This topic provides a high-level description of the new features and enhancements that were introduced in the Version 12 release of FinancialForce PSA.
PSAVersion 12X provides enhancements to several areas of the application, both in response to customer feedback and the fast changing demands of professional services industries. Central to this release is support for a new "bottom up" approach to project planning and estimating, where you can preview and generate resource requests from tasks before full project information is known. Bottom up planning affects several pages and objects: as well as new Visualforce pages on the project, we've added support for creating project task assignments for a role as well as a resource. To find out more, see the "Resource Requests" and "Project Task Gantt (Task Manager)" sections below.Improvements have also been made to core features, including: utilization (calculating capacity demand); combining multiple expense receipts to PDF; and more customization options for logging time against project tasks. PSA is even more customizable than before, with new optional settings for project edit locking and resource request generation on Project Task Gantt (Task Manager), and managing batch Apex jobs with Work Queue Manager. There's more field sets too—twenty five on existing pages alone—giving you the ability to easily show and hide packaged and custom fields on many more Visualforce pages. Finally, the Resource and Project Planners piloted in the previous release are now ready for deployment into production organizations. Design improvements have been driven by user feedback: the Planners now include a default zoom level, support for work calendars and translations, and dynamic column layouts. Future releases of FinancialForce PSA will add more features to the new Planners, making them your centerpiece for resource staffing, scheduling and planning. You can continue to use the classic Planners if you prefer. Use the following list of new enhancements, organized by product area, to learn more about what you can do in PSAVersion 12X and how you can configure the package to suit your professional services business.
This release also includes a number of fixes. See the "What's New in FinancialForce PSAVersion 12X" document for a list of fixes included in this release.
ASM Triggers
Delete Project Tasks With Parent Project
When you delete a project you may or may not want all associated project tasks to be deleted as well. You can now determine the behavior of the relevant ASM trigger by setting the "DeleteProjectTasksWithProject" configuration option to suit the needs of your business.
Backlog
Recalculate Backlog
When you recalculate backlog, all values on the original Backlog Calculation Detail now copy to the new calculation. Previously, you could only set default values for backlog calculations through the Backlog custom setting. This makes it easier to repeat a backlog calculation for a date range, for example.
Expenses
Combine Receipt Photos to PDF
Where users have entered expenses and attached one or more receipt photos to each expense line, you can now combine them to a PDF on the expense report (on the Google Docs, Notes, and Attachments or Notes and Attachments related list). You can configure PSA to also copy (from the expense line to the expense report) any receipts that are not saved as image files.
These settings have been added to the Expense configuration group:
You can now specify when an expense limit or rate starts and ends. This allows you to apply rates and limits based on the rate or limit at the time the expenses were entered. Let's say you have different mileage reimbursement rates for July 2014 and August 2014, increasing from $0.56 to $0.62 per mile. In this case, the first rate is applied to expenses dated in July 2014 and the second to expenses dated in August 2014.
You can now specify if expense receipts must be attached when users submit their expenses. You can set the amount above which receipts are required and you can allow users to submit their expenses even though they have lost receipts.
This setting has been added to the Expense configuration group:
To ensure that users cannot delete attachments after submitting expense reports, a new configuration option, "handleAttachmentDelete", has been added to the ASM Triggers configuration group.
Field Sets
Use field sets to show and hide visible fields across the application, as well as add custom fields. For example, using field sets introduced in this release, you can customize the expense entry and create project from template pages. For more information, see "Field Sets". To learn how to edit field sets, see the "Creating and Editing Field Sets" topic in the Salesforce Help.
New Field Sets for Existing Visualforce Pages
Field sets have been added that affect the following processes. (Other field sets added in this release are noted on this page under the summary of the new product feature.)
Assigning Resources to Projects
Customize the process of assigning individual or multiple resources to a project with these new field sets:
Several field sets affecting the process of creating a project from a template were added in previous releases. However, not all fields on the template project and its related records, such as budget and project phase, were available. You can now choose additional fields to copy from the project template to the new project, but not display on the Create Project From Template page. This helps your users create projects more quickly and consistently.
