The world changed in an instant. The coronavirus epidemic moved people from working in silos to working from their own home pretty much overnight. Teams that could sit next to each other and discuss their project were suddenly dispersed. Managing projects became instantly much more difficult.
Whenever a team is formed, collaboration tools are needed to manage this effectively and produce the best results. This is even more important right now. When managing any project in an organization, the key component is to ensure that you are in control of all the different elements of that project.
In this article, we will explore the best way to adopt Redmine to manage your projects as Enterprise. And it breaks down like this:
- What are the specific requirements of Enterprise-ready solution?
- Introduction to Redmine
- Step 1. Sign a service-level agreement with a Redmine service provider
- Step 2. Implement Enterprise grade level security
- Step 3. Extend your project management with reliable Redmine plugins
- Step 4. Customise Redmine to fit your team and projects
- Step 5. Grow and measure performance with Redmine expert
- Conclusion
So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
What are the specific requirements of Enterprise-ready solution?
If you are new to software, then you might have seen the phrase ‘Enterprise-ready’ and wonder what it all means. In terms of any organization, enterprise-ready means something that you can pick up and run with immediately. The days of adapting software to fit your organization (and the delays that come with this) are over. If you desire a solution that is enterprise-ready, then there are four key components that you should be looking for:
- Security: privacy and data protection have become watchwords for all businesses over the last few years, and your team is no exception to this. Your organization relies on security features on every piece of software. Having features such as two-factor sign in essential, especially if you hire 3rd party contractors.
- Integration: Of course, you want any new piece of software to integrate as seamlessly as possible with your existing systems. A great enterprise-ready solution enhances what you already have, connecting across platforms and making your work as a team easier.
- Compliance: If you’re looking for a seal of approval then compliance audits and certificates are a great guideline. Your team will have regulations and procedures to manage on a daily basis. Look for a solution that fits perfectly with your compliance needs.
- Scale: Managing one project today might very well lead to managing scores in the future. With that in mind, you should look for a solution that can grow with your organization. The amount of communication we manage now is exponentially larger than the volume of ten years ago due to social media and internet communications. Your enterprise-ready solution must be scalable.
Redmine: A Solution For Your Team
Redmine is one of the most popular open source flexible project management systems. Written using the ‘Ruby on Rails’ framework, it is cross-platform and cross- database. Redmine is released under the terms of the General Public License (GPL) version 2. This makes it the ideal choice for any organization — plus it can fulfil all of the criteria outlined above (more on this later).
Redmine is the solution that more and more teams are turning to when looking at their project management. However, there are a few aspects that is missed at Redmine compared with Jira, Asana, Microsoft projects and other market leaders:
- Redmine is open source software, which means it is amended and improved by the community. This is great but does mean that there is no overarching company looking after the quality of the performance, any security issues and bugs.
- It doesn’t have security as standard. You needs to rely on the security measures available as plugins on the open market.
- There are elements that you might see as standard with software but don’t come as part of the package with Redmine. Things such as agile boards.
- Keeping Redmine up to date means you need specialist software engineers in your team to maintain the system and apply any updates. You need Ruby developers who aren’t cheap.
So, with all this in mind, what do you do? How do you get the most from this amazing platform without suffering the downsides? Well, here are the 5 steps that will deliver you success and adopt Redmine exactly for your needs.
Step 1. Sign a service-level agreement with a Redmine service provider
Open source Redmine doesn’t have a support service. Too bad. It only has community support, which feels great but doesn’t always get the job done. The best solution here is to outsource your ongoing Redmine management to someone who knows their stuff.
On-site Redmine management can be a drain on your resources. Looking for someone else to manage this for you is an effective way of getting the most from the solution without the high cost associated with employing people. It is vitally important to sign an SLA here. You want to know the standards that your support will keep when you need them most.
As Redmine itself doesn’t have support service you should care about service provider. Nowadays there are few Redmine hosting providers on the market. You should look at the options available and find the one that suits you best.
The key components of an SLA:
To avoid potential misunderstanding or conflict, SLAs should include these items at the very least:
- Outline the objectives of the SLA
- Define the services provided
- Outline the duties of both the client and the provider
- State how any issues or conflict can be resolved
Depending on the type of service, other elements might include the following:
- Availability and uptime: The service should be available most of the time. The uptime is the monthly measure of this, stated as a percentage of the overall time.
- Performance standards: There are certain standards that must be adhered to in order for a service to be seen as effective. The client will specify benchmarks that constitute a reliable service.
- Response time: How long it takes for the vendor to respond to an issue, should one arise. These can be stated as minimums and maximums.
