Full Sail Partners Blog | Technology Solutions (15)

Posts about Technology Solutions (15):

Deltek Kona Calendar Integration with Microsoft Outlook

Posted by Sean Keller on July 18, 2013

Deltek Kona is a cloud-based social collaboration and productivity platform that empowers individuals and groups to connect, organize and get things done together. Through the use of collaborative spaces, users have the ability to coordinate, share, and schedule events or tasks with teams and groups.

Groups that use Kona vary from companies to individuals. Companies communicate with team members, internal and external, on company initiatives, proposals submissions, and the execution of projects every day.  Individuals involved in organizations and personal groups need a way to coordinate efforts among participants.  You may find yourself in both of these circles.  No matter if you are a company or individual, each find Kona brings the conversation, tasks assignments, and files needed to a centralized space.

Most companies and individuals are already accustom to viewing their calendar in Outlook (Entourage for Mac) or Google. The good news with Kona is you can integrate the Kona web calendar into other calendar applications.  For today's example we will walk you through viewing your Kona calendar in Microsoft Outlook 2013. This allows you to see the Kona calendar along with any calendars you have setup in Outlook to provide a quick visual of all of your Kona spaces. 

Step 1

Login to http://www.Kona.com

Deltek Kona 

Step 2

Select the calendar by clicking on the Events tab

Kona Calendar 

Step 3

Click on Calendar

Deltek Kona Calendar

Step 4

Select Share this Calendar from the drop down menu

Deltek Kona Calendar, Instructions 

Step 5

Select the link displayed in the window and copy it.

Deltek Kona, Calendar Integration 

Step 6

Open outlook and switch to the calendar view. Notice the list of calendars displayed at the bottom left.

Deltek Kona, Kona, Calendar Integration 

Step 7

Right click on Other Calendars and select Add Calendar, From Internet

Deltek Kona, Kona, Calendar Integration, Internet Calendar 

Step 8

Paste the link from Kona in the New Internet Calendar Subscription box and click on OK.

Deltek Kona, Internet Calendar 

Step 9

Notice the Kona Calendar is now displayed in the bottom left

Kona, Deltek Kona, Outlook Integration 

Step 10

Multiple calendars can are displayed when additional calendars from the list are selected

Outlook Calendar Integration 

Step 11

Click on the arrow beside a calendar to combine the view.

 Kona, Outlook, Integration

Step 12

Now the Calendars and all appointments are all displayed in a single calendar view

Outlook, Kona, Single Calendar 

Making the Kona calendar viewable in Microsoft Outlook is a great way to boost productivity, social collaboration, and calendar management. You can use similar techniques to attach other Internet based calendars to Outlook as well. The attached calendar is read only and is not editable from Outlook. This is a slight draw back but the ability to see the Kona calendar without switching applications provides a quick and convenient planning in Outlook.

Interested in Kona? Contact us for a demo or to discuss how Kona can help you.

How to Define Success with a Project KPI Dashboard

Posted by Full Sail Partners on July 10, 2013

kpi dashboardsAt the core of a project-based firm’s business is the need to monitor the progress of your projects. As Project Manager’s we are busy and we need quick, real-time information to help us steer our projects. Just as a dashboard in a boat identifies and provides feedback regarding the status of our voyage – the speed, the wind angle, the wind force, and the navigational direction – a dashboard can provide the same information about your project.

Specifically, a project KPI dashboard can examine some simple indicators that allow a project manager to gauge which project(s) need more attention.  They should be examined on a regular basis. 

What Project KPIs should I be looking at?

  • Accounts Receivable - Overdue AR can be a warning sign for many problems including:  client dissatisfaction, overall project communication issues, and client insolvency (they can’t pay us if they have no money. . . should we be loaning them more money?).  Make sure your AR is in line with a Summary AR Dashboard Part and one for each individual project.  We recommend examining this Project KPI at least twice every billing cycle.

