So, you are in the Cloud!  Your company has purchased Deltek Vision Essentials ERP software and you have been assigned as the SaaS Administrator.  You may find yourself wondering, “What does this mean for me?  What do I need to do first? Where do I start?”  At first the task may seem overwhelming as you receive letters, guides and instructions on “How to get started.”  We at Full Sail Partners want you to know that you are not alone, and that we have put together answers to some of the questions asked most often when a client purchases their new Cloud solution.

What do I need to do first? 

As the assigned SaaS Administrator, you will receive a welcome letter.  The most important task to perform at this time is to print out and read the SaaS Administrator Guide.  It will be a valuable resource for you during the initial set up.

What is the next step after I read the guide?

The second most important task as the SaaS Administrator is to set up your Deltek Customer Care Account.  This account will be where most communication takes place between you and Deltek.  If you are not a new client and will be migrating data from an existing Vision database or a prior Deltek product, this portal will be the first stop to transfer your files. 

Can’t I just have Full Sail Partners set up my account?

Because of the importance placed on security, only the Saas Administrator may submit service requests on behalf of their firm.  These requests are submitted solely through your account access on the Deltek Customer Care portal.  The SaaS administrator will work closely with Full Sail Partners on the implementation process.  However, only the SaaS Administrator can request things like data uploads, receive system maintenance communications, request backup restores, submit invoice graphics or request a sandbox.  

How do I keep up with announcements regarding scheduled maintenance or issues with my service? 

The SaaS Administrator must also subscribe to the Deltek Vision knowledge based article 67385.  The article can be accessed at: http://bit.ly/143PgnX.  This page is used by Deltek specifically for Vision Essentials related communications—including announcements regarding planned and unplanned maintenance.   In order to stay abreast of the most recent announcements, it is important the SaaS Administrator signs up for notification alerts from this article.  You may do so by choosing the “notify me” selection at the bottom of the screen on the Deltek Vision knowledge based article page.

A dialogue box will then appear stating your request has been successfully submitted. Click OK. You are now set up to receive any notifications about maintenance or access issues with your Vision Essentials software.   

As the primary person responsible, what if I am not available? Can a second Administrator be added?

Absolutely! Deltek encourages all clients in the Cloud to have a second administrator assigned to their account.  You, as the SaaS administrator, may request a second administrator be named through the Deltek Customer Care Portal.  The request should include the full name and email address of the administrator that is being added or changed. You may even assign Full Sail Partners as your second Administrator.  This will give us the ability to upload databases and custom files directly for you.  Your account manager with Full Sail Partners can provide you with the appropriate name and e-mail information if you decide to assign our firm as your second SaaS administrator.

How do I add graphics to my firms invoices?

My firm has experienced a serious event that has created the need for a backup and restore of our data.  May I request the data from a specific point in time?

Yes.  Deltek back-ups client data no less than once every 24 hours.  There is also a backup performed once every 7 days.  The daily backups are kept for 1 week and the weekly backups are kept for 4 weeks.  If you require a restore from a specific point in time, you may send the request through Deltek Customer Care indicating the past time frame you need for the restore.  You must also include the time that you would like for the restore to take place as your system will be unavailable while the restore is performed.   Vision Essentials clients are allowed 4 Backup and restores per year.

Is there other information I should review?

Being the SaaS Administrator is a very important assignment.  Keep in mind, you are the keystone for communication between your firm and Deltek.  Being informed by familiarizing yourself with the SaaS Administrator Guide and subscribing to the Deltek Knowledge Based Article 67385 which will notify you of the availability and functionality of your Vision system is essential to your success as the SaaS Administrator for your firm.

Ready to take the next step?  Empower your employees through training!
According to a study by the American Society for Training and Development, companies that invested the most in training had a shareholder return that was 46% percent higher than the market average.

When evaluating your professional services firm, understanding your past trends can provide valuable insight into the future.

In a recent, SMPS Technology Committee survey, only 56% of firms stated they tracked this information, which is surprising. This type of report allows you to evaluate the overall hit rate by the firm, a division, the pursuit lead, or other criteria.  You can also evaluate it by percentage or by revenue.  Knowing both provides you a different story.

Take William Apple, who has a 50% hit rate for the number of projects he has pursued.  He pursued 10 and won 5.  Ann Johnson on the other hand only has a 33% hit rate. She pursued 3 and won 1.  Seems like William is doing better, right?  However, if you evaluate them on revenue, William only has a 24% while Ann has a 73% hit rate.  Why the difference? 

Well, the one project Ann won, was a large project worth millions of dollars.  William however, won a lot of smaller projects and lost out on the bigger project. Both are important to the business.  However, if you start to see that William is constantly losing out on the large projects or maybe particular project types, this type of analysis would be valuable information that could be acted upon.