- Resolution time: How long it takes for the vendor to resolve to an issue, should one arise. These can be stated as minimums and maximums.
The vendor or service provider can be given financial penalties or lose the contract if they don’t adhere to these standards. The project manager can rely on the service levels agreed, as they need to know where they stand when managing a project to deadlines.
The Importance Of Measuring Performance
How do you know how good the service is if you don’t measure it? Set metrics that are agreed by both sides, achievable and measurable. We have looked at some of the key metrics above. We would suggest that the most important ones are the time it takes to respond a resolve an issue, as these issues interrupt business performance.
Step 2. Implement Enterprise-grade level security
We’re all ruled by the security of our business. The issues created by failed security of data are huge — ruined reputation, fines and a loss of customer faith. It can be fatal to a company. The kind of Redmine security you should be looking for includes:
- Effective data encryption
- Regular backups
- An active firewall
- Independent clusters for each client
- A robust privacy policy
- Quality of installed plugins
If you’re looking for a secure way of managing your projects then as an example of complex solution you may check RedmineUP’ statement on security. At RedmineUP — we continuously develop our plugins and support all Redmine core releases. We keep all plugins up to date and compatible with the latest version of Redmine.
Security for enterprise is vitally important and we can feel your concerns regarding taking security off-site. But there needn’t be a reluctance to use the cloud version of Redmine.
Having separate users and managing their privileges keeps internal security issues at a minimum. Unfortunately, discontented employees are as much of a threat as hackers. Managing their access can help to manage the risk. 2-factor logins have become the norm for many sites in the modern world. It helps to mitigate against the threat from trojans, phishing and keylogging scams.
Step 3. Extend your project management with reliable Redmine plugins
One of the benefits of Open source Redmine is open code and huge number of available plugins.
You must keep your plugins updated or they pose a risk to the viability of the software. A bug in an old plugin can cause a security issue — updates are designed to eliminate this.
But please remember that plugins can be outdated without any support. Again, if you don’t have developers in your business already it’s better to hire Redmine experts and use the cloud option for your enterprise. Some Redmine as a service providers deliver the agile, helpdesk, CRM modules as part of their subscription meaning you get the best service and save money.
JIRA, one of the competitors to Redmine require you to pay for each plugin separately, which can see costs mount up. Increasing pricing is one of the reasons why Enterprises have started a migration from Jira to Redmine.
You can check the best and most popular plugins with high ratings before you commit to them. These along with the theme (user interface) allow your project and site to become bespoke to your organization. But we will talk more about customisation in the next point.
Step 4. Customise Redmine to fit your team and projects
We all want convenience. A turnkey solution looks the perfect proposition when you first take it out of the box. Any additions you need can be paid for as an extra subscription or the premium service.
But you’re not necessary looking for convenience in terms of the initial package bought. You want Redmine that perfectly works for your team and is effective in managing your project. This is where customization comes in.
Customization
This isn’t actually a feature, more of a service. Being able to customize your Redmine for the individual needs of your team means that it is fit for purpose, driving your project forward rather than holding it back.
What can you customise at Redmine? Well, this list shows some of the options:
- Logo and favicon
- Theme
- Plugins
- Added security options
- API integration
- Custom weekly reports
- Storage
- Authorisation options
- Data center location
Having all of these as interchangeable options means you can white label your Redmine and allow others to use it as they see fit. Perfect for a big organization that has different functions.
Step 5. Grow and measure performance with Redmine expert
What is customer success is the new trend from SaaS? It isn’t always easy to define. At RedmineUP we have dedicated customer success manager for each cloud account.
Here are some values:
- Training for new team members
- Agile coach for scrum and kanban team
- Onboarding presentations that help people get up and running in no time
- Priority support for enterprise clients
- Integration options that work with your business
- Performance monitoring and feedback as standard
- Help with weekly custom reports
It’s as simple as having one point of contact for service providers which is responsible for your success with Redmine. Here at RedmineUP we will help you to move forward via KPI and share work experience from international companies.
Conclusion
Redmine is hugely popular, but it needs some tweaking to make it perfect for your organization. It takes up time and money from your business. You need specialist support, and this isn’t cheap to employ in-house. That’s why using a ready-to-use Redmine hosting and support from experts is the best way forward. A well-managed Remine system streamlines your operation, improves your cost base and future-proofs your investment.
Now you know some of the most important reasons to look for an enterprise-ready Redmine solution for you and your team. We truly hope that Redmine helps you to deliver success in such turbulent time.
