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January 20, 2016 02:00 pm

How to Improve Client Relationships With Assembla Portfolio

When you first start developing for a new
client, energies are almost as high as expectations. The client loved your
pitch, your team is excited about the new project, and your eyeballs have turned
into cartoonesque dollar signs.

Enter: reality.

You discover that some important elements
were not specced with enough detail. A deadline was missed. The client changed
his or her mind about an important feature. The Project Manager did not relay the new
priorities to the dev team, who spent a week working on the feature the client
no longer wants. Some files were lost in email. Code was revised without a way
to roll back.

Those dollar signs have turned to tears.

Enter: Assembla Portfolio.

With a system like Assembla Portfolio, web
development shops finally have a way to infuse transparency into their workflow
and improve relationships with their clients with organized communications,
agile or continuous releases, and professional delivery of code and other
assets.

In this tutorial, I'll walk you through the seven steps you need to take to get started with creating a smoother web development workflow using Assembla.

Step 1: Set Up Your
Workspace

The first step is to set up a workspace for
your project in Assembla. Your workspace is a home for the project and will
house the team, the tasks, the code, the designs, the conversations, and more.

You may have a workspace for “Client A’s
website development” (and in Assembla Portfolio, you will also have a way to
track, monitor, and report on all of your workspaces in a portfolio-level
view).

Step 2: Create Tickets

Each ticket is a task that needs to be
assigned, developed, and completed.

You may have a ticket for “buy a domain
name” and another for “produce video content". Your tickets keep your work
organized and can be prioritized (and, in most case, re-prioritized again and
again), assigned to team members, and tracked.

Ticket for Home Slider design in Assembla

Step 3: Invite Collaborators

Invite the developers, designers, project
managers, and client.

With the team within the workspace, all
conversations are centralized, workflows and expectations are managed
proactively, code and deliverables are tracked, and all collaborators are invested in the quality and speed of the assets produced.

With the client
regularly engaged, each task’s priority and details can be clarified in real
time so that the team focuses on what is important to the client. When there is
a need for clarification or questions arise, clients can collaborate directly
with the dev or designer who is working on the project, saving the time of a
PM/Account Manager and the frustration that can be caused by indirect
communication.

Assembla collaboration screen showing tasks to be done

Step 4: Commit Code
Into Your Repositories

Whether you and your team prefer Git,
Subversion, or Perforce, continue working the way you like. Assembla Portfolio
is built with the world's best Subversion and feature-rich Git hosting, all
tightly integrated with your tasks.

You can access and share code instantly and
clearly visualize what has changed with a syntax highlighted changeset browser
with inline code commenting. For clients, you can render files as web pages
with images, CSS, and JS.

Screenshot of code being committed to a repository in Assembla

Contributors can submit code from a
repository branch or fork. Reviewers can pull and test changes, view changesets
and affected files, submit a new version, vote on the request, and ultimately
merge or reject the request—all from one simple UI.

Review page in Assembla code repository

It is easy to compare revisions, merge
code, and maintain a sustainable codebase. With the click of a button, devs can
perform traceable deployments and link them to tickets (and client billing).

Step 5: Work When You
Work

Your Assembla Portfolio is always on—so
that you don’t need to be.

Over a million distributed team members all
over the world use this tool to work where and when they work. The conversation
is ongoing with easily searchable @mentions, tickets, messages, wikis, and code
commits—everything is in writing, and work progresses all the time.

You are never out of touch, time differences no longer cause delays, and miscommunication due to cultural gaps ceases.

Deadlines are adhered to and trust is built
with clients.

You can work with the best talent and be
hired by any client—no matter where they are located.

Step 6: Surpass Client
Expectations

With a transparent and agile process,
clients’ needs always remain at the forefront. Clients participate in
prioritization, provide feedback during the development process, and approve
each task’s completion. By giving them the visibility they need, you ensure that clients are
never surprised when their bill comes, as it is linked to the tasks they have
approved throughout the month.

Furthermore, the transparent workflow gives
collaborators the information they need when they need it. Offshore or
in-house, developers and designers begin to understand the interdependence of
the work on business decisions and no longer feel as if their brilliance is being thwarted.

With this level of transparency, accuracy,
and clarity, customer referrals are all but guaranteed.

eWay Corp is a web development shop that
uses Assembla Portfolio. Brianne Larson of Strategic America is one of eWay’s
clients.

Brianne Larson of Strategic America
Brianne Larson of Strategic America

Larson says:

"With eWay Corp's
transparent workflow in Assembla, we feel like we are always in the know about
our projects. We feel more confident in assigning eWay Corp more work now that
things are easy to track. With the Assembla platform, the collaboration is quicker
and easier, we get more work done and require fewer changes. And we are happy to
have a long-term partner in eWay Corp who really believes in delivering
exceptional customer service using the best team, tools and practices."

The Final Step

These first six steps can be taken during a
free 7-day trial of Assembla Portfolio. The final step is a big
one that may take some more time. Fortunately, the product’s pricing is
affordable and straightforward. All tools and features are included for only
$10 per user per month.

Assembla pricing description

As client relationships strengthen, web
development shops will start transitioning their business model from one that
is project-based (like “create a new website”) to one that is an ongoing
partnership based on agile (or continuous) delivery of tasks that are important
to the client.

With the process control and client
collaboration made possible with Assembla Portfolio, those
dollar-sign-turned-tears in your eyeballs will soon be filled with hearts of
client love (along with some coveted dollar signs too).


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