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Traffic Through C&P

Is ANYONE successfully using the traffic function of CP? We are an 11 person design studio, often with more than one designer on a job. We have used CP for a few years on our accounting side, and are happy with it. Our designers track their time daily, and all estimates, change orders , creative briefs, billing and reports go through CP. But we can't figure how to incorporate the traffic.

I would be thrilled to talk to anyone with a similar kind of studio who is successfully using CP for traffic.

Kim Tackett Tackett-Barbaria Design Group

I have spent some time learning about the traffic module of C&P but have not yet had success in incorporating it into our daily schedule. I'd be glad to help with anything I can.

Karen Coady Production/Traffic Manager Pace & Partners

We are also a design firm of about 25 folks, and we have been using C&P's traffic function for about a year now, (I have been here for about three months), and maybe we can help each other, Kim. I have questions myself that maybe we can get answered together.

Nathan Yancy

I'm sorry to have missed meeting you in person while at APDF. I did refer Rick Landesberg to you recently because he called me for APDF member references. He's looking to form a support/advisory group to talk about growing a firm. It's been hard to completely strip myself of connections with APDF, since the membership is a great group and I now represent Pentagram for the organization.

We use C&P in much the same way that your firm does for a 45 person firm. We haven't used the traffic feature yet, but myself and a project manager will be going to Oceanside for training this week. If we get any insights, I'll let you know.

Regards,

Stephanie Allen Pentagram

How do you use alerts where dates will show up as a reminder in some report on a daily basis? Is there a way to do this?

Nathan Yancy Critt Graham + Associates

I am the traffic coordinator for a firm of about 13 people. I have been here now for a little more than 2 months. We have put a new traffic system into place using many aspects of C&P. We are still in the testing stages of this new process, but so far so good! I would love to discuss with anyone interested in more detail. However, below is a brief list of things that we have implemented:

1) Status Codes - we have 17 status codes example: 100 - production schedule completion 105: creative brief completion 125: in-agency presentation 135: internal proof 155: client approval 170: client service only 200: production complete 205: client hold (and more...)

2) We keep two job jackets for each job - Accounting & Production The production jacket follows the job around and has a checklist (showing status codes) that is checked off and initialed each step of the way. Between each step the jacket gets back to me and I update the status in C&P.

3) I have a production cart where I keep all production job jackets and I have it organized by status code. 105, 110, 115, 120...etc. Therefore when I pull up a job in Clients and Profits, I know exactly where the job is in the agency or simply in the production cart.

4) We have also implemented a good scheduling system. We have 19 different job types with different TASK codes for each. Our production manager then creates the schedule for each job. Each TASK has a resource such as Account Exec., Artist...etc. and they are responsible for checking off or putting the date in when they complete the task. This keeps the schedule up-to-date, or ALERTS will automatically be sent via e-mail to the resource who is responsible if the task is overdue.

5) I also use the milestones. They are very similar to the status codes, but allows us to create nice reports based on an entire project or for a particular client.

6) The best function I have found with all of this is the way we are able to pull reports off the system. I can run a report by status code and due date. From that report we are able to create PRIORITY lists for our artists each week, or even each day. We can also get a glimpse of where jobs are being held up at if this is an issue.

Keep in mind there are many other factors that we have put into play here, but like I said I would love to discuss in more detail. I would also love to hear what other agencies are doing because we still have those "unanswered" questions when it comes to this area in C&P.

Thank You,

Lisa Tschauner Traffic Coordinator David & Associates

We are also a small design firm. My understanding of C&P is that you can either trafiic by 'scheduling" or 'Milestones". I choose scheduling because I can track specifically where a job is and its due date. In order to do the traffic, 2 elements of data must be entered inot the schedule portion of the job ticket, due dates and resource. I use the designers initials to enter in resource. Once this data is entered in the schedule, I can then priint out -work to do-sheets, update and distribute these every 3 days and the artists manage their time wonderfully.

Tashya Taylor