It's important to keep your database nice and tidy for a number of reasons ~
Your team can trust the information they see in your database i.e. all live jobs have an 'In Progress' job status, rejected quotes have 'Quote Declined' status etc.
Speed: any time you view information in Streamtime, FileMaker Pro downloads all of that data from the server to the client machine. This means that in order to increase speeds, we need to minimise the data transferred between the server and client machine where possible.
You can more easily make changes to your Cost Matrix items.
And here's how...
Decide on a Status workflow and stick to it.
Work towards accurate 'Active' lists for Quotes, Orders & Jobs; keeping your lists tidy means that you will have an accurate idea of what stages your jobs are at plus, the shorter your Active lists are, the faster they will load.
Process Tip: Once you set a Quote Status to "Accepted", lock the Quote by clicking on the padlock; the Quote will remain reportable, but will be removed from your Active list.
Complete tasks and lock jobs once they have finished. The Progress Bars in your Job and Task lists are calculated on the fly every time you view them; this means the more open tasks you have, the longer it will take to calculate and display your list.
Where possible, the total number of hours logged to a Job should be kept to a minimum. Internal Jobs, for instance, should be closed on a yearly or 6 monthly basis.
Tasks will also disappear from your My Tasks view the day after you have completed them, giving you an accurate To Do list.
Process Tip: After sending a final Invoice for a Job, navigate to the Job and 1) change the status of the Job to an inactive status and 2) lock the Job by clicking on the padlock. Not only will locking a Job remove it from the active jobs list, it will also tell you if there are any uncompleted tasks and allow you to automatically complete them.
Need to tidy up your Statuses in one fell swoop?
If you haven't been keeping on top of your Statuses, padlocking the Job is the fastest way tie up loose ends; it locks the Job, deactivates and locks all associated Quotes/Orders as well as locking associated Invoices. You also have the option to complete uncompleted tasks.
To padlock a Job, it must first have an inactive status; in this case, the Job status indicates it's still in progress in your studio.
Change the Job Status to an inactive one i.e. Completed or Invoiced, then lock the Job by clicking on the Padlock in the top right corner of the Job overview.
Next you will be asked if you want to lock the related Quotes, Orders & Invoices
And finally, whether you want to complete the uncompleted tasks (if applicable)
