Correspondence and Issues Management

Training Manual

Course Aim

The aim of this manual is to provide instructions tracking correspondence through issues management.

How to use this User Training Manual

As you read this manual you will notice the following icons recurring which will help to highlight and enable you to quickly locate activities and summary areas, they will also assist with tips for keeping out of trouble.

Puzzle Piece:

The puzzle piece appears at the beginning of each session and any major section to mark the overview of that item’s content or concept.

UniPhi Logo:

The UniPhi logo denotes a step by step activity to be completed using UniPhi by the participant relative to the section it is located in.

Key:

The hand holding the key denotes a helpful hint or tip you should be aware of.

Screen dumps have been used throughout the manual to demonstrate what you should be viewing as you move through the activities. They are for illustrative purposes only. Details such as dates, budget figures and other entered text/data may vary.

Correspondence and Issues Management

UniPhi uses the issues system to track and manage communications flows on a project. In this section you will see how this is managed including integration with:

  • Issues;
  • Documents;

All information that is worth recording on a project relates to the resolution of an issue. If this statement is true, then all communication is usually in resolution of an issue. This may be as simple as getting site fencing erected to major change to scope and budget.

The following session will demonstrate how UniPhi assists with recording initial communications / issues and appending information responses to communications.

(See Appendix 1: Recording initial communications flow chart and Appendix 2: Appending information responses to communications flow chart).

Logging and responding to issues logged in UniPhi

  1. Correspondence will come up from a variety of sources; meetings, phone conversations, emails, normal hardcopy mail. All of these conversations, when requiring more than a token effort to deal with, should be logged in UniPhi so that they can be tracked, delegated, prioritised and resolved effectively.
  2. UniPhi’s Team Member license has two places to view and log issues; My Work/Issues and My Portfolio/Issues. Each has a subtly different view of the information. The My Portfolio view is displayed below and you will see that the assigned to list has a variety of people who have been allocated responsibility for resolving an issue.

Figure 1: My Portfolio\Issues – Displays all issues on the project or across the projects that you are involved in,

Selecting “My Work” limits the issues lists to those issues that have been allocated to you as responsible for resolving. This can be seen in the abridged list for the same project below:

Figure 2: My Work/Issues view of same project

  1. To log an issue in UniPhi, go to the Issues tab in the My Portfolio screen and select the relevant project the correspondence relates to from the Project: filter circled in red above.
  2. Click . The following issue form will be displayed:

  1. Enter in relevant information (description, rating, due date etc) and click to drill in on issue. The drilled in view of an issue will look something like the screen shot below:

  1. Further correspondence can be added to the issue by clicking on the button underneath the comments
  2. All the people assigned to the issue or having commented on the issue will be notified in the email of the issue being created and will be updated when the issue has further information added. This can include more comments, more actions, re-assignments and changes to due dates. Only project manager licensed users can change the due date of an issue or action.
  3. Users will also be able to see their issues, along with documents, risks and change requests in their My Work\Summary tab as per below:

You now know how to record correspondence as project issues

Recording email communications as project issues

Communications often come via email. These can easily be used to create a new issue or appending to an existing issue. UniPhi integrates with MS Outlook via a UniPhi Issue plug-in that can be installed on your computer.

For communication received via email:

  1. Once relevant communication has been received via MS Outlook, select the email and click on the plug-in button. This will launch the Save As UniPhi Issue form:

  1. Quickly log receipted information into the issues register against the relevant project, either by creating a new issue that needs to be resolved or appending the email to an existing issue. You can also choose to include attachments and assign the issue to a specific resource, apply a due date or an issue template (used to auto-generate any actions, resources - based of roles - and due dates for issues that are common and have a standard procedure to complete).

In UniPhi locate the issue via the Issues tab. Here you will be able to view the original email and any attachments, add actions required to close out the issue and add comments / instructions to aid communication and workflows surrounding the issue.

Link response documents

Responses are made using the documents system and can be linked to the issue so that all communications can be seen in the one screen as per below:

Note the attached file Related Documents box.

To link a document to an issue:

  1. After having received and / or created an issue in UniPhi that requires a response document, go to the Documents tab (ensuring you are drilled in to the relevant project).
  2. Click to start the Create Document wizard (this will open in a new tab or window):
  1. Select the “Drawings” Template and select the project that you added the issue to.

Document controls: Documents can be linked to issues, contracts and other documents by using Documents Controls built in to UniPhi templates. (UniPhi is deployed with a selection of standard templates. Users have the ability to create their own templates using the various document controls).

Below are a few examples demonstrating the different document controls and how they link to different areas of UniPhi:

  • The Issue Selector document control is used to link the document / communication to the initial issue:

This document will now appear in the Related Documents box when you have drilled into the selected issue.

  • The Document Selector document control links all other communication related to the initial issue into the response document
  • The File Upload (Multi) document control allows you to attach other external documents that can then also be linked:
  1. Complete creating your response document, linking to the appropriate issue, documents etc.
  2. View the response document by drilling in on the relevant issue and locating in the Related Documents box.

Appendix 1:

Recording initial communication

Appendix 2:

Appending information responses to communications

Appendix 3:

Contract Related Document Controls and Outputs

The following view displays a step that displays variations that have been entered into a contract. You can select a contract to display the variations and then check the ones you wish to include.

This step displays all deliverables from a particular contract as a summary in the document and is pulled from the contracts tab. It provides the amount, percent and value complete.

This step displays all variations from a particular contract as a summary in the document and is pulled from the contracts tab. It provides the amount, percent and value complete.

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