In this article we will show you how to use Teamleader Focus in the best possible way as a manager. We'll go through some handy tools and tips that will help you stay on top of your team's accomplishments.
The modules you will mainly need are:
- Calendar and Timesheets
- Deals
- Projects
- Planning
- Revenue
- Shared inbox
- Insights
Note: We do assume that you are an administrator of your Teamleader Focus account, as this is required for some functionalities we are going to talk about.
Calendar and Timesheets:
Calendar
When navigating to your agenda, you will have access to the calendars of your entire team. Just select a name in the dropdown list at the right-hand side.
Team view
If you click 'Team', you'll see a week view of your team members' calendars. By clicking on the bin next to their name you can delete colleagues from the view, and via the plus sign you can add them. Now, you have the calendars below each other to see who is available when. Handy if you need to schedule tasks or meetings in their calendars!
By the way, this view stays for your entire Teamleader Focus session, so you do not need to choose the same colleagues over and over again. The default settings are restored only when you log out and log in again.
Timesheets
All the tasks, meetings and calls any of you have tracked time on, will reappear in the Timesheets module. You can check your own, or your colleagues’ by switching the names on the dropdown at the right hand side.
The goal of having a look at these Timesheets is to be able to know what each of your employees and yourself have been working on day after day.
You can also export this info to Excel for other calculations. For example, if you want to find out how much time was spent working on a specific work type. In the export file, you can just sort the rows by the column 'Type'.
Deals:
A deal should be created as soon as an opportunity comes up to sell your products or services to a customer.
Segments
Whether your deals are refused, accepted or ongoing, you will find all of them in the deals module. You can filter the results by deal pipeline, or you can work with segments to narrow the information you want to obtain. By default, you will already have a filter by deal phase, but in your deal list view you can also create your own segments based on a specific user, time frame or any other field on deal level.
Once a segment is selected, you will see the number of deals within that segment and its monetary value at the bottom. Great for checking your numbers every morning or just before going home in the evening. So much more time for other things! Have you ever thought of joining a knitting club?
Columns
In the deal overview, you can also select which columns you would like to see, so that relevant information catches the eye at a glance. To do that, click on the cogwheel on the lower right-hand side. You can select up to 10 columns.
Projects:
Making a project in Teamleader Focus helps you set a structure of groups, tasks, materials and meetings. As with Deals, you can select your favourite columns for the projects overview page.
Work breakdown
The work breakdown on projects makes it possible to make clear estimates of the required work and allows you to keep your projects perfectly under control. Read all about adding a project and the work breakdown here.
Timesheet export
You also have the option to export a timesheet of your project, for example if you want to send your customers an update on the time tracking of a project without creating an invoice first. Or select this option to have an internal overview of the time already spent.
To export the report:
- Click on your project
- Click on the three dots in your project header > Export timesheet.
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You have the option to select the language and whether you want to export to Excel or PDF.
Kanban view
The Kanban view on a project is focused on the statuses of project tasks & materials, allowing you to see the status of these items at a glance and determine which tasks should receive attention first.
Project info
In a project the project info provides you with:
- An overview of budget spent (the amount of billable hours and materials). Budget management on projects is a way to keep track of the predetermined budget you and your customer have agreed upon. By allocating resources and estimating time on billable tasks, materials and meetings, you'll know if you are going over budget.
- Margin: Keep track of your costs and potential revenue via the Margin feature in every project. Take a look at your costs, so you can tweak where needed.
Projects timeline
From your project list overview, you can easily switch to the projects timeline. This provides you with a visual timeline overview of all your projects. It lets you continuously evaluate how occupied your business is and shows you which projects need your attention.
Planning
Using the Planning module is your key to streamlined management. Read in this article how this module optimises scheduling, maximises resource usage, and helps you plan for the future. With Planning, your coordination becomes very easy, ensuring your team's time is used efficiently and your tasks are well-organised and adaptable.
Revenue
Let’s see how to keep track of your cashflow.
As you have probably already guessed, segments and columns setup are also available in this module. Moreover, if you go to the overview of invoices, you will see a little widget called “Mini stats” at the right-hand bottom corner. It gives you some quick insights and if you click on that pdf sign there, you can even download an invoice report.
Back to the overview of invoices, you can also export your invoices into an excel sheet. This gives you various options for reporting.
Another way to keep track of your cashflow is the financial forecast. The financial forecast allows you to see for the current month and the upcoming 2 months how much money will be coming in. Read everything about it here.
Pro-tip: Take a look at your sold goods
If you need an overview of how much products were sold, you can access the report 'Top products by Revenue' in the Insights. Note that only the goods registered as a 'product' in your product database will be visible here.
If you need all the information, you can also export your invoices (or just a segment, if you want to calculate for a certain period of time) and choose to 'Create a new template'. You'll get the option to add columns related to the content of your invoices. The most important ones here are 'Item name' and 'Amount of items'. Sort your rows in Excel by the column 'Item name' and then calculate the total number based on the 'Amount of items'. This will let you know how much was sold of a product.
Shared inbox:
(This feature is available in our Boost package and in the Shared inbox Booster)
The shared inbox works similarly to the other modules. You can create segments on tickets to quickly see what tickets came in today, for example, and find out how fast your support team helps out your customers.
You can also add the columns “Date created” and “Last message” to the overview so that you can see when the tickets were created and how long the customer has been waiting on a response, respectively.
As last recommendation, you can also add extra statuses to the default ones like new, open, closed, so that you can attune this module to your own workflow.
Insights
The insights module gives you a lot of information about the numbers in all your modules. We will show you the most important stats you should keep an eye on:
Sales & productivity insights
Ready to unlock the full potential of your CRM, Sales, and Productivity with Teamleader Focus? In this article, we dive into the different reports that can transform the way you work, breaking down the value of each report and how they can drive your success.
Revenue Insights
Teamleader Focus offers a range of pre-made reports in our Insights Library, designed to provide clear insights into your financial performance. Use these reports to for example monitor revenue trends, look at overdue or unpaid invoices, or consult your recurring revenue from subscriptions.
Shared inbox insights
The shared inbox insights will let you know how many tickets are opened and closed in a specific time frame, the average response time, when the busiest times are or which of your employees performs best.
Targets
Under insights, you also have the option to add targets. These can be created for different modules (deals, invoices, time tracking etc…).
Targets are a very handy tool to define goals for your employees and to follow up on them easily. Those targets can form a base for feedback talks and also function as an incentive for their own performance. As an admin user, you can choose if non-administrator users are allowed to see their own targets or not.
Do you have any tips you'd like to share with us? Feel free to contact our support team.