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Folders in Workflow Max are a way of itemising similar costs and tasks into smaller chunks – essentially allowing you to create sub-jobs.  Folders have been a feature in Jobs since way back – but have only recently become available in quotes. This is great news for WorkflowMax users who quote in stages or phases – giving you flexibility to build quotes the way you want. This much-anticipated feature opens a world of possibilities, empowering WorkflowMax users to create structured, professional-looking quotes. Here’s how it works in practice… Scenario – John at Orange Landscaping is quoting a construction project with three stages – Consents & Engineering, Excavation and Safety Fencing. John creates his quote in WorkflowMax in the usual way.  He adds some tasks and costs, which appear in their relevant section on the Job Information tab. John now navigates to the new Folders tab in his quote. The tasks and costs he just added show as Unassigned.  John applied a job template to his quote, so the folder set has been automatically generated. Folders can be created manually by selecting the New Folder button at the top of the Folders tab. John wants to move all the unassigned tasks and costs to the Excavation folder.  To do this he selects them using the checkbox, then selects Excavation from the Assign to drop-down. The unassigned folder is now empty, and the four tasks and costs are showing in the Excavation folder. On the quote information tab folders can be collapsed and expanded, allowing John to easily review the components of his quote, prior to issuing. Once John has added and assigned all tasks and costs to a folder, he’s ready to issue and print the quote.  WorkflowMax have provided two sample quote templates – one with full detail (as per our example below), the other with folder name and price only. If the quote is accepted, the job will auto-generate, complete with the folder structure and tasks/costs assigned in the quote. If you’re keen to get started with this great new feature but need a little help – reach out to us on 0800 000 256.

Here is the recording of a recent webinar with Workguru on how they save time and money for manufacturing firms. If you are a manufacturing firm using Workflow Max for job management, watch the recording below. Want to understand how what is happening with Workflow Max, an your options? Book a call today!

Information and Webinars Timeline Migration services Client survey With less than a year before Workflow Max is being turned off, we are seeing an increase in clients wanting to understand the changes and how to plan for them. If you have not booked a free call to discuss your options now is a great time. Information Webinars We have joined both Workflow Max by Bluerock and Projectworks for webinars to discuss the options, and benefits of both systems. To view the recordings of these: Projectworks (Job Management for Professional Services) Workflow Max Update (Watch on demand) Webinar - Workflow Max options for Manufacturing Firms If you manufacture products and use Workflow Max, this live webinar is for you. With Workflow Max being retired in June 2024, now is the time to start thinking about your options. Friday 8 September @ 2:00pm (NZ) Book Now Timeline Below is a basic timeline you should be considering ahead of the retirement in June 2024. Sep - November - evaluate your options and decide on preferred approach. If staying with Workflow Max is your preferred approach, you can move from February 2024. If you choose to move away from Workflow Max, then December / January can be a good time to plan and implement process changes if this is a quieter period for your business. Key Dates December - Limited Beta Available for Workflow Max by Bluerock February 2024 - Able to start to migrate to Workflow Max by Bluerock 26 June 2024 - Workflow Max retried. Ripped Orange Migration Services Ripped Orange have developed a few options to support the change. This can vary from coaching your administrator to fully managing the process. All should start with a system review of your current Workflow Max. This will identify any process gaps and help define the requirements and setup for whatever system you use. Contact us today to discuss your requirements. What are you thinking? So we can best support you with the change please complete the survey below.

If you manufacture products and use Workflow Max, this live webinar is for you. With Workflow Max being retired in June 2024, now is the time to start thinking about your options. During this 45-minute webinar, we will focus on Workflow Max manufacturing firms. What is happening? When is WFM being retired and what are my options? How to define your requirements An overview of the usual requirements for manufacuring firms Where Workflow Max did (and did not) support these. Requirements to look for in a new system. Workflow Max Alternative - Workguru Discussion and Q&A with the team on trends in manufacturing job management Overview of additional capability in Workguru Question and Answer This session will be recorded so you can review it later. If you are not able to attend this time, please register to receive a link to the recording after the session. Friday 8 September @ 2:00pm (NZ)

Webinar Recording Today we ran our second Workflow Max Office Hours. This was an opportunity to learn about the changes coming as Workflow Max is retired with a focus on professional services businesses. You can view the recording below: It was also great to have the team from Projectworks join us to discuss their software. If you want to learn more about the options covered in this session book a free options call below.

