I am not sure if this is really the right forum to post to, but here it goes.
I am in a bit of a dilemna. I am the sole staff planner in a consulting firm. One of the many hats I wear in this job is reviewing site and landscape plans. Wearing this hat, I juggle plans from about 8-9 rapidly growing communities. Each project site has an individual job number. When the review is completed, the bill is sent to the client (the Village) who then sends it on to the developer for that particular project site (re-reviews for that same project site would consequently be billed using that same job number).
Traditionally, if someone calls the front desk asking about a particular project, that phone call sooner or later makes it to me, and I dig up the plan and answer whatever questions they have. Pretty simple.
The review memos are scattered all over our network: one community might be in one drive, another community might be in another. My boss, who reviews my work, is very knowgeable but not always involved in the nuts and bolts (that's my job). Well...he wants to be able, within a few clicks of the mouse, find out all those nuts and bolts if a developer calls asking for questons (I think he doenst like looking through all the files on the network to get the answers, even though its probably just a few more clicks than he had hoped).
One of the goals for FY2007 is to be able to create a central hub of information (maybe an Access database) where all incoming projects (which are usually sent through the mail, and very rarely as email attachments) are logged in by the support staff and given a name.
Here is the problem: support staff is not knowleageable about where exaclty these files go and project sites are inappropriately labeled on the network and on the file tabs that go into the file cabinets. For example, lets say there is a large commercial site in a community that has several outlots. The overall site plan might receive a job number, and when the individual outlots are constructed by a separate developer, those individual site plans would have separate job numbers (because a separate developer is creating those plans and they should be billed separately from the developer for the overall site). Support staff has sometimes put these outlots under the overall job number (so the developer for the overall site is being billed for a review memo when the developer of the individual outlot should be billed).
In some cases, my client (the Village) would require special types of conditions for reviews (i.e. a review that only addresses lighting, or a review that looks at only the west side of the project site). These conversations are usually over the phone or through email.
If ALL work has to come through the front desk, it runs the risk of being inapporpriately labeled or categorized. A mistyped project number can cost many hours to be unbilled searching. In addition, the names of project sites that are still in the review process might change over time (I am sure that the support staff, though they are instrumental in the planning process, do not always have that "insider" knowledge.
As complexing as this situation sounds (and for those who havent fallen asleep yet, I thank you) I really do not like having support staff log in these projects and assigning job numbers before I receive the work. It's not so much of an ego thing as there has simply been too many mistakes.
Does anyone have any recommendations, alternatives, etc? I am even open to technical suggestions (software, etc.).
Thanks-
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