Project Pulse Summer '15 Release

Welcome to the the Summer 2015 Project Pulse Release Notes. The goal of this document is to provide descriptions of new and updated functionality as it relates to Project Pulse, Professional Services Automation.

Welcome to the Summer 2015 Project Pulse Release Notes. The goal of this document is to provide descriptions of new and updated functionality as it relates to Project Pulse, Professional Services Automation.

Summer ’15 Upgrade Instructions:

The Summer ’15 version of Project Pulse includes several new features and enhancements to existing features that require a careful upgrade. To upgrade Project Pulse, please follow the steps below and reach out to Configero Support if you require any assistance:

1. Login to your Salesforce environment (if you are logging into your sandbox, please change the “login” to “test” in the URL)
   • Configero strongly recommends installing the update in your Full Sandbox first, and verify that new functionality does not conflict with any org customizations.
2. Download the Summer ’15 Release of the Data Loader (install for all users*)
3. Obtain the packages for Project Pulse Core, and Project Pulse Financials from Configero Support
4. Before installing the packages:
   1. Create a new record Type for the Project (ConfigeroPSA__Engagement__c) object:
      • Label should be “Custom FP”
      • Machine name of “Custom_FP”
      • Description: “Fixed price revenue is recognized proportionally as work (tasks or phases) progress.”
      • Apply the Fixed Price Recordtype page layout for everyone
   2. Lock all previous Project Financials
   3. Ensure that the Project Pulse Financials default custom setting has the current period specified and that is is current
5. Install the packages
6. After installing the packages:
   1. Reschedule the Compute Remaining Hours job
      1. In Setup -> Monitor -> Scheduled Jobs, delete the “Pulse ComputeEstimatedRemainingHours” job
      2. In the developer console, open the Execute Anonymous window and run the following code:

         ConfigeroPSA.ComputeEstimatedRemainingHours.schedule();

   2. Financials and Billing Scheduled jobs
      1. In Setup -> Monitor -> Scheduled Jobs, make sure that you see 4 entries for “Project Financial Scheduler” and 4 other entries for “Project Billing Scheduler”
      2. If you don’t, in the developer console, open the Execute Anonymous window and run the following code:

         ConfigeroFIN.ProjectFinancialScheduler.Start();
ConfigeroFIN.ProjectBillingScheduler.Start();

   3. Ensure that all projects have a value in the Indirect Cost Rate field, default is 1
   4. Review the new functionality in the Release Notes and update profiles/permission sets as needed

Summer ’15 Product Updates

Project Pulse Core Updates

Time Entry Screen

Minimized the number of columns shown to simplify the view.

Open in Pulse button

The package now contains a button that can be added to the standard Salesforce page layout for projects, that will open up the project in Project Pulse.

This can be useful if a user ends up on the standard layout by clicking on a report or through the Salesforce search. The button needs to be manually added to the layouts.

Icons for Tabs

The Project Pulse tab now has it’s own icon. For existing installations the icon needs to be manually set by following these steps:

1. Go to Setup -> Create -> Tabs
2. Under the Visualforce tabs section, click Edit for the Projects tab
3. Click on the lookup icon for the Tab Style
4. Click on the lookup icon for the Tab Style
5. Click on the “Create your own style” button
6. For color, select a nice and bright Configero green 🙂
7. Then click on the Insert Image button, under File Location select “Project Pulse Documents”, then select the “Pulse Tab Icon”
8. Click OK and then Save
9. Repeat steps 2 to 8 for Data Loader, Data Loader Support and the Query Panel (under the Custom Object tabs). The graphics for the Data Loader tabs are under the “Configero Data Loader Images” folder

Remaining Hours Calculation

We added an option to calculate Task Assignment remaining hours in two ways:

1. Default: the remaining hours are calculated by subtracting actual logged hours from the total estimated hours for the Task Assignment
2. Forecasted: the remaining hours are calculated based on % complete and logged hours

Example: a task assignment with 10 hours, 2 logged hours and 50% complete will evaluate to 8 remaining hours (10-2) for method 1), and 2 remaining hours ((2/0.5) – 2) for method 2)

This calculation is used then calculating resource utilization and forecasting and in calculating project financials. To change the behaviour you need to update the Project Pulse custom setting “Project Pulse Custom Settings” -> “Remaining Hours by % complete” .

