Dear Barry,
Great post, so many organizations have this issue. What do you use for the pipeline, Excel..? We crossed this exact same bridge a while back. Some of the tools we used were different than you as we were using Microsoft Project Server for PM rather than Quickbase and Salesforce.com for SFA rather than Excel, but the business use case and issues (providing a simple high level view of existing projects as well as potential projects in the sales pipeline and providing consolidated resource management information 3-6 months out) that we were seeking to address seem virtually identical to yours. Initially, we used Excel as a vehicle to accomplish this as we did not want to populate Project Server with pipeline activity for the very reasons you mentioned. As the management team reviewed and used this consolidated information, it became apparent that we really wanted one platform for all projects and potential projects for a number of reasons. For one, the top potential projects in most cases represented significant work that had to be expended whether or not the deal closed. And, the way our management team does portfolio management of existing projects, opportunity management of potential new projects, and resource management across the board lends more value to having a consolidated platform and view.
Assuming you want to continue to use Quickbase and your sales team wants to continue using what they already have for pipeline, I would recommend first using Excel as a stop gap measure eventhough it may/will be shortlived. A skilled person could do this with Macros, a non-skilled person via exports and copy/paste. And then based upon how your management team uses the consolidated reporting as well as how your teams use Quickbase and the tool you use for pipeline, you can do this within Quickbase or look at further, more elegant approaches that best meet the needs of the senior executive team and the frontline team. All of this sounds a bit crude, doesn't it. I hope we hear and learn from others. Perhaps some of the vendor readers that serve this area of need can provide expertise and product suggestions.
Good luck..!
Mark Perry
VP of Customer Care
BOT International
