General Information

In large companies, there are often complex processes that have to be coordinated across departmental boundaries and locations of the company. Moreover, many people are entrusted with different tasks. To complete a task, i.e. creating a new marketing campaign, all relevant information must be available in one place.

In the past, you may have relied on different software applications or even just Excel to achieve this, and those involved not always had the most up-to-date data. This information is now collected in the job data sheet of the Jobs module.

The Jobs module is a powerful application that helps you organize and control complex processes in your company. To simplify and standardize these processes, they are mapped in the form of jobs. The various people involved in a particular job are kept informed and involved. The software assigns upcoming workflow steps and notifies colleagues by e-mail. In addition, the participants can exchange information about a job and clarify questions in the comment area. This improves cooperation and increases efficiency.

In this chapter, you will learn about the key terms and functions of the Jobs module in the Uptempo platform.

A job is a defined workflow that can be performed multiple times in order to achieve the desired work result. The overall process is represented by a BPMN workflow. The workflow can contain parallel or alternative paths.

Note

Processes can be displayed in the Kanban view but cannot be edited.

Additional required tasks can be mapped by means of sub-jobs. A sub-job can use a different workflow that is independent of the parent element. Sub-jobs allow you to structure workflows and make dependencies between different workflows recognizable. See Sub-Jobs or Processes.

A workflow defines the individual steps of a job as a whole. Workflows standardize work processes and ensure that everyone involved has the same instructions and expectations for how to perform a particular activity. A workflow helps you organize, prioritize, and track work more efficiently. This helps marketing teams achieve a specific goal, as workflows ensure the timely provision of the necessary staff, the relevant data, and the required resources.When you create a new job in your system, you need to plan the individual workflow steps required to execute that job.

One example of a workflow is the creation of a marketing campaign from conception to publication. A workflow for such a campaign may be as follows:

  1. Create job: A marketing manager creates a new job. When creating the job, the marketing manager uses a suitable job template with tasks that represent the individual steps of the workflow, e.g. Research, Draft, Review, Release, and Publication and variables that are linked to Activities.

  2. Idea generation and information gathering: The marketing manager compiles information about the target group, the market, and the competition. Then a list of possible topics and content for the campaign is created. The marketing manager adds all relevant information and requirements to the data sheet. At all stages, the marketing manager can view the progress of the job at any time and intervene in the event of impending timeouts.

  3. Prioritization and resources: The marketing manager assigns the job to a user or user group, e.g. the creative team. The team or responsible managers are notified by e-mail and in the software. The marketing manager sets start and end dates and a budget for the job.

  4. Creation and review: The creative team creates the content (assets) for the campaign and uploads the data in the job. A team member marks the content as ready for review and the job is routed to the next step and reassigned to the marketing manager. If the review is negative and a new version is needed, the workflow step can be returned.

  5. Follow-up on progress: The marketing manager reviews the content and provides feedback or requests changes. The creative team makes the changes and marks the task as complete.

  6. Approval: When all tasks are complete, a responsible person approves or rejects the job and its assets.

  7. Publication and metrics: Once approved, the creative team publishes the content to the desired channels. The creative team measures the results of the campaign and produces a report on the KPIs. The report is presented to the management.

The workflow consists of various workflow steps, and each workflow step is assigned to a user group. The task in a workflow step can be assigned to an assignee or a group of assignees who are responsible for completing the step in question.

After completing, the assignee forwards the workflow to the next step. See Workflows.

The data sheet contains all important information about a job. The required information and input fields are arranged on different tabs. Data sheets can vary greatly depending on the company and the process, but they always have the same goal: to collect and provide data for all participants.

The content, layout, and design of the data sheet are defined in advance by an administrator according to the specifications of your organization. See Data Sheet.

Note

The data sheets for jobs in the Jobs module are always individually tailored to the needs and processes of a company. For this reason, we cannot show you specific use cases from your company, but rather only demonstrate all the functions of the Jobs module using general examples. Please contact your system administrator if required.

Users have different responsibilities in a job. The following user categories are available depending on the responsibility. We distinguish four categories. These are described in the following table:

User category

Description

Creator

You are the creator (owner) of a job if you have created the job.

Note: You cannot retroactively adjust the creator for a job with a BPMN-based workflow.

Assignee

You are the (current) assignee of a job if you are responsible for the current workflow step. The step has been assigned to you, e.g. a translation or a review. You can also be a member of an assigned group in which each person has the same permissions, but you choose the workflow step to be processed, enter the data, and forward it to the next step.

Participants

You are a participant if you are invited to the job as a participant. As a participant, you are not responsible for the current workflow step, but you can follow the progress of the job. Participants can be added to a discussion.

Anonymous

Anonymous users are any users who are not the creator, an assignee, or a participant, but who can still access a job. In general, anonymous users only have read access to variables.

In order to make it easier for the users to process their respective tasks, access within the data sheet is controlled on the basis of the respective user category. For this reason, the tabs and fields that are visible or can be edited on the data sheet depends on the category you belong to.

  • Activities in the Plan & Spend module let you digitally manage your activities timeline and planning. Activities can be connected and synchronized with configured workflows. This allows you to track how successful your marketing activities and campaigns are at any time. See Interaction with Activities.