Key metrics like the Win to Loss Ratio allow a quick snap shot to determine if you need to dig deeper.  The historical progress of an opportunity sometimes provides further clues. 

• Were you realistic with your expectations?

• What stage did you lose the opportunity?

• Did you have an established relationship and effective pursuit strategy?

Is your firm able to answer these questions or are you repeating the same mistakes? Let us know how your firm learns from your success and failures and how your firm is improving your hit rate by leaving a comment. Interested in more historical trends information?

Many of us in Accounting have to wear a dual hat of the HR manager.  Somehow it is assumed that accounting experience qualifies you to manage the HR process.  Why?  Perhaps it is due to the portion of HR that involves risk (employment laws are everywhere) or perhaps it is the crossover between HR and payroll. 

Outside of payroll, there isn’t much crossover between the two jobs. Further blurring the issue, an increasing amount of firms are utilizing third party payroll services.

For the true HR part of the job, we create spreadsheets to track and review timelines and employment metrics.  We struggle to keep track of employee initiatives and job metrics.  Most employee reviews are a reflection of their performance over the last couple months at best as managers often forget successes or failures earlier in the year.  Job descriptions are vague and associated with metrics that are difficult, if not impossible, to measure objectively. Employees are often dissatisfied if they receive a positive or neutral review without an increase in compensation. 

So what is the answer?  We can use our Deltek Vision System to assist us.  

Some items are relatively simple.  Utilize user defined fields to track the next review date and have a scheduled workflow send a reminder to the manager and yourself.  You can set up a user defined grid to allow tracking of an employee’s pay/position history so that it is easy to track the changes through the years.  All of this is helpful, but it really doesn’t solve the full problem.

With the advent of Vision 7.0 and User Defined Info Centers, you can go many steps further.   Utilize a combination of User Defined Info Centers, User Defined fields, standard workflows and scheduled workflows, to set up HR, and review tracking system managed from within your existing Vision system. 

How would something like this work?

You can create a user defined info center to house your employee job descriptions.  These job descriptions can contain the measurable metrics for the job along with overall core competencies.

You then create a “review form” using user defined fields in the employee info center.   A stored procedure will allow you to pull the employee metrics and competencies into the employee review tab.

After the review is complete, results can be stored in Vision and reviewed later. 

Stored procedures can update a tracking grid for the employee so that historical review scores can be seen at a glance.  You can also use grids to provide places for managers to track employee’s progress throughout the year.

User defined fields, grids, workflows & stored procedures - Is all that really necessary?  Not really.  All this can continue to be managed in various worksheets, word documents and calendars. 

The system above simply allows all of the disparate parts of an employee review/compensation/current and long term history to be maintained in one place.  Also, the beauty of using Vision and User Defined elements is the ability to customize your HR procedures to your company needs.  I mean it IS by definition “User Defined”.

So what are some tips for an effective HR process?

Whether you decide to automate your HR, or keep up the use of spreadsheets,  there are some things you can do to make your HR processes more effective:

• Create well defined job descriptions and make them available to employees.
• Within the job descriptions, define the metrics by which employees will be measured.  Ensure the metrics are specific. For example, the Project Managers will ensure work authorizations for every additional service provided to clients.
• Have a well-defined review policy.
• Separate the review schedule from the schedule for raises.  Raises are given, not only on performance, but on budgetary restrictions.  This removes one level of angst from the reviews.
• Provide managers a place to keep track of employee successes and failures.  Allow employees to update their successes and failures also.  This allows the employees to be more active participants in the process.

Has your firm utilized the Custom Info Center? If so, in what ways? Leave us a comment.  Not on Deltek Vision 7.0 yet? See how our firm can help you transition to 7.0.

Many firms are not familiar with what the multi-company feature in Vision does or that it even exists.  Therefore they are not certain if multi-company needs to be enabled in their database. As a consultant that specializes in multi-company implementations for more than four years, I wanted to pass on some tips for firms considering this feature.    

What is multi-company?
Multi-company is part of the Vision Core Financial Application.  Vision multi-company allows a firm to manage more than one company in a single database and streamlines the process of managing accounting functions between companies when resources are shared.  There is no limit to the number of companies that can be maintained in Vision.  By utilizing multi-company, each company operates as a separate entity but data sources such as clients and contacts can be shared across the enterprise.   However, other data sources such as employees are company specific.  Projects can be set up so that phases are owned by certain companies.  Multi-company also makes it easier to switch from one company to another without having to log in and out of the Vision database. 

