Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 resource...

Microsoft Dynamics®

2012

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012

R2 resource scheduling for

projects

White Paper

Workers are the most important asset in a service organization,

and finding workers with the required competencies to satisfy project requirements is crucial to the success of a service organization. This document describes new and improved

capabilities for scheduling workers in the Project management and accounting module in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2.

March 2013

www.microsoft.com/dynamics/ax

Babak Nakhayi Ashtiani, Program Manager

Send suggestions and comments about this document to

[email protected]. Please include the title with your feedback.

http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/ax

mailto:[email protected]

2 MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 2012 R2 RESOURCE SCHEDULING FOR PROJECTS

Table of Contents

Audience ..................................................................................................... 3

Overview ..................................................................................................... 3

New features in Microsoft Dynamics AX R2 resource scheduling ................ 3

Resource scheduling prerequisites .............................................................. 4

User experience improvements ................................................................... 5 Specifying search criteria for workers ...................................................................................... 5 Assigning workers to a project or activity ................................................................................. 7 Assigning full worker capacity to a project or activity................................................................. 7

New resource scheduling scenarios ............................................................ 7 Scenario 1: Enabling intercompany resource scheduling ............................................................ 7 Scenario 2: Scheduling resources from other legal entities on projects .......................................10 Scenario 3: Populating timesheets with projects and activities that are assigned to workers ..........13 Scenario 4: Automatically scheduling workers on activities in a project .......................................14 Scenario 5: Drilling down into worker assignments on a project .................................................17

Troubleshooting ........................................................................................ 17 Why aren’t any workers listed when I schedule a project? .........................................................18 How is the availability of workers calculated? ..........................................................................18 Can we automatically schedule workers on a project? ...............................................................18 Why aren’t any workers showing up from a loaning legal entity when I try to schedule workers? ...18

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MICROSOFT DYNAMICS AX 2012 R2 RESOURCE SCHEDULING FOR PROJECTS

Audience

This white paper was created for partners, customers, decision makers, enterprise users, and functional users who need information about the resource scheduling capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2.

Overview

This document describes new and improved capabilities for scheduling workers in the Project management and accounting module in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2.

Workers are the most important asset in a service organization, and finding workers with the required competencies to satisfy project requirements is crucial to the success of a service organization.

In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2, you can schedule workers based on the requirements and

schedule of a project, or on the skills and availability of workers. By using these resource scheduling capabilities, you can deploy your organization’s workers efficiently and effectively. You can quickly find the most qualified workers who are available to work on your project, and you can easily see how to better utilize those workers during the course of the project.

A resource manager can use worker-based resource scheduling to schedule workers in a way that

optimizes the use of the available workforce. The manager can review the capacity of each worker and see whether the worker is being efficiently scheduled. The manager can then assign the worker to a project or activity based on the project requirements, and on the worker’s skills, training, education, experience, and availability.

A project manager can use project-based resource scheduling to review the worker assignments for each project or activity to make sure that the project or activity is correctly staffed. Project-based scheduling provides a process for assigning workers to a specific project or activity based on the

worker’s skills and availability.

New features in Microsoft Dynamics AX R2 resource scheduling

Major enhancements have been made to the resource scheduling feature in the Project management and accounting Add-in (Project III). These enhancements give you a high degree of control over how

you staff your projects and manage your workers over the course of a project.

The following are highlights of the new resource scheduling capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2:

Simplified user experience – A more user-friendly interface is provided for assigning workers to projects and project quotations, and for finding assignments for workers who are not fully utilized. Through improved support for staffing a project and viewing the status of project staffing, project

managers can now more easily perform a number of tasks. For example, they can do the following:

Discover the scheduling status of a project

Find the best workers for projects and activities

Assign workers to projects and activities, and even automatically assign workers to activities

Easily release workers from all assignments in projects

In addition, when a project is closed, all of a worker’s bookings that were made for the project

are released automatically.


Intercompany resource scheduling – You can enable support for legal entities to borrow workers from other legal entities. These legal entities are referred to as the borrowing legal entity and loaning legal entity, respectively.

Automatic or manual assignment of workers to activities – You can assign workers who

satisfy the requirements for an activity either automatically or manually.

Integration between timesheets and resource scheduling – Workers can easily populate their timesheets with the projects and activities that are assigned to them.

Automatic assignment to project validation groups – You don’t need to manually add the workers who are assigned to a project to a validation group for the project. When you assign a worker to a project or an activity in a project, the worker is automatically added to project validation, which enables that worker to enter time and expenses for the project.

