Do you find it difficult to track activities, meetings, tasks, deadlines, etc, for different projects?
If you are using multiple calendars for different projects, it can create confusion and make the schedule unmanageable.
As the title says, Calendar and project management go hand in hand, and this blog explains how it is possible.
Ideally, a project management calendar helps organize tasks and plan the schedule. It makes it easier for users to keep track of task timelines and have clear visibility of ongoing tasks.
Here is what a project management calendar will do for you:
A project management calendar can help in planning and organizing projects. It becomes easier to keep track of the timeline of the project.
- All the projects activities are in one place
- Different types of calendar views for a better understanding
- Keep an eye on all activities
- Sharing calendars
- Saving multiple calendars for filtered view
- Color code for easy recognition
To display all the CRM data on the calendar, you must integrate the calendar and the CRM. And the best way to do it is by using a calendar plugin. The calendar plugin directly integrates with the CRM, and you don’t need any more integration or need to use different tools to manage one thing.
Plugins are easy to use when it comes to customization of the look and feel of the calendar view and maximizing the usage of entities.
Here, we discuss the calendar plugin for Dynamics 365 CRM users. At the end of the blog, you will know how a Dynamics 365 calendar plugin can help you with project management and why it is better than a standalone app.
The plugin allows you to visualize any CRM entity on Calendar. So, all your projects in Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM can be visualized on the Calendar. It is not restricted to projects. All the activities related to the respective projects can also be visualized on the calendar.
If you want more details about any activity on the calendar, hover over the activity, and the detailed information card will pop up. It has all the details that you would need to know about the activity, like the type of activity, who the task owner is, start and end date, priority, assigned resource name, and more.
The other major reason that makes visualization more powerful is the way it looks. Users can choose from different views like TopDown, Gantt, and Timeline. Depending on the use case or personal choice, users can choose from the above options.
Another factor that can help you visualize better is the color coding of activities. For instance, if all the activities looked the same, it would be hard to find the one with high priority. The user would have to go through all the activities to find the one with high priority.
However, the calendar plugin lets users color-code the activities based on their priority. Users can choose the color they want for different priority lists. For example, if the red color is for high priority, all the high-priority tasks on the calendar will be marked red.
So if the manager wants to see what the status of the high-priority tasks is, they can just see the red colored activities.
The next in line is visualizing the calendar day, week, and month wise. If a user wants to see the activities only for today, what is planned for them for the entire week, or their monthly goal; choose the appropriate options as per the requirement in a few clicks.
Similarly, if the user wants to see ongoing tasks, or the ones completed by them, or the manager wants to see the activities completed by a particular resource, the calendar gives filters for task status. Choose the resource and the task status filter, and you will have it all marked on the calendar within a few clicks.
The ideal calendar for project management also has a functionality to check resource availability. It comes with a filter where you can see whether the resource is available or not. This saves managers from assigning the task to a resource who is unavailable.
All these functionalities can be found in a plugin that would simply integrate with your calendar. On the other hand, if you choose a standalone app, you might face restrictions while choosing custom entities and customizing forms as it will follow its standard format.
So if you have custom requirements and wish to make the best use of CRM data, a calendar plugin should be your ideal choice. Search for “Dynamics 365 Calendar” on MS AppSource to find the best calendar plugin. The plugin must be able to automate the appointment booking process, help users manage and visualize activities and have a clear picture of resource availability. Such a calendar would be the best fit for managing projects and streamlining daily schedules.
