November 25, 2003

1. Projects: Delete project billing transactions in bulk; view Gantt and utilization charts by week; filter expense revenue recognition rules by user and expense item

OpenAir continues to provide new features throughout the suite of applications, based on feedback from our users. In the Projects module this month, we have added the ability to delete project billing transactions in bulk, a feature that has been requested by many clients. To activate this feature, administrators (and those users with role privileges to edit billing rules) can simply click the customize link at the bottom of the project billing transactions list (Projects > Projects > [select Project ID] > Billing > Project billing transactions). Move “Run an action” to the list of selected items on the right, and click OK. This displays a column of checkboxes in the project billing transactions list. Check the boxes for the transactions to be deleted. To toggle the entire column of checkboxes on and off, click the checkbox icon at the top of the column. Click the circling arrows icon to run the action, then click OK to delete the selected project billing transactions. The transactions will be deleted, provided the associated timebills have already been deleted in the Invoices module.

A second (also frequently requested) enhancement to the Projects module this month is a weekly option in the Gantt and utilization chart views. To take advantage of this feature, select a project and click the Gantt view or Utilization links. In addition to daily and monthly views, users can now select a graphical display of the project plan on a weekly basis for a period of up to 52 weeks.

Third, revenue recognition for project expenses can now be filtered by expense item and by user. This has been the case for project billing rules and this flexibility now extends to revenue recognition as well. To create a revenue recognition rule for expenses, select a project and click the Recognition link. From the New entries > Create dropdown, select “Expenses rule”. Select the revenue to recognize (mark up/down, all billed or all incurred). Use the Create/Edit button in the Recognition rule filters section to limit the recognition rule to specific users or expense items. Configure the remainder of the rule as desired and save.





2. Reports: Additional subtotals in summary and utilization reports; support for user and project hierarchies in summary reports; new tax reporting options; lock shared reports.

Another feature that has been requested by many users is additional subtotals in reports, and we are pleased to introduce it this month. You can now choose up to ten levels of sub-totaling in summary and utilization reports, whereas previously you were limited to two subtotals. The actual number of subtotals available varies on each report, depending on the subtotaling possibilities for the item being reported on. This feature substantially increases managers’ ability to extract meaningful business intelligence from your OpenAir data. Please visit Reports > Summary and Reports > Advanced > Resources to view the extensive subtotaling options now available.

This month, we have also added support for hierarchies in summary reports. OpenAir allows you to create hierarchical trees for users and projects, and then to report based on those organizational classifications. Hierarchies were originally available only in drill-down reports (See Reports > Drill Down). In September 2003, we made user hierarchies available in user summary reports for non-utilization values. This month, we have extended hierarchy support in two ways. First, project hierarchies are now supported in all summary project reports. (See Reports > Summary > [Account-wide| Resources | Projects | Timesheets | Expenses | Purchases | Invoices] > Projects) Second, the account-wide user summary report, with both utilization and non-utilization values, now allows you to report by hierarchy. This enables managers to view resource historical and projected utilization, for example, on a single hierarchical report. To run the report, administrators and users with the required privilege navigate to Reports > Summary > Account-wide > Users. Select the hierarchy from the Hierarchy dropdown. Configure the remainder of the report as desired and run the report.

In a third enhancement to reporting, we’ve added a variety of new options for reporting on taxes for accounts that use the tax location method of tax computation. This will enable administrators and managers more precisely to track taxes paid, as well as expenses incurred, both with and without tax amounts. These options are available in account-wide reports, in summary expenses reports and in receipt detail reports. Available values now include: Total [Expenses] excluding taxes and Total [Expenses] excluding all taxes except PST tax; Total taxes and Total taxes excluding PST tax; Federal tax; State tax; GST, PST and HST taxes. For multi-currency accounts, the values are available in all account currencies. Note: these options require that the tax calculation method is set to “Tax locations” in My Account > Company > Settings > Tax options, and that “Enable tax locations on receipts” is checked.

Finally, you can now lock shared reports. This permits you to share a report with other users, allowing them to run it but preventing them from modifying it. This feature is configured at the role level. To enable it, administrators should create or edit a role to include the right to view those reports you would like to give the user access to, but exclude the right (in General Settings) to “Edit shared reports”. Users assigned to this role will not see the modify icon (the pencil) in the list of shared reports, but will be able to run the report as the creator of the report designed it, thus promoting reporting control and consistency.





3. Timesheets: Sort timesheet rows alphabetically. For users whose timesheets have many rows, we have added a feature to make it easier for you to find a particular client: project row. You can now sort timesheets alphabetically by client and project. Once again, this is a feature that has often been suggested as a great enhancement to usability and we are happy to provide it. To enable this feature, administrators navigate to My Account > Company > Settings > Timesheet options. Check the box to "Sort timesheets alphabetically by client and project" and save. When time is entered and saved, the timesheet will display in alphabetical order those clients and projects with time at the top of the form, and those without time, also alphabetically, below. The feature can also be enabled on a per-user basis, by going to My Account > My Options > Preferences > Timesheets options.





4. Would you like to see previous OpenAir updates?

Click here to browse previous product updates including all new features, modules and functionality.



5. Suggestions, problems, or questions?

As always, please contact us at support@openair.com or 888.367.1288 (outside the U.S. and Canada, call 617-351-0226). We pride ourselves on the outstanding care we give our customers. Please let us know how we can improve your experience with OpenAir.