 Tip to Think About:  What is my outstanding AR?  Not only the amount, but how many days out is it? 

  • Unbilled Labor – A large amount of unbilled labor is a serious risk not only to the project, but to general firm cash flow.  The company cannot get paid for it if it doesn’t get billed.  A Project Manager should monitor this Project KPI closely all the time, but especially after invoicing.  Make sure to avoid carrying large amounts of unbilled labor from billing cycle to billing cycle.

Tip to Think About:  How much labor is sitting on my project that has not been marked as billed?  In other words, have I been billing my project progress correctly?  

  • Estimated to Complete (ETC) and/or Estimate at Completion (EAC) – These schedule based measures will help you determine not only if you are on budget, but if you will finish the project within the overall budget as well.  Compare the EAC to the overall budget and if it is greater, you may decide to either reduce future expenditures or accept the fact that you going to be over budget. 

 Tip to Think About:  How much more do I need to finish this Project?
 When over  budget, confirm that you didn’t forget to send out additional services  contracts. 

  • Summary Key Performance Indicators - Above the project level, the measures are usually about Net Revenue, Utilization and Backlog.  By putting these Project KPIs on your Dashboard, you can improve your performance and make your boss look good too.

Tip to Think About:  What is your Boss being measured on?  How can you manage your   projects better with the use of Project KPIs to improve those Summary Key Performance   Indicators?

There may be other metrics your firm utilizes.  Share with us what you have on your project KPI dashboard.  Also, be sure to check out our past webinar: Get the Work Done.

A Fresh Perspective on Performance and Evaluation

Posted by Ryan Suydam on July 09, 2013

Many of us are familiar with the idea of measurement improving outcome. Whether it’s Karl Pearson’s Law: “That which is measured improves” or the concept of losing weight by counting calories, we understand that measuring results is crucial to understanding how to improve results

Performance and Evaluation, Client FeedbackBut it’s not just the act of measuring – it’s measuring the RIGHT things and then utilizing what was learned from the results. When trying to improve the performance and evaluation of your team or team members, what should be measured (and how) become critical questions. 

Professional services organizations are beginning to follow the lead of other industries and explore areas such as Voice of the Customer (VOC), Client Experience Management (CEM), and Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM). And while 86% of organizations across all industries employ some form of customer/client feedback as part of their performance and evaluation strategy, only 5% of professional services firms do so. 

If you are planning to implement a feedback process, consider these three key steps to creating an effective performance and evaluation strategy powered by client feedback. 

  1. Any measurement strategy should promote desired employee performance. Therefore, it’s important to measure things employees can control or greatly influence. If employees feel they are being held accountable for measurements beyond their sphere of control, they may reject the system, game the system, or lose hope. So when capturing client-centered metrics like feedback, don’t focus on the scores provided by clients. If you focus on feedback scores, rather than what employees do with scores, they may avoid feedback in the most critical situations. Instead, measure, monitor, and promote the successes of those who gather the most feedback, maintain the highest response rates, and follow-up most effectively to challenging feedback. 
     
  2. Craft questions that measure improvable actions. Keep personalities out of your surveys. People don’t change quickly or easily. When faced with personal criticism, most people will reject the information. Instead, focus on the processes and practices of delivering the service. Processes are more easily documented, adjusted, and customized to a client. 
     
  3. Measure early, measure often. Monitoring client expectations-the real source of success as a professional service organization-is just as critical as managing your income statement and balance sheet. You look at your financial reports every month, and carefully track progress over time – but when was the last time you looked at metrics from your clients’ perspective? How well are you doing for them? To maximize performance with clients, feedback cannot be a once a year (or once every five years) activity. Track constantly, during projects, when you have time to create better outcomes for your clients.

    The most important way to measure staff performance in a professional service firm is from the clients’ perspective. It’s really the client’s perception of reality that matters most. To summarize, to best measure performance and evaluate it from the client’s perspective:  make it easy and comfortable for the client to offer their feedback, have questions focus how well the process worked for them, and ask them often throughout a project, not just at the end.

