Projects

Flavor Studio provides powerful Project Management capabilities, making it easy to organize all aspects of a project's life cycle and foster collaboration with a company's most important resources - its people.

 

Project Templates

Construct your company’s entire NPD process one time with all of the stages, tasks, sub-tasks, and dependencies. Then configure this as a Project Template that can be pulled into future projects without the need to recreate the wheel each time. There’s no need to spend hours creating the basic framework for your projects. Link to section TBD.

 

Create Teams and Link External Contacts

Assemble groups of people that will work together towards driving a project to successful completion. Access to projects can be granted to individuals or groups. 

Flavor Studio’s CRM contacts can be added to the project details so you have quick access to key people outside your organization.

 

File storage

Secure cloud-based repository centralizes file storage for easy access to all project-related documents. Your organization’s  Inspire collections, Recipes, and Taste Tests can be posted to the project’s repository. You can quickly upload files from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. Link to section TBD.

 

Organize, Manage, and Monitor Project Activities

Flavor Studio stage-gate project architecture and Gantt chart display provide

• Stage, Task, Sub-Task, and Dependency management.
• Instantly visibility into your projects.
• Improved communication and team cohesion.
• Resource management.
• Project progress.
• Prevent overlapping activities and missed task dependencies.
• Reduced project timeline risk.

 

 Connect to Opportunity

 TBD

 

 Message board

Keep team member communication concisely organized within Flavor Studio and keep abreast of status updates. Team members receive notifications when messages are posted to chat channels if they are logged in and email updates if they are logged out. 

 

Reminders

Never miss an important upcoming deadline with courteous reminder emails sent before tasks are due.

 

 In this article

• Project Settings
  • Project Fields (Project Settings Admin)
  • Project Fields (Project Settings Admin)
  • Dashboard (Project Settings Admin)
  • Project Approval (Project Settings Admin)
  • Add User to all Projects (Project Settings Admin)
  • Status Labels (Project Settings Admin)
  • Project Codes (Project Settings Admin)
  • Project Dependency Shifting (Project Settings Admin)
• Flavor Studio Homepage
  • Project Code
• Project Information
• Overview Tab
  • Project Team
  • Contacts
  • Connect to Opportunity
• Work Tab
  • Stages
  • Tasks
  • Work Tab How To’s
  • Project Timeline
• Repository Tab
  • Manage Folders
  • Upload Files
  • Import Repository Template
  • Post to Project
  • Search
• Conversations Tab

 

Project Settings

Many of the fields and sections of Project Management are configured by your organization’s Admins. These settings are also described in the Admin: Project Settings knowledge base article. Link TBD.

 

Project Fields (Project Settings Admin)

The Projects page allows Admins to configure the following project properties:

• Project Fields - choose which fields to display in the project overview.
• Dashboard - choose which fields to display in the homepage dashboard.
• Project Approval - choose which user(s) can approve projects.
• Add User to all Projects - quickly add a user to all existing projects
• Status Labels - choose which labels are to identify a project status.
• Project Codes - enable/disable a unique project code.
• Project Template - TBD
• Dependency Shifting - choose how Flavor Studio handles changes to project events.

 

Project Fields (Project Settings Admin)

The Project Fields section Allows Admins to select additional fields to display in the projects page:

• Volume (lbs)- a numeric number.
• Revenue - a dollar value.
• Type - available options are Custom, Branded or None.
• Project Leader - choose from the Project team members.
• $/lb - a calculated value.

 

Dashboard (Project Settings Admin)

The Dashboard section allows Admins to choose which fields to display in the homepage dashboard. Link TBD

• Project Name
• Sales Person
• Customer
• Status - see the Status Labels section below
• Start Date
• Due Date
• Age
• Progress - a percentage
• Priority - options are Low, Medium, and High.
• Volume (lbs) - a measure of mass.
• Revenue -  a currency value.
• Type - the available options are Custom, Branded, or None.

 

Project Approval (Project Settings Admin)

Admins can enable this option to have new projects approved by one or more designated Approvers. No actions can occur on a project with this option enabled until it has been approved. 

Approvers also receive reminders on the home page when they log in to Flavor Studio.

To add a user to the list of authorized approvers:

1. Hover over the Admin menu item and click Projects.
2. Click on Project Approval navigation menu item, or scroll down to Project Approval.
3. Click on 
4. A list of the active users in the organization will open.
5. Search or scroll for the user to add.
6. Hover your mouse on the right side of the row for each person and you will see a gray check mark appear.
7. Click the check mark.
8. Click SAVE.

 

Add User to all Projects (Project Settings Admin)

This feature is useful when, for example, you have a new person joining the team and you wish to quickly add them to all existing projects.

