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Inside the Cloud
A Practical Resource for the USGN User
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Message from our CEO:
Tracking Success (
Part 1)
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Several years ago, I owned an architectural firm with 18 employees focused on corporate retail roll-outs for a number of large-scale customers like Chevron, RiteAid, McDonald’s, and PetSmart. We had a ton of work. But when starting out, we weren’t anywhere near the profit numbers that I thought were possible.
My idea was to develop a software tool that would help me manage our projects better financially with a better outcome. My assumption was that if I always knew where the project stood, the odds of achieving our target would greatly increase. The result was a tool called ProfitTracking. It captured real-time data and compared our current position to our target at regular, frequent intervals during the course of the project. After I built ProfitTracking, we had a tool enabling us to recognize and address trends or deficits now rather than when it was too late.
Built before the Internet, ProfitTracking is the predecessor to what USGN is today. USGN was built to leverage the Internet and the speed of collaboration. We wanted our customers to use it the same way we did (in our architectural firm) to get the same results. Real-time information allows you to continually adjust course as your business plan addresses key factors. It is that agility, or responsiveness, that leads to great outcomes!
This is the first part of a series that I am putting together for our newsletters for the remainder of the year. I'd like to learn more about how our customers meet and exceed their targets and goals. I am most interested in how you have re-calibrated your expectations around what is possible with real-time approach to project management.
If you have examples that you would like to share about how using real-time collaborative information has changed your outcomes, we would love to hear more. Please send me an email so we can incorporate your ideas in our next newsletter.
In the meantime, keep it in real-time!
Doug Sperr, CEO and Founder
USGN, Inc.
Email: dsperr@usgn.net
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Where the Rubber Meets the Cloud
A Client Spotlight
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This month’s client interview is with Scott Burr, Design Coordinator at Raley’s. He has been with Raley’s since 1997.
Raley's Supermarkets (also known as Raley's Family of Fine Stores) is a privately held, family-owned supermarket chain that operates stores under the Raley's, Bel Air Markets, Nob Hill Foods and Food Source names in northern California and Nevada. Founded in 1935, Raley's employs around 12,000 workers and operates 128 stores.
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"Focus on creating a thoughtfully organized / standardized system that’s easy to navigate, and educate those who will be using it."
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Q. How many years have you used USGN?
A.
14 years
Q. What modules does your company currently use?
A.
The base / document repository module
Q. Can you list, in approximate order, the five most powerful features on which your company relies?
A. It’s accessible anywhere with an internet connected device
If you’re familiar with how we’ve organized the site, it’s easy to find information for any accessible project
Reliable access to up-to-date information
On-line bidding
Access to existing store archive drawings
Q. What percent of apps have been built in-house vs by USGN?
A.
We started with forms provided by USGN (I believe many were initially developed for Wild Oats), but we’ve revised most, if not all of those, and we’ve been building our own for many years.
Q. Do you have any processes, workflows, forms or reports from which other USGN customers might benefit?
A.
Possibly, but I might not have strong use cases yet. I’ve recently enhanced some of our forms to auto-fill form fields by extracting the necessary info from the associated attachment’s file name. Also, while I’ve seen demos at the user conferences of form fields that are filled by importing info from an excel spreadsheet, the demos have always imported the info into a single post on the form. I have some forms that use the excel import process along with auto-submit to post multiple rows of excel data into multiple posts.
Q. What were your key pain points before you launched USGN and have those pain points been alleviated?
A. My role has always involved the drawing / design phase of our projects. From that perspective, before USGN, sharing project drawings was much more time consuming. It was done by either printing sets and having them delivered / picked up or copying files to some sort of media, then having that delivered or picked up. Occasionally, email would work if file sizes didn’t cause problems. With USGN, the process is much simpler. Many users know where to find drawings themselves, and it’s easy to help those that don’t.
Q. If you had a magic wand, what would you change or improve about USGN's platform?
A. I think it’s a long shot, but I’d like to see users choose USGN over email for all correspondence about a project.
Q. Do you have any suggestions for other companies who are implementing USGN?
A.
Understand your process and take the time to build your site to fit that.
Focus on creating a thoughtfully organized / standardized system that’s easy to navigate, and educate those who will be using it.
Many will have the impression that it’s creating more work for them because they’ll want to continue using their current process in addition to USGN. If done correctly, it should eliminate work by replacing existing processes.
Q. Where do you want to take USGN next?
A.
Improve equipment cut sheet availability and accuracy
Push to convert our construction managers’ cost estimating to on-line from existing Excel-based process
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USGN provides software solutions for all stages of your store life-cycle management. Our software decreases the costs and time it takes to plan, acquire, design, build, remodel, and manage your portfolio of sites. Our modules enable you to effectively measure, manage, and monitor all aspects of your workflow including:
Base System and Document Repository
Real Estate
Construction Workflow
Legal
Lease Management and Abstract
Financial Workflow
Integration with Accounts Payable
Equipment
Site Audits
Facilities and Work Order Management
Click Here To Read More >>>
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Today's Forecast: Less Cloudy
Tips & Tricks
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See the Latest Posts Only
Add, &59.count=1 this to the end of a report url to see the form's latest post only and not all posts.
Note, in this example, 59 = FormID
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Lightning Strikes
News Updates
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MAJOR CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT!
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Our 2017 Annual Conference will be held October 24-25 at the Tempe Mission Palms in Tempe, AZ. The event will include a fun event and dinner on opening night and a full slate of presentations and meetings the following day. In addition, nuts and bolts meetings for Admins are offered the following morning. You can register here.If you have been a regular attendee at these annual events, you will not want to miss this one. If you have contemplated but not attended one yet, this is the year to start.
Our Webinars take place at 10:00 AM PST every 3rd Wednesday of the month. Mike Leathers will lead and facilitate these key events. The format is an “Open Mike”, with participants able to ask questions about various topics. Please sign up on our website to join Mike each month for an informative session.
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