    How To: Proper Work Breakdown Structure

    Posted by Full Sail Partners on June 26, 2013

    One of the most essential tools in project management is a Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS. The primary function of a WBS is to subdivide a project into more manageable components in terms of size, duration, and responsibility. By breaking a project down into smaller pieces it’s also easier to:

      • Set measurable milestones for the project, and identify deliverables at the end of each phase that match up to the scope
      • Allocate resources, complete scheduling and budgeting, manage procurement, maintain quality control, and manage risk
      • Increase accountability by assigning individual responsibilities for each phase and task
      • Know where you stand in terms of the total project (for example, are you 10% through the whole project, but 50% through the first phase?)

    In short, the Work Breakdown Structure defines how you estimate, manage, and bill the project — and as a result, creating one should be priority one for every project.

    Key design principles for an effective WBS

    WBS Bart1. Account for 100% (no more, no less). One of the most important principles is that the WBS must include 100% of the work as defined by the project scope. It must also capture all internal, external, and interim deliverables, including project management, among the work to be completed. The rule applies at all levels within the hierarchy: the sum of the work at the most detailed level must equal 100% of the work represented by the combined total of the categories at the highest level. Another aspect of the rule is that the WBS should not include any work that is outside the actual scope of the project. 

    2. Be mutually exclusive. There should be no overlap between two elements of a WBS in scope definition. Such an overlap could not only result in duplicated work or misunderstanding about responsibility and/or authority, but could also cause confusion in project cost accounting. One technique for avoiding this problem is to develop a WBS dictionary to clarify the differences between WBS elements and describe each in terms of milestones, deliverables, activities, scope, and other factors. 

    3. Focus on outcomes, not actions. The best way to stick to the 100% rule is to define Work Breakdown Structure elements in terms of outcomes, as opposed to actions. This strategy ensures that the WBS is not overly prescriptive in terms of method, and therefore allows for more flexibility and creative thinking on the part of team members. In addition, a WBS that subdivides work by project phases (e.g. preliminary design phase, critical design phase, etc.) must clearly separate the phases by deliverables that define the entry and exit criteria (e.g. an approved preliminary or critical design review). 

    4. Be detailed, but not too detailed. As useful as it is to divide work into smaller and more manageable elements, you also need to know when to stop. There are several ‘rules of thumb’ for determining appropriate activities or group of activities needed to produce a specific deliverable as defined by the WBS. The first is the “80 hour rule,” which cautions that no one activity or group of activities to produce a single deliverable should require more than 80 hours of effort. A second guideline is that no single activity or series of activities should take longer to complete than a reporting period. So, if your project team reports on its progress monthly, then no single activity or series of activities should be longer than one month long. 

    5. Keep it simple. Creating three levels in your WBS hierarchy (e.g., Project, Phase and Task) should be enough. Avoid identifying labor or activity codes as WBS elements, even if you use them to describe labor detail on billing invoices or backup reports. In addition, it’s not necessary to make every phase balanced; just because one phase has a task doesn’t mean that all should.

    Work Breakdown Structure: a blueprint for project management

    When finished, a well-organized WBS resembles a flowchart in which every element is logically connected to another. The primary requirement or objective appears at the top, with increasingly specific elements appearing beneath it. The elements at the bottom of the diagram represent tasks and activities small enough to be easily understood and carried out. An effective WBS avoids redundancy, but at the same time, leaves out no critical elements. 

    The bottom line is that a Work Breakdown Structure divides your project into distinct, manageable work elements. A WBS is useful to various groups within a company, including marketing, business development, accounting, and project management. A well-planned WBS is integral to successful project proposals, planning, scheduling, budgeting, and reporting.

    Ready to learn more? Discover how an ERP system can benefit your firm by downloading our whitepaper.

