Setting up your Practical Manager
To get the greatest benefit in the shortest time, we suggest spending a few minutes and doing the following steps before you start using Practical Manager:
- Complete your profile
- Integrate with your Calendar and Task app
- Enter your Key Areas
- Enter your first Goal
- Invite other members to your organization
1. Edit Profile
Fill out your short profile in the "Edit Profile" section that you can find in the top-right corner of the screen. It consists of:
- Your personal information and your organisation's basic information.
- The main team you belong to, and/or your additional teams you are part of.
- A simple list of your key areas (explained in a separate chapter).
- Your options for receiving notifications and reminders.
Enter your first and last name and upload your image.
Select a team you belong to, or, if no team is available to select, create your team by clicking the corresponding button.
Finito! You're done with setting up the basics.
Now, go on with the important stuff: your goals, key areas and tasks, and start using your personal planning and results tool.
2. Integrate with your Calendar and Task app
Integrate your workplace calendar and task system. By synchronising both apps, you will get an overview of your available calendar slots and items to work on. This will enable you to get control over your existing priorities.
Remember that working organisations have a tenant admin who needs to approve the Practical Manager app to connect with the tenant and exchange data. Talk to your IT department.
3. Enter your Key areas
The key areas highlight your main responsibilities for the tasks you oversee. They are important because they are what is required to accomplish your goals, they help maintain an overview and control, as well as identify what you should spend your time on.
They are important for your peers and members as well, because they help clarify the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved.
- You can enter no more than nine key areas. This helps keep the overview
The number of your key areas is limited to keep your brain in control and have an overview of the tasks.
- The key area of ideas is predefined. Every person should generate and work with ideas to develop themselves and their organisation.
Read more about the Key Areas here.
About the key areas
A Key Area is a group of your tasks or projects that you are responsible for. The Key Areas describe areas of your responsibility at work (or even at home) required to achieve your goals. They are not necessarily always related directly to one of your goals, but most often, you will find out they are.
Using no more than 9 in total will help you maintain an overview and control of your work. Bright Ideas is a key area of everyone’s focus, a responsibility that you should always work on and strive to make a reality in your future development.
You will better determine your key areas by answering the following questions:
• What am I doing?
• What are my tasks?
• What tasks would I like to have?
• What other tasks should I also be doing?
• What work is involved in performing these tasks?
You can read more about the Key Areas in the Personal Organisation booklet available upon request.
4. Enter your Goals
The goals section is your performance tool for achieving results and tracking progress. Goals are often referred to as Objectives and Key results, but we call them Goals and Milestones.
They may be personal, or you can enter goals or milestones for your entire team or the organisation. It is helpful to do so when you are a team manager, a project manager or a leader of an organisation.
- Goals are publicly visible by default. Mark a goal as Private for your family-related goals or company-sensible objectives.
- Select a team in the Goal Details section for assigning this goal as a team-level goal.
Using the Goals section
Start by entering your first goal you want to track and make sure to achieve, then click into the field provided.
When you're done entering several goals, you will find them listed in a simple list. If you click any of the entered goals, that goal will be shown with related details: milestones, deadlines, and the score indicating your progress.
Milestones
Milestones are smaller parts of the overall goal. Their role is to quantify and define the overall goals or the steps required to achieve a goal.
A goal can only be added with at least one milestone – see the image above.
Link goals 
A goal can be linked with another goal, creating a goal hierarchy. This is suitable if you have many goals to track, a project, or team goals that you are responsible for. You can have an overview of your goals in the Quick Goals view.
Score
The
goal achievement score is automatically calculated from the progress scores for
each milestone. They are primarily intended to help you score and record goal
achievement progress.
You
may want to decide whether a goal achievement score above 0.7 indicates
exceeding expectations, 0.5 to 0.7 indicates meeting expectations, and below
0.5 indicates underperformance.
You
can also use a different explanation that better fits your organisation.
Additional commands
In
the header line, you will find three commands:
-
Quick goals
-
Share
-
History
Quick goals
will show a pop-up window
with the goal hierarchy – an overview of your goals.
Share
function enables you to create a
goal report in PDF or Excel format, which you can print or e-mail to others.
The report includes current goals and the goals you have achieved.
History
will show the goals you have marked as
completed.
Read more about the goals.
Goals are results you decide to
pursue. A goal should be clear and concise, meaningful, realistic, challenging,
and include a deadline. This tool allows you to describe your goals.
When you achieve your goals, mark them
as complete so you can receive recognition for the accomplishment. Similarly,
when your members accomplish their goals, make sure you share recognition – a
genuine attention – with them.
We suggest you make sure the goals you
enter in your profile have all of the above characteristics, including
deadlines "no-later-than".
When you wish to keep a goal hidden
from other members, e.g., your private life goals or special circumstances, you
can lock it as private.
Score
The goal achievement score is automatically calculated from the progress scores for each milestone. They are primarily intended to help you score and record goal achievement progress.
You may want to decide whether a goal achievement score above 0.7 indicates exceeding expectations, 0.5 to 0.7 indicates meeting expectations, and below 0.5 indicates underperformance.
You can also use a different explanation that better fits your organisation.
Additional commands
In the header line, you will find three commands:
- Quick goals
- Share
- History
Quick goals will show a pop-up window with the goal hierarchy – an overview of your goals.
Share function enables you to create a goal report in PDF or Excel format, which you can print or e-mail to others. The report includes current goals and the goals you have achieved.
A history of goals can be created by archiving goals that are not relevant any more but you would like to keep in your system.
Read more about the goals
Goals are results you decide to pursue. A goal should be clear and concise, meaningful, realistic, challenging, and include a deadline. This tool allows you to describe your goals.
When you achieve your goals, mark them as complete so you can receive recognition for the accomplishment. Similarly, when your members accomplish their goals, make sure you share recognition – a genuine attention – with them.
We suggest you make sure the goals you enter in your profile have all of the above characteristics, including deadlines "no-later-than".
When you wish to keep a goal hidden from other members, e.g., your private life goals or special circumstances, you can lock it as private.
5. Invite your team members
Use the tool as your team's productivity tool to greatly extend your personal results.
Practical Manager’s goal functionality is fully realised when team members work together, share recognition and positive feedback, and keep their goals visible to achieve them and help each other achieve their shared goals.
This, altogether, helps them develop and maintain the Employeeship culture, where everyone is fully committed and aligned toward big, common goals or visions.
In the profile settings, create your organisation. Then, move to the Manage Members section and invite new members.
Enter the e-mail address of other members or copy and paste the unique URL into an e-mail, and send them the invitation link.
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