Further customize the process of creating a project from a template by adding additional fields to these new empty field sets:
Customize the project or budget details shown when you create a new project from a template, either from an opportunity or a project, with these new field sets:
Customize the process of copying resource requests to an opportunity or project (by clicking Add Resource Requests from Template) with these new field sets:
Customize the process of assigning yourself to a project (by clicking Self-Assignment on the PSA Links sidebar) with the "Self Assignment UI Assignment Fields" field set.
To make it easier to integrate third-party applications that do not run on Salesforce, you can elect to force PSA to always use synchronous rather than asynchronous (@future) methods.
This setting has been added to the Advanced Settings custom setting:
Logging time against project tasks on the Timecard Entry page is now more configurable. You can configure PSA to:
Pre populate timecards with tasks for the current week.
Hide the Notes tab on the popup window displayed when you click the View/Edit Details link.
Only show tasks associated with the milestone selected by the user.
Only display one row of task hours when in calculated mode.
Depending on how your organization is configured, you can control the enhanced timecard UI (including logging time against project tasks on the Timecard Entry page) from either the Timecard configuration group or the Timecard Entry UI Personal custom setting. These settings have been added to both areas:
The enhanced editions of the Resource and Project Planners, introduced in FinancialForce PSA Version 11.1, are no longer in pilot. However, the classic planners remain active and supported.
Add Translations
Administrators can now use the Translation Workbench (available in multi-language Salesforce organizations) to override the labels used throughout the Resource and Project Planners with translated versions. This lets you localize the user interface based on your users' personal language settings. For more information, see "Adding Translations for your Users".
Default Zoom
You can now set the default zoom level that applies when users load the Resource or Project Planners.
This setting has been added to the Planners Preferences - Project and Planners Preferences - Resource custom settings:
You can now add additional columns to the default column layouts of the Resource and Project Planners. Once you make additional columns available on the user interface, your users can show and hide them to suit their needs. Column layouts can be remembered for each user between sessions.
These settings have been added to the Planners - Resource and Planners - Project custom settings:
The "Column Preferences Settings" custom setting has been added to store data on dynamic columns across the application. Do not add or remove fields from this custom setting without first contacting FinancialForce.com Customer Support.
General Enhancements
We've made further general enhancements to the Resource and Project Planners based on feedback from customers who used the pilot editions.
You can now view the Edit Assignments panel by double-clicking a resource or project.
We've changed some button names and field labels.
The bar graphics are sharper.
Profile photos in the Resource Planner now display at the resource level only.
Project summary bars are now gray to distinguish them from assignment summary bars.
If you set the zoom level to Month, the timeline now shows month names—for example, May 2014.
For more information, see the list of Fixes in the What's New in FinancialForce PSA: Version 12X? PDF.
Planners Preferences
You can customize the appearance and behavior of the Resource and Project Planners with the Planners Preferences - Project and Planners Preferences - Resource custom settings. At the moment, you can only set the default zoom level. In future releases, users will be able to set preferences on the Resource Planner or Project Planner interface. For more information, see "Setting Planners Preferences".
Support for Work Calendars
The first day of the week shown on the timeline is now based on the work calendar of the resource associated with the logged-in Salesforce user.
Resource Requests
View Unfilled Resource Requests
You can now view all unfilled resource requests—those to which a resource has not yet been assigned—that exist on a project together with financial information. On the same page, you can also view all assignments and a project-level summary of the overall financial impact of requested and scheduled hours on the project.
This button is available to add to the project page layout, on both the project detail page and the Resource Requests related list:
PSA can now generate resource requests for a project automatically, based on information on the child project tasks and project task assignments. You can choose to generate resource requests by role, resource, or milestone and preview them before records are created in your organization. This enables you to take a bottom up approach to planning your projects.
