Wrike is a tool your team will live by.
It’s a journey that will help teams organize, streamline, and optimize the way they work.
Let’s take a look at what your day with Wrike would look like!
At the start of the day, you open your inbox to check if there are any updates
that require your attention.
It’s easy to see how many unread notifications you currently have
thanks to the number on the top panel.
As you can see, one of my team members has mentioned me.
I click the notification and open the task directly from my inbox
and can start collaborating right away.
I can also go to the Sent section to quickly find any comments that I left earlier.
Last week, the guys from the analytics team shared several very important links with me.
I put them into a task and starred it so I have quick access to it.
Here it is.
Once you’ve dealt with all the urgent things, you can check where your team stands
using the dashboard.
A dashboard is a dynamic board that shows up-to-date information,
such as the status of projects and tasks or if any of the tasks are overdue.
You can have several dashboards that show different lists of items
based on different attributes.
This dashboard is used to monitor the team’s work.
With a quick glance, I can tell that the team has missed the due date on 3 tasks,
2 client issues represented with these tasks were escalated to the manager,
and 1 creative asset is pending my approval.
All these lists of tasks or projects displayed here are called widgets.
Several widgets on this dashboard have been built upon particular statuses
of the custom workflows which, represent our org’s business processes.
After taking all the necessary steps here, I move to the next dashboard.
This one is used to distribute the work among team members.
I can see here that several tasks from the new project have fallen into the intake folder.
I simply drag a task to Peter’s widget — voila — the task is now assigned to him.
I’m not sure who’s going to be responsible for the 2 remaining tasks.
I need to think about it and return later to assign them.
Every week, I report to upper management on the current status of projects.
They need to know if any of the project milestones are overdue, and then they usually ask me
if it will affect the projects’ deadlines.
I don’t create a report from scratch every time.
I’ve already done that earlier and the updated version of it automatically
falls into my inbox every Monday at 8 a.m.
The report is tailored to the executives’ needs.
As you can see, it has the “original due date” column, which is created with custom
fields functionality and shows the delta between the actual and original due date in real time.
If I need to edit the report to show some additional information
or remove particular columns,
I can always do that in the report settings.
Now let’s see how to kick off a new project.
It’s a good practice to create projects in your team’s Space.
A Space is a central hub used to store information relevant to a team.
Simply click this plus button to the right of the Space’s name
and enter the name of your new project.
Let’s say we would like to create a new promo campaign for Star Inc.
Don’t forget that you need to break your project into the actionable steps
represented with tasks.
So once the project is created, let’s start populating it with tasks.
This one’s going to be a relatively short project that’ll contain only 8 tasks.
Remember to always assign and schedule your tasks.
If the tasks are assigned, everyone has a clear understanding of who is responsible
for what part of the work.
And if the tasks are properly scheduled, your team members can prioritize their work on
a daily basis.
I’m assigning this task to Peter,
this one to Ann,
and this one to Brad.
I know that Lisa is going to be responsible for the 5 remaining tasks, so I’m going
to use Mass Actions to quickly assign them to her.
The next step is connecting the tasks with dependencies.
This is a simple project and all the tasks need to be completed one after another.
The easiest way to add dependencies is using the Gantt chart view,
but for the tasks to appear there, we need to schedule them first.
I’m using Mass Actions again.
This time I select all the tasks and schedule them for today.
Alright, we’re good to go.
Now I open the Gantt chart and connect the tasks with finish-to-start dependencies.
I’ll also convert the last task to a milestone.
What else do we need for this promo campaign?
We’ll definitely need a picture.
I’m filling in the creative request form and pasting the link to a nice photo I’ve
found on one of the stock photography providers for the guys to purchase.
I submit the form.
Now I’m @mentioning our creative team and leaving a message for them in the task that
was triggered by submitting the form, so they know where to get the photo once it’s purchased.
When I @mention the creative team here, I’ve shared the project with them.
I also need Peter from the SEO team to have access to the project, so I’m sharing it
with him here in the sharing section.
Oh, I just received a notification from our CEO, Brian.
He made a company-wide announcement about the all-hands meeting being rescheduled by
@mentioning the MyTeam user group.
Good to know.
I’ll have more time to focus on the project this week.
During the kickoff meeting with Star Inc., the client mentioned that they’ll need several
promo campaigns this quarter.
The steps will be the same, so I’ll duplicate this project to the templates folder
in the creative Space.
Good.
Now when we need to get started on the next post, I’ll quickly create a project from
this template.
After the project is initiated, your job is to make sure that folks update task statuses,
ask questions if something isn’t clear, and share assets and progress upon delivery.
Don’t forget to praise great work!
As you start using Wrike, you’ll find more ways you can improve your team’s efficiency.
We’ll share more best practices in other videos.