As we all adjust to new realities of working from home full time, we at inMotionNow have been delighted to hear from our customers all the ways they are leveraging Inmotion Ignite to maintain productivity while working from home. Our Customer Success team has been supporting and advising teams throughout these transitions and we are delighted to hear some of the most popular ways our customers use inMotion ignite to keep their work in motion.

Engage with Stakeholders

“inMotion has helped us tremendously with respect to our process. Since we’d only begun widespread deployment in January, it was a good rally cry for those who had yet to be onboarded to get accounts created so they could remain engaged with their projects, provide feedback, make requests, etc.” – Mark

The relationship between marketing and creative teams and their stakeholders needs careful management at the best of times. As we all switch over to a “new normal” we’ll also need to update our approach to working with stakeholders. For many ignite customers, this has been a great opportunity to get any straggling stakeholders onboarded into the platform. By leveraging self-registration stakeholders can get themselves signed up as needed, and the core team doesn’t have to manually add everyone to the platform.

It’s also crucial when teams are remote that they have a solid process for collecting and managing requests from stakeholders. inMotion ignite provides requesters with their own dashboard and Requester Insights that allows the marketing and creative team to set clear expectations and surface more information, so stakeholders feel informed about the process. Requester Insights also makes it easy for requesters and the creative team to collaborate in one centralized location.

Doing Good

“Our pandemic-related projects mostly surround customer education and reassurance. As a public transit agency, we provide services many community members rely on. Communicating changes about these services as well as reassurances around security and safety protocols have been several of the things we’ve had to undertake. We will likely be continuing to work on projects like this for the foreseeable future.” – Mark

Many of the brands we work with are seeing the Coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to give back. This means that in addition to their usual work, many teams are taking on “special projects” related to the outbreak. Teams can manage this work in ignite by leveraging Custom Tags, Custom Fields, and Custom Work Statuses to track work that is specific to or impacted by COVD-19.

Custom Views

“We are using the heck out of Custom Views. They truly were a lifesaver last week for the team. Unfortunately, while we were making the initial transition to WFH, we had several people out on leave and we were in the process of approving 22 annual reports for print. The custom views were incredible – they allowed the team to grab whatever needed to go out for the day and get items returned to our stakeholders without having to reassign all of the work.” – Brittany

Teams working remotely need to be able to cut through the clutter and get straight to the most important work. With Custom Views, each user can filter their work to see exactly what they want to. This helps teams keep unassigned work moving and quickly identify bottlenecks, so projects aren’t slowed down. Users can save multiple Custom Views to quickly switch between and set one as a default, so the information is always right there!

Reporting

“At least 3% of our projects in the two last weeks are entirely new deliverables directly related to the pandemic (i.e. employee communications regarding Coronavirus, telemedicine, COVID-19, etc.) Due to the virus, we’ve have an influx of the same flyer project to support our clients – I considered making a project template for this, but ultimately decided to keep our process the same. So much has changed in our world, keeping process and procedure seems like a safe way to approach this season.” – Hayley

Reports in ignite provide the same flexibility as Custom Views, but they are shareable with team members and stakeholders. That means its easy to increase transparency with key company leaders. Reports are also useful for team meetings, allowing the entire team to look at the same report for current projects. Reports can be used to track timelines and productivity by looking at cycle time, number of completed projects, time spent on specific tasks or projects, and the volume of requests coming in from stakeholders.

Online Proofing

“One of the most immediate ways we adjusted our processes was to start proofing print jobs through inMotion ignite. We had been doing this for soft proofs, but since we are all remote, we have switched to doing everything in ignite. The beauty about having inMotion ignite is that we were exclusively doing our projects through it, so the transition to working from home really easy.” – Terri

One of the most important things creative teams will need to do when switching to remote work is getting all their proofs online. That is a fairly basic concept, but with inMotion ignite Review + Approval you get more than just online proofing. Defined Route End Dates give you guardrails to make sure nothing slips through the cracks and everything gets done on time. Proof Sharing allows reviewers to bring others into the conversation, so collaboration is seamless and inclusive. Finally, the ability to continue collaborating on returned proofs makes proofing a two-way conversation. Designers can ask clarifying questions and stakeholders can respond, even after a proof has been reviewed and returned.

Online proofing is also a great way to replace brainstorming – something very much missed in remote working. Team members can upload a proof and invite the rest of the team to leave comments and brainstorm a new idea. Upload existing assets, rough drafts, mood boards, or even blank word documents and invite teammates to brainstorm new ideas!

Working from home doesn’t have to mean decreased productivity. With the right tools your remote team can keep up the momentum from home! Schedule a demo of inMotion ignite today to see how creative project management can keep your team on track while working from home.

P.S.
We just couldn’t resist sharing a couple more quotes from happy customers who depend on inMotion ignite to keep their creative workflows running smoothly, no matter where their teams are working from!

“Ignite makes it incredibly simple to work from home year round. I am able to manage my team and keep track of tasks and keep everything in one place. I am a fan of Ignite, for life. ” – Billie Claire

“We are taking it day-by-day, still servicing clients, bidding for new business, and using Ignite to power our department. Inside of inMotion, we have not changed our process.” – Hayley

Elise Hauser is a product and content marketer with a passion for telling brand stories. She has produced inMotionNow’s annual In-House Creative Management Report for 3 years, webinars, content sessions for major industry events reaching audiences of 1,000+, and of course, countless blog posts. When Elise isn’t writing about the marketing and creative industry at inMotionNow she is teaching economics and hanging out with her cat, Tucker, at her home in Raleigh, NC.