Should my company enable multi-company?
There are several factors to consider before enabling the multi-company feature.  One primary factor to consider is how will your companies interact with one another?  When resources are shared, how will the company loaning their staff or paying expense on other company’s behalf be compensated?  There are several approaches to intercompany billing and should be part of the planning discussion during the implementation process.  Do any of these companies conduct business in a currency other than US dollars?  These and other questions should be addressed during the planning process and will help you determine if multi-company is a good fit your firm. 

This topic is discussed during the initial planning meeting. Some firms determine that multi-company is not an option and instead opt to explore alternatives.  Organization reporting within Vision is a great alternative.  In Organization reporting, the companies would be included in the organization structure.   The “maintain separate balance sheets” feature in Vision would also be used as well as the labor cross charge feature to move revenue, labor and cost between companies. 

What are the implications of turning on multi-company?
Once you turn on multi-company, it cannot be turned off. So before enabling multi-company, a well thought out, carefully planned implementation of this feature should be discussed. Additionally, the creation of a test multi-company environment will go a long way in preparing your finance staff and all of your employees for all of the new features a multi-company database has to offer. Even if companies don’t interact with each other, the database still has to be configured as if they do. 

What new multi-company features are available in Vision 7.0?
In earlier versions of Vision, there were two rate methods to choose from in intercompany billing, cost plus a multiplier or the billing rate established in the project’s billing terms.  A new feature in version 7, allows you to establish rate tables between companies.  This new feature gives you more flexibility when charging the other companies in your enterprise for borrowing resources. 

Has your firm implemented multi-company? Leave a comment and let us know your experience and be sure to check out our other "Tips & Tricks" articles.

Full Sail Partners, a Deltek Premier Partner, has been selected as a recipient of the 2013 Deltek Marketing Excellence Award, part of Deltek’s annual Premier Partner Awards program.  The ninth annual Awards program recognizes Deltek’s top channel partners who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in marketing, selling, implementing, and supporting Deltek products in 2012.  Full Sail Partners offers business consulting, technology solutions, and application hosting for Deltek Vision, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software for professional service firms. 

Deltek Vision is a leading enterprise software solution designed for project-based professional services firms to improve business performance, streamline operations, and win new business. Deltek Vision uniquely integrates end-to-end business processes by automating the marketing, financial management, planning, tracking and administration of resources and projects.

“We are humbled to receive this recognition from Deltek,” said Sarah Gonnella, VP of Marketing and Business Development from Full Sail Partners. “We are proud to be selected as a 2013 Deltek Premier Partner and truly honored to also receive the 2013 Marketing Excellence Award.  This award is a reflection of our dedicate team. We strive to provide valuable and relevant content to engage not only new ERP clients, but our existing clients so they can take Deltek Vision to the next level.”

In 2013, Full Sail Partners will continue leveraging traditional media, social media, and other new technologies to provide the most up-to-date information regarding Deltek Vision.
 
“Full Sail Partners has demonstrated an innovative marketing strategy that has helped expand the presence of Deltek in the market place,” said Ray Lazarine, Deltek’s Director of Partner Programs.  “These efforts have also taken into consideration the challenges of today’s business climate, and helped identify changing customer needs that were crucial to successfully marketing Deltek in 2012.”

About Full Sail Partners
Full Sail Partners specializes in client-focused technology solutions for architects and engineers, energy and environmental consultants, and professional service firms across the country. Full Sail Partners offers business consulting, technology solutions, and application hosting for Deltek Vision. Partnering with more than 1000 clients nationwide, Full Sail Partners builds long-term relationships and seeks to identify the critical resources to create a faster, more efficient, and cohesive business infrastructure. Full Sail Partners – Keep Your Business on Course. | For more on Full Sail Partners profile and background on the Full Sail Partners crew, visit us at http://www.fullsailpartners.com

About Deltek
Deltek is the leading global provider of enterprise software and information solutions for professional services firms and government contractors. For decades, we have delivered actionable insight that empowers our customers to unlock their business potential. 16,000 organizations and 2 million users in over 80 countries around the world rely on Deltek to research and identify opportunities, win new business, optimize resources, streamline operations, and deliver more profitable projects. Deltek – Know more. Do more.®
http://www.deltek.com

Interested in learning more about what is going on with Full Sail Partners? Check out our other press releases.

Welcome to the second installment of our Deltek Vision How-To Video Series. Today we will review how to increase efficiency when adding companies/contacts across Info Centers. This video will help save time and increase productivity.

Check out additional how-to videos by clicking here.

Welcome to our first Deltek Vision How-To Video Series. Today we will learn about Deltek’s Vision Info Center Help section. This video will answer some common questions asked by clients are:

1. Do you have a complete list of the fields in Vision?
2. Do you have a help guide so I can learn about the fields available?

