OpenAir Enhancements

Adjust planned/assigned hours based on actual work
Adjust past task assignment hours for users to equal approved hours and re-cast future task assignment hours via three re-casting options.

Apply phase filtering in time billing rules
Filter time billing rules by phase.

Prevent invoicing and revenue recognition on a per-project basis
Prevent invoice, revenue recognition transaction and revenue container creation for specific projects.

Details ...

Exclude specific tables from download for Import/Export
Select certain tables to be excluded when downloading account data.

Additional option in "List source" dropdown for Pick List custom fields
Select one of the 5 levels of category as the list source in a pick list custom field.

Details ...

Display timesheet custom fields in Timesheets list views
View timesheet custom fields in Timesheets list views.

Details ...

Enhanced custom field support in XML API (Web Services)
Include custom fields inline with standard built-in fields on read, modify, and add requests. Leverage custom fields as lookups with "equal to" or "not equal to" methods.

Details ...

Adjust planned/assigned hours based on actual work
OpenAir's project management capabilities allow project managers to assign hours for specific individuals assigned to the task. Often times, managers will compare the number of hours that have been assigned against the number of hours worked thus far. As work is being done on the task, it is beneficial for managers to run accurate forecasting reports based on actuals. For forecasting, it is ideal to have past planned/assigned hours updated to equal the approved hours. Currently, it is a manual process to update the planned/assigned hours accordingly.

In this release, OpenAir has streamlined the process for updating planned/assigned hours based on actual worked hours on a per-task and per-user basis. Planned/assigned hours in the past will be adjusted to equal approved hours and future planned/assigned hours can be re-cast in three different ways.

To enable this feature, please contact OpenAir Support.

Three ways to re-cast future task assignment hours:

Adjust end date of task(s), keeping current users' allocation
- Percent of user's time will not be changed
- End date will be moved so that future planned hours equals remaining unworked hours
Keep end date of tasks, adjusting users' allocation
- End date will be preserved
- User allocation will be adjusted so that future planned hours equals remaining unworked hours
Task is finished. Remove remaining planned hours

New role setting:

To allow for specific roles to adjust and re-cast task assignment hours, navigate to Administration > Users > Roles > [select a role]. Select the option "Recalculate planned hours for users based on approved hours for tasks" and Save.

Notes:

To leverage this feature, planned/assigned hours need to be assigned on an individual user and task basis. To enable this functionality, please contact OpenAir Support.
"Past" hours refer to the day of the last approved time entry by user and task and anything prior.
"Future" hours refer to the day after the last approved time entry and anything after.
Tasks that are available for adjustment are limited to those that have more planned/assigned hours than approved hours at the time of re-casting.

How to update planned hours from approved hours:

Users with required role privileges navigate to Projects > Projects > [select a project] > Phases/Tasks > Outline view.
In the tips section at the bottom of the form, click on the "Update planned hours from approved hours".
Select the appropriate re-casting option and select the desired tasks for adjustment. Click Save.

Apply phase filtering in time billing rules
OpenAir's flexible project management capabilities allow uses to create extensive project plans that include phases, sub-phases, and tasks. For companies that have large project plans and leverage the existing task filter on time billing rules, it may be beneficial to have all newly created tasks picked by billing without the need to manually add the new task to the billing rule filter. For example, there may be a phase in the project plan called "Billable" and any task within that phase should be picked up for billing and all other tasks outside of that phase should not. Currently, these tasks would need to be added to the Task filter within the time billing rule. In addition, any new task that is created under that phase would need to be manually added to the filter.

With this release, OpenAir has enhanced time billing rule capabilities to include the ability to filter on phases. If a phase is selected in the filter, all tasks that are a part of that phase will be processed by billing. In addition, if a parent phase is selected, all tasks within that parent phase as well as any sub-phases will be picked up by billing.

To enable the ability to filter by phases in a time billing rule, please contact OpenAir Support.

How to filter by phase in a time billing rule:

Users with the appropriate role privilege, navigate to Projects > Projects > [select a project] > Financials > Billing.
Create a new or edit an existing time billing rule.
In the "Billing rule filters" section, select the "Create" link next to the Phase/Task filter. Select the necessary phases and click Save.

