July 22, 2006

1. Projects: Time billing rule caps; copy billing and recognition rules; task grid column format.

2. Account-wide: User attachments; filter sets; email templates.

3. Reports: Financial analysis report enhancements; new project detail fields.

4. Other module enhancements:Timesheets; Purchases

5. Would you like to see previous OpenAir product updates?

6. Suggestions, problems or questions?


1. Projects: Time billing rule caps; copy billing and recognition rules; task grid column format; project analysis calculation; TimeBill projections.

There are several new enhancements to the Projects module in this release. First, time billing rules now offer a time period cap. This cap limits the number of hours billed per user per time period (day, week, month, quarter, or year). Previously, the time period cap was available only for daily billing.

To select the desired time period cap, users with necessary role privileges navigate to Projects > [select a project] > Billing > [select or create Time billing rule]. In the "Time period cap" section, enter a number of hours for the cap in the text field provided. From the "Time period" dropdown, select the cap period.

Second, billing and recognition rules that are associated with a task can be copied when the task is copied to another project. Users with appropriate access can select a checkbox on the copy task form to copy the rules. To activate this feature, please contact OpenAir Support.

Once this feature is activated, users with rights to edit billing and recognition rules navigate to Projects > [select a project] > [select a task] > [click on the hyperlink "Copy this task to another project . . ."] > [select "Copy associated billing rules and recognition rules"].

A third enhancement to the Projects module in the current release is to the Task grid. Task grid column titles can now be anchored at the top of the page allowing for improved display when viewing multiple tasks. If a user scrolls down the task grid page, the column headers will remain in place.

To enable this feature, users with access to the task grid should navigate to the Projects module. From the list view of projects, select a project, then click "Task grid". Click the link in the "tips" at the bottom of the page to "Enable column title anchoring". To enable the task grid itself, or for further information on this feature, please contact OpenAir Support.

2. Account-wide: User attachments; filter sets; email templates.

There are three major account-wide enhancements in this release. First, documents can be uploaded and attached to a user, or associated from a workspace to a user. Users can be associated with an unlimited number of non-workspace attachments or workspace attachments unique to the user’s attachment list.

To create user attachments, users with necessary role privileges navigate to My Account > Account > Users > [select a user]. In the "Edit user demographic information" form, click the link at the bottom of the form to "View/Add Attachments". Click the link to "Create a new attachment" in the upper right of the popup window. Select a file to upload, using either the "Browse" button, or by selecting an OpenAir workspace and document. Click "Save" to close the popup window. Click "Save" again on the "Edit user demographic information" form to save the user record with attachment. For additional information on how this feature works, particularly the differences between workspace document attachments and other attachments, please contact OpenAir Support.

Once an attachment has been added to a particular user, a "paper clip" icon is displayed next to the resource name, if you select the resource from the Resources > Resources list view, to indicate an attachment exists. The attachment icon also displays in the "Quick Search" and "Custom search" results in the Resources module. Click the paper clip icon to access a popup window that will allow you to download the attachment.

Second, filter sets can now be configured per module; each user can have a different filter set depending on the module they are accessing.

To activate this feature, please contact OpenAir Support. Once having enabled this feature, a new option ("Filter set module overrides > Create/Edit") will appear next to the "Primary filter set" dropdown in the user demographic form. Click the button to select module-specific filter sets for this user. The feature allows account administrators to give the user a limited filter set in one module, while giving broader access in other modules.

A third account-wide enhancement is to email templates. Introduced in our June 10 release, email templates have been further enhanced to include booking request approval notifications and schedule request approval notifications. For more information on configuring email templates, please see the June product update from our previous release.



3. Reports: Financial analysis report; new project detail fields.

The project financial analysis report has been enhanced significantly with this release, in two ways. First, timebills/charges can be excluded from the income figures of the analysis, based on the configuration of timebill stages. Administrators (and users with necessary role privileges) navigate to My Account > Account > Invoices > TimeBill stages. Select a TimeBill stage and check the option to "Exclude TimeBills from project analysis". This feature can be very helpful, for example, for accounts that have fixed fee projects and use "ghost" charges to compare the monetary value of billable hours worked against the actual, fixed fee charges. In this scenario, you would set up fixed fee billing rules to generate the charges to be billed to the client, and time billing rules to create the hourly comparable ("ghost") charges. At the time billing rule level, you can send the charges generated under the time billing rule to a non-invoiceable timebill stage, so that these charges are excluded from billing. Under prior functionality, both the fixed fee charges and the hourly charges would be included in the financial analysis report results, inflating the income figures for the project. With this month's release, the hourly charges in the non-invoiceable (hourly comparables) stage can be excluded from the financial analysis results, giving a more accurate picture of income on these fixed fee projects.

The second enhancement to the project financial analysis report enables administrators or users with the required role privileges to exclude receipts from the costs calculations of the report, if they so choose. This feature can be accessed by navigating to Reports > Advanced > Projects > Financial Analysis. In the "Other" section, check the box "Ignore receipts". Configure the other settings as desired, and run the report. This feature can also be accessed by navigating to Projects > Projects > [select a project] > Analysis. Click the "options" link, check the box "Ignore receipts" and save the settings. Upon running/viewing the report, receipts entered by users will not be factored into the cost figures for the project financial analysis.

Finally, we offer two new project detail fields with this release: 1) "Budget - worked hours gap" and 2) "Budget - planned hours gap." These detail fields can be selected to show the delta of hours budgeted for a project and hours worked and planned, respectively. These fields can be selected when running a detail report on projects, or when adding project detail in summary reports.



4. Other module enhancements: Timesheets; Purchases.

Timesheets:

    • The Timesheet Status report now allows email addresses to be included in the report layout. Email addresses can be clicked on and an email sent to the user from the report results. Users with appropriate access navigate to Timesheets > Reports > Advanced > Timesheet status. Under "Filters and layout options", click the "Edit" button to the right of "User fields". Add "Email" to the list of selected values and click OK. Configure the remainder of the report as desired and run the report.

    • We now provide an option to require notes on timesheet entries on a project by project basis. For additional information and to enable this feature, please contact OpenAir Support.

Purchases:

    • The purchase order layout can be configured to display project, or client and project, associated with a given PO, in the PO header. To configure the purchase order layout, users with required role privileges navigate to Purchases > Options > PO Layout. From the "Project information on PO" dropdown, select one of the available choices (none, customer:project, or project).



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 617-351-0226). We pride ourselves on the outstanding care we give our customers. Please let us know how we improve your experience with OpenAir.