Quick visibility from the project header into which workers are assigned to projects and

how they are utilized– You can easily see which workers are assigned to a project. You can also review the capacity of each worker and determine how that capacity is being used. For example, if a worker is underutilized, you can assign the worker to another project that matches the worker’s availability and qualifications.

You can review information about worker utilization in a summary manner, such as by worker, or

by weekly detail for each worker.

Drill-down capabilities to identify why a worker is not available – When a particular worker is not available, project managers can drill down to identify which projects and activities the resource is assigned to, and who the project managers of those projects are. Project managers can also review worker availability to make sure that there are no calendar conflicts with a worker’s assignments.

No reduction in worker availability because of soft-booked hours – Only hard-booked

hours reduce availability of a worker. Soft-booking support has been updated so that a worker’s soft-booked hours do not count against the worker’s overall availability.

Enriched Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports and inquiries that include loaned and borrowed workers – New reports are available that show the assignments and availability of workers who are borrowed from other legal entities or loaned to other legal entities.

Resource scheduling prerequisites

Before you can use the resource scheduling feature and assign workers to projects, the following prerequisites must be met:

The Project III license code must be enabled.

Project parameters must be set up to define the minimum thresholds for how closely a worker’s skills and availability should match the requirements for a project or activity. This must be done before the worker can be included in search results. The scheduling and skills match parameters

are located in the Scheduling area in the Project management and accounting parameters form. For more information about how to set up these project parameters, see Project management and accounting parameters (form).

http://technet.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/aa599440.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/aa599440.aspx

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A worker must be assigned a calendar, so that the worker’s weekly capacity in hours can be specified.

To assign a calendar to a worker, use the following procedure.

1. Click Human resources > Common > Workers > Workers.

2. Select a worker, and then, on the Action Pane, in the Maintain group, click Edit.

3. In the Worker form, click the Employment link, and then, in the Calendar field, select a calendar.

Project activities and any activity requirements must be set up in the Work breakdown structure form. For more information about how to set up a work breakdown structure, see About work breakdown structures and Work breakdown structure (form).

Before scheduling can occur, the scheduling calendar and the total work effort (in hours) for the

project or activity must be specified.

To specify the scheduling calendar and total work effort, use the Scheduling calendar field and the Total effort in hours field on the Scheduling and resource assignment FastTab in the Projects form.

The worker’s education, skills, certifications, project experience, and other attributes must be specified. For more information about how to set up additional worker attributes, see Set up

worker attributes and Other worker attributes (form).

User experience improvements

Workers are the most important assets in a service organization, and project managers and resource

managers need a simple way to find the right workers for the right projects at the right time. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 introduces an optimized experience that tailors the user interface to mainstream scenarios and enables users to draw on advanced features when required.

Specifying search criteria for workers

Project managers need to find qualified workers based on a set of competencies that are required to get the work done. Competencies such as skills, past project experience, certification, and education are typical criteria that project managers use to find the workers that they need. These resource requirements can be defined for an individual activity, or they can be specified in a search for qualified workers.

http://technet.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/hh227544.aspx



http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh242442.aspx




You can use the fields on the Resource search criteria FastTab in the Assign resources form to define the competencies that are required, identify the priority of each competency, and identify whether the search should include workers from other legal entities.

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Assigning workers to a project or activity

After the resource requirements of a project or activity have been identified, the project manager must have access to a list of qualified workers who are available in the period during which the work needs to be performed. By using two side-by-side grids that list qualified workers, their availability, and their cost price, the project manager can choose the best worker to assign to a project or activity.

Assigning full worker capacity to a project or activity

After the right workers have been chosen to staff a project or activity, the project manager can assign the full available capacity of the worker to a project or activity in the Assign resources form. On the Resources FastTab, in the Resource assignment details for group, click Assign, and then select Full worker capacity. When you select this option, the entire available capacity of the selected worker is assigned for each day that the worker is available.

New resource scheduling scenarios

In addition to user experience improvements, several new scenarios are enabled in Microsoft

Dynamics AX 2012 R2 to give project managers broader access to workers from any part of the

organization, and to streamline the process of making and reviewing worker assignments.

Scenario 1: Enabling intercompany resource scheduling

It is important for organizations with workforces that are distributed across their legal structures to be able to harness the skills and capacities of everyone in the enterprise. For this reason, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 introduces the ability to identify and assign workers from legal entities other

than the one that is managing the project.


