1. What is eAssistant?

The eAssistant product is a web-based application to free managerial personnel, such as executives, VPs, directors, managers, and project managers, from their routine administrative tasks. It streamlines and automates the administrative process related to on-going operation, projects, and employees. It is built by project managers for managerial personals and used by all employees to stay organized, increase productivity, gain better work/life balance, and minimize their time spent on daily administrative activities and enhance their cooperation.

  2. How can the eAssistant help me?

• Help your employees stay organized and use their time more efficiently with less stress
• Help your employees get higher productivity and better accountability
• Help your organization get higher project success rate and smoother on-going operation with less cost

  3. What the eAssistant can do for me?

eAssistant can do a variety of tasks for your on-going operation, project management, and employee management.

On going operational task administration

• Streamline and automate the operational task administration

Employee management

• Automate and enable routine employee performance evaluation
• Contact management
• Help your employee stay organized and better time management

Project management

• Automate administrative tasks in executing and monitoring & controlling process groups
• Make performance data accessible anywhere anytime
• Automate information gathering, measuring, evaluating, and communicating
• Suitable for all three different organizational structures: matrix, functional, and pure project

  4. What benefits can I get from eAsssistant and who can benefit from eAssistant?

The eAssistant will help your company:

• Help you and your employee stay organized and increase their productivity
• Retain top performance employee
• Eliminate the need of heavy manual process and paper work
• Enhance communication, cooperation, and teamwork among employees
• Build a trust and cohesive team environment
• Gain recognition and support from upper level manager
• Ensure the on-time, within-budget delivery of projects
• Ensure better performance and smoother running of on-going operation
• Decrease the operating cost and increase your ROI
• Increase visibility of the operational and project performance to senior management team
• Increase visibility of employee performance to upper level management personnel

All project stakeholders can benefits from the eAssistant.

  5. What is the philosophy behind eAssistant?

The philosophy behind eAssistant is how to get the job done with less cost. Research shows that only 20% to 30% projects are delivered on time, within budget, and with desired quality. One of the major reasons of the project failure is that project performance data are not gathered, measured, evaluated, and communicated efficiently across the interested parties. The eAssistant is provided as a tool or service to simplify and streamline the process on collecting, examining, and distributing the project performance data via an integrated tracking and reporting tools. The real time accessibility of the true project performance data for all project stakeholders increases the clarity, control, and visibility on projects.

Also the statistics show that normally employee only work about 60% of their work time. All other their work time is just wasted. The eAssistant is also a tool to help your employees stay organized and increase their productivity. For a regular corporation, this means a lot of operating cost saving.

The performance data on each task or sub project reflects the accountability of the employee who is assigned to it. Thus the project data provides the evidence for employee's job related performance and valuable information for other projects in the same organization.

The overall corporate success depends on every employee's success at their position. With the eAssistant, each employee has a clear visibility of his/her responsibility, assignment, and expectation. Each employee's job-related performance is documented and visibility to his/her managers and all upper level management personnel. This clarification of responsibility and visibility of the accomplishment further creates a trust and cohesive team work environment. In this environment, all employees will perform better and this ensures the whole corporation success.

  6. How quickly can I get started?

You can be up and running within one business day.

  7. How much do I need to pay for using eAssistant?

For subscription users, there is no upfront fee you need to pay in order to start using eAssistant. The only fee you pay is the monthly subscription fee.

For on site installation users, you may use any existing computer hardware, web server, or database server. The only fee is the license fee for eAssistant.

  8. Our employee and project data are stored in the corporate database; do you provide any help to migrate the data to eAssistant database?

We provide free service for you to migrate your employee and project data to eAssistant database if you provide all related data in cvs format. We also provide technical support regarding how to convert your data in database to cvs format file.

  9. How many project can I managed using eAssistant?

You can manage unlimited projects using eAssistant.

  10. What do I need on my end?

a. For subscription users, all you need are an internet web browser (like IE and Firefox) and an internet connection.

b. For on site installation users, you need a computer OS (one of windows 2000/XP/Vista, MAC, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD etc) , web server (one of tomcat, Weblogic, Websphere, JBoss), database server (one of MySQl, SQL server, Oracle).

  11. Am I locked into a contract?

No, the choice is always yours.

  12. Do you offer live demo, live training, and live customer support?

We offer free online live demo and live training for all users and onsite demo and training for all GTA users. We provide free online live customer support for all users. You may schedule any of the above activities through http://www.northstarontario.com or call us at 416-274-6096.

  13. Is my data secure?

We take the security of your data very seriously. We use a variety of methods to protect your data and to secure the software, hardware, and hosting facilities.

  14. Can I host the eAssistant myself?

Yes, we will provide a detailed system requirement and installation instruction when you order eAssistant.

  15. What is the feature matrix of eAsssistant?

Project management and schedule

• Create and track projects
• Project dashboard
• Project progress report
• Set project report rule
• Upload project document
• Import project from MS project
• Synchronize with MS project
• Export project progress to MS project
• Search project
• Evaluating project progress report
• Search project progress report
• Assign project

Issue management

• Create issue
• Track issue
• Add solution
• Search issues
• Search solutions
• View all issues

Employee management and resource allocation

• Add user and track user
• Update user role
• Search user

Statistics dashboard

• Project statistics chart by department
• Project statistics by employee
• Project statistics by project name
• Project statistics by issue
• Issue statistics on department, employee, and project
• Resource allocation statistics

Reports

• Project summary report
• Project detail report on department, employee, and project name
• Issue summary report
• Issue detail report on department, employee, and project name
• Resource allocation report
• Project schedule variance and forecast report

  16. How much can I save by using eAssistant?

Using e-Assistant will save you about $760,800* per year *The calculation is based on the following assumptions:

1. A company of 50 employees/10 managers
2. The employee's performance review is conducted twice per year, and hourly pay rate is $60 for managers and $40 for employees
3. Managerial personal spends average 3 hours /week/manager for regular weekly administration and 2 hours/employee for performance evaluation
4. All other employees spend about 1 hour for regular weekly report
5. All employees save minimum one hour per day from the better time management by using eAssistant