Problem Definition:

Post upgrading to V3 I faced issues while importing the time entries from my Resource bookings. This was not the case with V2. In V2 when I went to Import Time Entries from Resource Bookings, it used to pick up all the time entries that were in Active State.

Resolution:

The resolution to this was simple, but, little tricky. Below are the steps to be followed to get the issue resolved.

Step 1:

Go to the D365 – Custom App as shown in the below image.

This will take you to the classic interface of D365 CRM as shown below.

Step 2:

Navigate to Settings –> Customizations

Step 3:

Click on Customize the System.

This will open a screen as shown below.

Step 4:

Navigate to Entities –> Bookable Resource Booking –> Views and open the view named Resource Bookings for Time Entries Import

Step 5:

Click on Edit Filter Criteria and add a condition

Status –> Equals –> Active

This conditions ensures that only the Active bookings is to be selected.

Then click on OK and Save and Close.

Finally click on Publish All Customizations.

Now when you try to import the time entries from Resource booking it will import only the Active time entries and leave behind the cancelled time entries. The issue is resolved.

This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3+ years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.

 

 

 

 

Problem Definition:

As soon I upgraded my PSA version from V2 to V3, I saw that the role field got deprecated. Not only that, it was removed from Schedule (WBS in V2). We now had the functionality to directly assign resource to the task against having assign role.

The projects that got migrated from V2 to V3 were all tagged with the resource named “Auto-Developer” and were with the roles, but, was not advisable to go the deprecated way.

We now as an organization, heavily dependent on our day-to-day activities had to change the way we work and had to understand and reframe the working methodology for the following things:

1. How to take care of the tasks that we need to make it Non-Billable
2. Where to assign roles and learn to assign Resources instead.

 

Solution:

The above problem was not an easy cake to eat. The impact went all the way to Schedule Board and we need to redesign the way we allocate on tasks, since, I started seeing duplicate tasks on schedule board, one with Role and one without Role.

I had to change the view query to reflect the tasks without role and match the remaining hours to the previously assigned hours on the task. Now this became a major challenge. We had to export all the bookings from the system and delete the previous allocations on the task with role to the task without role. This would then match the remaining hours to allocate on the task.

The next things I did to make the tasks be treated as Non-Billable was to add the Column in the Schedule named Category, Wherein I added a Category named “Non-Billable”. This category was made Non-Chargeable.

This is the Transaction Category which can be added from Settings–>Transaction Categories

I added a Calculated Field on the Project form then to calculate the Billable Hours which excluded this Non-billable Category task to see the correct Billable estimate of the project.

BI Team in your organization will now need to change the reports adjusting to the above criteria to reflect the correct data.

This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PSA demands a perfect configuration and that is the proof of being a sophisticated application. You won’t see any result unless the configurations are all set right.

Use Case: I am observing from quite sometime that my Accounting Team complaints that when the Actuals are created on the project they are with 0 value. This was an issue as I went out to check a couple of things:

1. Is the project having a currency tagged to it.
2. Is the project price list existing for the project.
3. Is the resource having a Resourcing Unit tagged to himself.
4. In the approval tab is the time entry submitted by the resource having a Role and is it Chargeable.

To my surprise all of the above were looking correct.

Out of curiosity I digged in one more step and that’s where I found out the issue:

 

Issue Resolution:

Step 1: I navigated to D365 Project Service–>Resources. Search for the resource who is working on that project.

Step 2: Open the Resource by clicking on it and then navigate to the Scheduling Tab.

Step 3: Make a note of the Organizational Unit mentioned for him. In this case it is CloudFronts Mumbai (USD).

Step 4: Navigate to Projects and Sales Tab and Open the Project Contract Header by clicking the link in the Project Contract grid.

Step 5: Navigate to Project Price Lists and Open the Price List in the project price lists. Navigate to Role prices. Check the Role and the Resource Unit mentioned for that Role should be exactly the same as the Resourcing Unit mentioned for the Resource mentioned in Step 3.

Now when you try approving the time entries the Actuals will have correct price. You are done.

This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.

According to my opinion, implementation of Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation is one of the best things that we did in CloudFronts Technologies. We have gained a lot with this implementation because we save time and money due to easy access resources and ability to manage them.

 

 

 

Problem definition

Often clients using PSA V2 used to complain of the feature missing was copying the project as the template. A few of the Construction Company clients of mine have huge projects and have almost similar structure for many of their projects.

Undoubtedly templates use to serve the purpose, but, only to a certain extent. When you have an option to copy a project exactly, I would always prefer that.

Below is how you do.

 

Mitigation:

Navigate to Project Services and try creating new project by Clicking on New Project button:

Type the project name which you want to copy in the Project Template field.

This will start copying the tasks from the project onto Schedule of the new project. You are done.

 

This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.

According to my opinion, implementation of Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation is one of the best things that we did in CloudFronts Technologies. We have gained a lot with this implementation because we save time and money due to easy access resources and ability to manage them.

 

Business Use Case:

Often there are team members who share the need of getting allocated on schedule board in PSA directly as soon as they book an appointment or have a meeting invite. One of the reasons for the same is for the team or anyone concerned about allocation to understand that the said team member is either having a meeting with someone or has an appointment. Hence, they do consume some time of the day. This is one of the reasons that I get when I think aloud. Since, there is lot of argument and justification the team needs to provide for these additional non-billable time that they spend.

There can be many other reasons as to why this is needed by other organisations.

Mitigation:

Though there is an (Out of the Box) OOB solution for marking an appointment in Outlook calendar from Schedule Board, but, vice-versa is not provided OOB. MS Flows helped me here. I created a flow between Bookable Resource Booking entity and Outlook entity in Flows.

I have explained the steps as to how to do the same:

Steps:

Step 1: Login to https://portal.office.com with your credentials.

Step 2: Click on Flows as shown in below image

Step 3: This will take you to the portal where you can mange and create all your Flows:

Step 4: Click on +New

Step 5: Click on Create from Blank

Step 6: Click again on Create from Blank

Step 7:

Select the Outlook connector by searching the Outlook 365 Connector from the search box as show in the image below.

Also, select the Triggering event on when the flow should be triggered. So we selected, When a new event is created (v2)

Step 8: Select Calendar id as Calendar

 

Step 9: click on next step

Step 10:

Select the target connector i.e. Dynamics 365 by searching in the connectors.

Step 11:  Click on create a new records

Step 12:

Select the Organisation and the Entity where you want to create a record.

Since the booking that shows up on the schedule board comes from Bookable Resource Booking, we shall select Bookable Resource Booking.

Step 13:

Add the mappings to the fields as shown below, by searching them from the right pane.

Step 14:

Once done, click on save and your flow is ready.

Step 15:

Once created do not forget to Turn it On. Test it by creating an event in calendar and see in the event history of the flow whether it is successful or not.

The End.

This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.

According to my opinion, implementation of Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation is one of the best things that we did in CloudFronts Technologies. We have gained a lot with this implementation because we save time and money due to easy access resources and ability to manage them.