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MYOB Viztopia Practice Management Assignment Budgeting and Workflow How To Guide Version 1.0

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MYOB Viztopia Practice Management

Assignment Budgeting and Workflow

How To Guide Version 1.0

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© 2006 MYOB Technology Pty Ltd

Disclaimer

MYOB has made every attempt to ensure the accuracy, relevance and completeness of this material but excludes (to the extent allowed by legislation) any warranties regarding it. Furthermore MYOB, its staff and agents shall not be liable for any loss, cost or damage (however incurred including negligence) arising out of errors or omissions in the material, especially if such materials contain information sourced from third parties or the ATO. In some cases the materials provided contain case studies (applying particular accounting standards or legislation) and anecdotes which may not directly apply to the user's circumstances and are used as representative examples only and should not be considered as authoritative advice regarding any accounting standard, law or industry opinion. MYOB advises that if the user wishes to rely on the case studies contained in the material then it must seek professional advice before doing so. Furthermore reliance on the representative examples in the seminar materials is at the user's own risk.

Copyright

Furthermore the seminar and materials may not be copied, altered, edited, disposed of or distributed without the prior written consent of MYOB.

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MYOB Technology Pty Ltd ® ABN 30 086 760 269 Level 14, 383 Kent St SYDNEY, NSW, 2000

Assignment Budgeting and Workflow Printed: July 2006

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ASSIGNMENT BUDGETING AND WORKFLOW

TABLE OF CONTENTS

i

Table of Contents

Overview 2

Defining New Terminology 3

Stages.....................................................................................3 Stage Categories.....................................................................3

Creating a Schedule Template 5

Setting up Employee Category Charge Rates..........................5 Creating the Schedule Template.............................................5

Creating a Schedule on an Assignment 10

Creating a Schedule Header .................................................10 From a Schedule Template ...................................................11 Using the Roll Forward Wizard..............................................11 When Adding a New Client or Assignment...........................12

Customising a Schedule 13

Adding in a New Stage.........................................................13 Editing the Budget and/or Employee Categories on a Stage .13 Editing Values via the Stage Details.......................................14 Rotating the Axis ..................................................................15 Marking a Stage Category as Complete................................16

Allocating the work 17

Making an Allocation from the Schedule Page......................17 Making an allocation using the Employee Planner ................18 Employee Planner Task Homepage Control ..........................24 Overall Employee Planner .....................................................24

Completing the Work 25

Timesheet Workflow .............................................................25 Completing Timesheets ........................................................25

Homepage Controls 26

Task Homepage Control .......................................................26 Schedule Homepage Control................................................28

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Roll Forward Schedules 32

Generate List of Assignments ................................................32 Roll Forward Using Current Schedules ..................................33 Roll Forward Using Assignment Schedule Template ..............37 Roll Forward Flag ..................................................................39

Upgrading Existing Data 40

Recommended Workflow following Data Upgrade ...............40 Task Code.............................................................................40 Milestones ............................................................................41 Predecessors .........................................................................41 Employee Categories ............................................................41 Data Upgrade Examples .......................................................41

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Assignment Budgeting and Workflow

This document will guide you through the tasks involved in creating customised workflows for a client assignment.

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Overview The Viztopia Practice Management (VPM) system provides you with the ability to create customised workflows for a client assignment. You can structure the assignment using a schedule that includes the stages required to complete the assignment.

A stage is measurable with regard to:

• The deadline for completion

• Budgeted activity (at employee category level)

• WIP budget value

• Status

• Allocations made to employees

• The actual WIP throughput against it

Tasks are attached to each stage that an employee category is expected to complete and enter via timesheets.

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Defining New Terminology

Stages A Stage is a hierarchical level by which a practice wishes to budget and monitor the work on a schedule. At the most granular level, this will be a one-to-one relationship with each timesheet task code required to complete the work. More commonly, a group or subset of timesheet task codes will be required to reach a level of completion on a schedule. For example, the stage Prepare Draft Accounts might be made up of the following five timesheet task codes:

• Drafting Accounts

• Prepare File

• Write up Books

• Prepare Trial Balance

• Review

It is now possible to allocate employees to a group of tasks in one step. Once a group of tasks (stage) has been allocated to an employee, it is assumed that it is that employee’s responsibility to complete the work assigned. When the stage is allocated to the employee, the employee is then responsible for the ‘tasks’ attached to that stage. If a stage is left ‘unallocated’, then the tasks associated with that stage will not appear on any employee’s task list.

Stage Categories When initially preparing the high-level plan for a client, the manager/partner will typically model the activity around a perceived skill requirement. They will have a reasonable idea of the degree of competency and management a job will require, and what level of employee should undertake the work. Therefore, the lowest level of budgeting on a stage has been moved from an individual employee basis to an employee category level.