Note: Adding a user to all projects cannot be undone. If this inadvertently happened, the only way to undo the mistake is to a) make the user inactive or b) edit each project team and remove the incorrect user. 

 

Status Labels (Project Settings Admin)

Status Labels allow Admins to customize the status labels to align with an organization’s existing language. Statuses can be added or removed, made visible on the dashboard or not, or re-ordered just by dragging and dropping.

• Active
• Archived
• Canceled
• Completed
• Kitchen
• Not Started
• On Hold
• Production

 

Project Codes (Project Settings Admin)

Project Codes give Admins the ability to automatically append project names with a unique numerical code. The code takes the following format:

[last two digits of the year].[Julian Date].[project count for the day] 

Examples

The first project created on Monday, October 30, 2023 (the 303rd day of 2023) will receive the project code: 23.303.1. 

The second project created that day will be given project code: 23.303.2.

 

 Project Dependency Shifting (Project Settings Admin)

Allows Admins to choose how  Flavor Studio treats changes to dependent events. There are two options:

• Relative  - changes cascade through all subsequent events.
• Absolute  - changes apply to a single event. 

 

 

Flavor Studio Homepage 

The Flavor Studio homepage is the project's dashboard. Team members see a high-level overview of the state of each project, as well as the most recent project activity.

The red alarm clock beside a project indicates there is a notification in one of the project sections. For example, when a user has an unread message in a conversation when a new task is posted,  or there is a reminder for a project task that is due.

Project Information

Individual Project features are organized in four tabs

• Overview - basic project information, team, and contacts.
• Work - the project task assignments and visual progress.
• Repository - the project’s files created in Flavor Studio and uploaded files.
• Conversations - the project team’s communications.

Note: Red dots above a tab indicate new team activity.

 

Project Dashboard Fields

The organization’s Admin(s) will configure a maximum of 7 fields that will be displayed on the homepage Dashboard. The possible fields are

• Project Name
• Sales Person
• Customer
• Status - see the Status Labels section below
• Start Date
• Due Date
• Age
• Progress - a percentage
• Priority - options are Low, Medium, and High.
• Volume (lbs) - a measure of mass.
• Revenue -  a currency value.
• Type - the available options are Custom, Branded, or None.

See the Admin: Projects knowledge base article for more information. Link TBD.

 

Overview Tab

The Overview tab contains the basic project information and 

• Priority
• Due Date
• Status
• Contacts
• Team
• Project Approval
• Volume

 

Project Approval 

Admins can enable this option to have new projects approved by one or more persons. If Project Approval has been enabled, when a new project is created, it goes into the Task queue for each of the designated Approvers, and no actions can occur on the project until it has been approved. Approvers receive Task reminders on the homepage when they log in to Flavor Studio.

Volume

The Volume field is another field configured by Admins, in the CRM Settings Default Measurement. It determines whether the Project Volume is described in pounds, kilograms, or units.

 

Project Team

Each project has a team of people who have visibility into the project, and have permission to use all the project tools.

The Team section of the Overview tab allows you to assemble your project team.  You can add individual users (Professional, Premium, Admin), or groups. 

 

Leader 

Project Leaders have a special icon beside their name and avatar. This designation is an identifier and does not confer additional features or permissions. 

Note: Projects can have more than one leader. 

 

To Add or Remove individual Users or Groups: Links TBD

1. Click on the button above the Project Team section.
2. The team dialog box will display all available users and groups.
3. You can scroll through the list of users and groups until you find the one you want to add or remove.
4. Alternatively, add one or more characters to the search box at the top of the team list to filter the list.
5. Hover over the right side of the list item and click the gray checkmark to add the user or group, or click on the green checkmark to remove the user or group.
6. Click SAVE to complete your changes, or CANCEL to undo your changes.

 

Contacts

Each project has a section in the Overview tab for listing external Contacts. 

These people have been added to Flavor Studio’s CRM Contacts.

Clicking on a contact will open the contact page.

 

To Add or Remove a Contact:

1. Click anywhere in the CONTACTS header.
2. The Contacts dialog box will display all contacts in the CRM system.
3. You can scroll through the list of contacts until you find the one you want to add or remove.
4. Alternatively, add one or more characters to the search box at the top of the Contacts list to filter the list.
5. Hover over the right side of the list item and click the gray checkmark to add the contact, or click on the green checkmark to remove the contact.
6. Click SAVE to complete your changes, or CANCEL to undo your changes.

