[Video Walkthrough] All about Tasks & Workflow

INTRO: Whistle while you work...

In Pixifi we define Tasks as anything you need to get done with respect to a Lead, Client, Event, Project, or even just in general that is not connected to anything in particular!  Workflow Templates are a way to pre-group Tasks and then assign them to different phases of your Workflow in an effort to help you organize your to-do lists and they even allow you to harness the power of automation by programming them to complete some of the more mundane Tasks for you!   So let’s get started!!!!!

WHAT IS A TASK? (00:43)

Let’s start by teaching you a little bit about Tasks.  Follow me to THINGS TO DO, TASKS, and you’ll see it drops you into the first tab where you can view all of your open (uncompleted) Tasks and click the [Actions] button to add any new Tasks manually.  You’ll see after you give your Task a name, you will have few other fields to fill out to classify and organize your Task.  You’ll see on the top right here that your type defaults to “Task" but that you do have the ability to change the type of this box from a “Task" to a “Note" and I just want to explain a few things about Notes before we move on from here.  

WHAT IS A NOTE? (01:20)

Sometimes when you’re managing your Workflow and adding Tasks to your to-do list, you’ll have things you want to remember about your Clients or their Events that pop into your mind and you don’t want to forget them!  Well, normally to add a “Note" about your Client, Event, Project, etc you would have to go into those modules and select “Add a Note" but like we said, sometimes those thoughts come to you while you’re in the middle of something else and it would be very distracting to leave the module you’re currently working in to open up another module, find that Client or Event, and add your notes.  So we’ve provided you with a short-cut!  You’ll see that when you change the type from Task to Note within this drop down box, the title of the box changes from “Add Task" to “Add Note" and the form itself changes to the same color form you see when you’re adding notes from within anywhere else in pixifi.  It’s important to NOTE that these notes will not show up in your main Task list, as they will be saved under whichever Lead/Client/Event/Project you have linked them to.

WHAT IS A CATEGORY? (02:19)

All your Tasks can be assigned a category which is similar to the “type" classifications you have used in other modules.  You can either create a list of categories before you start if you’re the extremely mentally organized type, but if you’re like me, you can always create categories from within your Task creation pop-up box as you think of new ones.  Categories give you a way to organize your Tasks and even analyze and manipulate them by filtering them based on their categories and colors.  Some examples of categories I have used here are High-Priority, To-Do, and Follow-up, and since this Category list is actually shared between Notes and Tasks, there are some that could apply for both.  For example “Meet-Up" could be the category for a Task for one of your Client’s you have to deliver an album to in-person.  “Meet-Up" could also be the category assigned to a Note you wanted to save under a different Client about your initial Client meeting with them when they told you their parents are divorced and haven’t spoken in 6 years, which is something you really don’t want to forget about this Client, so as not to make people feel uncomfortable on their special day, which is two years from this October.  It’s not likely you’ll remember such specific details of an in-person conversation you had 27 months ago, which is why you should probably make a note!

BACK TO TASKS: (03:38)

As we mentioned before, Notes will not show up in your Task list, but instead will be listed under whichever owner (Lead/Client/Event/Project) they have been linked to.  Tasks, however, can be created to be linked to an owner, but can also be created to stand alone as general Tasks and you can also assign any of these Tasks to a staff member as well and assign a due date and a color right from this window.

Once you click [√ Save Task] you’ll see your Task pop up on this list.  All Tasks, whether specifically linked to an owner or classified as general, will show up in this master list here where they can be continually adjusted, either by editing them one at a time or by applying batch updates on multiple Tasks at once using our [Batch Update] button which can be an extremely helpful tool to help you keep your Tasks organized for easy and effective filtering.

TASK FILTERING: (04:31)

Your Task list can be manipulated and analyzed using the various filtering options in our Filter Tool which should seem familiar to you from using it in other modules.  From here you can view Tasks by category, by color, by the staff member assigned to complete them, by their due dates, and any other options or combinations of options available to you.  You might find the batch tool very helpful for preparing your Tasks to be filtered, but you may also use filtering to help you batch update various Tasks.  You’ll see as you work in the module that it really is an incredibly efficient way of keeping track of all the things you need to accomplish!

WHAT IS A WORKFLOW AND WHY SHOULD I USE IT? (05:11)

Every business owner uses a Workflow to get things done; all a Workflow really is is the processes and methods you use to accomplish various Tasks as you conduct business.  One key to a very successful and healthy business is becoming aware of these steps and processes and then writing them down so we always follow them and so that others can complete these Tasks in our stead.  Well, you have just learned how to “write down" all of your “steps" in the last section and we called them “Tasks" that you need completed.  We have even created ways for you to set up your Workflow so that Pixifi can take care of some of these steps in your process for you (once you tell it how you want it done)!  This process is called creating Workflow Templates.

In TEMPLATES, WORKFLOW TEMPLATES, you’ll see a list of Workflow Templates I have already created.  For the sake of this example, I’m going to show you our Wedding Workflow 2017, which has all of the Tasks any of our 2017 weddings will need to have completed from start to finish.  All of those Tasks are grouped into phases and each phase has a calculated due date that will apply to all Tasks within that phase.  Each phase can also have “Actions" like E-mailing a Client or sending a questionnaire.  When you add those actions to each phase, they won’t get triggered to send off until ALL the Tasks within that phase have been marked as completed.