The system default when a stage is created will be to the ‘-Unspecified’ employee category. This Unspecified category denotes the fact any employee irrespective of their category can capture time to that stage.

It is possible to change the employee category from ‘-Unspecified’ to a more appropriate employee category (as long as there is no WIP captured against it already). Multiple employee categories may be added to the one stage if required. The selection of specific employee categories at this stage will have the following affects on the system:

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1. If the stage is left unallocated, only employees with primary stationed records matching those of the particular employee categories on the stage will be able to capture timesheet entries against the stage.

2. If you decide to allocate the stage to a particular employee(s), then the employee category will be used to determine the default employees immediately visible in the employee planner available for allocation **. Furthermore, by separating the budget between the distinct employee categories expected to work on a stage, the actual time for each category can be recorded and measured against the budgeted figures for analysis.

** Although employee categories default the employees in the employee planner, any employee can be allocated work on a stage.

A stage category will be used by the assignment manager as the basis for budgeting, monitoring progress and deadlines, and marking as Complete. The employee(s) who are allocated the work will manage the particular timesheet codes (tasks) attached to the stage, and time recorded against them through actual timesheet entries.

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Creating a Schedule Template

Setting up Employee Category Charge Rates Previous versions of Viztopia Practice Management (VPM) required charge rates to be applied discretely to each employee record. When budgeted activity is assigned to the specific employee, their rate is extended over the anticipated hours to derive a budget. The current version has been enhanced so that charge rates can be assigned to employee categories.

Employee category charge rates can be set up and maintained through Maintenance Internal Employee Categories.

If the system detects a valid charge rate on the employee record, it will use that rate rather than the one held at system level on the employee category.

MYOB recommends using standard employee charge rates as well as category charge rates, as the history is maintained on the employee record.

Creating the Schedule Template A schedule template defines the most commonly used stages and stage categories likely to be required for a particular type of work (assignment).

Each Stage Category consists of:

• Task codes available for timesheets

• Sign off flag

• Start and End Date offsets

• Budgeted Hours per employee category.

Schedule templates can be setup via the Maintenance menu: Maintenance System Assignment Schedule Templates

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The first step in setting up a schedule template is to select the assignment template from the drop-down list to which the schedule will be linked.

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Adding a Stage into a Schedule Template

To add a stage into a schedule template, firstly enter the Step number and Stage Description. In the example below, we have chosen the stage to be ‘Prepare Draft Accounts’. The predecessor drop down list will populate with a list of the other stages on the particular schedule template. As this is the first stage to be added, the predecessor will be ‘None’.

The creation of this stage record will by default create a child record for the Unspecified employee category. This denotes a budget against any active employee irrespective of their employee category.

Note: You can number the stages 10, 20, 30 etc to make it easy to insert new stages on individual schedules.

Setting up an Employee Category Budget

If the stage is to be completed by one or more specific employee categories, the Unspecified record can be updated to the specific employee categories expected to complete the work. Budgeting the stage to specific employee categories will have a benefit later in the budgeting process (see Allocating the Work p. 17).

Note: The employee category cannot be changed once time has been captured against that stage.

Start and End Date Offsets

Each child record holds the budgeted number of hours for the category on the stage, along with a start and end offset. These offsets will be used to calculate the Projected Due Start and Projected Due Complete dates if the template is used to create an assignment schedule. This is calculated as a day offset from the schedule start date.

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Setting a Stage for Sign Off

Each stage category also has a Sign Off checkbox . Marking this checkbox denotes that the stage category can only be marked Complete by particular schedule ‘owners’. More specifically, this is limited to:

• Assignment Manager

• Assignment Partner

• Client Manager

• Client Partner

The stage sign off can be set up when the schedule template is created, or after the schedule is added to a specific client assignment.

Adding Tasks to a Stage

The button can be used to define the timesheet task codes required to complete the respective employee categories’ work. Clicking on this button will launch the following interface:

This screen allows task codes to be added or removed from the stage category. The and buttons can be used to move code types from the full list of available code types into the selected list of codes available on the respective stage category.

Note: Once a task has time captured to it, the task cannot be removed from the stage.

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All required stages can now to added to the schedule template until you have added all stages required for completion of the work

Using the predecessors has the following benefits:

• Employees can see the status of the prior stage (see Employee Task Homepage Control)

A stage cannot be marked as complete where a prior stage has not been completed.

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Creating a Schedule on an Assignment

Creating a Schedule Header After navigating to the particular assignment, browse to the schedule tab and

click the following Add/Edit Schedule icon from the task bar. This will open up the schedule header menu:

It is mandatory to define a schedule Description, Start Date and End Date before entering further schedule details. The schedule Start Date and End Date should correspond to the expected period during which the work will be completed.

