Project

In a service context, the term “project” refers to a larger, usually one-time or temporary undertaking consisting of several related assignments or tasks. Unlike a single service assignment (which may last only a few hours and resolve a specific malfunction), a project often extends over a longer period of time and has defined goals, budgets, and responsible parties. In the Innosoft FSM world, a project is an organizational unit for mapping complex service orders—such as the installation of an entire system at a customer’s site, an extensive retrofit campaign, or an international rollout project for machine upgrades.

Key features of a project in FSM:

• Consolidation of multiple orders/assignments: A project bundles all assignments, tickets, service reports, etc. that belong to this project. This allows you to perform consolidated evaluations (total hours, total costs) and maintain an overview.
• Separate budget/cost center: Projects are often managed as cost collectors. This means that all costs (personnel, materials, travel expenses) for a project are consolidated. This is important if, for example, you have fixed-price projects or certain quotas within service contracts. You can see at a glance whether the project is within budget or over budget.
• Phases and milestones: In the project management module, a project can be divided into phases (e.g., planning, execution, acceptance) with milestones (dates by which certain results are to be achieved). Rough planning often takes place at this level.
• Project manager and team: Each project is assigned a person responsible (project manager or responsible dispatcher) and, if necessary, a team of resources who work primarily on it. This allows communication to be bundled and responsibilities to be clearly defined.
• Identification/order type: Projects can be classified, for example, by project type (internal vs. customer project, investment vs. service) and are often given a unique project number and title. These also appear on all related assignments, for example.
• Relationships to sales orders: A sales order often lies behind a service project. Innosoft separates the concepts of “sales order” and “project.” This allows a customer order to be technically divided into several service projects or projects to be created independently of the original order. This ensures flexibility, even if something changes after the order has been placed.

In addition, the project object enables communication and documentation at a higher level: You can store project-related documents (plans, contracts), define contact persons at the customer specifically for the project, and create reports at the project level. Additional work or change requests during implementation are also assigned to the project, which makes tracking easier (keyword: change request).