It is designed this way to allow you to set up systems for your studio and include items you want to make sure get checked off or completed so that each phase can be completed in it’s entirety (and your E-mails/etc can be sent out) and you can know you haven’t missed any details along the way.  Different Tasks may be assigned to different staff members as well.  This works great for many Tasks but it still relies on you (or your staff) checking off the Tasks in each phase for the actions to be activated and there may be certain Tasks you want to make sure happen at a certain time relative to your Events that are not reliant upon an actual person remembering to check those Tasks off.  This is why we have created another set of automatic actions at the top of your Workflow - these are actions that you schedule to be automatically activated whether a human has been involved in your Workflow processes or not!  

PHASES AND PHASE ACTIONS (07:29)

So, let’s take a look at our phases in more detail.  In our example, the first phase of my Wedding Workflow 2017 Template is to queue up a hand-written thank you card to be sent out with a “thank you for booking" gift and schedule a “thank you for booking" E-mail that will fire off to my new Client after I have checked off that the other two Tasks were completed.  The next phase I have on my Template occurs six weeks before the Event and once the 3 Tasks there are complete it will send out an E-mail to the staff members associated with that Event reminding them about the Event and any details they may need to know.  The third phase is set up to present me with Tasks to be completed the night before the wedding, such as charge batteries, clearing cards, printing out any lists or maps I need to have on hand, etc.  You can see there are even phases that stretch months or even years beyond the Event date, such as follow-up E-mails, special coupons you may want to send out, or even wishing the new couple a Happy 1 Year Anniversary!  Remembering to do all of these little things to show your Clients you care can speak volumes for your brand and all serve to create an incredible experience worth talking about to their friends and family!  With all that we juggle as small (or large) business owners, it’s not always easy to remember those little details, especially a year after their Event so setting up built-in reminders for yourself with Pixifi Workflow Templates is a great way to hold yourself accountable and keep yourself on the forefront of your Clients’ minds!

Back up at the top you will see all the actions I have created to be automatically handled by my Workflow, such as Event reminders that I want to send at consistent times, any questionnaires or E-mails I want sent to them at specific times relative to their Event, etc.  These will be set to send off whether I am sitting at my desk working in pixifi or on the white sand shores of tahiti with a mimosa in my hand.

AUTO-APPLYING WORKFLOW TEMPLATES FOR LEADS AND EVENTS (09:22)

So now that you’ve learned how to set-up Workflow Templates and how powerful they can be in your business, let’s show you how to apply them to your Events.  I am going to go to an Event and select the Workflow tab.  You’ll see a button labeled [+ Apply Workflow].  You’ll see that you can choose an existing Workflow you have already created or create a new Workflow Template right from this screen if you want.  I want to note that you can only assign one Workflow per Event, HOWEVER, if you create Projects for that same Client, each Project can also have it’s own “Project" Workflow assigned to it.  So, for example, I can only select one Workflow for this wedding so I’m going to choose my Wedding Workflow 2017 Template, but this Client has also ordered an album and since there are a lot of steps to that process and I don’t want to drop the ball, I can create a Project named “Wedding Album" and assign a “Wedding Album Workflow" Template to that Project.  

I’m going to hit [√ Save Workflow] to choose this Workflow for my Event and you’ll see it refreshes and now I’ll see all my phases and Tasks and you’ll even see that the Tasks now have due dates that are relevant to my Event date.  At any time, I can click on this [view details] option to see who it’s assigned to or any notes associated with that Task and when I’m ready I can click on the [complete] button which will cross out my Task, marking it as complete and it even shows the date and time the Task was completed.  It may seem like the check boxes provided are how you would check off Tasks on your to-do list and that isn’t entirely incorrect, but to clarify, the check boxes are there so that you can batch update your Tasks (and one of those batch update options is to mark them all as completed).  Just take notice, once these three Tasks are completed, this action will activate, sending off my staff reminder E-mail Template to all the staff associated with this current Event.  

WORKFLOW VISUALIZER (11:08)

Once I have applied this Workflow Template to a bunch of my Events, it would be painful to have to go into each individual Event to see where I am in the process of my entire Workflow.  To make things a little easier to see at a glance and manage overall, we have created the Workflow Visualizer which is just like a digital whiteboard to show you where you are in each of your Events.  From this Workflow Visualizer, you can check off Tasks as completed and the phases will still function the same way, sending off any actionable E-mails once all the Tasks in that phase are checked off.  Also, if you have more than 5 Tasks in a phase, this little blue triangle will show that there is more to view.  When an Event is completely finished your Workflow, meaning all of the Tasks and phases are completed, it will disappear from your Workflow Visualizer.   You can also click on the name header to re-sort your listing.  If you have more than one Workflow you would like to see from the Workflow Visualizer, you can click this little gray gear icon at the top of the Visualizer and select whichever Workflows you want to view by checking them off.  

CLOSING REMARKS (12:16)

Class dismissed!  Thank you for taking the time to learn all about Tasks and Workflow.  In this video, we covered what Tasks are and how to create and organize them as well as what Workflow Templates are and how to create and manage them!    

In the next video, we will be showing how to build pricing pages and create proposals for your Clients to take your Pixifi automation to the next level!