It is recommended to give careful consideration to these dates, in particular when deadlines are involved, as this will be used as the basis for calculating default projected start and end dates from the offsets defined in the schedule template (see Creating a Schedule Template on page 5). The schedule header also has the facility to hold a Fee Budget value. This is an optional field which differs from the WIP budget, and represents the expected fee likely to be recovered from the scheduled work.

The other optional field is the Frequency. This is how often it is expected that the scheduled work will re-occur, and will be used in the roll forward process for the creation of the next schedules dates (see Roll Forward Schedules on page 32).

The Rolled Fwd flag relates to the roll forward of schedules, and should not be ticked when adding the schedule. This indicates that the schedule has already been rolled forward, or that you do not wish to include this schedule in any roll forward searches in the future.

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From a Schedule Template

Once a schedule header has been created, use the Add from Template icon in the task bar to bring up the list of available schedule templates.

The combo box can be used to navigate to the respective assignment template to which the schedule is attached. If the loaded assignment was created from an assignment template, the system will automatically default to this template.

The check boxes on the left hand side allow the user to deselect one or more stages from the schedule template. Deselecting these checkboxes indicates that the stage is not required to be added to the particular schedule.

Clicking the Add button will add the selected stages from the schedule template into the schedule.

Using the Roll Forward Wizard It is expected that the majority of assignment schedules will be rolled forward period-on-period. However, there will be instances where a new set of schedules needs to be added, for example, across a particular set of assignment types such as BAS assignments, or for a particular assignment manager. In the scenario where no previous schedule exists, it is recommended that rather than creating each schedule individually, the roll forward wizard should be used to create schedules from schedule templates (see Roll Forward Schedules on page 32).

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When Adding a New Client or Assignment It is also possible to create a schedule at the point of client creation. This is an option available through the enhanced client creation wizard. After using the wizard to add the clients’ assignments from assignment templates, step 8 of the wizard will prompt you to create schedules for these newly created assignments. Only assignments created from assignment templates will be available for creation.

In the example above, the grid shows a list of assignments added to the newly created client. The user should tick the assignments they wish to add schedules to. The top part of the screen requires the user to define a standard header to apply to the schedules. The final step 9 of client creation is to validate the schedules that can be created. Clicking Finish will add the schedule accordingly.

Note: Usually there are only seven steps to the client creation wizard. To add the additional steps, a configuration key needs to be added to the Maintenance Configuration table. This key is ‘SchedulesOnClientWizard’ and the value of 1 will enable the additional steps.

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Customising a Schedule There will be certain scenarios where the stages defined by a schedule template are not appropriate for creating the required schedule on an assignment; for example, special once off consulting assignments. Assignment schedules can be created from scratch or customised from the schedule template to meet the particulars of the work. This is done via the Assignment Schedule tab.

Adding in a New Stage A new stage can be added into an assignment schedule by simply adding a new row into the schedule. The process of adding a stage this way is the same as via a schedule template (see Adding a Stage into a Schedule Template on page 7)

Editing the Budget and/or Employee Categories on a Stage After a stage record is created, a child record will be created for the Unspecified employee category by default. The budgeted hours on the new category will be zero by default. The employee category records on a stage can be viewed by expanding the stage using the symbol. Conversely, they can be hidden

using the symbol.

As no offsets can be used to calculate default projected dates for the stage category, the system will use the schedule start and end dates if none are specified by the user. These dates can easily be adjusted by using the calendar control on the stage category, or through the Stage Details interface.

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Editing Values via the Stage Details Once a stage has been added into a schedule, each employee category child record will be hyperlinked. Selecting Ctrl + Click on the hyperlink will open up the stage detail for the respective employee category. The interface will be as follows:

The Assignment, Stage, Step number and Employee Category are editable from the Assignment Schedule tab, but appear as a read-only reference in this screen. The Status represents the level of completion on the stage category. When a stage category is marked as Complete, it will no longer be available in timesheets. The sign off flag is read-only in this form. To edit this flag, users should go to the assignment schedule screen.

This screen will give you a breakdown of all the tasks attached to the stage for each Employee Category. Notes at the task level are also visible by selecting on

the blue exclamation mark if there were any notes added at the task level.

The Task Codes attached to the stage can also be edited from this screen by selecting on the Task Codes button.

TIP: This Stage Details page can also be accessed via the Schedule Details HomePage.

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The Detail tab displays additional information about the stage:

Rotating the Axis The default view for the Assignment Schedule screen is to display each stage, with each employee category to work on the stage as a child record. By clicking

on the swap axis icon in the task bar, the schedule view can be rotated to display the schedule by Employee Category. In this view the stages each category has been budgeted to work on are displayed as child records of the category. In this mode, the grid will be read-only.

