PSW Guide. Version 4.7 April 2013

Transcription

1 PSW Guide Version 4.7 April 2013

2 Contents Contents...2 Documentation...3 Introduction...4 Forms...5 Form Entry...7 Form Authorisation and Review Reporting in the PSW Other Features of the Professional Services Workbench News Links My Details Password Modification Approval Profiles Employee Index Workflow Control Ledger Modification Ledger Export Data Maintenance... 55

3 Documentation This guide is one of several which form a complete set of documentation for expense@work: The expense@work Reference Guide is a complete statement of the system s functionality and is structured by system function. The text for this manual forms the basis of the online help available in expense@work. The systems@work Installation Guide explains the technical environment in which the system operates and the process of installing the system on your hardware. The expense@work PSW Guide explains the ways in which your Employees will work with the system when recording time or expenses or examining reports. The systems@work Scheduler Guide explains how you can set up the Scheduler for periodic execution of expense@work or expense@work Maintenance functions. systems@work PSW Guide Page 3

4 Introduction The browser-based PSW (Professional Services Workbench) is a portal providing staff in a professional service organisation with the following options: Form Entry or Proxy Entry Form Confirmation Form Authorisation Form Review Workflow Control Approval Planning Ledger Modification Ledger Export News Employee Index (and New Employees) Data Maintenance (Employees, Expense Groups, Expense Types, Reasons, Analysis, News, Cross Rates) My Details Self Service Employee Data Maintenance Reporting: Published Reports Reporting: Inquiries Reporting: Workflow Status Reporting: Active Schedules Password Modification Identity Switch systems@work PSW Guide Page 4

5 Forms Forms are highly configurable and may be used for a variety of purposes, including, but not limited to, the following: For recording personal expenses against externally chargeable and internal Projects. For requesting absences (holidays, time off in lieu, etc) For requesting travel advances For recording % Complete and calculating recognisable revenue by Project For procurement Forms are routed as documents from employee to authoriser(s), and to reviewer(s) before being posted to the Expense Ledger. At each stage an Employee may return a form to an earlier step. A Workflow Control tool enables administrators to reassign and recall Forms. systems@work PSW Guide Page 5

6 Proxy Form Entry Form Entry Form Confirmation Form Authorisation (max 21 steps) Form Review (max 21 steps) Project Ledger When forms are posted the system executes up to twenty user-defined calculations. These calculated values form the basis for accounting and management reporting. Form Configuration The format of a Form is determined by a large number of parameters held in the expense@work database. A full definition of these is given in the expense@work Reference Guide. systems@work PSW Guide Page 6

7 Form Entry How can you access Forms? First you must log in to the PSW. Enter your Login Name and Password and then the Server and Database names. Note that your Server and Database name will be remembered by the system so that you do not have to retype them when accessing the system for a second time from the same PC. In some circumstances where the server and database names are fixed these fields will not be visible. Click the Log In button. The system will then display all available options in the PSW. systems@work PSW Guide Page 7

8 How can you start work on a Form? You must click on either Create Form or In Progress. Forms in Progress are shown as a list of Forms. systems@work PSW Guide Page 8

9 Alternatively you may create a new Form. Note that when starting a new form you may have a choice of form types, since Forms may be used for many other purposes besides expense entry. A Form in Progress may look like this. systems@work PSW Guide Page 9

10 How can you work with a Form? Until you submit a Form you may make any number of modifications. As long as you save these changes you will be able to accumulate expenses or other data in a Form until you are ready to submit it. How can you print a Form? Click on the Print button to print the current form using a Crystal Reports template. systems@work PSW Guide Page 10

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12 Open a Form by choosing either to work on a Form in progress or by Creating a new Form Modify data in the Form Use Save to save the changes you have made Use the Validate and then Submit Button to send your Form to the central expense@work system Log Out of your PSW session Resume other work Log In to start a new PSW session Open an existing Form by choosing the appropriate Form in progress systems@work PSW Guide Page 12