    Benefits of ERP System

    Photo credit: http://virtualpminabox.com/

    5 Tips to Win Projects with Deltek Vision CRM to Kona

    Posted by Full Sail Partners on June 12, 2013

    Deltek Kona, Deltek Vision, Win ProjectsIn today’s day and age of fast changing technology, firms must stay abreast of all available solutions to better compete with competition, and win work. Since the ‘great recession’ of 2009, competition on winning work has increased exponentially. Successful firms have combated this increased competition by staying current with technology, and using well thought out techniques to win projects. Included below are five tips that will help your firm better impress clients, and ultimately win more work.

    1. Collaboratively share information with your project team. When responding to a client request / RFP, sharing data can become a cumbersome task in itself when working with remote teaming partners or staff. Often, the ability to seamlessly coordinate tasks/assignments, or share large files amongst your team can be the difference in winning or losing the work. To avoid these types of hiccups, leverage collaborative sharing tools such as Deltek Kona to keep your project team on the same page. Deltek Kona allows users to share files, and schedule important dates, seamlessly as though the users were all working in the same centralized office. You will be amazed at how Kona will empower your project team!
       
    2. Hasten your proposals process through the use of templates. Unfortunately, many times firms will find out a about a project that they are a perfect fit for days before the due date. These time restrictions can ensnare the proposal process and make it difficult to respond sufficiently. Empower your marketing/business development department by creating templates that will allow you to export your information from Deltek Vision CRM to Microsoft Word or InDesign. This will allow you to streamline the proposal process, and concentrate on the areas of the proposal that require custom attention.
       
    3. Avoid boring old PowerPoint presentation. Many firms make it to the short-list process only to utterly disappoint the client through the use of a boring, stale PowerPoint presentation. If you are unable to separate yourself from your competition, you are not doing your best to win projects. PowerPoint has been around since the late 1990’s, and sadly a large majority of presentations look like they came out of that same era. By using presentation software such as Prezi or PreZentit, your firm can immediately stand apart from your competition. With that said, don’t forget the importance of impressing the client by being personable and demonstrating your understanding the project. Overly relying on the use of presentation software is one of the quickest ways to lose a client’s attention.
       
    4. Use a CRM solution to track relationships. We have all heard the saying, “It’s not what you know, but who you know!” This begs the question; does your firm know who it knows? If you are not tracking your relationships through CRM software such as Deltek Vision, then you are simply throwing darts at a board, blindfolded. A CRM solution will allow you to track who you know, recent conversations, and other important relationship data such as birthdays or anniversaries. This type of knowledge insight is important for creating meaningful relationships between your company, and your clients.
       
    5. Optimize information for smart devices. If you own a smart device, and you have not optimized your marketing contact the device, you are not working smart! You never know when, or where, you might bump in to a perspective client. If you are unable to demonstrate your firms expertise at the drop of a hat, expect to lose out on a lot of potential work. Your firms website should be optimized for smart devices (iPhones, Androids, Tablets, Everything!) allowing you to be ready to show off how great your firm is, at a moment’s notice! In addition to optimizing your website for these smart devices, take the initiative to pre-load content on to your smart phone, in case you are unable to get internet service! By doing this, you will not only impress the client with all of your great works, but you will also demonstrate your ability to think ahead and be ready for the unexpected.

      If your firm is utilizing Deltek Vision CRM, make sure to check out Vision Unleashed. Vision Unleashed will allow you to access your full Vision system on teh go, from a mobile device. It also allows MAC users to access Vision without the need for running parallels or bootcamp. This allows MAC users to utilize their workstation to it maximum potential without dedicating resources to addition process just to access Vision!

    I hope you learned something from this blog. Some of these technologies or techniques might seem obvious, but unfortunately many times it’s the obvious omissions that cause us to lose out on winning new work. If you use any of the concepts highlighted in this blog, make sure to comment below and let us know. We love to hear success stories!

    Once you win your next project, make sure to review these project management concepts.

