Creative Operations

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How to Run Timesheet Reports

Access or print the full document here.

1. First, you’ll need to pull two simple reports on Advantage:
   • Weekly time report 1) From the hamburger menu in Advantage, select desktop, report writer, dynamic reports, weekly time report. 2) Select date range for previous week in which time should be pulled. 3) Select print to export via Excel.
   • Direct time report 1) Go to the hamburger menu, select employee, direct time. 2) Select the filter tab, enter the date range. 3) Format report to display the following results: employee code, client code, division code, product code, function code, job number, job description, job component number, job component description, date, hours 4) Display in the following order: employee code, client code, division code, hours. 5) Export via Excel.

2. Open a blank timesheet template.

3. Using the weekly time report:
   • Enter the employee’s sum total hours in the hours total column on the template.
   • Enter the employee’s PTO (also includes bereavement, CTC, holiday, jury duty, personal, and training) into the PTO column on the template. This column is simply a catch-all for anything that’s not work-related.
4. Using the direct time report:
   • Hide the columns from product code over to date.
   • For each employee, total the number of hours for client codes cornet and newbiz, as these will not be billable projects, and enter them into the nonbillable column on the template.
   • The other columns should populate themselves. If any cells under % Billable display the error #DIV/0!, enter a zero in its place. This means the employee had PTO all week.
5. Enter data into chart templates via email as follows:
   • Agency report: Kris, Emmy
   • Account planning: Lacy, Leslie, Jessica, Emmy
   • Creative: Jason, Whit, Emmy
   • Connections: Chris Finnegan, Emmy
   • Peter’s direct reports: Peter, Emmy

Important notes:

• At the beginning of each month, pull time from the previous month again and inform of agency time summary email.
• At the beginning of each month, pull time from the previous month again and inform of any missing entries in the agency time summary email.
• It is leadership’s responsibility to follow up with their team members who are missing time and Emmy follows up personally with anyone who is missing time entries once the time reports are pulled for the month prior.

Processes, Policies, and Procedures

Why we’re adopting a knowledge base We’re growing! As a creative agency, we know just how powerful and unique the creative process is. No two projects are the same! But beyond the creative work, businesses are built on systems, and there are a lot of proprietary processes and repetitive motions within this business that need to be documented somewhere as we grow. A knowledge base is a place where we document policies, processes and procedures for everything we do from simple things like requesting time off, to complex things like building a website.

• There are a number of reasons why we, as a growing agency, need a knowledge base:

  1. It creates a singular vision for how things should be run. We can have separate opinions on politics, favorite fonts and whether or not pineapple goes on pizza. But one thing we cannot be divided on is the Cornett way and how we serve our clients.

  2. Because people retire, resign, and get promoted. And when they do, we don’t want any knowledge to get lost. No one person should ever be the gatekeeper for important info.

  3. Unlike humans, it can be referenced and searched on-demand – even on Saturdays or when someone is on vacation!

  4. It improves the onboarding experience for new employees. By having our onboarding procedures documented, they’ll be evergreen, which saves us time and ensures that we don’t accidentally leave anything out.

How we will roll this out Cornett has adopted Trainual as our knowledge base platform because it’s equipped with industry standard features. Each member of our team will get an invitation and access soon. We’ll need to encourage our teams to bookmark Trainual and use it often. We’ll start by using it for onboarding new employees, and will build out the rest of the business from there.

• Supervisors: Feel free to divide and conquer. Delegate the documentation responsibilities to your team and set deadlines to ensure these things get done.

The difference between a policy, process and procedure I know, I know – this sounds like a lot of boring corporate lingo. But policies, processes and procedures are the building blocks of an effective knowledge base.

• Policy - A governing law, philosophy or principle of action within an organization
• Process - A series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.
• Procedure - An established or official way of doing something.
• Think of it like this: A car is a process. Everything under the hood is a procedure. Policies are the rules of the road.

Knowledge base dos and don’ts

• DO involve everyone on the team. Everyone will have an account, and everyone can contribute to creating a robust knowledge base. Because let’s face it – we should all be excited about growing this agency.

• DON’T let perfection get in the way of getting it done. As we’re building this thing out, it may be tempting to wait until we have a clear schedule to get started, but instead, just get started. You can refine your processes later. In fact, sometimes the best way to get started is to record a video on the fly, then come back later when you have more time and write it out step-by-step.

• DON’T just use video. Make it searchable by listing out the steps for each procedure using keywords that someone may search if they’re looking for information.

• DO keep it up-to-date. Everyone, especially department leaders, should revisit our processes and procedures a few times throughout the year to make sure they’re current.

• DO use video, audio, illustrations, screencaps, attachments, or anything else you need to add clarity to your processes and procedures. Draw arrows, use tools like Loom for video screensharing, and add photos to break up the text. And speaking of…

• DO use emojis and gifs! Make it fun! 🦄

How to Change a Job Jacket Template in Advantage

Here’s how to change the job jacket template.

Note: You’ll need access to ADvantage, not just Webvantage for this. To get access to ADvantage, you’ll have to install Citrix and contact tech support. They can walk you through everything.

For additional account support, you can contact Launa Rose. launa.rose@gotoadvantage.com

Video is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VNcpsP6mPvPQRgU4Nf88Ro0TJ2Io3N_v/view?usp=sharing