Customer Consulting Group - Blog by Waheed

Zoho Sprints - An Agile Project Management Tool

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 22:32:41 +1100

What is Agile Project Management?

In 2001, 17 people met in Snowbird, Utah, to discuss the future of software development. They shared a common frustration about the current state of affairs, although they did disagree on a few points.

The one problem, they all agreed, was that companies were so focused on excessively planning and documenting their software development cycles that they lost sight of what mattered—pleasing their customers.

Their solution, they called Agile: a customer-first approach.

So by the end of the meeting, the first Agile Manifesto emerged at just 68 words - but that short and sweet document went on to change software development forever:

We are constantly uncovering better ways of developing and delivering software solutions by leveraging Agile Project Management and often help others leverage Agile Project Management too.

Through this work we have come to value:

- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

- Working software over comprehensive documentation

- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

- Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

What is Zoho Sprints?

Zoho Sprints is Zoho's project management software. It is a dedicated tool for scrum masters, following best practices for Agile management. The core purpose of this tool is to practice Agile using the Scrum methodology. From planning through to execution, every single process is segmented across different stages, called modules.

How does Zoho Sprints work?

Zoho Sprints works on the core concept of Agile project management and is best suited for teams that practise or want to practice agile on day to day basis. It’s potentially a good alternative to Microsoft DevOps and Jira Confluence. However, it’s new compared to the other two and still in the process of improvement and growth. From our personal experience, we consider this tool easier to start with for small teams.

How to manage Projects in Zoho Sprints?

With the scenario that I am about to put in front of you, you will have an idea of how Zoho Sprints works In less than 10 minutes.

Sam is the Marketing Director of his company, and is new to Zoho Sprints. Let's see how he manages his team using it.

Step 1

Create your Project and Invite Users

Sam creates a 'Marketing' project where he will manage all the work items related to marketing, promotion, and events.

Next, he invites all his team members from Marketing as his project members. A few are given managerial roles since they are the leads.

He defines the estimation type of the project, which helps the team in setting the estimation points of the work items in the project.

Step 2

Build your backlog and start your sprint

Sam and his team jot down all the requirements of the project in the Backlogs. (These items include generating articles, tweets, social media promotions, events, workshops, etc.)

He creates relevant sprints in the project. (Social Media sprint which has all the items related to hashtags, Facebook feed, community building queries and other forums. The Blog sprint contains all the upcoming articles to be written. And so on.)

He assigns the managers (leads) as sprint owners.

They prioritize the work items and moves them from the backlog to the sprint.

Now, Sam or the sprint owner can start the sprint.

Workaround your board

As the sprint starts, the sprint team moves the work items across the statuses on the board.

When all the items in the sprint are moved to the 'Closed' status, the team completes the sprint successfully. A part of the project is ready for delivery.

All you need to do is move the work across the statuses as and when they progress. Once everything is done, it's easy to track your progress in different ways.

What are the primary features of Zoho Sprints?

Planning

•Backlogs

•Boards

•Work Item Management

•Epics

Release Management

Reports

•Burnup & Burndown Charts

•Velocity Report

•Cumulative Flow Diagram

•Status Timeline

•Timesheet

•User Profile

•Global-View

Collaboration

•Google Drive

•Google Workspace

•Microsoft 365

•Microsoft Teams

•Zendesk

•Zoho Cliq

•Zoho Desk

•Zoho Mail

•Zoho Meeting

•Zoho Projects

Customization

•Custom Fields & Layouts

•Custom Views

•Project Template

•Custom Item Type

Timesheets

•Timesheet Management

•Timesheet Reports

Developer Tools

•Azure DevOps

•BitBucket

•GitHub

•GitLab

•Jenkins

Zoho Sprints Plans and Pricing

Zoho Sprints offers a free plan that provides up to three users with the ability to manage three projects and 500MB of storage space, which is pretty good for starter businesses or small developer teams.

The Professional plan starts from $8.80 per user per month with no lock in contract and provides the full feature set.

For further details on plan inclusions and a price calculator can be found here.