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Marking a Stage Category as Complete If a stage category is flagged with the Sign Off attribute, anyone other than one of the schedule ‘owners’ will be presented with the following message if they attempt to mark the stage as complete:

TIP: Schedule ‘owners’ are: Client Partner / Client Manager / Assignment Partner / Assignment Manager.

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Allocating the work As the budgeted work approaches, the assignment manager will usually have a good idea of who will be responsible for completing the work, and will allocate out the scheduled work to people within their team. If the work is not allocated out, the employee categories defined to work on a stage at the time of budgeting will be used to control timesheet entries. The benefit of allocating out the work for a particular stage to the respective employee(s) is so that the tasks associated with those stages will appear in the employee’s Task Homepage Control (see page 26).

Making an Allocation from the Schedule Page Users are now able to allocate employees to schedule tasks through a familiar grid interface. The user will highlight the stage they wish to allocate staff members to, and click Allocations in the task bar before being presented with the following interface.

The user can click the ellipsis in the Employee Name field to display a familiar search screen and once selected, the Hours will default to the remaining number of unallocated hours as specified in the schedule stage.

The user is able to overwrite the default hours with the number they wish to allocate to the employee chosen.

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Making an allocation using the Employee Planner From the Assignment Schedule screen, a manager can launch the Employee Planner via the Employee Planner icon in the task bar. This will launch the Employee Planner in the default allocation view. This means that only employees with existing allocations against stage categories on the particular schedule will be shown by default. Employees are grouped according to their employee category.

By default, only the employee categories attached to the stages will appear on the Employee Planner. The planner displays all stages for the selected schedule (unlike the allocation button above, which shows only for the selected Stage).

The Employee Planner uses various colours to make a visual distinction between different types of allocations. The key for allocation colours is as follows:

• RED – The allocation belongs to the employee but is on a different schedule to the one being allocated. These allocations cannot be moved or edited except from the particular schedule or overall planner.

• YELLOW – The allocation is on the current schedule and the status of the stage category is either Planned or Not started.

• BLUE – The allocation is on the current schedule and the status of the stage category is Complete.

• GREEN – The allocation is on the current schedule and the status of the stage category is In progress.

The stage details grid displays information relating to the stage categories budgeted from the schedule screen.

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A field chooser is available by using the right mouse option to display the available fields for this view.

To change the Employee Planner over to allocation mode, the user needs to deselect the View Allocated Entries checkbox. The Employee Planner will update to display all available employees grouped into their respective employee categories.

Available employees are identified by having an employee category matching a category budgeted on the schedule. If the Unspecified category has been used, all employees will be made available.

Allocating out a stage category limits the available employees who can record time against it to those employee(s) who have one or more allocations.

Drag and Drop

The allocation of a stage category, or part allocation thereof, can be done in two ways. The allocation hours driven method is achieved by selecting a stage category in the grid and dragging it onto the employee for whom it is to be allocated to. The planner will paint the allocation starting where the stage category is dropped. The allocated hours determines the length of the block and subsequent allocation end date. This is determined using the following business rules:

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• The default allocation will be Unallocated Hours

• If Unallocated Hours = 0, then allocation will be Budgeted Hours

The Allocated Hours and Unallocated Hours columns in the grid will be updated to reflect allocations as and when they are made. It should be noted on the calendar control that the date control divides each day into ½ day blocks by default. You can room in or out using the Zoom in and Zoom out buttons on the task bar.

Using the Calendar Control

The second method of making an allocation is using the date calendar control on the planner. This method involves drawing the allocation start date and end date onto the date control.

Once the allocation dates have been selected, the user can drag the stage category from the grid into the appropriate employee to make the allocation. In this case, the allocation will be made into the selected date range irrespective of where the item is dropped. The hours are calculated by the number of half day blocks drawn onto the calendar control. The system will intelligently detect when an allocation should absorb the remaining unallocated hours using the following rule:

• If the remaining Unallocated Hours after the proposed allocation is less than half a day, the allocation will absorb the remaining hours in order to leave zero hours unallocated. For example using a standard 8 hour day, if 5 hours remain unallocated, allocating half a day to an employee would normally allocate 4 hours. However, the system will determine that this final allocation is likely to be 5 hours.

Completed Stage Categories

Once a stage category has been marked as Complete, the system will no longer allow this work to be allocated out to employees. From a usability perspective, this row will be locked to prevent it being dragged into the planner. This will be indicated by the status being marked in red.

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Moving/Editing Existing Allocations

• Moving: Moving the entire allocation – Hold down the left mouse button on an allocation and start moving it - the cursor will change . The planner will allow you to move the entire allocation. Dragging the allocation to a different part of the planner will change the start/end allocation dates and/or employee.

