Using Fences for Project Management

We talk to customers every week about how they are using our products to help us develop the next wave of updates. We hear about how Start11 is used to standardize desktops across various endpoints, but the uses for Fences vary from simple file organization to advanced auto-sorting of documents as they arrive for outside parties.

I want to talk about how I have been using Fences 4 as we continue to expand the scope of initiatives that we are undertaking. If you weren’t familiar, we recently added another developer to our team, which means more projects are moving along much faster and organization is essential to our success.

On my desktop, I keep Fences sorted by projects that are actively in-flight. While the desktop image in this post is using mock files, the idea for creating the image came from how my desktop is actually sorted with two active project files, quarterly documents for reporting, and a folder portal for access to my Stardock OneDrive folder.

The key is keeping project files sorted into their respective Fences, which I do by affixing the name of the project at the end of the file. For example, in one scenario you have Marketing Start11 and Marketing Fences4.

Keeping my project files organized on my desktop significantly reduces the amount of time I spend hunting for a specific file related to a project that is in motion. The auto-sorting rules mean as long as I keep up the habit of my naming convention, I will always know where my files will be located.

While this methodology may not work for everyone, it has proven valuable in organizations where files are specific to projects; we have seen Fences used like this in law offices, manufacturing, and healthcare.

We would love to know how you use Fences to keep your desktop organized. Are you keeping icons grouped, PDFs auto-sorted, or simply mirroring your Download folder to the desktop? Let us know in the comments.