IFOS

What is IFOS

IFOS is a web-based project management tool developed by *instinctools for effective project controlling and efficient communication inside the development teams and with customers. IFOS forms a single point of communication and accountability for our projects. It is one of the pillars that makes our projects controllable and transparent to our customers, saves efforts needed for tracking and increases quality of our management tasks.

How We Manage Projects with IFOS

From the very beginning *instinctools was established as a company with an international setup and quite often our development teams are separated from our customers geographically, so IFOS has become an indispensable tool for the communication between each others because it offers independency from time and place and at the same time its ability to ensure smooth running of every project. IFOS has the following benefits:

• giving clear overview of activities status at any time a customer requires it
• involving customers into the project by providing them with possibilities to view the project status and send his/her questions and suggestions directly to developers
• notifying automatically about all important activities in the projects. Notifications can be sent to any device which is more preferable to the system users: PDA, laptop or working station at the office.
• creating, storing and sharing all documentation needed during the project
• supporting Quality Management activities
• keeping full contact with all the people involved in a project (even if they are separated by geographical and/or time zones)
• supporting customers after completion of the installation

*instinctools’ customers get an access to the system after the project commencement and with the help of IFOS they receive the following benefits:

• process monitoring – as IFOS is very closely integrated with the main *instinctools’ development processes, it provides overview of project activities and adds to manageability and effectiveness of each project. Customers can get an overview of the status of their project, activities that are being performed, get information about the team of developers working on their project and their roles in the process.
• reports generation – it is possible to create reports which show all the activities which have been undertaken in regards to a certain project, get an overview of the project on the whole and draw conclusions.
• bug/issue reporting – customers can create a task/bug/recommendation which will be sent directly to the developers or managers and notifications of all activities related to the inquiry will be sent to the customer via email.
• requirements tracking – requirements are collected and managed in central place according to the predefined processes.
• direct communication with developers – customers have direct access to the developers and can ask questions or make suggestions eliminating possible losses and misunderstandings in the communication chain.
• access to the project documentation – customers can view all the information related to the project as well as add their own files which are significant for the project. The system insures that nothing is lost during and after the project.
• cost tracking – having the complete understanding of the project and processes that are being performed, customers can see how the budget is being spent and keep track of all the project costs.
  

Main Features of IFOS

IFOS has various possibilities which support PM activities and ensure the proper flow of any project at *instinctools. Main features of the system are grouped in the following way:

• address manager for people, companies, departments – allows viewing information about people (functions in the company, phone numbers, addresses, their roles related to a certain project).
• groups/teams – allows viewing list of people assigned to a project.
• calendar – allows viewing all the company, team, project or individual events (there is a possibility to set mail notifications to remind about particular events), sends invitations via email, allows event acceptance management and resource conflict management. It shows events in different colors depending on the type and the location. Any events can be automatically imported into MS Outlook Calendar.
• bug tracking system – this possibility is needed for proper reporting and correction of bugs and issues. A bug can have different statuses: open (set by default), in progress, solved, QA-approved, closed, works for me (is not found during verification), not a bug. The system maintains history of all changes made to the bug, can display list of all bugs based on a certain criteria: project, product, time range, task, installation, etc.; and displays statistics. It generates links to products/projects and notifies all the people involved in the project via emails.
• requirement tracking – requirements are collected and managed in central place according to defined processes.
• product/project repository – contains all the information related to a product/project: a list of installations, related bugs, appointments, start and end dates, related tasks, documents, relation to other projects, set of different roles in a project, time tracking, change history and mail notifications with a watchlist.
• mailboxes – uses POP and IMAP mailboxes, allows attaching mailboxes to projects/users and moving mails to other folders.
• timetracking on project activities – keeps track of time spent on a particular project activities. Shows statistics both in text and graphical formats.

*instinctools’ customers get an access to IFOS and thus can get the abovementioned information about their project independently of their location using their preferred language (currently it can be English, German or Russian) as well as stay in touch with the development team at any time convenient to them.

Read more on *instinctools offshore software development expertise and on project management expertise.