September 25, 2003
2. Expenses: Mark receipts non-billable; display submitted/approved dates on envelope list. OpenAir users can now be given the option of marking receipts non-billable; receipts marked as such can be excluded from the operation of the billing rules. This eliminates the need to create duplicate expense items for billable/non-billable expenses. Please see above under the Projects module for a description of the feature, including directions on how to enable it. Also in the Expenses module this month, users can elect to display the submitted and approved dates of expense reports in the envelope list view, by clicking the customize link at the bottom of the list. Add “Date Submitted” and “Date Approved” to the list of selected items and click OK. 3. Reports: Hierarchies in user summary reports; hierarchy omissions report now includes generic resources; other enhancements to existing reports; optimization to speed up summary report form generation. Hierarchies and drill down reports were introduced by OpenAir in 2002. They enable managers to group employees and projects into organizational blocks such as business unit, location, department, etc. and then to view data according to those organizational groupings. The values available for reporting in drill down reports were limited to hours in the Timesheets or Resources modules (hours booked, worked, open, submitted, approved, rejected, billed/unbilled, percentage of time billed/unbilled), expenses (value and quantity), timebills (value and quantity), and purchases (value and quantity). This month, we’ve extended the options for reporting on user-based hierarchies beyond drill down reports to include summary user reports. All user summary reports, including the account-wide user summary report, can now be configured to give a hierarchical data view. The range of values that can be reported on consequently is much wider than previously; in addition to the above-listed values, it includes projected billing, cost and net figures for project assignments, resource bookings and timesheet hours. Note: there is a limitation in that only non-utilization values are presently supported. In another hierarchy-related reporting enhancement this month, we have enhanced the hierarchy omissions report to include generic resources as well as actual users. This report permits the manager to ascertain quickly whether there are any users or generic resources missing from a user-based hierarchy, thus enabling him/her to assign all resources an appropriate position in the hierarchy. We have also enhanced several other existing reports this month: a) in account-wide summary reports, you can now subtotal, filter and get detail on timebill type. Previously these features were only available in Invoice summary reports. b) account-wide and project summary reports (on user, department, job code, project, service/activity, account or customer) now support subtotaling of recognized revenue by customer. c) account-wide customer reports and project summary reports on customers now provide the ability to subtotal and get detail on recognition rules. This provides the billing manager with an overview of all potential revenue to be recognized, whether currently pending or not, at the client and project levels. d) revenue recognition and billing transactions detail reports include customer name as an optional value; e) the deal detail report now includes a deal status filter, so you can report on some deals while excluding others, based on the deal status (open/closed/lost). Finally, we have implemented some optimizations for summary reports, allowing the configuration forms for summary reports to generate much more quickly than they have in the past. 4. Administrative features: Custom field support for project phases; add save/run buttons to tops of forms; add notes to filter sets. We have added several new administrative features in this month’s release. First, custom fields can now be associated with project phases. To create a new custom field, administrators or those with the requisite privilege, navigate to My Account > Company > Custom fields. From the New entries > Create dropdown, select the type of custom field to be created. From the Association dropdown, select “Phase”. Configure the rest of the custom field as desired and save. As mentioned above in the Projects section, custom fields for phases can be duplicated when copying a project from an existing project. A second new administrative feature lets you add a save or run button to the top of forms. To turn this feature on, administrators navigate to My Account > Company > Settings > Display options. Check the box to “Add the save or run button to the top of forms” and Save. Forms will display the save/run buttons both at the top and bottom. Users can override the account-wide setting by going to My Account > My Options > Preferences > Display options > Add the save or run button to the top of forms. Finally, a new feature lets you add notes to filter sets. Filter sets allow administrators to create and save access privileges to particular clients, projects, services, users, expense items, time types and booking types within the application, and to assign these privileges selectively to users. Filter sets restrict access to a subset of available data; users are exposed only to the data they need and there is less likelihood of user error in recording time and expenses. For accounts that use many filter sets, this new notes feature will give an opportunity to document the purpose or otherwise describe the various filter sets in use. To create or edit filter sets, administrators, or those with requisite privileges, navigate to Account > Account data > Filter sets. 5. Would you like to see previous OpenAir updates? Click here to browse previous product updates including all new features, modules and functionality. 6. Suggestions, problems, or questions? As always, please contact us at support@openair.com or 888.367.1288 (outside the U.S. and Canada, call +1.617.351.0226). We pride ourselves on the outstanding care we give our customers. Please let us know how we can improve your experience with OpenAir. |
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