• Editing: The user can alter one of the allocation dates and the allocation hours, by holding the cursor over the top left/right corner of the allocation block until the cursor changes to a double sided arrow . Then the user can adjust the length of the allocation. The system will re-calculate the start/end date and hours accordingly.

Employee Planner Filters

There are a number of filters available within the planner to further refine the list of available employees or date ranges for allocations. These filters on the top part of the planner can be used to filter the available employees via:

• Company

• Office

• Department

• Centre

These filters will apply as an additional filter against the loaded employees’ stationed records. For example, if the filter for Office is set to Melbourne, the following employees will be loaded into the planner:

• Any employee who’s Office on their primary stationed record is set to Melbourne, and their employee category matches one of those on a stage.

The user will also have to option to set Filter To and Filter From dates. These can be used to restrict the dates for which the planner loads and allows allocations to be made and viewed.

The default for these filters is <ALL> denoting no filtering has been applied.

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Task Bar Options

The task bar on the left hand side contains a number of options that relate to the employee planner. The task bar has the following options:

• Refresh – re-populates the employee planner with any changes that may be been made in the database.

• Add Employee – loads an employee not in the planner due to filters into their respective employee category grouping to allow allocations. This is also available as a right-click option on the planner.

• Goto Employee – searches the loaded employees in the planner and returns

focus to that employee for allocations. This is also available as a right-click option on the planner.

• Delete Allocation – used to delete a specific allocation when the focus is on it. The Delete button on the keyboard can also be used to perform this function. This is also available as a right-click option on the allocation itself.

• Edit Hours/Start Date – used to adjust the allocated hours or allocation start date. This is also available as a right-click option on the allocation itself.

• Create Timesheet Entry – when the focus is on an allocation, this loads a

daily timesheet and starts the timer. The form is pre-populated with assignment, schedule and stage information based on the stage category from which the allocation was made. The timesheet entry is for the logged in employee and the timesheet will be created for today’s time processing period. You must have in focus an allocation on the planner for the timesheet to create. The timesheet will create in the name of the employee the allocation is made against.

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Use the Zoom In and Zoom Out in the task bar to display more or less days in the employee planner.

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Employee Planner Task Homepage Control Employees will be able to view their personal employee planner to get a visual representation of their task lists and the allocation of those tasks. This will be loaded in a read-only view to ensure that allocations cannot be edited. The default filter dates for the planner is +/- one month from today’s date.

This can be loaded from the employee’s task homepage control using the button. Alternatively, an option has been added to the timesheet common taskbar as follows:

Overall Employee Planner The employee planner can also be loaded from the Workflow menu option:

When the planner is loaded from this view, all allocations for all employees are loaded into the planner in the default View Allocated Entries mode. Users will have the option to make allocations from schedules by using the Load Schedule function. This will prompt the user with the following screen:

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Completing the Work

Timesheet Workflow

Attempt to select stage/task in timesheets

Was the budget against the

Unspecified category?

Was the stage category allocated to specific employees?

Any employee can put time against the stage category

Only employees belonging to the budgeted category can put time against it

Only allocated employees can put time against stage category

YesNo (budget stage

against other employee category)

Yes No

Completing Timesheets When the user comes to complete the work, the first step is to select the assignment they have been working on. If the selected assignment has a schedule on it and the assignment has been marked as Task Related, the Schedule drop-down will be populated with a list of Schedules/Stages that have not yet been marked as complete and are available to the employee.

A stage will be available if the employee meets the following criteria against the budgeted category:

• If the stage has been budgeted against the Unspecified category, the stage will be returned for all employees.

• If the stage has been left allocated to a particular employee category, and this matches their primary stationed record.

• If an allocation has been made from the stage category to the employee.

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Homepage Controls

Task Homepage Control The task homepage control shows the logged in employee a list of the tasks allocated to them for action. This task list will additionally be available to users who choose Calendar timesheets as their preferred time entry mode, for easy drag and drop of tasks onto their timesheets. The task list comprises two types of tasks; CRM tasks and Scheduled tasks.

The homepage control has the following features:

• Grouping and sorting – allows the user to customize the information in the control.

• Field chooser for selection of available fields

• Launch personal Employee planner

• Create Timesheet Entry – the system will launch the daily timesheet form for each of the selected tasks with assignment and task information pre-populated. The system will start the timer by default.

• Subject field for CRM tasks to distinguish between CRM tasks of the same type

The allocation of a stage category to an employee effectively allocates all the tasks attached to that stage category to the allocated employee(s). By default, these tasks inherit the Due Complete date and Status of the stage category they were allocated from.

