Release Notes

10th December 2009

New 'Estimates' budgeting screen

The improved Estimates screen enables our Consultancy clients to estimate billing values and costs based on the amount of time and expenses required. The agreed billing values then provide project managers with targets to work to and hence early warning of any overspends.

This new screen has been developed with input from a number of customers in this market sector. Similar functionality is provided to our Construction sectors clients via the Fee Allocation screen.

What do I need to do next?

All your existing budgeting data has been migrated from the old Estimates screen. You should now create budgets for all remaining projects

Projects > Project > Estimates

Now is a good to time to review your billing estimation process; throw away those old Excel spreadsheets and store project fee information in one central location!

New Project and Task default options

Following feedback from customers regarding the default options applied to new projects and tasks, we have created a new admin screen where all key project default settings can be specified.

This ensures each new project and task has consistent settings that fit with your business processes, helping to reduce confusion to staff and speed up the project management process.

What do I need to do next?

Configure project and task default settings

Admin > Project Settings > Project Defaults

Apply selected settings to all projects

Admin > Project Settings > Global Updates

Educate your project managers on the new defaults and why they are used

Improved Project Template options

In line with our new project and task defaults feature, we have increased the flexibility of the 'copy from template' options available when creating new project and copying data into existing projects.

What do I need to do next?

Create as many project templates as you require

Projects > Creating a project template

Educate project administrators on how they should use the copy from template functionality

Projects > New Project

Improved security group features

Opening up project budgeting screens to more staff can help with business planning, but we understand sometimes certain data is not suitable for all staff to see.

Therefore we have implemented improved security group features so you can control user access to project and user charge, cost and profit information.

What do I need to do next?

Review your current security group setup and apply relevant updates to control access to sensitive data

Admin > System Settings > Security Groups

Itemised Release Details

Projects

Updated feature ~ Copy from Template. In line with our new project and task defaults feature, we have increased the flexibility of the 'copy from template' options available when creating new project and copying data into existing projects. See Creating a project for details.
New feature! ~ Estimates updates (Management, Marketing and IT Consultants only). With a brand new split screen look with functionality to expand and collapse budgeting elements as required, we are excited to be offering a major update to the current Estimates screen. main features include:
- New! ~ Facility to calculate the resource budget / billing value of each task based on the resourcing required (via a pop-up resource planner).
- New! ~ Facility to copy the resource estimates from the Estimates screen to the resourcing section in the project Work Structure/Gantt.
- New! ~ Facility to link expense budgeting as a percentage of your time budgets.
- New! ~ Facility to add notes against any element of the budget to allow for better monitoring and controlling of the project budget.
- New! ~ Get real time analysis of actual costs to date + forecast costs to go versus previously entered budgets.
New! ~ Easily update budget entries where known user profile cost and/or charge rates have been updated.
New! ~ Easily update budget rates by percentage where quick adjustments are required.

See the help topic Allocating budget fees and costs for full details of these features.

Admin ~ Project Settings

New feature! ~ Default project and task settings. We have created a new admin screen where all key project default settings can be specified. See Admin > Project Settings > Default settings for details.
Updated feature ~ Global Settings now called Global Updates. See Admin > Project Settings > Global updates for details of this feature.
Updated feature ~ Default project Security Profile. The default security profile you wish to assign to new projects is now no longer selectable in the Security Profiles page. Instead it is now set in the new Default Settings page.
Updated feature ~ Default Task Status. The default task status you wish to assign to new tasks is now no longer selectable in the Task Statuses page. Instead it is now set in the new Default Settings page.

Admin ~ System Settings

Updated feature ~ Improved security group options. We have implemented improved security group features so you can control user access to project and user charge, cost and profit information. See Admin > System Settings > Security Groups for details.

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