Conclusion

Zoho Sprints is a very handy tool for both small and large scale teams. It offers everything that you can expect in an Agile Project Management tool - from simple sprint planning to release management and everything in between such as time management, meetings, and more.

We leverage Agile project management methodologies in most projects that we deliver and we pick our tools accordingly to the needs of each project, and our choice is often Zoho Sprints, which we’ve found to be very helpful in managing projects of all sizes.

If you are thinking about leveraging a new tool to assist you with managing your Agile projects contact us and we will help you evaluate if Zoho Sprints will be a good fit for your needs.

Redesign your CRM with Canvas for Zoho CRM

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 10:14:54 +1100

Canvas is a no-code, drag-and-drop design studio built into Zoho CRM to help companies personalise and customise their teams’ experiences.

Different business units inside an organisation have different cultural tastes, different frames of reference, and different requirements for information. Their members have different knowledge, different frames of reference, and they use the organisation’s system in different ways. And sometimes they want it to look different.

With that in mind, Zoho developed Canvas: an add-on to their flagship CRM that enables an organisation to display different information from the same system to different user types within a company. This information can be selected, presented, filtered and organised according to the tastes and needs of those users.

Its goal is to drive non-technical user adoption of their organisation’s CRM by making its interface more customisable, relevant and user-friendly.

To get a video introduction to Canvas for Zoho CRM, watch this Zoho Canvas Introduction video.

How does Canvas for Zoho CRM help?

Canvas for Zoho CRM makes adoptability easy, giving you the power and creativity to help your team understand and use CRM to its fullest.

One of the reasons people are reluctant to use CRM to its full capacity is the interface. CRM software often looks the same: rows of interchangeable data on a plain background, only some of it relevant to them. Leveraging Canvas for Zoho CRM allows your organisation to sharpen and filter that data based on its values, allowing those users to check at a glance for the information they care about.

There’s no such thing as a universally perfect design style or user interface – those preferences are subjective and it all comes down to an individual’s own aesthetic tastes and job needs. With Canvas for Zoho CRM, you can build a CRM that's pleasant to work with, is easy to navigate, is not overloaded with information, and is easy to search and filter. Your staff will appreciate the ability to access their information with fewer clicks and engage with it better.

How Does Canvas for Zoho CRM Work?

Canvas for Zoho CRM is a drag and drop editor with no technical skills required – you don’t need to know how to code in order to use it effectively. Start from scratch or work from one of the pre-loaded templates it comes with, created by Zoho’s in-house designers so that you can hit the ground running.

If you want to get creative then Canvas for Zoho CRM has an easy-to-use page builder tool for designing CRM systems that will really make your people feel at home. A wide range of formatting options let you craft something truly personal. Edit font colours, adjust padding, switch to tabs, merge fields, refine spacing, and more.

Choose what to show and what to hide, reducing clutter and helping users find key information quickly. You can also decide where each field goes and how they look, like colour coding for better visibility.

Limitations and Pricing

Since Canvas for Zoho CRM is included by default in some of Zoho’s CRM plans, there’s no added price for building it out. However, there is a limit to how many views (separate configurations) your organisation can deploy at a given time. These limits are based on the Zoho CRM plan you’re using, and they are:

Free: 0 views

Standard: 1 view per organisation

Professional: 3 views per organisation

Enterprise: 5 views per module

Ultimate: 25 views per module

Conclusion

Zoho is an ambitious company, and they’re firmly committed to growing the popularity of their CRM suite in particular. Their developers are well aware that a major issue in CRM system adoption is the technology’s acceptance by non-technical business users.

Their solution has been Canvas for Zoho CRM – a way to make your CRM simpler to use, more aesthetic, more understandable and more relevant to those non-technical users’ considerations.

If people in your organisation are proving to be less than eager about working with a your CRM system, then Canvas for Zoho CRM might just be the solution. Applying Canvas for Zoho CRM will encourage your users to engage with their CRM systems – getting the most from your investment by driving individual productivity and organisational results.

About the Author

Muhammad Waheed Qadir is a Senior Zoho Functional Consultant at CCG. His passion is solving business case studies and recommending the right customer management solutions to clients.