Case study · Managed IT · Project management
Hazel turns a signed scope of work into a staffed, scheduled project in the PSA, then chases it to done: technician work lists, follow-ups, customer updates, and a direct message to management the moment a deadline is at risk.
Hazel
Project Manager
Scoped access
Memory
Project and customer dossiers, a team roster built from delivery history, decision log
QRK-PM-0001
Context
The provider runs dozens of concurrent customer projects: server migrations, Microsoft 365 moves, hardware refreshes, office relocations. All of it is tracked in HaloPSA.
One senior project manager coordinated the work. That meant turning each scope into a plan, staffing it, chasing technicians, answering customers, and validating closeouts.
The problem
A first-draft plan took about four hours per project: reading the scope, building milestones and child tasks, setting budgets and dates, and finding the right people.
Follow-up was worse. Checking one ticket’s status and next step took about 45 minutes, across roughly 20 tickets a week. Stale tasks and slipping dates often surfaced at the weekly meeting, when they were already late.
Closeouts meant manually checking every child task, deliverable, and hour against the scope. The job was full of judgment, but most of the hours went to retrieval, retyping, and reminders.
Reads the statement of work and the parent project, then locks scope and approved hours with the PM before anything else. It drafts milestones and child tasks with goals, deliverables, budgets, and target dates. If the task hours exceed what was sold, it stops and says so.
Matches each task to qualified technicians using a roster built from real delivery history. Before proposing dates, it checks working hours, leave, and calendars. It won’t silently swap in someone unqualified because the first choice is busy.
After approval, it creates each record once and reads every one back: linkage, milestone, owner, dates, and budget. It also catches PSA automations that quietly overwrite owners or dates, and corrects them before technicians are notified.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, each technician gets a Teams list of their open project tasks, with past-due work first. Twice-daily scans catch new overdue work. Follow-up notes are collaborative, ask focused questions, and are read back to confirm they posted.
Answers “where are we?” questions with the current, verified schedule, within the communication authority the team has granted.
Messages senior management directly when work is blocked, a customer is unhappy, or a committed date is at risk. The message covers the evidence, the impact, what has been tried, and the decision needed.
Validates every child task, deliverable, and budget against the scope. It assigns residual work to owners and drafts an auditable handover. A status change on its own doesn’t count as a closure.
A signed scope arrives in Teams: office relocation, 42 seats, 86 approved hours. Hazel reads the parent project and checks its records for a similar past move.
Draft plan: 11 tasks across Preparation, Execution, and Clean-up, totaling 84 hours, two under budget. It flags that the cutover depends on a new internet circuit that isn’t installed yet.
A staffing proposal with reasons for each owner. One preferred technician is on leave during the cabling window, so Hazel names a qualified alternative and explains the tradeoff.
The PM approves the plan card in Teams. Hazel creates the tasks and reads each one back. A PSA automation had reset one target date, so Hazel corrects it before anyone is notified.
The new tasks appear in each technician’s work list, in due-date order.
The circuit install slips. Hazel messages the Director of Projects with the new risk to Friday’s cutover, two options, and the decision needed by Wednesday.
The PM’s time went into two decisions instead of a morning of data entry.
Trigger
A scope in Teams, a schedule (Mon/Wed/Fri 08:30), or a PSA event
Context
Project and customer dossiers, team roster, shared project memory
Reason
Scope, dependencies, capacity, and risk, leading to a recommended plan
Approve
The PM approves the exact plan version in Teams
Act
Role-scoped PSA tools: tasks, milestones, notes, appointments
Verify
Every record read back; automation side effects reconciled
Report
Work lists, follow-ups, escalations, and an updated project record
Outcomes
Lessons
Go deeper
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Next step
We’ll sit down with the people who do it, map the steps, and put a number on the time. If a digital coworker is the right tool, you’ll know what it would return before you commit. If it isn’t, we’ll say so.