 

To Add a Contact that does not yet exist in the CRM system:

1. Click the ADD NEW button.
2. The new contact dialog will appear.
3. Add the required information for the new  Contact:
4. Employer (Customer field)
5. Contact name
6. Email
7. There are three icons in the upper right, from left to right, where you can add additional details:
8. Contact info
9. Address
10. Notes
11. Click SAVE to complete your changes, or CANCEL to undo your changes.

 

 

Connect to Opportunity

TBD

 

 

Work Tab

Flavor Studio provides a powerful but easy-to-use implementation of the widely used project management process known as Stage Gate or Phase Gate. This methodology can go a long way to helping teams document, monitor and mitigate risks, determine the most viable avenues to pursue, and manage projects. 

Projects are broken up into a series of stages with decision points or gates along the way. Flavor Studio Stages allow you to organize work in Tasks and Sub-Tasks, and Dependencies between Tasks or Sub-Tasks. Stages cannot have dependencies.

	Stage
		Task
		Task
			Sub-Task
			Sub-Task
		Task
			Sub-Task
			Sub-Task

 

Stages

Stages are the top-level item in the project hierarchy. Each Stage is defined by just four fields.

Example:

• Stage Title: Ideation 
• Start Date: Feb 23 2023
• Due Date: Mar 03 2023
• Description: Come up with some great ideas for popsicle flavors.

All of the work for a Stage is handled by Tasks and Sub-Tasks

 

Tasks

Tasks are described by 6 fields, and one or more team members that have been assigned to the task:

• The Stage that this Task belongs to
• Stage: Ideation
• Title: Define the problem
• Start Date: Feb 24, 2023
• Due Date: Feb 24, 2023
• Status: Not Started, Active, and Completed
• Description: Be very clear about the problem scope
• Assigned To: Julia, James, Pablo

 

 Sub-Tasks

Breaking large Tasks down into Sub-Tasks will help you to understand the effort required to complete the task, as well as make the Task more achievable and less risky.

Sub-Tasks have the same basic definition as Task and Stages:

• Stage: Ideation
• Task: Select ideation techniques
• Title: Brainstorming - research effectiveness
• Start Date: Feb 24 2023
• Due Date: Feb 24 2023
• Status: Not Started, Active and Completed
• Description: Need to know if there is better science on brainstorming.
• Assigned To: Pablo

 

Dependencies

Flavor Studio allows users to configure dependencies between Tasks and Sub-Tasks.

Note: Stages cannot have dependencies. 

Each Dependency is defined by 5 fields, one of which is intrinsic

• Stage
• The Stage, Task or Sub-Task that has this dependency (intrinsic)
• Previous Task: Brainstorming - research and choose 1 technique
• Next Task: Conduct first ideation session
• Dependency Type: Finish to Start

Dependency Type

There are three types of dependencies

• Finish to Start 
• Start to Start
• Finish to Finish

 Finish to Start

 

Start to Start

 

Finish to Finish

 

 

Admin Project Settings - Dependency Shifting

Allows Admins to choose how  Flavor Studio handles changes made to dependencies. There are two options:

• Relative  - changes cascade through all subsequent events.
• Absolute  - changes apply to a single event.

More information about Dependency Shifting is available in the Admin: Projects knowledgebase article Link TBD

 

Dependency Example

In this example, the Conduct brainstorming Task cannot be held until the previous task, Brainstorming - research and choose 1 technique Task has been completed. The task that follows brainstorming, Rank the brainstorming ideas, cannot start until the brainstorming is complete. There is a chain of dependencies.

• Stage: Ideation
• Owning Task: Conduct brainstorming
• Previous Task: Brainstorming - research and choose 1 technique
• Next Task: Rank the brainstorming ideas
• Dependency Type: Finish to Start

Example TBD

 

Work Tab How To’s

To Add a Stage

1. If there are no stages, click on the large blue dot with the plus sign, on the upper right side of the Work Tab page.
2. Hover your mouse over the smaller blue dot with a plus sign, and click Add Stage.
3. If there are existing stages, click on the smaller blue dot with a plus sign to the far left of the Project Timeline.
4. Enter the data in the New Stage dialog box.
5. Enter at least the name of the Stage. 
6. If no dates are specified, Flavor Studio will automatically set the Start Date to today’s date, and the Due Date to 2 days later: 
7. Start Date: Feb 23, 2023
8. Due Date: Feb 25, 2023

 

Project Timeline TBD

 

 

Repository Tab

The Repository tab of a Project provides numerous features that make it easy to organize all aspects of a project's information. Features include

• Secure cloud-based repository that centralizes file storage for easy access to all project-related documents. 
• Post to Project: Any of your organization’s  Inspire Collections, Recipes, or Taste Tests can be posted to the project’s repository as permanent links, not as a copy. 
• Upload files from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive. Link to section TBD.
• Control accessibility of content to specific users.
• Create folder structure templates and import them into new or existing projects. 
• Quickly move or delete folders.
• Search and filter files and folders within a repository folder.
• Use Flavor Studio’s powerful search everywhere.