To use this functionality, a number of settings must be specified in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

1. In the loaning legal entity, the Enable intercompany resource scheduling and timesheets check box must be selected in the General area in the Project management and accounting parameters form.

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2. In the borrowing legal entity, an entry for the loaning legal entity must be made in the Intercompany accounting form. (Click General ledger > Setup > Posting > Intercompany accounting.)

3. In the borrowing legal entity, the workers who can be loaned, along with their transfer price, must be specified in the Transfer price form. (Click Project management and accounting > Setup > Prices > Transfer price.)


Scenario 2: Scheduling resources from other legal entities on

projects

Use this procedure to schedule workers from another legal entity in your projects.

1. In the borrowing legal entity, create a project, and then, in the Projects form, on the Scheduling and resource assignment FastTab, enter scheduling information.

2. Click the Assign button.

Workers from the loaning legal entity are included in the list of available workers who can be

assigned to the project.

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3. Select a worker, click the Assign button above the Resource assignment details for grid, and then select Full worker capacity.

4. When a dialog box asks whether you want full worker capacity to be hard-booked to this project or activity, click Yes.

The scheduling status of the project changes to Fully scheduled, and the assigned worker is

indicated by a check mark in the first column of the Best resource matches grid.


The Projects form displays the workers who are assigned to the project, along with the number of hours for which they have been assigned to the project.

5. The workers who are assigned to the project are automatically added to a project validation group. You can verify this in the Project validation worker assignments form. (In the

Projects form, on the Plan tab, in the Validation group, click Assign workers.)

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Scenario 3: Populating timesheets with projects and activities that

are assigned to workers

Very often, workers are assigned to more than one project at a time and are assigned to multiple activities in each project. To help organizations spend more time doing work and less time populating timesheets, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 introduces the ability for workers to easily populate their

timesheets with the projects and activities that are assigned to them.

The requirements and steps for enabling and using this functionality are as follows:

1. A worker is scheduled on a project.

2. A default category is associated with either the worker or the activity that the worker is assigned to.

3. The worker or a delegate creates a timesheet for the worker in Enterprise Portal for Microsoft

Dynamics AX or on the Microsoft Dynamics AX client.

4. On a timesheet line, the person who creates the timesheet clicks the Copy from button and then selects Assignments.


The worker assignments are added to the timesheet line, and the worker can enter hours for them.

Scenario 4: Automatically scheduling workers on activities in a

project

To help schedule workers on activities in a project, you can use Microsoft Dynamics AX to assign the

work to qualified workers automatically, without user intervention. After assignments are made, the project manager can update the plan. For example, if a particular activity has a duration of 10 days and requires 160 hours from workers who have specific competencies, the system determines how many qualified workers can satisfy the effort hours and assigns workers to the activity accordingly, including workers in other legal entities if intercompany resource scheduling is enabled.

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The following steps summarize this process:

1. Create a project that has a work breakdown structure. In the Work breakdown structure form, enter scheduling information for an activity.

2. Click the Assign automatically button above the Resource assignments grid.


3. Click OK in the dialog box.

The activity scheduling status changes to Fully scheduled, and the assigned workers are added to the Resource assignments grid.

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Scenario 5: Drilling down into worker assignments on a project

1. Open a project that has a scheduling status of Fully scheduled or Partially scheduled.

2. On the Scheduling and resource assignment FastTab, in the Resource assignments grid, select a worker, and then click Assignment details.

The grid displays the number of project hours that the selected worker is being assigned to per day.

Troubleshooting

This section addresses the most common questions about how to enable and use the resource scheduling feature.


Why aren’t any workers listed when I schedule a project?

There could be a couple of reasons:

Workers do not have a calendar that identifies their capacity. Follow the steps for assigning a calendar to a worker in the Resource scheduling prerequisites section.

The availability match threshold is set to a very high percentage. In the Project management and accounting parameters form, in the Availability match field, enter a lower percentage match value.

How is the availability of workers calculated?

The following formula is used to calculate worker availability:

Worker available capacity/Effort hours required

The available capacity of a worker is determined by using the resource calendar, which identifies resource capacity minus resource assignments. Workers are not available for days that are designated

as non-working days in their calendar.

Can we automatically schedule workers on a project?

No, automatic worker assignments can be made for an activity only, not for an entire project.

Why aren’t any workers showing up from a loaning legal entity when

I try to schedule workers?

The workers from the loaning legal entity who can be loaned must be assigned a transfer price in the

Transfer prices form in the loaning legal entity. (Click Project management and accounting > Setup > Prices > Transfer prices.)

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The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment

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