13 How can you modify data in a Form? You can modify data in a row already containing data by positioning the cursor in the appropriate cell. An empty row can be created by clicking New Line. Form cells are coloured in three different ways: Cells into which you cannot enter data Cells into which you may enter data Cells containing invalid data or into which you must enter data Where there is a set of available values you may click on the lookup arrow to open a panel listing these values. How can you find the Expense Type you need? Using the lookup button you can invoke the Expense Type Search tool. systems@work PSW Guide Page 13

14 By default this tool will show you the first 50 Expense Types (you may modify this number using Maintenance, System Parameters). Use the scroll bar to navigate through these first 50 Expense Types. Click on the Next arrow button to see the next 50 Expense Types. You may click on the First 50 Checkbox to see the entire list of Expense Types. You may choose to search for a string occurring in any position (Global) or forming the first characters of a string (First characters). Check the appropriate Checkbox. systems@work PSW Guide Page 14

15 You may choose to start your search for an Expense Type by first selecting an Expense Group To do this, click on the Select Expense Group button. You will search for Reasons (if this column appears in the form) in the same way. How can you enter data against an Expense Type? To enter expenses against an Expense Type you should Tab to the appropriate cell and then enter the required values. These will differ for each Form Type. A column heading (sometimes with tooltip) should indicate the required content. How can you validate what you have entered in the Form? When you are ready to Validate the changes you have made you must click Save & Validate. Errors are shown in a new error message grid which appears at the bottom of the Form. The Form will be saved whether or not you have corrected the errors. You may not, however, submit the Form until all errors have been corrected. How can you submit a completed Form to expense@work? When you have completed the form you can submit it by clicking the Submit Button. The Form will be validated before it is submitted and you will be required to correct any errors before final submission. systems@work PSW Guide Page 15

16 Form Authorisation and Review Most Employees will have their Forms authorised by another Employee. This means that when a Form is submitted by an Employee it may be forwarded to another for authorisation. How does the process differ from filling in a Form? It doesn t, except that you must choose the Authorise or Review Option after you have logged in to the PSW. When you have chosen one of these options you will see a list of Forms for you to authorise or review. The only other differences are: That a different set of Statuses may be available. That the Review stage may demand a different set of field values That you are able to Return (partially or fully), as well as Submit, a Form That you may or may not be permitted to modify data in the Form (depending on the setup of the Form Type and/or Read Only Templates) systems@work PSW Guide Page 16

17 Reporting in the PSW There are several options for reporting from the PSW. Inquiries and Workflow Status reports can use Crystal Reports and Microsoft Reporting Services templates to format data Inquiries and Workflow Status reports can also show transaction data in grids which you can manipulate to filter and summarise and you can also export data to Excel Active Schedules return grids of data based on time periods (columns) and Expense Types or Employees (rows) Crystal Reports and Microsoft Reporting Services based Reports. Reports that use Crystal Reports or Microsoft Reporting Services templates for formatting are designed and built using Maintenance Inquiry Profiles or Status Inquiry. However, these reports may be run and viewed from the PSW using three options: Published Reports Inquiries Workflow Status Published Reports Transmission Profiles in Maintenance (and schedulable from the Task Scheduler) can be used both to transmit Inquiry Profiles reports to Employees and Client Employees as attachments and to publish the output for Employees (and Client Employees) in the PSW. From the PSW Home Page choose Published from the Reporting section. You will see a list of Reports which have been published for you together with the date when the report was published. Click on one of these to view it. The system will display the report using Crystal web publishing technology. The controls for browsing and printing the report are self-explanatory. systems@work PSW Guide Page 17

18 Inquiries Inquiries that use Crystal Reports or Microsoft Reporting Services templates to render data are indicated with a Report icon. Some of these allow you to make selections (see notes below for Inquiries on how to make selections). Click on an icon to open a report. systems@work PSW Guide Page 18

19 Note that the data that are shown in Inquiries can be limited (using some features of Inquiry Profiles) to data appropriate to the current Employee s role. Workflow Status systems@work PSW Guide Page 19