In this section (links TBD)

• Manage Folders
  • Create
  • Control Accessibility
  • Open
  • Edit
  • Move
  • Delete
  • Navigate
• Upload Files
• Import Template
• Post to Project
• Search
  • Filters
  • Search Everywhere

 

Manage Folders

Create

To create a new folder

1. Hover your mouse over the large blue + symbol button.
2. Repository folder menu icons will appear.
3. Click on the Create new folder button (folder with plus icon).
4. Enter the folder’s name.
5. Set the folder’s ACCESSIBILITY:
6. Entire Project Team
7. Premium Team Members:
8. Click SAVE to complete the folder creation process.
9. Click CANCEL if you want to completely stop the creation process.

 

Control Accessibility

Within a project, Flavor Studio gives you the ability to limit access to folders by designating them as only visible to Premium and Admin-level users. Professional-level users will never see these folders.

Flavor Studio does not allow you to restrict access to individual files.

Professional-level users are unable to open/view/edit Recipes, Taste Tests, and Inspire Collections. This cannot be modified.

Professional-level users can only see that these items exist in a repository but they cannot be viewed, copied, moved, deleted, or downloaded.

Note: A repository only contains links to Recipes, Taste Tests, and Inspire Collections, not the items themselves. Deleting them from a repository only deletes the link.

Item	Professional	Premium/Admin
Recipe	Name Only	All Access†
Taste Test	Name Only	All Access
Inspire Collection	Name Only	All Access
Repository Folder - no restriction	Can View	All Access
Repository Folder - restricted to Premium	Invisible	All Access
Files	All Access	All Access

 † All Access - means the full set of actions that are normally available to the type of object. For example, files can be downloaded or printed, but folders cannot.

Every type of object: Recipes, Taste Tests, Inspire Collections, files, and folders can be deleted from a repository.

IMPORTANT: Files that are deleted from a repository will reside in a user's trash for thirty days before being permanently removed.

 

 Configure Folder Accessibility TBD

 

 

Open, Edit, Move, Delete

To make any change to a repository folder, click anywhere in the folder’s row. The folder menu buttons will appear above and to the right of the list of folders

To Open a folder, select the folder’s row and click the Open Folder button.

You can also just double-click a folder’s row to open the folder.

To Edit a folder, select the folder’s row and click the Edit button.

Change the folder’s name:

Change the folder’s accessibility:

You must click SAVE or CANCEL to continue.

To Move a folder, select the folder’s row and click the Move folder button.

Choose the destination folder from the folders in the current repository.

To Delete a folder, select the folder’s row and click the Delete folder button.

Confirm your choice to delete the folder.

 

Navigate

Flavor Studio displays what is known as breadcrumbs to indicate the path to the current folder. The breadcrumbs are located in the repository folder list, underneath the Name column. Each of the folder names is a link, separated by a forward slash /.

Click on any of the breadcrumb folders to immediately open that folder.

Example

Repository / Meetings / Meeting Notes 

In the example above, files will be located here:

Repository ⤵

Meetings ⤵

Meeting Notes ⤵

files…

 

 

IMPORTANT: Flavor Studio places a 50-megabyte file size limit on uploaded files. There are no limits on the number of files that can be added. 

 

 

To upload files

Hover your mouse over the large blue + symbol button.

 

 

Repository folder menu icons will appear.

 

 

 

 

Click the Upload Files button

 

 

You can upload files from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. Click one of the four options:

 

 

 

 

If you choose Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive, you may be asked to authorize sharing your files with Flavor Studio.

 

 

Navigate to the source folder for the files you wish to upload. Select one or more files and click the Open button, at the lower right of the File Upload dialog box.

 

 

 

Import Repository Template

Your organization’s Admins may have created one or more Template projects. These projects may be current and in progress, old and completed or projects created specifically to be used as templates for Work and Repository.

Template projects will contain all of the usual information contained in a project, but when you are in the Repository Tab, and you import a template, only the repository files and folders will be imported to your project.

IMPORTANT: When you import a template into a repository, the destination folder is always the Repository folder - it does not matter which folder you are currently viewing.

If you do not want the imported folders to reside in the Repository folder, you can use the Move button to move folders to the desired destination.

 

Upload Files

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Last update: 6:02 PM, February 26, 2023