RedmineUP - platform for product teams

Redmine sought fame primarily as a flexible tool. For his ability to customize for different tasks, millions of people around the world love him. So why not use it? Why not to entrust Redmine new tasks?

The tasks that I accomplish with the help of RedmineUP are characteristic of many product teams and startups. Project management, sales, customers, support, finance, team - all this can be done on the basis of Redmine.

What will it give you? Those of you who are familiar and already using Redmine for development will be able to see the benefits of integration and the use of additional modules. But for everyone else - this is an opportunity to try Redmine in action.

RedmineUp - SaaS platform for product teams. We took the basic functionality of Redmine, improved the interface, added the most popular modules (Agile, Helpdesk, CRM, People) and deployed in the cloud, providing technical support, speed and data security.

Advantages and features of RedmineUP:

1. Simple and convenient interface.
2. Customer Relationship Management. CRM
3. Customer service organization. Helpdesk
4. Team management.
5. Development management by flexible methodologies. Agile
6. Hosting, updating and support from Redmine experts.

1. Simple and convenient interface

Your productivity and mood depend on the quality of the interface. So, this is how most users are used to seeing Redmine:

And what if we make the interface more convenient, namely:

• emphasis on the main (prioritization);
• correctly selected fonts (readability);
• layout of the working screen (ergonomics);
• color range (combination of colors);
• adaptive design.

As a result, the same page will look like this:

Now, after we have thought over and improved the Redmine interfaces, we will add functionality.

2. Customer Relationship Management. CRM

Customer information comes out on top in the competition. The more information you collect and analyze, the more chances you have to sell the product. Contacting support, downloading the free version, visiting the site, participating in a webinar, shopping - all these are sales funnel steps and it is extremely important to keep track of all these touches.

What you can do in Redmine using the CRM module:

• maintain a database of customers, partners and counterparties;
  
  • Segment customers with tags and filters;
  • see the history of communication with the client;
  • see the point of interaction with the client (sales, registration, correspondence, calls);
  • bind tasks to the client;
  • send email messages;
  • organize customer portal;
  • organize the sales process.

It is worth noting that thanks to the user access settings, you can organize a real personal account for your customers, where they can see all their requests, download products, pay for licenses.

In order to determine the bottleneck, I had to build a separate funnel to promote the users of the trial version. Problems were identified at the stage of authorization and customer involvement. I needed to understand why there were 20 registrations per week, and only one became a paid subscription.

To find a bottleneck at the stage of using the free version, I had to add touch points to the client, analyze the behavior inside the trial, and fix feedback for each client. As a result, we added new stages of interaction with the client: an online presentation and training training and began to analyze. At the same time, it was necessary to keep current customers, identify the collective image of the customer and improve the value proposition.

As a result, I set up my own “boards” for each type of clients and organized work with both leads and current clients. With the help of filters, I built the reports I needed, and by the responsible executives I could see who was working, and the visualization of the funnel by the sales stages gave me food for thought.

I managed to organize the work of five employees at once, identify and eliminate the bottleneck (migration of data from other systems), and, as a result, increase the average check and income.

3. Organization of customer service. Helpdesk

If communication with clients began to bring inconvenience to you (loss of information, failure to meet the deadline, no person in charge), then the time has come to organize the work of the support service.

Each appeal from the client has its own status, the author and the responsible executor. All actions on a ticket are stored in the history, and you can always track the current status of the call, unlike the mail client.

What you can do in Redmine using the Helpdesk module:

• helpdesk will automatically create a ticket from the email client (or from the contact form);
• for one and creates a contact card (if it is a new appeal);
• You can bind the task to the contact (the history of customer calls);
• save you time for answers (response templates);
• privately communicate with colleagues, discussing how to help the client;
• organize support levels (SLA);
• track support service metrics (time of first response, etc.);
• get a score for the answer from the client (manager's score);
• automate support (Set up auto-reply with a link to the FAQ);
• initiate a dialogue with the client first (Pop-up feedback form).

We all love the attention to our person, and if you mention, a la: "I see that you tried our trial version of the cloud solution last year, but you didn’t have enough support to migrate data from Trello", then for the client it will be It sounds like this: "You are a very important client for us, and we all understand the responsibility as one and really want to help you and your business!"

Integration of data from CRM and Helpdesk plays a very important role in organizing interaction with customers. And now let's see how the work of the team is organized.

4. Team management

Food teams are made up of people with different qualifications, experience, and different skills. If you have at hand all the information about previous work experience, projects and competencies - you can easily find the right person. Especially important for remote teams and projects, which often use the services of freelancers. For each freelancer there is a “card” in which the entire history of relationships is stored.

What you can do in Redmine with the People module:

• keep records of employees;
• select the right employee;
• plan employee leave;
• plan holiday events;
• send alerts to the team;
• generate an account for the time spent in the project.

So, open the list of contacts (employees) in Redmine and select potential designers by the "Ux-Ui" tag. We have to choose from 15 people. We look at the portfolio and recent work on the presence of IOS projects - 5 left.

We reject capricious and hipster designers, because if they don’t accept their option the first time, they’ll get upset and become slack. How do we know this? From the history of past projects - comments from managers and colleagues.

We reject those who are currently working in the company in full time, since the dates will not allow working on weekends and when the muse comes. The remaining 2 candidates have every chance - we send them the details of the project and ask for a price tag. In the end, choose one.

According to the results of work, on the basis of the time spent, we issue an invoice, which can be immediately sent by mail.

5. Development management by flexible methodologies. Agile.

A manager in Moscow, developers in Samara, a designer on maternity leave working from home, a marketer in Warsaw, a support manager in Sofia - these are the realities of today. Agile teams will appreciate the opportunity to work on flexible methodologies.

What can you do in Redmine using the Agile module ?:

• plan sprints;
• evaluate tasks (story points);
• configure Agile boards using filters and save them as requests;
• set a limit on the number of tasks in a particular status;
• track the status of the project by Agile charts - Burndown, Cumulative Flow, Velocity or Lead Time chart;
• personalize the boards for your specific tasks.

A more detailed overview of the Agile module:

6. Hosting, updating and support from Redmine experts.

Jira, Basecamp and other market leaders in project management systems based on their products have created cloud services (Atlassian, Wrike) and have taken up the issues related to installing, configuring and updating software.

RedmineUP is a ready-to-use platform in the Redmine based cloud. You do not have to deal with the issues of setting up and configuring the server, supporting and updating the software, monitoring the speed of work and ensuring data security. We have already done this so that you can focus on the main thing - your projects.

Try RedmineUP in action and share your impressions. Successful projects!