20 Workflow Status reports show data on timesheets and forms that are in progress in the system, and are typically used by managers to discover which forms are incomplete and thus still missing from reports. They are versions of Maintenance Status Inquiry reports. Note that the data that are shown in Workflow Status reports can be limited (using some features of Status Inquiry Profiles) to data appropriate to the current Employee s role. Inquiries Inquiries can also return transaction data from one or more ledgers to the PSW and present these data in a grid. Click on a grid icon to open a grid-based Inquiry. systems@work PSW Guide Page 20

21 If there are runtime parameters for the Inquiry then you may specify them or simply click on Run to run the Inquiry without parameter values. In the above example you can select one or more Employees by clicking on Employee in the Runtime Parameters panel (or if this is the parameter which is current then click the lookup button in the top right hand panel). PSW Guide Page 21

22 Select an Employee by clicking on one in the list or use the usual controls to search for the Employee you are looking for. You may select more than one Employee by clicking on the Add button. Click on Apply Selection when you have made your selection of Employee(s). PSW Guide Page 22

23 Note how the selection in the top right-hand panel is transferred to the lower left-hand panel. You may set runtime parameters for more than one field. Click Run to start the Inquiry. If there are data that meet the selection criteria these will be presented in a grid. There may be several pages. Each row represents one timesheet cell, form row or invoice line. You may summarise data by clicking on the [+] button below each column header. For example, clicking on the button below Task Name summarises data for each Task Name. You may expand each group by clicking on the [+] to the left of each summary row. You may click on the Excel button to export transaction data to Excel. Note that expense@work contains safeguards against the extraction of too much data from the system into PSW Inquiries and Immediate Reports. Extracting too much data can harm the functioning and performance of the PSW for other users. For each Inquiry Profile it is possible to define an upper limit on the number of transaction records extracted from the ledgers, and you may either warn the user of excess or prevent excess. Note also that Inquiries are accessible from the Employee Index. The visibility of Inquiries can be controlled using Data Access categories and values (these are defined in expense@work Maintenance and associated with Inquiry Profiles) so that individual Employees only have access to appropriate reports. systems@work PSW Guide Page 23

25 Other Features of the Professional Services Workbench There are many features in the PSW in addition to Timesheet and Form Entry, Authorisation and Review and Reporting. These additional features are: News Links My Details (including Skills update) Password Modification Planning Profiles Approval Profiles Employee Index (including Skills searching, skills update and Diary update) Workflow Control Data Maintenance (Expense Groups, Expense Types, Reasons, Employees, Analysis, News, Cross Rates, Value Tables) Ledger Modification Ledger Export PSW Guide Page 25

26 News News items provide a medium for providing Employees and specific groups of Employees with items of information. News are entered using expense@work Maintenance or News in PSW Reference data maintenance (see below). systems@work PSW Guide Page 26

27 The Employees to whom News will be published in the Professional Services Workbench are determined by settings on the Distribution Mask for the News item. In PSW Reference Data maintenance you may upload an image to be displayed with a News item. The number of days for which a News item will be shown is determined by the News Expiration Days parameter on the Professional Services Workbench, Workbench Parameters record. systems@work PSW Guide Page 27

28 News are displayed to an Employee when he or she logs on to the PSW if there are new items since his last Logon. PSW Guide Page 28

29 Links Links to Websites outside can be defined and shown in the PSW. A link is established using expense@work Maintenance: Checking the Separate Listing Checkbox will result in the Website being separately listed in the left-hand menu bar in the Professional Services Workbench. systems@work PSW Guide Page 29

30 All linked Websites are listed on the Linked Website page. PSW Guide Page 30

31 My Details My Details enables you to update your Employee record. The data that you are able to update is determined by a list in the Portal parameters record within the Professional Services Workbench group of setup forms.: These fields are shown when you click on My Details: systems@work PSW Guide Page 31

32 Modify data and then click Update. Note that you may also upload a photograph. systems@work PSW Guide Page 32

33 The Additional Data button shows data in addition to those that you yourself may modify. PSW Guide Page 33

34 Password Modification Separately you may update your current password to the Professional Services Workbench. PSW Guide Page 34