Microsoft have announced a 7% increase to all cloud costs from September 1, 2023. Impacts on the most popular plans are below: Prices in NZD, excluding GST and per user per month as at 23/7/2023 Also indicated was that Microsoft will start moving people off their old commerce engine to this new system from January 2024. This will be significant change, as customers lose the flexibility to adjust licence numbers without paying a 17% premium for a month-to-month plan. Now just like a mortgage you can either lock in a rate and quantity for a year or pay a premium for the flexibility to adjust licence numbers. Just like a mortgage the best option is to split your licencing with a large portion fixed and a smaller portion on a month-to-month rate. This gives you the flexibility to decrease licences being stuck paying for them for a year. If all your licences are either on the old legacy commerce engine or on a monthly commitment, you can avoid the price increase in September by locking in a yearly commitment for a portion of your licences before then. If you purchase your licenses directly from Microsoft, Ripped Orange offer cloud software support service to help you get the most from your software. Cloud Software Support Ripped Orange provide phone and email support for customers that purchase their cloud software from Ripped Orange. You will pay the same and get: ​ No charge for the first 5 minutes for phone and email support Preferential rates for additional support 25% discount on Ripped Orange Virtual Courses Contact us today to discuss your licencing needs

If you are a professional services firm using Workflow Max, this live webinar is for you. With Workflow Max being retired in June 2024, now is the time to start thinking about your options. During this 45-minute webinar, we will focus on Workflow Max in professional services firms: What is happening? When is WFM being retired and what are my options? How to define your requirements An overview of the usual requirements for professional services firms Where Workflow Max did (and did not) support these. Requirements to look for in a new system. Workflow Max Alternative - Projectworks Discussion and Q&A with the team on trends in Professional services job management Overview of additional capability in Projectworks Question and Answer This session will be recorded so you can review it later. If you are not able to attend this time, please register to receive a link to the recording after the session. Tuesday July 18th @ 2:00pm

If you are seeing this message you are using the same email address for two different Microsoft Services. It’s as frustrating as having two keys that look similar but unlock different doors. Microsoft Account vs Office 365 Account First some background. Your Microsoft Account is not your Business Microsoft 365 account, they are two completely different accounts. One is owned by you as an individual and the other is managed by your company. Until recently you could use your work email as the username for your Microsoft account, but as of September 2016 this is now not possible (it was a long time coming). Sharing the same email address leads to confusion and multiple logins. To change this you need to change the username or alias you use for your personal account. Microsoft outlines the steps to follow on their blog and they are summarized below: Sign in to the Your Info page of your Microsoft account. If your work or school email address is the only one listed, enter your personal email address or get a new one from Microsoft, and select Add alias. If you already have a personal email address listed there, you can skip this step. Look under the Account aliases section. Select Manage your sign-in email or phone number. If your personal email address does not have (primary alias) listed next to it, select Make primary to set it as your primary alias. Select Remove next to your work email address to remove it from your account. However, there are a few gotchas: It is not possible to merge accounts, so if you have already created a Microsoft account for the email address you want to use, you will need to move your data from one account to another, and then close the account. Closing an account takes 60 days. If you want to create a new email as your sign-in email, you can create a free Outlook account and use this. It takes about 48 hours for your alias to change. Note that if you create a new Outlook account then you have another email address to monitor, so you may want to auto-forward your new Outlook account to your existing personal email so you receive important Microsoft account notifications etc. #MicrosoftAccount #Office365Account #Outlook365login Need assistance with Microsoft 365, contact us today.

Security options with Microsoft 365 As with your home, your keys or password are the first line of defence to avoid access to your account. While we can’t easily have one key that will open our house, car etc, this is easy to do in an online world as we create our own keys or passwords.  Sharing the same password over multiple can have the same risk as misplacing a master key. Password protection is the users responsibility, as much as keeping their card keys safe is their own responsibility. However Microsoft 365 provides a few easy options to reduce the risk. The following Microsoft 365 Security options may help Two Factor Authentication Two Factor means you need a password and something else to verify before getting access.   The second factor may include a SMS message, phone call or app on your phone.  You have to authenticate each time you login.  Two factor is included with Office 365, premium paid versions provide more security options and the ability to suspend it when you are on the work network etc. It’s disappointing Microsoft are changing extra for the premium version that is easier and more secure, interestingly Mail Chimp provide a 10%  discount on the total subscription if users enable two factor authentication. Two factor sign in on a customised Office 365 page Customise Sign In Screen Every day thousands of phishing campaigns are sent, with fake sites that are designed to capture your login details.  See the one below  looking like Office 365. Fake Office 365 Sign In Page One easy solution is to customise the login screen with your brand, so user are presented with your company brand. This is easily achieved  by following this blog article Password Policy Office 365 allows you to set password expiry frequently and some settings around how complex a password needs to be. If you are struggling to create a password check out the Last Pass password generator