Prevent invoicing and revenue recognition on a per-project basis
Often times, companies may create projects and have users begin work on a project before there is a signed contract. In addition to having users log time and expenses to the project, accurate billing and revenue forecasting is necessary for these types of projects. However, since these projects are considered to be at risk projects, invoicing, revenue recognition transaction, and revenue container creation should be prohibited for these projects.

With this release, OpenAir has added the ability to designate specific projects that should prevent invoicing and revenue recognition creation. If a project has the option enabled on the project properties form, users will not be able to create invoices, revenue recognition transactions or revenue containers for that project until that option has been disabled. However, billing rules, revenue recognition rules, charge and revenue projections, project billing transactions, and charges can be created for the project.

To prevent billing and recognition on a per-project basis, please contact OpenAir Support.

How to prevent specific projects from invoicing and recognition:

Navigate to Administration > Global Settings > Custom fields.
Under the "New" dropdown, select "Custom field". Under the "Add a custom field to" dropdown, select "Project" and under the "Type of field to add" dropdown, select the "Checkbox" type of custom field. Select Continue.
In the "Field name" box, enter "prevent_invoice_revenue_creation" and fill in the "Display name". Fill any other necessary fields and click Save.
To check the option on a project, navigate to Projects > Projects > [select a project]. Check the custom field and save.

Exclude specific tables from download for Import/Export
OpenAir's Import/Export functionality allows administrators to download their entire account's data for various reasons. For example, data may need to be downloaded for auditing purposes. For companies that have a large amount of data, it may be time consuming to have to download all tables within the account, if the desire is to look at just one table.

In this release, OpenAir has streamlined the export of data process by allowing users to choose specific tables to be excluded from download. For example, if an administrator needs to run an audit on a specific invoice that has been deleted, all other tables, not including the invoice table, can be excluded from the export.

How to exclude specific tables from download:

Users with the appropriate role privileges navigate to Administration > Global Settings> Account > Integration: Import/Export.
Under the "Account data" section, choose either "All data in text format" or "All data in MySQL format".
In the "Available" box, select one or multiple tables to exclude from download. Note: If no tables are selected, all tables in the account will be downloaded.
Configure additional any additional settings on the form and click "Export".

Additional option in "List source" dropdown for Pick List custom fields
In the September 2008 release, OpenAir introduced the ability to create pick list custom fields. This type of custom field allows users to create a field that is pre-populated with values from existing list data such as users, customers, projects, etc. For example, a custom pick list field can be created on a project form called "Sales Rep" and the available values populated in that dropdown can draw from the list of existing users in the system.

For this release, users that are leveraging the extended category feature are now able to see the five levels of category as available options in the "List source" dropdown for pick list custom fields.

To enable custom field pick lists, please contact OpenAir Support. To enable the extended category feature, please contact OpenAir Support.

How to set up and use a custom field pick list:

1. Users with required role privileges navigate to Administration > Global Settings > Custom fields > New > Custom field.
2. Under the "Add a custom field to" dropdown, select the association and under the "Type of field to add" dropdown, select "Pick List". Select Continue.
3. Enter the "Field name" and "Display name". Select the source under the "List source" dropdown.

Display timesheet custom fields in Timesheets list views
The Timesheets list views (Open, Submitted, Approved, Rejected) allow managers to view their user's timesheets in various stages. At times it may be necessary to put additional information on a timesheet via custom field. In this release, OpenAir has added the ability to view these timesheet custom fields directly on the timesheets list views. In addition, if the custom field is a controlled custom field (e.g. radio group, dropdown, checkbox, etc.), users will have the ability to sort and filter these custom fields.

To add timesheet custom fields to the timesheets list view, users with the appropriate role privileges navigate to Timesheets > Timesheets > and click on the "Customize list view" link on the upper left corner of the top menu bar. Include any desired custom fields in the "Selected" box and click OK.

Enhanced custom field support in XML API (Web Services)
For many companies, it is necessary to include custom fields inline with standard built-in fields when reading, adding and updating OpenAir records using XML API web services. In this release, OpenAir has added the ability to include inline custom fields. Therefore, secondary calls are no longer necessary (still supported) to read and set custom fields on records. In addition, users are now able to use custom fields as lookups on queries when requesting specific data.

Suggestions, problems, or questions?
To contact our support team, please create a support ticket. We take pride in the outstanding care we give our customers. Please let us know how can we improve your experience with OpenAir.