Plunet 8.0 is full of new innovations, particularly in the vendor assignment area. We asked our colleagues to highlight some of their favorite features and tell us why they are so valuable for Plunet users. After cascading job requests and the new intuitive traffic light system for displaying vendor availability, Sophie now introduces us to her favorite feature of Plunet 8.0 with the new assignment method “Top Ranked”. Enjoy reading!
Though we reworked the job area as a whole, probably most notable new feature for me is the new “Top Ranked” assignment method in the job assignment tab. The new feature allows you to sort – and send requests to – your qualified vendors based on different ranking criteria:
- Price
- Number of jobs completed for the customer
- Job feedback
- Resource assessment
This means you not only see all vendors that have the required criteria for the job (e.g. language combination, staff category and domain) but now you can also rank these results. So you can see who is, for example, the cheapest of the matching resources, or the one who has worked with the client most often.
Especially if you have a long list of vendors for some language combinations such as English US > Spanish, it makes sense to see the most relevant vendors first – rather than having them listed alphabetically.
What I love about the assignment method "Top Ranked"
The Top Ranked feature adds a new layer to our vendor selection, which is exciting for project managers who currently need to rely heavily on their memory and experience when selecting the right vendor. Users can now pre-define the most important criteria in workflows and jobs, e.g. price first, job feedback second, number of jobs for the customer third, and resource assessment fourth – while the system sorts the vendor list in real-time.
With all this information, you can then tell Plunet who to send a request to, e.g. only the Top Ranked vendor, a manual selection of chosen vendors, or, for example, the first five Top Ranked vendors. When you send a request to multiple vendors with the Top Ranked method, it is different from our “first come, first served” option – the system sends requests to each vendor but goes by your defined preference: if your first choice vendor responds, they get the job right away. However, if another vendor says yes, the system will wait for the response from the higher ranked vendor(s) before making the assignment.
In summary, the new “Top Ranked” assignment method automates the process of selecting the right vendors for a job—based, of course, on the predefined preferences of the project managers.
What I am looking forward to
This is of course just the beginning. Our product team is working hard on perfecting this feature with more criteria and sorting options, and it has been fun seeing the great design work that makes “playing around” with ranking criteria so easy. I cannot wait to hear what our clients think!
About Sophie
Sophie Halbeisen is the Director of Business Development at the Plunet office in New York. She is responsible for new customer acquisition and account management in North and South America. Sophie uses her expertise daily, advising existing and prospective Plunet customers on process automation and optimization. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Master’s degree in Finance; and has more than 10 years of professional experience in B2B sales, marketing, and consulting in the USA and Germany. Outside of Plunet, Sophie is involved in volunteer work, loves traveling, and has a great passion for the city of New York.
