September 10, 2005

1. Administrative: Field-based permissions.

2. Account-wide: Enhancements to “quick approvals” and bulk actions.

3. Projects: Billing rule enhancements; other Projects features.

4. Reports: Starting dates for summary reports; subtotals and grand totals for project detail fields; other Reporting features.

5. Resources: Submit booking requests in bulk; automatically create bookings from approved schedule requests; other Resources features.

6. Other module enhancements: Expenses, Invoices.

7. Would you like to see previous OpenAir product updates?

8. Suggestions, problems or questions?




1. Administrative: Field-based permissions.

OpenAir now supports field-based permissions, allowing the creation of finer-grained access control options. This feature enables OpenAir administrators to configure user privileges with greater precision; it can be particularly valuable in meeting regulatory standards for segregation of duties.

If a form has been enabled for field-based permissions, a link in the hints below the form allows the administrator to select specific fields that will be read-only, on a role-by-role basis. As an example, suppose you want to allow certain users to create and modify projects, but not to change the project budget. You have configured a role which includes the “View and modify projects” privilege and assigned it to certain users. To utilize field-based permissions, you would go to My Account > Account > Account data > Projects > [select a project] > Edit project. In the hints below the “Edit project” form, click the link to "Modify the form permissions". A window will pop up with all the roles (except the "Administrator" role) in your account listed across the top. Down the left-hand side of the window will be listed all the fields in the "Edit project" form that can be modified, one field per row. To the right of each field name will be a row of checkboxes, one box per role. To make a particular field non-modifiable for a particular role, check the corresponding box. For instance, if you want the project budget to be read-only for all roles, check all the role boxes in the “Budget ($)” row. This enables the administrator to allow users to create/modify projects (as provided by the role privileges) while preventing them from changing the project budget amount.

In the last row of the form permissions pop-up window, there is a "Save & Delete buttons" option. Check this box for each role where you want the entire “Edit project” form to be read-only.

Field-based permissions are currently available on the “Edit” page for the following entities: user, project, project task, project billing transactions and invoices. Look for the “Modify the form permissions” link also in Projects > Options > Timebills projections. For more details, please see the Projects and Invoices sections below.





2. Account-wide: Enhancements to “quick approvals” and bulk actions.

The quick approval buttons (Approve/Skip/Reject) are now visible on all views of a timesheet, expense report, invoice, or other item requiring approval. Previously, the quick approval options were only accessible from the "Waiting for my approval" view in the “Submitted” tab. With the current release, the quick approval buttons are presented no matter how the approver navigates to the item waiting approval, including if s/he clicks the link in an email request for approval.

We have also enhanced the bulk action feature throughout OpenAir. This feature is available on many list views throughout the application, by clicking the “customize” link at the bottom of the page and adding “Run an action” to the list of selected values. The bulk action feature allows you to select items from the list by checking the box in the “run an action” column, and then to perform a bulk action (such as delete, deactivate, modify, create PDF documents, etc.) against those selected items by clicking the circling arrows icon. With this release, we have made the default selection “No action” when running bulk actions. This prevents accidental bulk deletion of selected items.





3. Projects: Billing rule enhancements; other Projects features.

We have enhanced project billing rules in a couple of ways in this release. First, OpenAir now provides an option in project billing rules to convert hourly time entries into a single consolidated daily timebill. To use this feature, please go to Projects > [select a project] > Billing. Create or modify a time billing rule. As an example, if a user is billed at a daily rate of $1375/day based on an 8 hour work day, you would do the following:
    • In the “Billing rates” section, select “Users” as the source of billing rates. Figure out the user’s hourly equivalent rate based on the daily rate and number of hours considered to constitute a day’s work (in our example, $1375 divided by 8 hours = $171.87/hour) and enter this value as the user’s override rate field.
    • In the “Rounding rules” section, enter rounding rules for worked hours (e.g., hours greater than 7.5 are rounded up to 8 hours).
    • Check the "Create daily Timebills" option next to the rounding rule.

When billing is run, the rounded time is multiplied by the user override billing rate (e.g., 8 hours multiplied by $171.87 = $1374.80) The daily total is then rounded to the closest whole number and an “other rate” daily timebill is created, in this case a daily rate timebill for $1375.