35 Approval Profiles If you are responsible for expenses related to a specific expense type or if expense@work has been set up so that expenses allocated to a specific cost centre require approval by a cost centre manager, then you may be required to approve (or reject) expenses using Approval Profiles. Each Approval Profile may show a different set of data, depending on how these have been set up in expense@work Maintenance. systems@work PSW Guide Page 35

36 Choose an Employee or Employees to approve and click on Run Profile (note that you may initially see a list of Expense Types instead of Employees (this is determined by properties of the Profile)). You may then change the Approval Status value for each record and then click Commit Approvals to update the new status values in the expense ledger. systems@work PSW Guide Page 36

37 Status values may also include one that allows you to query a transaction either to its originating employee or to another employee (such as another cost centre manager). Such queries are notified to the appropriate employee by . Some approval status values will require you to specify an explanatory note. You may also summarise and collapse transactions by clicking on the [-] buttons in the Header row. This enables you to approve at summary level also. Once collapsed, a summary row may be expanded to show transactions by clicking on the [+] button at the start of a row. You may also, if you are permitted, make changes to values in a transaction, such as status, or expense type, or reason. When you do so you must use Validate and Post to check that the transaction remains valid, and you must, if the transaction is valid, post it to the ledger if you wish to retain the changes you have made. systems@work PSW Guide Page 37

38 Employee Index The Employee Index shows a complete list of Employees in your organisation together with specific information about them. If Immediate Reports, or Inquiries, or Approval Profiles have been defined as to be available from the Employee Index, then if these Profiles possess Employee as a runtime parameter you may pass one or more Employees as supplied parameters to these profiles directly from the Employee Index. Thus, effectively, you can achieve one-click reporting on Employee data. The columns shown in the grid are determined by settings in the Portal parameters record for the Professional Services Workbench. These parameters are set up using expense@work Maintenance. systems@work PSW Guide Page 38

39 You can filter values in the grid by clicking on a value in a cell (except for Employee). You can sort the grid by clicking on a column header. Clicking on a value in the Employee column will result in specific values being shown for the selected Employee: The data shown here are determined by the Portal parameters: systems@work PSW Guide Page 39

40 Clicking on New Employees instead of Employee Index results in the grid showing only those Employees created in Maintenance during the previous number of days specified as New Employee Expiration Days in the Portal parameters. You may also filter the employee index using role relationships or skills. Role Relationships Roles defined between Employees and other Employees enable you to define a hierarchy (or a number of hierarchies) in your organisation. systems@work PSW Guide Page 40

41 In this example, the Line Manager role establishes teams and each employee has subordinates, a supervisor and peers. When the Employee Index is generated filter options are established that allow you to select members of your team (your peers), your supervisor and your subordinates. Depending on the options defined on the Role definition record, you may also be able expand subordinates downwars, and supervisors upwards. In this example, selecting subordinates, Marek Radowski can list the employees for whom he is line manager. Invoking Reporting, Planning or Approval Profiles. If Immediate Reports, or Inquiries, or Approval Profiles have been defined as to be available from the Employee Index, then if these Profiles possess Employee as a runtime parameter you may pass one or more Employees as supplied parameters to these profiles directly from the Employee Index. Thus, effectively, you can achieve one-click reporting on Employee data. Select one or more Employees in the Employee Index using the checkbox to the left of each row. Then click on the profile you want to invoke in the left hand menu. systems@work PSW Guide Page 41

42 Note that sometimes you may be offered the opportunity to specify additional runtime parameters. PSW Guide Page 42

44 Workflow Control If you are the system administrator then you can use the Workflow Control tool to recall or reassign Forms. Reassignment Reassignment is useful when the system is being used for the validation of large numbers of Forms and when Forms are distributed randomly across groups of finance staff or validators. If one Employee has a queue of Forms for authorisation or review that is too long, or is absent and you are not using automatic backup routing mechanisms, then you can use Workflow Control to reassign a Form within a group of authorising or reviewing Employees. To reassign a Form you must first select one or more Forms using the filters available on the opening Workflow Control page. You may enter more than one Filter. Click Search. systems@work PSW Guide Page 44

