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Resources

People (employees and external service providers) are created as resources. They provide the services. Proof of completed services is provided in the form of Time Recordings, created by the resources for their respective tasks. These Time Recordings are checked and released via DYCE Project Billing (page Project Billing). Subsequently, the services completed are invoiced.

The resource planning (e.g. with regard to concrete employee assignments) takes place outside of DYCE Project Billing. However, this can be done in any other tool. Master data regarding capacity etc. of these employees can be stored so that they can be further processed in other systems if necessary.

Human resources​

Time Recordings are always created for a specific human resource. Therefore, each employee who provides services must be set up as a resource (of the type Person).

  • The No. field is usually filled manually with a short name for the person (see below).
  • In the field Name first name and family name are entered.
  • As Type the value Person is selected.
  • In the Base Unit of Measure field, the unit of work that will be used as the basis for postings is specified. The lookup will take you to the appropriate selection, usually the base unit hour is used for human resources.
  • The Resource Group No. field is used to assign persons to a resource group or team. The field can be used for planning and evaluations. Locked is set when the resource may no longer be used.
  • If a person is an external service provider, the related vendor must be specified in the Vendor No. field of the Invoicing fast tab.
  • As a prerequisite for Time Recordings to be posted, a suitable Product Posting Group must be specified in the Gen. Prod. Posting Group field.

Human resources defaults​

Human resources can and should be given a capacity. It results from the work-hour template, the base calendar (which contains the non-working days) and the absences of the resource. With the Resource Person Defaults (action in the menu group Resource) there is a convenient option for maintenance in DYCE Project Billing. Calling up the action opens the page of the same name. In addition to the work-hour template and the base calendar, the cost center and the resource group can also be specified here by entering a validity date. This makes it possible to enter a planned change in advance.

The batch processing behind the Apply Resource Person Defaults action transfers the defaults to all relevant places. Individual resources can be filtered for manual execution. The defaults valid on the workdate or calendar day are transferred (taking into account the Transferred at and Valid from fields) and the capacity is generated if necessary. Batch processing can be carried out via the resource card, the search or (automatically) via the job queue (report 70920903). When DYCE Project Billing is installed, a task is created for daily execution at 3:00 a.m., but is not activated.

If an existing default is changed, the Transferred at field is reset and a new update is prepared.

Resource capacities​

To support automated resource planning, resource capacities can be created automatically and kept up to date. The following fields (in the General fast tab) are used for this purpose in the Projects Setup:

  • Create Resource Capacity Entries determines whether resource capacities are created automatically when person resource defaults are applied.
  • Create Resource Capacity Entries from specifies the dateformula from when capacities should be created.
  • Create Resource Capacity Entries until specifies the dateformula until when capacities should be created.
Select a sensible time period

The date formulas can be used to flexibly specify a time period. The following setting is recommended, for example:

  • Create Resource Capacity Entries from = -CM-1M
  • Create Resource Capacity Entries until = CY+1Y This means that the capacities are always created one month in arrears and one year in advance based on the current workdate or date.

Batch processing Apply Resource Person Defaults takes the setting from Projects Setup into account and proposes the creation of capacities accordingly or creates them automatically. The system checks whether resource capacities need to be created or updated. The fields Resource Capacity created at and Valid from are taken into account. Even if the defaults have not changed, capacities are created for the selected period (manually or via the Projects Setup) to ensure that the planning period is covered. For this purpose, the date of the last Resource Capacity Entry is compared with the calculated start date.

Capacities are created per calendar day and take into account (per resource):

  • Work-Hour Template
  • Base Calendar → non-working days correspond to a capacity of 0
  • Absences (empty, Approved or Approval Pending) → capacity is reduced accordingly:
    • Full day → full capacity is deducted
    • Half-day → half capacity is deducted
    • Hourly → corresponding hours will be deducted If the new capacity or related metadata (e.g. resource group, cost center) differs from the existing entry, the old entry is deleted and a new one is created (table Resource Capacity Entry, 160). There must be an entry for each calendar day - even with capacity 0.

If an existing default or absence is created or changed, the Resource Capacity created at field is reset, thus preparing the creation of the new capacity. At the same time, the ideally daily execution ensures that the capacities of the resources are always up to date. In addition, the capacities of the resource groups are also updated automatically if the capacities of individual resources change.

The resource capacities are also made available via an API page.

Standard action Set Capacity hidden

To avoid confusion, the standard action Set Capacity on the Resource Capacity page is hidden with the installation of DYCE Project Billing, as this functionality is covered by the batch processing Apply Resource Person Defaults.

Placeholder​

Resources can be marked as Placeholders. This is for use in DYCE Project & Resource Planning. Resources marked in this way behave like a human resource (including Resource Person Defaults and Skills). When used in a project plan of DYCE Project & Resource Planning, however, an assignment to a task does not reduce its required capacity.

Multiple levels in resource skills​

It is already possible to define skills and assign these to resources in the standard version of Business Central (call via Resource / Skills in the Resource Card). With DYCE Project Billing, any number of levels can also be defined for each skill to enable a gradation within a skill. These levels can then be taken into account when assigning a skill to a resource.
The Skill Code Levels are defined in the page of the same name, which is opened via the lookup in the Levels field in the Resource Skills page. For a better overview, the No. of assigned skills per resource is displayed in the infobox Resource Statistics.

Sorting

The Skill Code Levels are sorted/displayed alphanumerically based on the Level. It may therefore be useful to add a leading digit in front of the level for sorting purposes.

Suggestion for the naming of human resources​

A uniform naming scheme contributes to general clarity. The following is therefore a proposal for such a scheme for human resources. However, it is important to consider how many letters are needed to ensure a unique code. Thus, both a Joseph Doe and a Jane Doe may work in the same company.
Structure: first three letters of the first name, then the last name
. Example: John Doe ==> JOHDOE