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As a stage category can be allocated to more than one employee, each employee has the flexibility to manage their task list independently of each other, and independently of the stage category. The inherited values can be changed by an employee through the Stage Detail screen. This screen looks as follows:

Once a task has been explicitly changed by the user, it will no longer continue to inherit the properties of the stage category. Rather, it will need to be independently managed by the user in the same way as CRM tasks.

The right click filtering options from the Tasks homepage are as follows:

• Tasks not yet complete – shows all tasks for the logged in employee where the task status is not set to Complete

• Tasks completed today - shows tasks for the logged in employee that have been marked as Complete on that day. In the case of CRM tasks, this is driven by the Actual End Date field which may have to be set by the user. In the case of scheduled tasks, the system manages this discretely without the need for user intervention.

• Tasks due to start today – shows tasks for the logged in employee with a Due Start date equal to today

• Tasks due to end today – shows tasks for the logged in employee with a Due End date equal to today

• My started tasks – shows tasks for the logged in employee that have been used in draft or posted timesheets but are yet to be marked as Complete. This may be used to indicate to an employee the tasks that have been done and that can be marked as Complete in their task list.

Note: The status on a scheduled task does not control its availability in timesheets – this is controlled by the status of the stage category.

Note: If more than one employee has been allocated to a stage, then all the employees will have on their Tasks Homepage all of the tasks assigned to that stage. You cannot allocate at a task level.

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Schedule Homepage Control The schedule homepage control is a new control designed to provide the job ‘owner’ with an interface from where they can monitor and control the progress of the job and its employees. The control comprises of two components, a graphical display allowing the user to easily identify job stages running over budget or behind deadline, and a grid control displaying the same fields as the stage details grid in the employee planner.

The new control also provides a slider allowing the user to specify the number of days before a due stage or schedule is highlighted in red. When a schedule due date falls within the specified number of days from today, the display font changes to red to alert the user that the due date is approaching.

Each stage is represented as a coloured ‘block’ within the schedule bars, the size of which is scaled based on the stage Budget Hrs relative to the overall Schedule Budget Hrs. The colours displayed will indicate the progress of each stage against budget.

• When a stage runs past its due date, the block is rendered with a cross-hatch effect indicating to the user the stage is overdue. This cross-hatching responds to value determined by the slider control.

• Green blocks represent completed stages where posted WIP is less than, or equal to, the budget on that stage.

• Amber blocks represent incomplete stages where posted WIP is less than, or equal to, the budget on that stage.

• The amber portion of the stage ‘block’ will be scaled to represent the amount of WIP posted against the stage budget. For example, if 10 hours WIP has been posted against an incomplete stage with a budget of 20 hours, the amber portion will account for 50% of the stage ‘block’.

• Red blocks represent stages where posted WIP is greater than the budget on that stage - irrespective of stage completion status.

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• The blue blocks represent an incomplete milestone stage (that is, a stage with zero budget) and is subject to cross-hatching should it run beyond the specified due date.

• The transparent blocks represent stages that have not been started, and are recognised by the absence of any WIP entered against them.

The new schedule control displays a number of pieces of information alerting the user to the progress of schedules and any risk associated with them.

Due Date

The due date is specified and available at both Schedule and Stage level and can be viewed both in the homepage control, and by drilling into the specific schedule or stage.

In addition to the coloured schedule bars, the new element of the control displays the overall schedule deadline date. Once a stage approaches the tolerance value set within the slider control, the due date turns red.

Budget ‘Used’

The new control also displays the WIP entered as a percentage against the aggregate schedule budget.

This measure is a simple calculation of actual WIP entered against budget and does not take into account the effect of individual stages’ over/under absorption upon expected progress.

• For example, if 10 hours WIP has been entered through the timesheets against the aggregate schedule budget of 100 hours, the ‘Budget Used’ value would be displayed as 10%.

Budget ‘Loss’ Alert An additional column displays a key performance indicator (KPI) icon indicating whether the schedules present a risk of potential loss against budget. This alert is activated when the WIP entered against each schedule exceeds the planned progress and overall budget absorption.

A tool tip over the red alert icon indicates the magnitude of the projected loss and the values that have been used to calculate it.

Legend

A legend is displayed for the user below the main graphical interface allowing easy identification of what each of the colours and cross-hatching mean.

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From and To

The schedule control presents ‘From’ and ‘To’ fields that can be used to filter the schedules returned within the graphical element of the interface.

Launch Planner

The icon at the bottom left-hand corner of the schedule control is used to launch the graphical Employee Planner interface.

Employee Planner

From the schedule homepage control, users can select one or more stage categories and proceed through to the employee planner in order to allocate those out to available employees.