In a second enhancement to Project billing, we have improved the cap feature in time billing rules. Formerly, a cap encountered within a single time entry would cause the remaining hours or dollars over the cap to be discarded. Now, even if the cap hits within a single time entry, the time entry is split and hours/dollars over the cap are passed to the next billing rule. For example, if a project has two time billing rules, with the first capped at 10 hours at a rate of $0 and a second, without cap, at a rate of $125 per hour, a user who has 8 approved hours on Day 1 and 8 approved hours on Day 2 will have a total of 10 hours billed at $0 and 6 hours billed at $125 per hour, even though the cap hits within Day 2’s time entry. To enable this feature, please contact OpenAir support.

Other enhancements to the Projects module this month include:

    • Permission to modify the timebills/charge projection form can be configured on a role-by-role basis. This form is available from Projects > Options > Timebill/Charge projections. Click the link below the form to “Modify the form permissions”. The form can be made read-only for specific roles. This allows the administrator to configure user permissions to view the timebill/charge projections settings, without being able to change them. See additional information on field-based permissions, in Section 1 on Administrative changes, above.

    • Similarly, permission to modify the results of a billing run can be configured on a role-by-role basis. You can enable users to run billing (by giving them a role that includes “Run project billing”) but prevent them from changing or deleting the results of the billing run. To do so, please go to Projects > [select a project] > Billing > Project billing transactions. Click the “Modify the form permissions” link, and check the “Save & Delete buttons” checkbox for the roles to be limited. See additional information on field-based permissions, in Section 1 on Administrative changes, abov

    • Project Owner can be added as a column to the task list. Use the “customize” link at the bottom of the Projects > Task list to select “Owner” as a value to display.     • The project billing transactions list can be configured to include the hours and rates for each transaction. In Projects > [select a project] > Billing > Project billing transactions, use the “customize” link at the bottom of the page to select “Hours” and “Hourly rate”





4. Reports: Starting dates for summary reports; subtotals and grand totals for project detail fields; other Reporting features.

Summary reports now include an option to choose a start date. Previously, only end dates were supported; if you wanted to report on a number of periods, going forward from today, it was necessary to consult a calendar or otherwise figure out the ending date for the number of periods desired. Now, you can select the period, number of periods, enter a date and specify whether the date is the starting date or ending date of the report. If “This is an end date” is selected, the first period is always a full period and the last period may be a partial period, as it always ends on the end date specified. If “This is a start date” is selected, the first period may be a partial period as it always starts exactly on the start date specified and the last period is always a full period. All saved summary reports will have "This is an end date" selected. Custom time ranges are supported.

Also in summary reports, we now provide grand totaling and subtotaling of detail values. First, you can display grand totals for project detailing values that come from the project financial analysis report. Values supporting grand totals are:

    • Deferred revenue - Selected Period (currency)
    • Income vs Budget - Inception to date (currency)
    • Profit - Incurred cost vs. Budget - Inception to date (currency)
    • Profit - Incurred cost vs. Income - Inception to date (currency)
    • Profit - Incurred cost vs. Income - Selected Period (currency)
    • Total Income - Inception to date (currency)
    • Total Income - Selected period (currency)
    • Total Incurred costs - Inception to date (currency)
    • Total Incurred costs - Selected Period (currency)


The above values can also be roll-up subtotaled in summary reports. Second, every detail field in a summary report that can be totaled in any detail report (hours or currency, for example) can now be grand-totaled (and roll-up subtotaled) when detailing in a summary report.

Please note that in multi-currency accounts, the grand total feature is limited to those values where the desired currency has been selected, so that all of the values in the column are converted to that currency and the grand total will be in that currency.

Other reporting enhancements in this release include:

    • The receipt detail report allows you to filter by receipt status. This permits users to run the report to show only reimbursable or only non-reimbursable expenses. Please see Reports > Detail > Expenses > Receipts. Click “Receipt status filter” to filter report results by reimbursable status of receipts.