The Generate Resource Requests button is now available for you to add to Project Task Gantt (Task Manager): this opens the Generate Resource Requests from Project Task Assignments page. You can enable or disable this button in your organization—see "Project Task Gantt Settings" . You can also access the Generate Resource Requests from Project Task Assignments page directly from the project detail: the Generate Resource Requests button is available to add to the Project Tasks related list.
Two new lookup fields, Resource Request and Assignment, have been added to the Project Task Assignment object. This creates a direct relationship between assignments and project task assignments in PSA, allowing you to connect the progress of project tasks with associated resource requests and subsequent assignments. In addition, you can configure FinancialForcePSA to update the source project task assignments with the resource that you eventually assign to a task-driven resource request.
These settings have been added to the Resource Request configuration group:
You can now add tasks from a template to a project using the Add Project Tasks From Template button available on the Project Tasks related list. For more information, see "Adding Project Tasks from a Template".
Project Task Gantt
New Name
Task Manager has been renamed Project Task Gantt throughout PSA.
Support for bottom up planning
Project Task Gantt now supports bottom up planning, so you can create project tasks and then use them as the basis for staffing your project plan. In summary:
Using information on project tasks, including role and milestone, you can generate resource requests using the Generate Resource Requests button on the toolbar. For more information, see "Generating Resource Requests from Project Task Gantt".
This setting has been added to the Project Task Gantt custom setting:
You can now edit project tasks even if you are not the project manager. Administrators can assign the new Project Task Gantt Edit permission to users who need to edit specific projects, or all projects within a region, practice or group. For more information, see "Permission Control Fields".
Project Edit Locking
We've introduced the concept of project edit locking, whereby editing rights are "locked out" to the current user on a per-project basis. Depending on the configuration that your administrator has chosen, the edit lock may be overridden by other users.
This setting has been added to the Task Manager custom setting:
You can now control when the batch processes within RPGPR Maintenance Batch (used for updating current time period information for regions, practices and groups) will run. New options are available on the PSA Administration page, usually only available to administrators through the PSA Config tab.
Utilization
Enhancements to Support Capacity Planning
PSAVersion 12X enhances utilization calculations to enable capacity planning by resource role. Therefore, future hours requested by unheld resource requests have been added to the utilization calculation as an optional component. Previously, only held (soft booked) resource requests—those to which a resource has been assigned—were considered. The results of the new calculation will enable you to report on and plan for capacity demand into the future, for the different resource roles in your services business as well for your soft booked and assigned resources.
Often, resource requests depend on, or are created from, an open opportunity in your Salesforce organization. So, in this release you can opt to weight hours of capacity demand by the probability of closing the opportunity and winning the business.
These objects and fields have been added:
The Utilization Summary object has been created. Depending on the configuration that your administrator has chosen, utilization summary records are now created alongside utilization details records when you calculate utilization for a resource or region, practice or group.
Utilization (API name: pse__Utilization__c) has been replaced by Utilization (API name: pse__Total_Utilization__c). Several other utilization calculation fields are also no longer available and have been marked as obsolete.
Work Queue Manager
More Configuration
Work Queue Manager now checks your organization for new scheduled Apex jobs at regular time intervals, giving you control over when it runs. In addition, the maximum number of simultaneous batch Apex jobs that Work Queue Manager can submit to Salesforce has been increased from one to five.
These settings have been added to the WorkQueues custom setting:
You can now choose individual Apex classes to process through Work Queue Manager rather than standard batch Apex. Subordinate billing classes, concerned with removing and clearing billing events, can be scheduled through Work Queue Manager as well as standard billing classes.
These settings have been added to the WorkQueues custom setting:
Several enhancements have been made behind the scenes to optimize Work Queue Manager and address customer issues. For example, you no longer need to schedule jobs one minute out to allow for handling processes in order to avoid mixed DML exception errors from occurring.
Summary...