Project Resource Permissions

Project Pulse can now add sharing records to Projects when you use a private sharing model. By enabling the custom setting “Project Pulse Financials” -> “Enable Sharing of Project Record” the application will share the project, whenever a project resource is added, to the user associated with the project resource.

By enabling the “Project Pulse Financials” -> “Allow Edits on Project Sharing Rules”, the resources will have edit rights to the Project record, otherwise access is read-only but they can still add Time and Expenses.

Improved Future Utilization and Forecasting

Summer ’15 includes a new scheduled job that constantly recalculates “Estimated Remaining Hours” on the “Task Assignment by Date” object. The data in the TABD object is used to drive the future utilization/forecast charts. Now, the forecast data is much more accurate as it compares actual logged hours vs total estimated on a day-by-day basis, as opposed to just the estimated hours.

Time & Expenses

Project Pulse now includes 2 workflow rules, disabled by default, that can automatically approve time & expenses as they are entered. While not recommended, this functionality can be useful for organization that do not have defined approval processes for time and expenses logged. If the WFRs are enabled, the “PreventApprovedTimeChanges” on Time Entry and “PreventApprovedDirectChargeChanges” on the Direct Charge object validation rules should be disabled.

We also added logic to prevent the deletion of approved time and expenses

Finally, for Cost-Based projects, both estimated and direct charges are set to Billable by default

Project Resource Rates

Project Pulse now supports changing the Bill Rate for a Project Resource while the project is in progress. Keep in mind that previous locked financial periods will not be updated and the new bill rate will only be reflected in open periods.

Also, the Project Resource Cost Rate is now defaulted to null, and set to $0 via a Workflow Rule. This allows for injecting a trigger to manipulate the value if custom logic is needed.

Project Phase Improvements

There is a new option when deleting a phase in the main Project screen (phases side panel.) If you delete a phase, the system will give you the option of just deleting the phase record, or recursively delete all pahses and tasks under the selected phase.

Other Minor Changes & Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug on the role forecast chart that would give wrong numbers when selecting a single resource
• Fixed a bug that wouldn’t let you do a utilization search more than once without refreshing the page
• Fixed a bug where the main project view would sometime not remember the last layout
• Fixed a bug with the Project cloning functionality on complex project plans. On the cloned project, some phases were not shifted properly through non-working days resulting in a wrong timeline and broken Gantt chart

Project Pulse Financials Updates

New Revenue Item History Object

Added Revenue Item History object to store the %Complete value for each revenue period. This supports the ability to recalculate previous financial periods for CustomFP projects.

Revenue Models

Added Custom fixed-price revenue model. This revenue model provides the ability to do progress-based billing based on the %Complete value of a Task or Phase.

Removed revenue capping functionality for all revenue models (except Cost Based) based on the MaxContractServicePrice field. Notifications or alerts can be easily added if such behavior is desired by comparing the Actual Revenue field value with the value of MaxContractServicePrice.

Estimated and Actual Expense Bulk Insert

Added a wizard to bulk-insert estimated and actual expenses. A new button has been added to the EDC and DC toolbars.

Project Financials Updates

Added %Complete field on financial record. This value is computed based on the revenue model assigned to the Project.

Added Indirect Cost Rate percentage field on the Project. This can be used to account for indirect labor costs such as benefits or insurance and will increase the estimated and actual labor cost calculations by this factor. IMPORTANT – on existing projects please update this field with the value of 1.

Added IsCurrent (Period) field to Financial records for easy reporting.

Added project-level forecast months functionality. This value overrides the Max Forecast Months custom setting. The financial process will create additional revenue periods after the project end date based on this value. This is useful if project expenses may be incurred after the project end date.

Billing Improvements

Added logic to prevent updating or deleting approved and/or invoiced billing charges.

Added on-demand functionality for billing process. We recommend running the scheduled billing process, but the on-demand API is available if preferred. Refer to the Project Pulse user documentation for instructions on it’s use.

Other Minor Changes & Bug Fixes

Updated permission sets for new fields.

Fixed a bug with Billing records creation on Custom Fixed Price revenue projects.