    Top 10 Feedback Techniques for Project Delivery

    Posted by Ryan Suydam on May 14, 2013
    This guest blog was written by Ryan Suydam.

    Project delivery is all about taking an idea from concept through to production. Firms want their projects completed in the fastest and most cost-efficient manner possible, all without sacrificing quality. Incorporating feedback into a firm’s process helps the team perform at their best, while the very act of asking for feedback shows clients proactive and professional care. To help jumpstart your client feedback process, we’ve listed the top 10 feedback techniques to facilitate project delivery. 

    Feedback Techniques1. Make it Comfortable.

    When requesting feedback make sure the process is comfortable to use for all parties. The more comfortable the process, the more likely both parties are to participate. A comfortable process means clients will not feel put on the spot and concerned about a confrontation. Focus questions on processes, not personalities, and offer a flexible answer scale to capture subtle nuances of perceptions. 

    2. Create Actionable Results.
    An effective feedback technique requires data to enable follow-up. Be sure you are asking questions that allow you to retrieve measurable, actionable data. If the questions are too vague or too open ended, you won’t have the information that you need to take action.  

    3. Process Focused.

    The questions asked should be about process rather than people or products. We aren’t looking to find out how well the client “liked” us, but rather where our process is working great and where it might need some improvement.  

    4. Go Beyond Satisfaction.

    Ask your clients questions focused on their expectations, instead of their satisfaction, because satisfaction is the expected norm. The client’s perception of how you performed compared to their expectations is the key to knowing where to improve your project delivery process. Additionally, you’ll find 500% more exceptionally positive feedback than you will challenging feedback – and we all love to discover good news. 

    5. Reduce Liability.

    When asking for feedback, focus on questions that can reduce liability and encourage positive outcomes. Just by asking for feedback throughout a project, you are creating a record of the service perceptions all along the way, reducing the chance of a lawsuit and increasing your ability to meet their needs. Feedback helps keep you and your client aligned on a common goal - a successful project outcome. 

    6. Don’t Wait.

    Collect feedback throughout the project, not just at the end - when it’s too late to improve that project. Response rates are highest when the client senses his feedback might improve the project outcome. Once the project is over, the incentive to respond is gone. 

    7. Make it Trackable.

    Tracking feedback responses isn’t complicated, but making sure everyone on your team gets the feedback they need, reviews it, and takes appropriate action can be much more challenging. Deploy good tools to capture who is asking for feedback, who’s responding, and who takes what action on each critical response. 

    8. Use Instant Alerts.

    Collect feedback in a way that you can be instantly alerted to new feedback and drive real-time follow-up.  A good system will establish score thresholds that indicate, in real-time, when follow-up is required for exceptional circumstances. Make sure the right people are alerted so nothing falls through the cracks. 

    9. Keep the Client First.

    Structure your feedback techniques so that it is quick and easy for the client to give you feedback. Don’t waste their time with long surveys or questions with answers that only matter to you.  Response rates are higher with multiple short surveys over a period of time, than with one or two long surveys sent less frequently. 

    10. Follow up.

    Don’t neglect the follow up! A survey should always start a conversation, not replace one. Typically, follow-up is simply a personal acknowledgement that you saw and read the response. However, if any special situations were noted (either in scores or comments) be sure you open a dialogue to show how the feedback will change the process and project going forward. 

    Each of these feedback techniques focus on a deliberate approach to your feedback collection efforts. Set your goals to collect actionable feedback in way that is easy for the client. Make understanding the results and following up easy for you too. See feedback as the opportunity that it is to improve your process, reduce your liability and become your client’s expert.

    Interested in learning more about how you can start collecting client feedback?