Check out additional how-to videos by clicking here. 

It looks like the world will not come to an end! So back at it campers. Let's learn some quick tips about Deltek Vision.

As the first of our Deltek Vision Tips & Tricks Series we would love to hear if you find the information helpful. Recently I came across a question about how to know who modified a record. Of course the audit reports can provide this information, but there are two easier ways to get this information.

In every info center you can hover over the name of the record at the top of the record. It will tell you who created the record and on what date. Additionally, it will tell you who last modified the record and on what date. So in the image below for item #1, the mouse is hovering over the word Paul A. Collier in blue. If you need to know what field was modified then you would need to run an audit report.  

Additionally, you could set-up a field that displays who modified the record. This is accomplished through a workflow. First create a new character field. (Note: An employee field will not work.)  In this example it is named Modified By.  See image item #2 above. 

Then set-up a User Initiated Workflow. Choose the Application, which in this instance will be the Contacts. Click Insert on the Workflows grid. The Workflow Table will be Contact Record and the Workflow Type will be Change. This simply means every time the contact record is changed, the workflow will trigger.

Now on the Actions grid click Insert to add an action. Choose Column (Field) Change for the Actions column. Next, choose the field to update. In this case it is ContactCustomTabFields.CustModifiedBy.  Then set-up a SQL Expression. The expression is simply, a field that already exists: [:Contacts.ModUser]. Find that code and click Add Column. Then click Save. Be sure to add descriptions so you know what the workflow is related to and then Save the workflow. To test it, change something on a Contact record. You should see the users login name filter in.

Check back in 2013 for new blog entries related to Deltek Vision tips. Let us know if you learned something new by leaving a comment. Wishing you a wonderful 2013!

When a request for a custom solution is received, be it a report, workflow, or external data automation, many clients are surprised the first items we review are the standard functions available in the particular system they are looking to customize.  “Are you trying to talk us out of having you perform the programming work?” I had one client ask me incredulously, after I had shown her a way to accomplish getting the information she had wanted in a custom report within the native Vision Reporting system. 

My response is always the same.  We would love to work with your firm on a custom initiative; however our top priority as your Consultant is to ensure that you receive the best value for any work we perform.  There are times where custom programming is going to be the best path forward, but if we can accomplish the same (or relatively the same) results natively, in less time – you’re going to be happier as our client, and we may have an opportunity to work with you on a customization effort that will truly be valuable for your organization in the future.  As your consultant, we are ultimately advocates and partners in helping you be successful and getting the most out of your system. 

Sometimes the native functionality is not quite enough for an organization and so customization is the right step to make. In some circumstances, it’s natural to start to look at custom programming to help overcome those hurdles. Those might include:

• Cultural requirements in the organization to have data represented a certain way
• Manual processes require a tremendous amount of repetitive effort
• It takes two or more reports to get one set of information the organization requires
• Additional systems that are used in the organization may require a duplication of effort
• Information is stored in house and in the cloud, and you wish to simplify the effort of keeping these separate silos of data up to date
• Aesthetics of a particular report or information set may not match with the firms brand or be overly complex for the information needed 

When evaluating if engaging a consultant on a custom programming effort makes sense for your firm, here are some key questions to ask your internal team:

• Have we identified the motivating factors for requiring the custom programming effort?  
• How much time is spent manually today to get our desired result?
• How much of this time will be saved by incorporating the custom programming?
• Have we explored the native Vision system capabilities and found we cannot reproduce what we need?
• Have we considered how close we can get using the native capabilities in Vision and can we operate within those parameters, or is this a definitive organization need?

As you embark on asking a colleague or consultant to customize your system, here are some questions to ask prior to having them moving forward:

• Do you have advanced knowledge of Transact SQL?
• Have you worked with the structure of the Vision database and functionality of the Vision application?  (I can’t emphasize this point enough!)
• In developing this report, will we be able to reconcile the custom work to native Vision reports? (Whether through a single report or a combination of multiple reports)
• Is there a way to already accomplish something similar with the native functionality of Vision?
• Do you have experience writing web services for Deltek Vision and <Insert Your Cloud Application Here>?
• I have an example of what I’m looking for, do you see any issues with providing it in this format or with this information and do you have any suggestions for how we may be able to do this more effectively.  

Our library of custom solutions continues to grow every day. Some of these solutions can be purchased at a flat fee and utilized as is or further customized.  This is a great way to minimize costs and get results quickly.  We welcome you to reach out and find out if something similar has already been created. We are committed to helping you find the right solution to fit your unique needs.