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Modernizing Your Creative Studio: Say Goodbye to In-House Tools and Spreadsheets

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Shane Workman Feb 16, 2023

For the past 20 years, the majority of creative studios have been using in-house tools and spreadsheets for managing their operations, projects and teams. We often see studios trying to connect together a mixture of tools such as Excel or Google sheets, Filemaker databases, PowerBI, CETA, ftrack, ShotGrid, Toon Boom and more. There's lots of manual steps and double-entry of data. There is siloed data that never gets looked at again, along with stale data that is out of date. It is far from optimal, leading to poor productivity, poor decision making and sometimes loss making projects.

Typical Workflow at Creative Studios Today (It's Complicated!)


The Projectal Advantage

In 2023, creative studios don't need to operate in the dark ages any more. Projectal immediately transforms and modernizes a studio's operations and workflow. 

Projectal is a new AI-powered, cloud based tool that allows staff across all departments to get access to studio and project data in real time. Projectal assists in bidding, budgeting, planning, scheduling, tracking, reporting, crew planning, resource planning and more. It connects directly to other tools (ftrack, ShotGrid, HR tools, finance tools, etc.) with real time connectivity. The outcomes are immediate. It greatly improves the productivity of your team, helps staff to make better day-to-day decisions and results in a better bottom line for your studio.

There is no double-entry of data. There is no siloed data. There is no stale data. There are no manual steps.

Improved Workflow after Projectal


Projectal has been designed for all types of creative businesses, including:

Creative studios around the world are quickly adopting Projectal as their preferred studio workflow solution. They are ditching their in-house tools and spreadsheets after they learn about the drawbacks of using in-house tools vs. the benefits of Projectal.

  1. Time & Effort. Creating and maintaining in-house tools and spreadsheets is time-consuming for a studio. It can quickly become a major drain on your resources and slow down the progress of your projects. With Projectal, you have access to a complete set of tools right from the start, which saves you enormous time and effort.
  2. Cost-effective: In-house development is not only time-consuming, but it is also expensive. You need to factor in the costs of development, testing and ongoing maintenance. With Projectal, it has already been developed, tested and you receive regular updates with new features and improvements. You only pay for the users you need.
  3. Scalability: In-house tools and solutions are often developed initially for a specific set of requirements in mind. As your studio grows and evolves, these tools often no longer fit your business. Projectal has been designed from the ground-up to be scalable and flexible. It is ideal for small, mid or large creative businesses.
  4. Technical Expertise: Developing in-house software tools requires a significant amount of software engineering skills and personnel - which is not the core domain or skill set of creative studios. Projectal is developed by JanusKS - a dedicated team of AI software specialists that are constantly adding new features and improvements. So you don't need to worry about hiring dedicated software engineers. Projectal is ready now and designed to be easy to use and accessible to all your staff.
  5. Support and Maintenance: Developing in-house tools means you are responsible for all the ongoing training, support and maintenance of these tools and spreadsheets. With Projectal, you have access to dedicated support teams, full online help and regular software updates to ensure it is always up-to-date.

Don't be scared to make the change. Our 6-step plan makes it easy.

Our team will help you to move from your in-house tools and spreadsheets to Projectal. We will transfer all your data and connect Projectal to your tools. Here's our recommended 6-step plan:

  1. Demonstration. The first step is to get a demonstration of Projectal from our friendly team. You will immediately learn about all the features and benefits of Projectal, and get answers to your initial questions.
  2. Try it yourselves. We can spin up a free, dedicated 30-day trial of Projectal for you so you can try all the features at your own pace. We can import some of your studio data into Projectal and sync your tools so that you can get a great understanding of how Projectal will operate at your studio.
  3. Sign-up. If you like Projectal, then simply sign-up to a monthly plan, yearly plan or enterprise plan. We will get your Projectal up and running immediately so you can start using it.
  4. Integration. After signing up, we will meet and learn what data and tools you want synced with your Projectal. We will create connectors so that your studio data is automatically synced in real time with your other tools, ensuring that Projectal becomes the central hub for your staff to access studio data.
  5. Training. Our friendly team will teach your staff how best to use Projectal - including when bidding, budgeting, planning, scheduling, tracking, reporting, staff management and resource planning.
  6. You're done! Your team can say goodbye to those in-house tools and spreadsheets, and start using Projectal day-to-day to enjoy all the great features and benefits.

Are you ready to ditch your in-house tools and spreadsheets? Learn how Projectal will modernize your creative studio today.