Do you own a business that is growing day by day and the first thing which now comes in your mind is how should I organize my Work flow and track all the activities going on under the roof of my office? So here is the solution!! Feng Office is a very powerful business process management, business service management, project management and a team collaboration tool which is very easy to learn and handy to use.
The most alluring fact about this collaboration tool is you can manage, organize and view the activities in your office from anywhere in the world. What you just need is a computer with a good web browser and an Internet Connection and a one time setup of the application on a web hosting server space. Which means, you can manage your business from anywhere, no need to have your system setup, with some applications installed on some particular computers in your office. This also means that your team can also work from anywhere in the world, they also just need a computer with a browser and an internet connection to keep track of their tasks, mails and milestone dates.
If you are new to web hosting, and not sure which server to use, I would recommend you to use hostmonster, and they have very good features and over all fantastic 24X7 support.
How Feng Office Works
1) You can create a Workspace representing your Clients, Projects, Products, Services, Departments, etc. There can be sub-levels under each Workspace. Consider a Workspace as a group of people who share common kind of work or responsibilities or a project. You as an administrator can assign different access levels to the Workspaces and the users inside it.
2) You can then create and assign different users (people) to the Workspace. You can control who sees which Workspace and you do have a minute control over the capability and authorities of each user.
3) Then you create tasks under a particular Workspace. Team members, clients and other people can add notes, documents (all kind of documents like flowcharts and presentations etc.) to the Workspace. The tasks can be linked with these notes, documents and web links. So that the person working on that task have all the information handy when he opens that task.
4) Milestones, priorities and end dates with other custom fields can be added to the task along with the people assigned to that task.
5) You as a owner or a project manager can see all the notes, milestones, end dates, event dates, the tasks which are overdue, the tasks which are completed on time, and the tasks which are pending on your single home (overview) panel which also shows unread mails and all the activities going on in that workspace. In fact each member has a home (the first page/overview page), which shows all the important tasks, dates and activities assigned to him along with the overdue tasks and unread mails. You can have a look at the overview/home page in the below screenshot
6) There is a time tracker available, where the people working with you can fill the time they have worked on a particular task as well as pause or start the paused task. The task statuses are minutely controlled with a very structured interface.
7) The calendar feature with one click ability to add events, meeting requests and milestones to particular dates is very good and you would find it very very handy once you start using the tool.
8) You can have time billing feature, so that you can charge your clients on hourly basis as well.
9) You can generate any number of custom reports including how many hours your team worked this week, or how many hours a particular task took to be completed and your monthly income reports, whatever.
The code is PHP+MySQL. The most important thing it is free, if you set it up on your own web hosting server. If you need any assistance in setting up your office with this tool, you can contact me using our contact form. We would be glad to help you with a proper server and all the necessary setup.
Overall, there are many good features, with a very good navigation available in this resource. I will not list all the features because if I do, you will get the conception that it is very complex and you will think that you will not be able to use it without a training. But I tell you, though there are lots of good features, it is extremely easy to use and if you have 2 or more employees and a growing business which you are sure you want to organize and track, you should definitely give it a try.
If you find this tool useful, do post your comments thru the comment form below. I will be very happy to read your feedback.