we’re busy putting out other client forest fires. Then for a while the “pay as you go” support works pretty well. Since you’re busy – no need to worry about changing the way you bill.
Suddenly as the economy ebbs and flows your billable support calls trail off. Clients stop calling. Without incoming phone calls you have no reliable source of income. Yet you still have the expense of paying staff to sit by the phone and wait for calls.
Think of how crazy the pay-as-you-go support model is.
For absolutely no money (unless a client calls) you staff a call center with people who will respond to a client call on a moment’s notice. If you’re not offering a support plan – clients pay you nothing for setting up this support center.
See a problem yet?
Tip: Use Sugarsync to store all your master program CDs
Has this ever happened to you?
After arriving at a client site you find that you’re missing that one CD required to complete a software installation?
In the past I’ve tried creating a master set of CDs and carefully inserted them into a looseleaf binder. The problem? I kept leaving the most important ones behind in the client’s CD tray. Then I’d go to look for it at the next client and the CD that I needed was missing!
I’ve rushed into the office on days that I knew I had to be out on-site with a client and hustled to burn the CD’s that I thought I might need. What I found is this always resulted in the client having the exact CDs needed and my early morning dash to the office was for nothing.
Instead I’m going to tell you how you can completely solve the problem of always having every CD at your fingertips without spending any extra time or pre-planning. It’s dirt cheap – and as a plus if a client ever calls to say they can’t find their Crystal Reports Disks (or insert favorite application disk that clients love to lose) – then you can send a copy to the client via your iPhone/BlackBerry or Android device in seconds. Read the rest of this entry »