    • The fixed fee projections report has an option to display the rule description. Please see Reports > Advanced > Projects > Fixed fee projections. In the Report layout, add “Rule description” as a selected value.

    • Future date ranges are now available in the Booking assignment detail report. Please see Reports > Detail > Resources > Booking assignments.





5. Resources: Submit booking requests in bulk; automatically create bookings from approved schedule requests; other Resources features.

In OpenAir’s Resources module, it is now possible to submit booking requests in bulk. To activate this feature, the owner of the booking requests can simply click the “customize” link at the bottom of the booking request list. Move “Run an action” to the list of selected items on the right, and click OK. This displays a column of checkboxes in the booking request list. Check the boxes for the bookings to be submitted. To toggle the entire column of checkboxes on and off, click the icon at the top of the column. Click the circling arrows icon to run the action. Select the “submit” action and click OK to submit the desired booking requests. The bulk submit feature respects the company setting that prevents submission of booking requests if time is booked to an inactive option.

We have also added a new option to automatically create bookings from approved schedule requests. A Schedule request is a request submitted by a user for a change to his/her regular work schedule (for vacation, for example). Creating a schedule request enables OpenAir to account for time off when calculating project plans and bookings. The new feature to automatically create bookings from approved schedule requests is mutually exclusive with the existing option to automatically create schedule exceptions from approved schedule requests. To enable either feature, please go to My Account > Company > Settings > TimeSheet Options. Check the box “Automatically create bookings when a schedule request is approved” (or “Automatically create schedule exceptions when a schedule request is approved”) and save.

Other enhancements to the Resources module include:

    • Approvals for generic resources are now supported in deal booking requests. Navigate to My Account > Account > Resources > Generic resources > [select generic resource] > Demographic, to select a deal booking request approver. For more information on deal booking requests, please see OpenAir’s January 29, 2005 product update, under paragraph 4 of the "Other module enhancements" section.





6. Other module enhancements: Expenses, Invoices.

In the Expenses module, if your account has enabled the “billable receipt” checkbox, there is a new hint on the receipt form, to alert the user to check the box if the expense is billable to the client.

Also in Expenses, a new feature allows administrators to create a custom field for envelopes that can be changed by a bulk action, even after the envelope has been approved. This can be useful for adding an accounting status to envelopes. For example, you may want to approve expenses so that they can be run through billing, and update the accounting status later. In this case, you can now create a drop-down field associated with envelopes in My Account > Company > Settings > Custom fields. The field name must be entered as “envelope_status”. The display name, which will appear to the user on the envelope form, can be of your choice. When you are ready to update the envelope status, go to the envelopes list view. Use the bulk action column of checkboxes to select the envelopes whose status is to be changed, then click the circling arrows icon. An option to change the envelope status will be presented. Select the radio button for the change status action, select the updated status and click OK. Even approved and reimbursed envelopes can be changed in this manner.

In Invoices, an administrator can use the new field-based permissions feature to limit the invoice fields that a user can modify. To do so, please go to Invoices > Invoices > [select an invoice] > Edit. Click the link below the “Edit” form to “Modify the form permissions”. Check the boxes for each field and role where you do NOT want the role to be able to modify the field, then click OK. For example, a role that permits users to view and modify invoices could be restricted from changing the invoice number or payment terms. See additional information on field-based permissions, in Section 1 on Administrative changes, above.

Also in Invoices, the Agreement and customer PO number can be added to the “Create invoice” screen and to the invoice layout. To add to the “Create invoice” view, please go to Invoices > Invoices. From the “Create” dropdown on the right, select to create an invoice, then click the “customize” link at the bottom of the page. To add the fields to the invoice layout, please go to Invoices > Options > Invoice layout. Select an existing layout to modify or create a new layout. Include the Agreement or Customer PO number as columns to display.





7. Would you like to see previous OpenAir product updates?

Click here to browse previous product updates including all new features, modules and functionality.



8. Suggestions, problems or questions?

As always, please contact us at support@openair.com or 888.367.1288 (outside the U.S. and Canada, call +1.617.351.0226). We pride ourselves on the outstanding care we give our customers. Please let us know how we can improve your experience with OpenAir.