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How SpiderWorks Uses SmartTask.io to Streamline its E-Commerce Application Development in UAE
By Tony JohnSep 19, 2019
When you are a small team, the most efficient method to manage your project is through face to face discussions and by using a pinboard or whiteboard in your room to note down tasks and reminders. But as your business grows, managing large teams without formal and streamlined communication channels will become a challenge. That's when automation and process management tools like SmartTask becomes a handy tool.
SpiderWorks Technologies was started as a small IT company in India in the year 2005 with its primary focus on providing quality digital services to clients in India and abroad. For a few years, the company maintained a low profile with a small group of talented professionals and serving clients only in its home country. However, as the company started growing and expanding beyond the country of origin, it needed a set of tools and processes to effectively and efficiently manage its projects.
Need For a Process Management Solution Like SmartTask:
SpiderWorks started developing a multi-vendor e-commerce platform for the UAE market. It was a large e-commerce project with a set of features including a marketplace option, multi-vendor selling, variant based product listing, customisable product categories, sophisticated types of offers and deals, dynamic page builder, coupon code management, affiliate marketing support and so on.
Company has been using traditional approaches to manage its team for all of its projects in the past until it started working on this complex and sophisticated e-commerce platform for its client in Dubai. Company quickly realized that it requires a smart process management software to allocate tasks, share task ownership, monitor progress and collaborate with team members at different locations and so on.
After trying out various task management solutions, the company found SmartTask is a perfect tool to manage its e-commerce application development team and coordinators placed at distant locations in UAE and India. Read further to learn how the company used SmartTask to improve the efficiency and achieve its performance goals.
What is SmartTask?
SmartTask is a project management tool that allows collaborating tasks among members of a project team. Following are some of the major features of SmartTask:
1. Create and track the progress of a project
2. Collaborate on a task - create tasks, add comments and assign one or more team members to a task
3. Create teams and invite team members to participate in collaborative project management.
4. Customize tasks by adding custom fields, stages of progress and so on.
5. Access from anywhere in the world. With the cloud-based data sync, the projects can be accessed by your team anywhere in the world.
6. Organize your files, grouped by projects. Easy to use file attachment option allows you to share project files safely with your team.
7. Location tracking - track your team members when they are on the field.
How SpiderWorks Configured SmartTask To Match its Organizational Structure?
In SpiderWorks, the system is organized into Groups (Departments), Projects, Tasks, and Users.
"Groups" is similar to "departments" and is the highest level of the entity within the system. SpiderWorks started with setting up all of its departments as "Groups" within the software. The following Groups were created:
1. Software Development
2. Digital Marketing
3. IT Services
4. Branding Services
Even though the primary goal of setting up the software was to track the progress of its e-commerce application development in UAE, the company decided to create Groups for each of its departments so that other departments also can be easily added to the software to streamline and collaborate all departments within a single system.
The next step was to create a "Project" called "Ecommerce Portal" under the group "Software Development". This is where all tasks for the e-commerce application for its UAE client is created and managed.
Once the project was created, then the next step is to create the "Users" who can own and manage the "Tasks". The Admin user who created the account with SmartTask invited his team members by sending out an invitation within the software. The invitation process is very simple and convenient. Team members who received the invitation by email can quickly join SmartTask.io and jump-start with the tasks.
Team Collaboration For Development Of E-Commerce Application:
SpiderWorks has team members at different locations. There is a project coordinator from SpiderWorks who resides in UAE and manages all e-commerce development activities from the client location to ensure the product is developed according to the vision of the client. Also, there are developers and designers who sit in the office of SpiderWorks in India. At times, the developers choose to work from home or from other locations as well.
SmartTask makes the process easy and efficient by providing an excellent project collaboration platform. The project coordinator at client site creates and assigns tasks to the developers as he identifies new requirements and tasks from the client. The project manager at the Indian office monitor and track the progress of the tasks and updates the status as and when it changes. Whether you have e-commerce business or any online business, SmartTask is the best productivity tool that you ever need to monitor projects and tasks.
Pros and Cons of SmartTask:
The primary reason that convinced SpiderWorks to go for SmartTask as the project management platform for its e-commerce application development for UAE market is, it has packed all core features in a very simple user interface that has a very low learning curve. Any new member who joins the team can quickly learn how to use the platform in a few minutes. The simple user interface that packs a bunch of powerful features makes SmartTask a perfect platform for SpiderWorks to manage its client projects.
If I have to point out any disadvantages here, it is all about the endless possibilities that can be added to this platform. Just like the CRM feature added to the platform, many other options and features can be added to SmartTask to make it a more comprehensive project management tool. The current version of SmartTask is focused more on “Task Management”. Even though it is pretty comprehensive when it comes to projects and task management, some of the add-on tools like “CRM” are currently on a basic level. Bringing more features and options will make SmartTask one of the best ERP solution for mid-sized companies like SpiderWorks and will eliminate the need to use multiple tools to manage the organization and operations.
More about SpiderWorks:
SpiderWorks is a reputed digital marketing agency in UAE and India with operations and projects across several countries including USA, UK, Australia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and more. Established in 2005 as a digital marketing company and serving several prestigious clients across the world, SpiderWorks is a well-established brand in the digital industry. The core services offered by the company include social media marketing, search engine optimization, e-commerce application development, online advertising, influencer marketing, and other branding services.