Day Tracker

It should be noted that the homepage control also has a day tracker. This allows the user to specify the number of days prior to the Due Complete date of a stage category they wish to be notified. Records meeting a completion date within this specified number of days will be displayed in the control in red.

The control also has the following right-click options available:

• Client Partner / Client Manager / Assignment Partner / Assignment Manager / Practice – this filters the assignments displayed to those with the matching selected client or assignment team responsibility to the logged in employee.

• Field Chooser – allows users to customise their control with the appropriate fields and grouping.

• Show Unallocated – when this option is ticked, the control filters the list of stages to display only those where the allocated hours do not match or exceed the budgeted hours i.e. there is more time left to allocate out on the stage.

• Show Complete – by default the control does not display stage categories with a status of Complete. By ticking this option, all stage categories meeting the other selected criteria will be displayed irrespective of the status.

• Export to Excel – exports the grid information into MS Excel.

Tip: Grouping, sorting and field right-click options are only saved when the user sets these in Customise Homepage mode.

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Field Chooser

The new homepage control provides a Field Chooser which incorporates both the top level Schedules graphical display and Stages detail fields that you may wish to add.

Tip: Fields can only be dragged onto the correct element of the Homepage Control.

Note: The Field Chooser has two sets of fields available, simply by changing the drop down on the field chooser:

1. Schedules: Gives a list of all the fields that can be displayed for the SCHEDULE level of the Home Page

2. Stages: Gives a list of all the fields that can be displayed for the STAGES level of the home page.

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Roll Forward Schedules Once the jobs have been completed, partners and managers will need to start the process again for the coming period’s jobs.

Whilst new clients and assignments will be managed in the manner described already, many will be recurring work and can be rolled forward into the next period using the current workflow as the basis.

Generate List of Assignments The first part of the roll forward or schedule creation process is the selection of assignments containing schedules to be rolled forward. This is done using the new assignment list functionality in one of the following ways:

• Generate Static List (defined by the user)

• Run report from Smart Reports

Once the list of assignments has been generated, tick the assignments and click the task bar item to invoke the wizard.

The user has the option to perform two alternate types of roll forward.

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Roll Forward Using Current Schedules

Step 1 – Roll Forward Method

Select ‘Based on current schedules’ in the Schedule Roll Forward Wizard

Step 2 - Roll Forward Budget Method

If current schedules are used as the basis for the roll forward, the next step of the wizard is to select the method for creating the budgeted figures in the new schedule.

Use Budget Hours - This creates a copy of the current schedules stage category budget. The system extends the charge on the newly created schedule using the current employee category charge rates.

Use Budget Hours + Uplift - This applies a user-defined percentage uplift against the current schedules stage category budgets. The system extends the charge on the newly created schedule using the current employee category charge rates. The uplift percentage is defined by the user as part of the roll forward process to allow for maximum flexibility, and more control between different managers.

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Use Allocated Hours - This aggregates the allocation hours on the current schedule to stage category level and uses this as the basis for budgeted hours on the new schedule. The system extends the charge on the newly created schedule using the current employee category charge rates.

Use Allocated Hours+ Uplift – This applies a user-defined percentage uplift to the allocated figures.

Use Actual Hours - This aggregates the actual hours on the current schedule to stage category level, and uses this as the basis for budgeted hours on the new schedule. The system extends the charge on the newly created schedule using the current employee category charge rates.

Use Actual Hours + Uplift - This applies a user-defined percentage uplift to the actual figures.

Step 3 – Select Current Schedules to Roll Forward

After picking the basis for the roll forward values, the user is presented with a list of the schedules on assignments they selected into the wizard. This is presented to the user again to ensure they wish to apply the roll forward to all schedules on the selected assignments.

To aid this confirmation process, the user is presented with the minimum Status of the current schedules being used in the roll forward. The minimum Status may be useful in this step of the wizard, if for example, the user has chosen to roll forward on Actual values. A status of In Progress may suggest that the current schedule is not yet complete, hence the actual values may not be the best basis for generating next year’s budget.

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The user will be notified at this point if any existing draft timesheets exist against the schedule. This may allude to the fact more actual time is to be posted onto the schedule being rolled forward.

The user also has the option to mark all schedules they are selecting to roll forward as Complete using the checkbox Complete ALL. This will mark all the underlying stage categories as Complete, ignoring any Sign Off employee settings.

Note that any stage categories with existing timesheets lines against them cannot be marked as Complete and will hence be excluded from this override.

If the Complete ALL option is used, a warning message will prompt the user for confirmation of this action:

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Step 4 – Finalise New Schedule Header

The final step is for the user to confirm details of the proposed new schedules to be created. The system will default in values for Description field, Start and End Dates, and Fee Budget. These are editable at this stage by the user.