Microsoft Teams has introduced a new way of working collaboratively with documents. However, with this flexibility comes questions on how to create some structure to help people access the documents that they need. Let’s explore some options to setup Teams and SharePoint. How Teams Links to SharePoint Behind each Team and SharePoint site is a Microsoft 365 Group. This is where you assign the people that will have access. Initially people can be Owners, Members or External Guests. Key to planning an easy-to-use structure is understanding how Teams and Document Libraries work together. When you create a Channel in Teams it creates a folder in the default document library in SharePoint. The flow is one-way i.e. when you create a folder in SharePoint it does not create a channel in Teams. While Teams provides good options for collaboration and conversations, sometimes the organisations need to manage the flexibility of Teams with already established document structures. Organisations may not want a “mess” of new folders in a document library or want to utilise document management features like meta data or check in and approval controls with a set of documents. This is where Tabs and Add Cloud Storage become useful. However, each operate in different ways. Scenario: A team is working on a building project. They have created a team with channels for Meetings, Variances and Budgets. They are using conversations and collaborating well with documents in these channel and SharePoint folders. However, they also need to refer to and work on general health and safety documents stored in another SharePoint site, and view documents from a previous project for the client. Instead of moving these documents to the Team, they can link the documents. Option One – Setup a SharePoint tab in Teams This embeds a view of the document library into Teams. Users can navigate to this and interact with documents like they would from a web browser. They will need to have permission to access these documents. Pros: Quick access to the files from within the Teams app window. Cons: Users cannot link to these files easily in conversations. Users can’t see views, check in and meta data. Option Two – Add a Shortcut in Teams Files Tab This option adds a shortcut in the files tab, so users can access all the files they need from the files tab. Pros: Users can link to these files easily in conversations. Cons: Users cannot see views, check in and meta data. This shortcut cannot be renamed. Setup Structure Recommendations for SharePoint and Teams As always it depends on the end goal but consider the following points.

Xero have recently announced that Workflow Max will be retired in June 2024. We have been using and implementing WFM for ten year and like many others will soon need to decide what system to switch to. The following is some initial suggestions to guide your decision. Don't panic - take your time There is plenty of time. Switching to a new system only takes a few months so you don’t need to start looking straight away. Plenty of similar products will see this as opportunity for sales and will be planning ways to make their offering look the most attractive. Think about how you use Workflow Max currently. Most people don’t use all the features in a software application. Have a think about what features, or process flows you really use and write them down. Think about the process flows that are a bit clunky or take too long with Workflow Max. This will form your wish list of features. It’s a bit like buying a car, yes, we would all love the latest but would we really use all the features, and can we afford it? Focus on apps that are in your industry. Once you have defined how you use WFM and what is on your wish list it’s time to get dressed up and go app dating. There is a lot of choice which can be overwhelming. The Xero app market is a good place to start but you can waste time on dud dates (demos) with app providers. When you purchase software, you are buying both a program and expertise in process flows. Two programs may have similar features but one may just flow better for your industry. A sedan and station wagon may have exactly the same features, but one may be better for carting the dog around. You can filter the Xero app market by industry or focus on the description and what industries they list as the first options. What do you sell or make? We have implemented WFM across most industries, in doing this we learned some themes on how different business operate and what they sell or make. If you can fit into one so these selecting a new app will be easier to define what is important for your business. Discuss your options with an expert Once you have defined your needs, based on what you use now and what you could use, book a call with Ripped Orange or one of the expert Workflow Max implementation partners to walk through your options. Stay tuned for more. This is part one of a series of articles as we go through the journey to look for a new job management system for ourselves and our clients. For updates follow us on social media or subscribe to updates below.

How to unlock 25TB of storage with OneDrive for Business. OneDrive for business has a very generous storage allowance that is often underused. Each licenced user receives: OneDrive Storage Business Essentials and Business Premium - 1TB of storage Enterprise Plans- E3/ E5 - Initial 5TB storage expandable to 25TB then further expandable on request. The enterprise plans include the SharePoint Plan 2 which is also available as a separate individual purchase for NZ $15NZ per month. Plan details By comparison SharePoint Storage is pooled with an initial 1TB then 10GB per user. Additional storage is priced at around NZ $300 per TB, or 30c per GB per month. Expanding your OneDrive capacity can be an easy and cost-effective way to unlock additional storage options. To unlock the initial 5TB follow these steps: Ensure you are licenced correctly as above and have 5 or more users in your tenant (on any licence) Change the users default storage limit to 5TB from the user's tab in the admin centre. More details. Once the user gets to 90% of 5TB the storage will be automatically increased to 25TB Once you get to 90% of the 25 TB then contact Microsoft support to have the site increased to a SharePoint Site Points to consider: When working with large files it's worth being aware of the SharePoint / OneDrive limits. File Size Limits 250 GB max file size. 30 million files in a library. Don't sync more than 300,000 files. SharePoint limits - Service Descriptions | Microsoft Learn Transfer Speed Be aware that uploading takes time, to upload 1 TB can take 8 hours. Use this calculator to estimate upload time based on your internet speed. Upload time calculator - Calculate Upload time/speed (downloadtimecalculator.com) Want to understand your options in more detail, book a coaching session on Microsoft 365 below.