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Overview

Ascendive's IP Bank is the central repository where an organization secures their IP. It is designed to enable project contributors, both your consultants and your clients' employees, the ability to search, withdraw and deposit IP. It is fully integrated with Active Directory for security to ensure that only approved participants can view, update or delete the IP. Below are just some of the types of IP that Ascendive's IP Bank can store and manage.

Project Plan Activities

Using predefined templates you can quickly and easily load your MS Project Plans and immediately start tracking cost, schedule, performance and EVM. Bi-directional feeds between MS Project Plan and the activities provide up-to-date information on every task without the need to give every Project Contributor access to MS Project.

The IP Bank tracks cost, work and duration for baselines, actual and scheduled activities. Using this data we generate Earned Value, Discounted Cash Flow and numerous other reports and graphs.

Site Surveys

The Ascendive Platform comes loaded with thousands of questions that you will typically ask during an initial site survey with your clients. Topics cover financials, distribution, manufacturing, human capital management, real estate, asset management and other business process areas. You can also create your own survey questions.

You can workflow surveys to your client's employees to collect information about your client's business. When the surveys are completed you can use them to assist in configuring the system.

Ask and Answer Questions

You can ask questions of other project contributors and get the answers. By using this platform, every question and answer is stored in the IP Bank and can be searched for years to come. As your employees leave your company, all the answers that they knew can be retained and easily searched. Unlike e-mail, where the answers to questions are only available to the sender and the recipient, this collaboration tool enables everyone in your consulting practice to leverage your collective intellectual capital, save time and learn faster.

The Library

Included in the IP Bank is a robust document library with standard functionality including:

- Check In/Out

- Version Control

- Document Meta Data

- Workflows

- Search Capabilities

DocLink

DocLink is a unique repository that contains meta-data about Oracle's documents and enables powerful and fast searching, linking and retrieval on hundreds of Oracle documents online. Linking DocLink to project activities and issues allows for immediate and insightful answers to questions Project Contributors will be asking.

Note: Requires you to load the software vendor's documents into the repository. Ascendive does NOT provide the physical documents, only the meta-data search engine.

Training

Included are comprehensive capabilities to plan and conduct training, workshops and other knowledge transfer events. You can:

- Create Agenda

- Assign material to class (manuals, process flow diagrams, etc.)

- Associate training exercises (step-by-step instructions)

- Schedule class and invite attendees

You can quickly build out your entire training curriculum once and then use it on every project. As new modules or functionality becomes available, create the training material, deposit it into the IP Bank and then it is there for every project going forward. Do it once, use it always.

Sprints

Most projects have some degree of development work such as reports, interfaces, conversions or enhancements.

Ascendive's platform has a robust and feature rich portal designed specifically for a team of analysts , developers and testers working in remote locations. This enables all project contributors to be in synchronization and harmony. Not only does this increase your team's efficiency, it is perfect for off-shore development and testing. Whether using in-house or off-shore resources, this functionality will enable you to significantly reduce development costs while maintaining control and quality.

Included in Ascendives's platform is a complete Agile development methodology with burn-down charts, features, or stories, incidents, product backlog and more.

Issues

Not all Issues Logs were created equal. Tracking issues in Excel or Access is fine for a Project Manager living in the 1980's. In today's fast paced environment every Project Contributor needs instant 24x7 availability to the issues log to be able to review, add, update and complete issues.

In addition the Project Manager needs to be able to determine quickly and accurately if any new issue falls onto the Critical Path. Without that capability your Team Participants may be working on issues and activities that are not critical for that week.

Quality Control

Whether you need robust User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Integrated System Testing (IST), or Conference Room Pilots, Ascendive's fully integrated testing capabilities provide team co-ordination, capabilities for informed communication, rapid delegation and escalation capabilities as well as creating test scenarios to simulate "cradle-to-grave" business process modeling and testing.

Project Contributor's Portal

The Ascendive Project Contributor's Portal is the focal point for all the work, information and collaboration that every Project Contributor needs to stay informed, get their work done and communicate with everyone else.

This easy to learn web based portal significantly increases efficiency (reduces e-mail by 80%), automates thousands of activities, is personalized for each Project Contributor and is fully functional on day one.

Additional IP Bank storage capabilities:

As well as all the above, there is still more. The Ascendive PSP also includes functionality like:

Events: An Events Calendar for meetings, interviews, and all other project events. This calendaring capability can be synchronized with your personal Outlook calendar.

Contacts: Identify and centralize all Project Contributors (employees, contractors, vendors, customers, etc) in a single location for efficient collaboration and communication.

UAT Scenarios: Link Unit Acceptance Test (UAT) Scripts together to simulate a complete end-to-end business process.

Launch Activities: As you identify activities that will need to be executed on the go-live weekend, enter them into the tool and plan out a minute-by-minute go-live project plan.