April 21, 2007

1. Projects: Incrementing ID for projects per-customer; two new project booking grid options; duplicate project issues.

2. Expenses: Foreign currency receipt markup; expense report layout enhancement.

3. Invoices: Invoice layout enhancements; other Invoice enhancements.

4. Other module enhancements: Reports, Timesheets.

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

6. Suggestions, problems or questions?


1. Projects: Incrementing ID for projects per-customer; two new project booking grid options; duplicate project issues.

There are three major enhancements to the Projects module in this release. First, there is a new optional feature which, if enabled, will create an auto-incrementing numerical ID for projects on a per-customer basis. For example, if a project name is "Spring Conference" and the next ID in the sequence is 340, the name of the project will become "340 - Spring Conference". This numerical prefix can be used as a reference and/or indicator of the number of projects that exist for a given customer.

To enable this feature, a new Project custom field must be created. Users with the appropriate role privileges navigate to My Account > Company > Custom Fields. From the "New entries > Create" dropdown, select "Numeric Field". In the "Field name" box, enter "per_customer_project_id_seq" and in the "Association" dropdown, select "Project". Configure the rest of the settings as desired and save.

The ID number is incremented by one with each new project, and is always greater than the next highest ID in the project custom field for the customer. Please note that there is no switch to enable this feature.  Once the custom field has been created and named, the feature is activated. For more detailed information on this feature, please contact OpenAir Support.

Second, two new options have been added to the project booking grid setup screen in copying booking information from one project to another. "Resources and hours (shift booking dates forward)" and "Resources only" are now available for selection when copying bookings from another project. With the option "Resources and hours (shift booking dates forward)" selected, bookings from the source project are copied to the destination project. The dates of the copied bookings are adjusted so that the earliest booking from the source project maps to the first period in the destination project. All other bookings are adjusted based on the first booking. Bookings are placed into a period based on their start date, and any bookings that are shifted out past the end of the time period on the project booking grid, are removed.

With the "Resources only" option selected, only resources are copied and are associated with a zero hour booking in the first period on the project booking grid. Please note that if "Resources and hours (shift booking dates forward)" is selected but the booking period from the source project does not match the period of the destination project, the option will be changed to "Resources only". Users will be notified that only resources were copied. For more information on the Projects booking grid, please contact OpenAir Support.

Third, project issues can now be duplicated when creating a project from another project. To duplicate issues, users with appropriate role privileges navigate to Projects > Projects. From the "New entries > Create" dropdown, select "Project from another project". Check the option "Duplicate issues" and make other selections (including the project to be copied) as desired, and save. Project issue fields that are copied to the new project include owner, description, importance, stage, source, category, and all issue custom fields. For more information on issue tracking, please see the January 2006 product update.



2. Expenses: Foreign currency receipt markup; expense report layout enhancement.

There are two significant enhancements to the Expenses module in this release. First, there is a new optional feature to mark up foreign currency receipts by a fixed percentage amount. Enabling this feature will provide a mechanism to mitigate the potential loss of money for an employee on foreign currency receipt reimbursements. For example, an employee incurs an expense in the amount of 10 GBP on a personal credit card. The market exchange rate for GBP to USD is 0.5. However, an additional currency exchange fee is applied by the bank to the employee's credit card. Thus, the employee will not be reimbursed for the full amount (incurred expense and bank charge). Enabling this feature allows users to mark up/down the market exchange rate to take into account additional fees.

To enable this functionality, users with appropriate role privileges navigate to My Account > Company > Settings. In the "Foreign currency receipt markup (%)" field, enter a non-zero markup percentage. The percentage can be positive or negative or left blank to turn off the feature. When the foreign currency receipt is saved, the exchange rate is marked up or down by the specified percentage.

Please note that the behavior of this feature is dependent upon which foreign currency receipt type is enabled for the account. If the account's foreign currency receipt type is set to "Modifiable exchange rate based on the current date", the foreign currency dropdown and exchange rate field for existing receipts are set to read-only. If the currency for an existing foreign currency receipt needs to be modified, a new receipt will need to be created. Also, turning on this feature will impact all existing foreign currency receipts.

If the account's foreign currency receipt type is set to "Non-modifiable exchange rate based on receipt date", there is no change in behavior as the exchange rate is always read-only and never modifiable by the user (for new and existing receipts). The markup will be applied when the receipt is saved and currency can be edited and changed. To modify the foreign currency receipt type, users with the appropriate role privileges navigate to My Account > Company > Settings.

Second, project task custom fields are now available to be added as an expense report column. To modify an expense report layout, users with the appropriate role privileges navigate to Expenses > Options > Expense Report Layout.



3. Invoices: Invoice layout enhancements; other Invoice enhancements.

Several enhancements have been added to the Invoices module. First, multi-page invoices now display "page x of xx".

Second, there is now an option to display the "Cumulative hours" and "Cumulative total" as invoice columns. These fields reflect the total invoiced hours or total dollars for the specific user/project combination. Timebills/charges with no project association will not have any cumulative hours or totals. For older invoices, the cumulative values will include new invoiced timebills/charges. To modify an invoice layout, users with the appropriate role privileges navigate to Invoices > Options > Invoice Layout.

Other Invoice enhancements in the current release include:

    • The Credit Reason field for invoices has been extended to allow up to 200 characters. To apply an invoice credit, users with appropriate role privileges navigate to Invoices > Invoices > Open > [select an invoice]. Click on the Edit link and enter the credit amount and reason for the credit.

    • Also, the "Adjusted total" on an invoice is now displayed in bold when a credit is applied to an invoice.



4. Other module enhancements: Reports, Timesheets.

Reports:

    • There are two new report values available in Account-wide summary reports. Users can now choose "Projects - Deferred Revenue" or "Projects - Work-in-progress" as report values. "Projects - Deferred Revenue" is calculated as "Total timebills/charges invoiced" OR "All timebills/charges" minus "Recognized revenue". "Projects - Work-in-progress" is calculated as "Recognized revenue" minus "Total timebills/charges invoiced" OR "All timebills/charges".

To select the option of using either "Total timebills/charges invoiced" or "All timebills/charges" in these calculations, users with appropriate role privileges navigate to My Account > Company > Settings. Under Projects Options, check/uncheck the option "Use only invoiced TimeBills/Charges for WIP calculations".

    • There are four new reporting time periods available in summary reports. Users can now choose among four Inception-to-date time periods: "Weekly ITD", "Monthly ITD", "Quarterly ITD", or "Yearly ITD". For example, if you ran a Summary report and selected [Monthly ITD, 4 periods, ending date “April 21”], and the report value "Timesheets - All hours", the report results would contain the following values:

Column 1: All timesheet hours from the beginning of time through January 31.

Column 2: All timesheet hours from the beginning of time through February 28.

Column 3: All timesheet hours from the beginning of time through March 31.

Column 4: All timesheet hours from the beginning of time through April 21.



Timesheets:

    • Users now have the ability to populate an existing timesheet with entries from an approved schedule request. Previously, users were able to populate newly created timesheets with entries from an approved schedule request, however, not existing timesheets. With this feature enabled, approved schedule request entries are placed on existing "Open" timesheets. Please note that if you wish to populate future timesheets with approved schedule request entries as well, the company setting "When creating a timesheet, automatically create time entries for approved schedule requests" also needs to be enabled in My Account > Company > Settings. To activate this feature, please contact OpenAir Support.



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.