    Deltek Vision Tips: Setting Up Remote Access for Deltek Touch

    Posted by Wes Renfroe on April 19, 2013

    Vision UnleashedSo, you’ve heard about the new Vision Unleashed, Deltek Touch Time and CRM mobile applications and want your smartphone users to be able to utilize these applications to access Vision offsite. Perhaps you like the idea of your Vision users having the ability to work from home or abroad or maybe you think the new Navigator interface would be really helpful for project managers out in the field.  However, you feel opening up Vision access from the web sounds kind of scary and you have questions. Is it safe? Is it expensive to set up? Is it hard to configure? 

    Well, let’s take a look!  

    Is it safe?

    Yes it is!  When properly deployed using Secure HTTP and a strong password policy, accessing your Vision data from anywhere is as safe as accessing your banking information. 

    Is it expensive?

    Only in the time to set up (generally an hour or two) and the purchase of a security certificate. The certificate is good for several years and costs only a few hundred dollars. 

    Is it hard to configure?

    For a single server install the process is simple and can be completed with very little downtime or afterhours with proper planning.  Multi-tier installs offer a bit more complexity and should be discussed to ensure all the nuances are covered before beginning.  Full Sail Partners has assisted many firms with the transition. Feel free to reach out to us for support.  

    Here are the steps to open Deltek Vision to the internet to allow your firm access to new features like Deltek Touch.

    1. Configure a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) that you will use to reach Vision from offsite. ‘Vision.yourcompanyname.com’ is a common format.
    2. Purchase and install a SSL security certificate for your new FQDN on your Vision server.
    3. Modify your firewall rules to allow port 443 (secure http) traffic to be forwarded to your Vision server. Note: This is a good time to try visiting your Vision login page to see if everything is on the right track, in Internet Explorer. Visit HTTPS://Vision.yourcompanyname.com and make sure it loads.
    4. Verify the FQDN is also reachable internally, DNS may need tweaking.
    5. In Reporting Services Configuration Manager, under the Web Service URL tab, add the SSL identities now available since applying the new security certificate.
    6. In the Vision Weblink, on the reporting tab, change the Server URL to your new FQDN/reportserver. For example: https://vision.yourcompanyname.com/reportserver. Note: Be sure to click the Test button to verify you have it right!
    7. Voila! You should now be able to log in from both onsite and offsite and successfully run reports.  Once verified, you can notify all of your users to use the new link for their Vision needs. 

    iAccess, Deltek Touch, and Vision Unleashed can now be deployed.  Enjoy safely and securely accessing Vision, anywhere, anytime! Let us know your experience.

    Deltek Vision Customization: Past Trends Provide Insight into the Future

    Posted by Sarah Gonnella on March 11, 2013

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

    It is important to know where you are going, as well as, where you have been. Understanding mistakes and achievements is paramount to truly understanding how to progress your firm. The old adage by George Santayana remains true, “Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.”

    Luckily, firms don’t have to rely on people’s memory. There are all kinds of ways to track information. However, having the tools set-up to extract, dissect, and analyze the data is a different story. When it comes to proposals, it is essential to know the Win to Loss Ratio (Hit Rate).

     

    In a recent 2012 survey, SMPS Technology Committee reported firms are tracking the following marketing metrics:

    56% | Win to Loss Ratio
    50% | Client Satisfaction
    46% | Marketing Expenditures
    39% | Revenue
    30% | Sales Funnel/Pipeline
    27% | Sales Potential Forecast
    26% | Proposal Cost vs. Revenue         Generated
    24% | Referrals

    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?

    Deltek Vision Tips: Workflow for Modified User

    Posted by Sarah Gonnella on December 21, 2012

    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.  

    Deltek Vision Record Audit Trail

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    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.

    User Initiated Workflow

     

     

     

     

    User Initiated Workflow Contacts

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    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.

    Column Field Change

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Column Field Change SQL Expression

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    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!

     

    Deltek Vision Customization: Knowing the Right Questions to Ask

    Posted by Peter Nuffer on December 14, 2012

    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 

    checkbox, Deltek Vision CustomizationWhen 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.

    Deltek Vision Timesheet Customization Solution

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