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Why use Allocatus for Contractor Integration?

  • Use Allocatus to schedule appointments for your contractor and automatically synchronize them directly to their calendar or mobile device.
  • The contractor does not require access to MS Project but can simply use Outlook to manage their appointments. Allocatus synchronizes the calendar with the project plan so the Project Manager is aware of any changes. 
  • This reduces double entry as the tasks/appointments do not have to be created twice. In addition, it reduces the likelihood of a missed appointment as the task is sent directly to their calendar. 

A bottleneck for the project managers role can be filtering the project to show all tasks, milestones, and deadlines for each contractor and sending these timelines out towards them. The contractors then usually update their own schedule with these dates and carry out the detailed scheduling and resource planning to meet them. After reporting back variance, the client's project manager updates their schedule accordingly. This process repeats constantly when change occurs. Allocatus carries out these tasks automatically without the need for the contractor to fill in their own project schedule. They can just drag the appointments to the right spot in their calendars.

How to use Allocatus for Contractor Integration

1. The project manager creates a task in MS Project and assigns it to a contractor.

Task assigned to a contractor

2. Allocatus will then display the task in the Outlook Calendar of the contractor as an appointment. You are free to choose if you want to split the task into two appointments as in the screenshot below, e.g. to represent a lunch break, or keep it as one.

Allocatus displays appointment in Outlook

3. Should the contractor need to make a change to the task, it can be changed within Outlook and Allocatus will update the plan in Project if the project manager approves the change.

Appointment moved to another date in Outlook
Task is updated in the project schedule

4. Once the contractor has finished the task, meaning the calendar entry is in the past, Allocatus will update the task in Project to be completed.

Appointment in the past
Task completed in schedule

Advantages

  • Contractors do not need to access Microsoft Project but manage their appointments in Outlook.
  • Contractors are less likely to miss appointments when they are directly synchronized to their calendars.
  • Allocatus reduces the repeating work load of updating the project schedules every time change occurs.