Recently we showed you how to get started in Growth Panel if you’re looking for a solution to an immediate business challenge.

Today we’re going to outline how to get started managing an existing marketing project.

Growth Panel delivers a complete marketing project management module in the Projects section. From here you can set tasks, goals and milestones; assign tasks to team members; download, upload and share exercises from the Library, including your own files; import marketing plans and collaborate with your team.

Create Your Marketing Project

The first step is creating your marketing project. From the Projects section main screen, click the Add a New Project link on the right and enter your project details in the new window. You can enter detail in all of the fields, or simply add your project name and fill in the details later.

The Project Details fields include:

• Project Name (Required)
• Client: This field defaults to Internal, which refers to a project for your own company. If your project is for a client, the clients you’ve added to your Client List from the main Projects screen will display in the dropdown list. You also have the option to add your client here.
• Project Status: This field defaults to In Progress. When you complete your project, you can change this to Completed to archive your project.
• Start Date: Select a date using the calendar widget.
• Target Date: Use this field as you wish. You can enter a projected completion date or leave it blank.
• Project Description: Describe your project here.
• Notes: Add any additional information here.

After you select Save, the Project Details window will close, and your project will be listed as a line item on the main Projects section screen. You can sort all your projects here by clicking on the column headers to sort up or down, or by clicking on the right of the column header tab to change or filter your column view.

Note that the red X on the right allows you to delete your project, but we’re here to work, so click the project name link to dive in.

Project Details View

The Project Details view is where you’ll create and manage the activities of your project. This view contains three panels:

• Project Details description panel to the left. You can close this using the << icon on the right of it if you wish.
• Activities panel in the center.
• Specialized panel views on the right. You can open these by clicking on the icons in the right-hand navigation, and close them by clicking on the X in the upper right of the open panel. Panel options here include:

  • Project Calendar panel

  • Project Plans panel

  • Exercises History panel

  • Project Files activity panel

  • Project Comments panel 

Creating Activities

To get started, create an activity. You can create a Task, a Milestone or a Goal by selecting these options on the activity header bar. Activities are defined as follows:

• Tasks are defined as work to be completed.
• Milestones are markers at a given point in a progression. For example, if you’d like to launch a new campaign by the time you’ve completed five tasks, the campaign launch could be your milestone. Your tasks would be the activities needed to execute the launch.
• A Goal is something you’d like to achieve.

You have the option to link tasks to milestones; otherwise, they’re all independent. Growth Panel doesn’t bog you down with complicated dependencies or Gantt charts.

Tasks are the most frequently used activity and contain the most detail, so let’s review tasks. When you create a task, you can enter the following information:

• Task Name
• Status
• Description
• Target Date
• % Complete: Currently this is for your reference only. We plan to add an option for reporting in the future.
• Hours Required: Currently this is for your reference only. We plan to add an option for reporting in the future.
• Assigned To: If you’ve added team members from the My Account section, their names will appear here.
• Attach to Milestone: You have the option to embed your task into a milestone.
• Notes

Note that the Milestone and Goals are added using the same basic steps just described.

Viewing Details and Downloading Files

After you save your task, it will appear as a line item in the Activities panel of the Project Details view. Click on your task name to open your Task Details window to make any changes.

Click on the black + icon to the right of your task name to expand your task in this screen to display additional information. This opens a view to your task notes while also displaying any exercises or files you’ve attached to your task.

You can download and upload documents right here in the Task Details window. To attach a document to your task, click on the Attach File icon on the right (green arrow over white paper).

If you’d like to set an exercise as a task, navigate to your library from the main tabs. When you download an exercise from the library, you have the option of attaching it to any project you’ve already created. Then you can access it from within your project.

Any activities and comments you’ve created in your Project Details view will display here, as well as on your Dashboard.

As you complete your tasks, you can upload finished files here and set your tasks at 100% complete. Use this option if you’d like to archive your project so you can access these files at a later date.

You can delete any activity by clicking the red X in the Actions column. When you delete any activity (or any project, for that matter), everything attached to it is also deleted: notes, exercises and files. It’s up to you to decide how to manage your projects.

Next Steps

Stay tuned. Next we’ll show you how to import a plan with tasks and milestones already created for you.

As many of you know, we’ve almost completed our new application. 

Instead of simply adding new functionality onto our existing app and improving key features, we decided to build a completely new app from the ground up. One reason was technological–we needed to unify the backend components of our existing site.

But the main reason was that we wanted to take some of our high-value functionality (our plan creator) and integrate it into the way our users work. Instead of “adding on,” we went back to the drawing board and started from scratch. 

The upside of this approach was our ability to reference all of the customer intelligence we’ve gained over the last 2 years and apply it during our build. We had a blank canvas. Instead of making minor improvements and adding bits and pieces, we rebuilt the high-value functionality into a new app and eliminated the low value features.

The downside was that it was time-consuming and challenging.

Internally we called it our “v3.0,” but during initial customer testing, we realized we had a “problem”–our new application had outgrown our existing brand.  In our existing v2.0, most of the value we deliver is from our content. We serve it up from our site and have some nice software widgets for managing goals and campaign metrics. 

But our v3.0 is a full blown web-app, meshing online project management, document management and collaboration into our existing marketing process and content. 

Since we have a completely different offering, we need a new brand. It was crystal clear after one of our distributors said “Jim, this is a completely different offering. It’s much more than the M.O. brand.” 

So instead of simply birthing our new app, we’re birthing an entire new product offering.  As much as I didn’t want to undertake this additional workload, it’s the right thing to do, and the right time to rename and rebrand. 

The new app is just about done, so we’re moving on to the rest of the list: 

• New name
• New logo
• New corporate identity
• New positioning
• New brand strategy
• New messaging
• New website
• New sales tools & literature
• New campaigns

The long project just got longer, but with this much effort already expended, it makes sense to get it right…