45 To reassign a Form, select one or more Forms using the checkbox to the left of each row and then click Reassign. You must then specify to whom you wish to reassign the Forms. The available Employees will be those who belong to the Role or Alternative Role specified for the current Routing Rules step. systems@work PSW Guide Page 45

46 You may also specify explanatory notes when Reassigning. This note will appear in the Form notes field for the Employee to whom the Form(s) have been reassigned. You may find that unless you are using random routing to a group of Employees (in this case several Employees are assigned to a single Role) there may be no Employee to whom you can assign the Form(s). Recall If you need to recall a Form from its current status (and Action Employee) to an earlier one, then you can use Workflow Control for this purpose. (Note that this is a more powerful option than the Return function available to an Employee when he or she authorises or reviews a Form, since the Return function only allows you to return a Form to the first step in Authorisation or Review (there may be 10 additional steps).) You may also recall a Form that has been posted as long as no transactions are allocated or exported. To recall a Form you must first select one or more Forms using the filters available on the opening Workflow Control page. You may enter more than one Filter. Click Search. systems@work PSW Guide Page 46

47 You may only recall one Form at a time, and to do so you must click on the Form Reference Number. You must then specify the status to which the Form is to be recalled. These are shown in chronological sequence in the Return To status lookup. You may also enter an explanatory note. systems@work PSW Guide Page 47

48 Click Submit to recall the Form. Note that a full audit trail for the Form is maintained including all statuses prior to recall. systems@work PSW Guide Page 48

49 Ledger Modification Administrators and finance staff will often want to modify data (such as notes, or analysis values, or even client, project or task) that have been posted. Ledger Modification Profiles can be configured for this purpose. Click on the appropriate profile name. Usually you will then have to specify runtime parameters. PSW Guide Page 49

50 Select the appropriate runtime parameters (in this case, Employee) and then click Run. You may then modify fields within the grid (if the profile and ledger modification parameters permit this). PSW Guide Page 50

51 When you modify a value the row is marked. You must recalculate, validate and post modified lines in order to save your modification in the ledger. (Note that if you make a number of changes then you may select all modified rows by clicking the appropriate coloured square at the top of the grid.) Once you have selected, validated and posted modified rows then they will be marked as Posted. Your modifications have been saved. systems@work PSW Guide Page 51

52 Ledger Export You will often need to export data from to your financial, payroll, CRM or HR system. provides a mechanism, Ledger Export, for this purpose, and transactions can be selected, exported and marked as exported using Ledger Export Profiles from the PSW. Click on a profile to invoke a profile or on Preview to show the data that are to be exported. Depending on the configuration of the profile you may have to specify runtime parameters. systems@work PSW Guide Page 52

53 Click Run Export. The profile will select transactions, export them in XML format, and then optionally, apply a nominated XSL stylesheet or stylesheets to reformat the data. systems@work PSW Guide Page 53

54 In this example no XSL stylesheet has been applied and the XML stream is opened using Notepad. If you choose to Preview data, they are presented in grid format. From this page you may also click Run Export. PSW Guide Page 54

55 Data Maintenance The following data tables are accessible and maintainable in the PSW. Expense Groups Expense Types Reasons Employees Analysis Values News Value Tables Cross Rates You will be able to access and maintain these data if your employee login name is associated with a expense@work Maintenance user with appropriate access rights. In this example, Marek Radowski is associated with the Admin user name. In turn, the Admin user is associated with an Access Profile that grants access to record types, tabs, and functions (Create, Delete, Modify, etc.). The Employee inherits these rights. systems@work PSW Guide Page 55

56 If you have rights to data maintenance, the record types that you may maintain will be shown when you click on Reference Data. Taking Employees as an example, you must first click on the record type to open the Employee record grid. PSW Guide Page 56

57 To search for a particular record you may enter a code or name and click on the Search button. To Create a new record, click Create. Data maintenance follows the same rules and logic as in expense@work Maintenance. systems@work PSW Guide Page 57