The roll forward frequency flag, if set, will define the default dates. If the user does not select a roll forward frequency, the system will use the schedule start and end dates.

Select Finish to complete the process. Schedule stages can then be allocated to employees as previously detailed.

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Roll Forward Using Assignment Schedule Template

Step 1 – Roll Forward Method

Select Based on assignment schedule template in the Schedule Roll Forward Wizard

Step 2 – Select Standard Header for schedules

After picking the basis for the roll forward values, the user is presented with a list of the schedules on assignments they selected into the wizard. This is presented to the user again to ensure they wish to apply the roll forward to all schedules on the selected assignments.

In addition, the user is required to setup the standard schedule header for the assignments they wish to create. This requires a Description, Start and End Date and Fee Budget, all of which can be edited in the next stage of the wizard.

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Step 3 – Finalise Schedule Details

The final step is for the user to confirm details of the proposed new schedules to be created. The system will default in values for Description field, Start and End Dates, and Fee Budget. These are editable at this stage by the user.

The wizard will display all schedules proposed to be created by the user through the wizard. There may be situations where the wizard will not be able to continue, for example if no assignment schedule template exists for a particular schedule. In this scenario, the user will be advised by seeing a red alert next to the assignment name, and the schedule will not be created.

Select Finish to complete the process. Schedule stages can then be allocated to employees as previously detailed.

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Roll Forward Flag VPM allows users the flexibility to create multiple schedules on the same assignment. These discrete schedules can be worked on simultaneously. The roll forward wizard limits the list of schedules available for roll forward, to those that have not previously been rolled forward.

The system determines this by flagging schedules with a roll forward flag. If a schedule has incorrectly been rolled forward, the user can ‘unflag’ a schedule to allow it to be used again in the roll forward wizard. This is easily managed through the schedule header.

In the example above, the 2005 schedule has previously been rolled forward, and hence will not be available in the roll forward wizard. This is denoted by the check in the Rolled Fwd tickbox. If the user wishes to have the 2005 schedule available again for roll forward, they simply have to deselect this box.

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Upgrading Existing Data

Recommended Workflow following Data Upgrade

Data Upgrade

Update Schedule Templates

Create New Schedule from Templates

Roll Forward

Schedules

Codes on schedules will be upgraded to Stages. This means the there is an initial granular one-to-one relationship between a stage and code. Existing employee information will be grouped to employee category level against each newly created stage.

Adjust updated schedule templates to define stages for the new budgeting model. Attach budgeted categories for these stages and attach respective task codes. Set up Start and End offsets for each stage category.

In the first cycle of schedule creation following the upgrade, it is recommended to use the newly created templates for schedule creation. This can be done easily en mass via the Roll Forward Wizard.

Roll forward schedules using the system option best fitting your budgeting model. This may be based on schedule templates, or alternatively come from current schedule budget figures, allocated or actuals hours, and may also include an uplift/downlift.

All existing sites using the existing scheduling model will have their data upgraded by running the VPM 4.1 upgrade script. The data transformation will convert the data into the new data structure for stages and employee categories.

Task Code The code description from task codes on both schedules and schedule templates will be converted into a stage on a one-to-one basis using the code description as the new stage name. The original task code will then be attached to the stage. For example, if the original task code was Filing, a namesake stage will be created with the Filing task code selected by default.

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Milestones Milestones on assignment schedules and assignment schedule templates will be converted in the same way as task codes. However, no task code will be attached. This will denote that they will not be seen in timesheets.

Predecessors The predecessors will be moved from the existing task codes to the newly created stage. As the initial conversion is on a one-to-one basis, the predecessor stage will represent the previous predecessor task code.

Employee Categories On any existing task codes that contained either the –UNSPEC employee or an allocated employee, the newly created stage will have the Unspecified employee category. The aggregate budgeted hours and charge information, along with the maximum date information will be converted against the Unspecified employee category. If more than one employee was allocated to the task, then each employee will retain its actual values.

Data Upgrade Examples

Task with –Unspec- employee

The existing scheduling model required each task code on a schedule to be budgeted out to the specific employees. The wildcard Unspecified employee could be used to denote all employees.

In the case where the original task code was allocated to the Unspecified employee, the newly created stage in VPM 4.1 will inherit the task code description of the existing code.

The employee category will be the defined Unspecified category, and the stage category will have the existing task code attached accordingly.

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Single Task Workflow

Many practices have used scheduling for monitoring entire jobs in the practice, where budgets and actual hours have not been used. For example, a single task called ‘workflow monitoring’ has been created to allocate to employees.

In Viztopia 4.01 or prior, the schedule would be:

After upgrading to Viztopia 4.1, the schedule will display as follows:

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To view the allocated employees, select Allocations from the task bar