DataBright Management Systems

McGinnis-Chen Associates

This site is a sophisticated project management tool. The functions include client and company tracking, project timeline and budget managment and employee time reporting. McGinnis-Chen Associates is an well-respected architectural engineering firm, thus the drafting paper background. Their external site, completed by a different company, is here.

When a new project is created, it must be linked to a client. The Project Entry screen has a field where the user enters a partial company name. They are then presented with a pulldown menu of the clients that match the criteria they entered. In our example below, a user typed the letters "sus" which generated the results displayed. Once they have selected a client, other information is entered and verified against the business rules. These rules basically outline the format of information, i.e. all projects must have a company, project type, project name, etc... before a project can be created.

As the project information is entered, they link Contact Information from the Clients file, Team Members froom the Staff that is attached to the Project, and generate an Estimate. The Estimate function automatically creates a series of entries representing standard Phases and Activities for that 'type' of Project.

Finally, they can add items to a "To Do List" and begin entering on the "Project Journal", which also has the ability to store documents.

The Project Review (below) compares the Estiamted values against what actually takes place. The blue lines represent a Phase, the green lines are the Activities within that Phase and the yellow lines are "staff levels" that might be involved in performing that Activity.

Clicking on "Enter/Edit Budget" for a certain "phase" will bring up a Budget Entry window for that Phase. The Budget Entry window allows time to be estimated for multiple Activities and Staff Levels at the same time. It enters them all with a single submit.

This company bills for their services and Time Management is the name of the game. The Time Entry form is strictly validated to eliminate entry errors. Items such as making sure an employee doesn't try to enter more than 24 hours for 1 day are validated and must be corrected before a timecard can be saved.


McGinnis-Chen Associates
This site is a sophisticated project management tool. The functions include client and company tracking, project timeline and budget managment and employee time reporting. McGinnis-Chen Associates is an well-respected architectural engineering firm, thus the drafting paper background. Their external site, completed by a different company, is here.

When a new project is created, it must be linked to a client. The Project Entry screen has a field where the user enters a partial company name. They are then presented with a pulldown menu of the clients that match the criteria they entered. In our example below, a user typed the letters "sus" which generated the results displayed. Once they have selected a client, other information is entered and verified against the business rules. These rules basically outline the format of information, i.e. all projects must have a company, project type, project name, etc... before a project can be created.


As the project information is entered, they link Contact Information from the Clients file, Team Members froom the Staff that is attached to the Project, and generate an Estimate. The Estimate function automatically creates a series of entries representing standard Phases and Activities for that 'type' of Project. Finally, they can add items to a "To Do List" and begin entering on the "Project Journal", which also has the ability to store documents. The Project Review (below) compares the Estiamted values against what actually takes place. The blue lines represent a Phase, the green lines are the Activities within that Phase and the yellow lines are "staff levels" that might be involved in performing that Activity.


Clicking on "Enter/Edit Budget" for a certain "phase" will bring up a Budget Entry window for that Phase. The Budget Entry window allows time to be estimated for multiple Activities and Staff Levels at the same time. It enters them all with a single submit.


This company bills for their services and Time Management is the name of the game. The Time Entry form is strictly validated to eliminate entry errors. Items such as making sure an employee doesn't try to enter more than 24 hours for 1 day are validated and must be corrected before a timecard can be saved.