Manage your program and keep it aligned with your defined goals that helps improve the planning and decision-making process.

The current version of the CoE Manager instance for your enterprise is displayed at the top of the page. You can configure the general settings for your overall program in the remaining sections. You can define the start and end date of your program, set up the program attributes, define the complexity cost, create organizational hierarchy, and add the opportunity sources, applications, and activity types.

Define the options for your program in the sections as outlined below.

Program details


program details
Program Start and End dates
Set the start and end dates for the program. These dates can be used to track timelines, set project milestones, organize dependencies, and enable real-time progress tracking across initiatives.
Opp Target – Amount and Hours Saved
Specifies the target amount and hours saved for individual opportunities. For calculating the overall score for an opportunity, the percentage achievement toward these targets as well as the business alignment percentage is used.
Opp Target – Overall Score Calculation
Define how you want to calculate the overall score for an opportunity. Choose any of the following:
  • Use amount
  • Use hours
  • Use both
  • Use neither

Program attributes


program attributes
Currency Symbol
Specify the currency symbol to display alongside savings values. This setting applies to all opportunities. This can either be in symbols such as $, £, € or USD, EUR, INR and so on.
Primary Benefit Measure
Set the primary quantitative measure for the CoE Manager as either hours or currency. For example, if you select currency, the program dashboard tab displays forecasted savings in currency of choice. If you select hours, the program dashboard tab displays the forecasted hours saved.
Show Oppty Activities as
Specify how opportunities’ activities are displayed on the Activities tab. You can choose between a List and a Gantt-Chart.

Assign Intake Submitter as Opp Owner
Specify whether the system should create an account for the user submitting the opportunity. This is applicable for users who currently do not have an account with the CoE Manager. If set to Yes, the email address in the opportunity submission form is used to create the user account. Ensure the email domain is added to the trusted list within the CoE Manager.
Execution Tracking Units
Set the execution tracked duration by choosing one of the following values from the drop-down:
  • Seconds
  • Minutes
  • Hours

You can use this setting for better readability, the formulae for calculations will still consider the seconds value for computing.

Complexity cost

Specifies the default implementation cost estimate to be assigned for an opportunity when either a low, medium, or high complexity assessment is specified for that opportunity. You can override the default cost estimate by typing a new value in the implementation cost field on the Details tab for the opportunity.

Advanced views

You can set the visibility of the below-mentioned admin tabs:

  • Advanced Admin Tab: Define the prompts for additional benefits, complexity, and strategic alignment questions for your automation opportunities.
  • Tech Admin Tab: Manage the integration of automation platforms for the program.
  • User Admin Tab: Manage the role assignments for individual opportunities.
  • Developer Admin Tab: Assign a developer to build an automation for your opportunity.

Business Unit List


business unit list

You can expand the existing nested business units in CoE Manager to create multiple sub-level units (geographies, business units, departments, and teams) and link opportunities to these sub-level units. For example, consider the business unit Finance. You can build nested units of Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable under Finance. You can further build nested business units such as Invoicing, Credit and Collections, Debt Management, and Cash Application under Accounts Receivable. This hierarchy capability provides a clear understanding of how many opportunities were submitted from different areas of the organization, how many were automated, and measures the ROI generated from each area. At every level, the ROI is rolled up from sub-levels to provide a comprehensive view of how each department or business unit is performing.

You can view the nested business units you have created under this tab. The business units and their sub-level units created are displayed at the same level in this tab. You can view the hierarchy of the business units on the left navigation panel.

Note: Business units might also be referred to as workstreams, both terms have the same meaning.

Set up organization hierarchy and link opportunities.

Opportunity sources


opportunity sources

By default, the opportunities are created within the CoE Manager using the create opportunity option. You can also create opportunities from other applications by copying the opportunity intake URL from Admin - Advanced > Opportunity Intake Form URL section. This URL can be added to any external application to create opportunities.

Tracking the source of opportunities created from multiple endpoints helps understand their origin. The Opportunity Sources tab displays the list of opportunity sources created through various endpoints. If an opportunity is created within the CoE Manager, no source is displayed. For example, the image shows three opportunity sources for all opportunities in this business unit.

Create opportunity sources

Applications


applications

You can track and report on the applications needed for your automation program. This helps you plan your automation infrastructure and costs. For example, if a project requires every new email to trigger a job in Salesforce, knowing the required applications in advance helps you plan execution details such as the number and type of licenses needed for different departments. This also helps estimate the expected ROI.

Maintain an inventory of the applications used in your automations to better manage your ROI. You can add applications with details such as name, version, owner, automation approach (user interface, API, database), and automation complexity.

Add applications

Activity types


activity types

An opportunity progresses through stages such as Idea, Pipeline, In Progress, and Deployed. Activity type refers to the specific actions or status of the opportunity at each stage. Understanding the state of the opportunity offers several benefits:

  • Progress tracking: It provides a clear view of how far the opportunity has advanced, helping to manage timelines and expectations.
  • Identifying limitations: If an opportunity is stuck in a certain state for a long time, you can identify the potential issues or limitations can be quickly identified and addressed, preventing delays.
  • Transparency: Everyone involved can see the status of an activity at any given time, ensuring that all team members are on the same page.
  • Enhanced Collaboration: Clear activity definitions improve communication and collaboration among team members, leading to more efficient workflows.
Note: Activity type applies to all stages except the Idea stage.

To maintain consistency across all opportunities, users can select activity types from the predefined templates available in this option to build automation projects. Using predefined templates drives standardization and provides better visibility and reporting capabilities.

Based on the organizational standards, you can further define additional activity types to add to the following predefined ones:

  • Business Case
  • Requirements
  • Design
  • Infrastructure Setup
  • Build
  • Deploy
  • Hypercare
  • Go-Live
  • Test

Once the activity type is defined in the Admin-Program page, you can assign it to the opportunity in the Opportunity > Activity page, helping to track the opportunity's progress.

Add activity types

Monthly targets


monthly targets

Keeping track of the budget is important to the success of any project. One effective way to achieve this is by setting monthly targets. Setting these targets helps ensure the project stays on track and within budget, significantly enhancing overall project outcomes.

You can use this table to plan how to allocate the budget for each month for the entire program and its business units. It is a useful tool for managing your project and keeping track of budget allocation and usage across the program and business units. Additionally, you can measure the achieved ROI versus the expected ROI with the information provided in the table.

For example, if your total budget for the month is $10,000, and you have four business units under the program Finance, HR, and business development. You can allocate $2000 for each business unit and monitor how the budget is utilized by these business units and the entire program and measure their contribution towards ROI generation.