Automated Jobs and Scheduled Maintenance Flashcards
What is a backlog?
Revenue that is expected from projects over a period of time for a region, practice, or group
Where can you run backlog calculations from?
From a region, practice, or group, or the Backlog Calculations tab
In what intervals can you schedule backlog calculations to run?
Days and times you specify, weekly, or monthly intervals
Are inactive projects processed as part of backlog calculations?
No
How and where are backlog calculations stored?
As a record along with related backlog details. They are stored on related lists on the associated region, practice, group, and project
What permission must you have to schedule backlog calculations?
Permission to the PSA Administration Page
Where can you schedule a backlog calculation?
PSA Scheduled Actions on the PSA Administration Page
What does Scheduled Backlog refer to?
Expected revenue relating to resources assigned or milestones scheduled on a project
What does Unscheduled Backlog refer to?
Expected revenue relating to allocated funds on a project, without resources assigned or milestones scheduled
When will both scheduled and unscheduled backlogs be included in a backlog calculation?
When you use a perpetual time period
What 3 conditions must be met for milestones to roll up to the Milestone Revenue field of the backlog detail record?
(1) “Include in Financials” checkbox is not selected on the milestone, (2) Milestone Target Date is greater than the backlog calculation Start Date, (3) Milestone Status Value is listed in the Milestone Status field of the Backlog custom setting
For Resource Requests, which fields are used for backlog estimates?
Bill Rate and Cost Rate
You can calculate missing timecards for ____, ____, and ____
Region, Practice, or Group
What two places can missing timecards be calculated?
missing-timecard-status setting and Missing Timecards custom setting
*What timecard entry UI custom setting controls org-wide behavior (applies to all users)?
Timecard Entry UI Global
*What timecard entry UI custom settings controls user-specific behavior?
Timecard Entry UI Personal
*What indicates whether Timecard Entry behaviors are controlled by PSA configuration options and values OR custom settings and fields?
Timecard Entry UI Switch
What are field sets used for in time entry and time approval?
Controls which fields display on time entry and time approval pages
What does PSA scan to calculate missing timecards?
Assignments and projects
What does the Missing Timecard custom setting control?
Whether resources are included or excluded from missing timecard calculation
*What can be used to track deviations between a resource’s work calendar and a resource’s timecard hours?
Time Variance Calculations
What setting specifies the time variance over scheduled working hours to include in time variance calculations? What setting specifies time variance under scheduled working hours?
Allowed Variance Over and Allowed Variance Under
Where can you schedule time variance calculations?
From PSA Scheduled Actions on the PSA Administration page
What Utilization setting indicates whether utilization can be calculated using a combination of RPGs such as region by practice (Ex: US Region for Salesforce practice)
Calculate Cross Products
What 4 things can the utilization calculation be run on?
Region, practice, group, resource
How frequently can you schedule utilization calculations to run?
Weekly (one or more days) and Monthly
When PSA is configured to calculate a summary of capacity demand by ____, child utilization summary records are created in addition to parent utilization calculation records
Role
What do you need to set before scheduling a batch?
Schedule
When can you set a scheduling strategy?
When you create new assignments or staff resource requests with resources
What does the Adjust Hours Per Day scheduling strategy do?
Calculates hours per day based on assignment or resource request start and end dates and scheduled or requested hours
What scheduling strategy calculates the end date ignoring the resource’s other assignments?
Calculate End Date, Ignore Availability
What scheduling strategy calculates the end date for the assignment respecting the resource’s other assignments and holidays on their work calendar and the end date on the Schedule Details is calculated automatically?
Calculate End Date, Level Schedule
What scheduling strategy calculates the hours per day based on the percentage allocation for the assignment duration?
Percent Allocation
What scheduling strategy allows you to create assignments with zero hours for each day?
Zero Hour Schedule
When are schedule exceptions created?
When you (1) Select a schedule strategy, (2) edit an existing schedule strategy, (3) Edit a schedule in the planners
Where does the actuals process summarize values?
On the related project, resource, and RPG
What values are used in the actuals process?
billable amount, internal cost, billable hours
What business records trigger the actuals process?
Milestones, timecards, expenses, budgets, misc adjustments
When can actuals be processed?
Real-time or according to an apex job schedule
What is the preferred method to run actuals? How often should this be run?
As an apex job to run multiple times a day
*What is a transaction?
A record that is created updated, and deleted when you carry out actions in PSA, such as creating a timecard or billing a project
What are Transaction Deltas?
A record of an unprocessed transaction that has been queued for processing. When the actuals process is in schedule mode, Transaction Deltas store the old and new values of the records
What are Transaction Delta records used to update?
Actuals fields at time intervals driven by the scheduled job set up in your org
What troubleshooting steps can you follow if actuals rollups are not calculating?
(1) Check that “calculation mode” configuration option is set to scheduled and that the apex job is scheduled for an interval that works for your company (2) check transaction deltas and if there is a backlog in the list, (3) process the batch manually via PSA Admin app, (4) check App Logs for errors
*What are App Logs used for?
To capture and track down errors with actuals, billings, EVAs, and timecard/expense rollup to assignment/milestone
*Where can you go if you suspect that some actuals are incorrect?
Actuals Verifier (also found on the PSA Admin App)
What must be processed before using the Actuals Verifier tool?
All transaction deltas
What feature can be used if you find project discrepancies after running the Actuals Verifier?
Project Actuals Recalculation
How often are utilization/backlog jobs generally scheduled to run? How about Missing Timecards?
Daily; Weekly
*Where can jobs be scheduled from?
PSA Admin App
What are utilization, backlog, and missing timecard jobs scheduled from?
Top-level region, practice, or group
*Where do you review jobs that are scheduled?
Scheduled Jobs in Setup
Where can you monitor or view completed jobs?
Apex Jobs in Setup
What is the Configuration Management action in the PSA Admin App used for?
Used to periodically back up or import Configuration Options; this might be done prior to an upgrade or for migration into another org such as a sandbox
What is the Billing Queue Management action in the PSA Admin App used for?
Used only if directed by FF Support typically after an upgrade is performed and issues are discovered with billing events
*What is the RPGPR Maintenance Batch action in the PSA Admin App used for?
Used to reset the Current TIme Period to the default value (generally All Time Periods).
*What is the RPGPR Maintenance Batch action in the PSA Admin App helpful for?
If users are manually changing the time period on the records and not changing it back to the default
What does the Scheduled Job Cleanup action in the PSA Admin App do?
Deletes Apex scheduled jobs that have no future scheduled activity
When should you use the Project Actuals Recalculation action in the PSA Admin App?
Only if directed by FF Support
What does the Update Project Currency Exchange Rates on Milestones and EVAs action in the PSA Admin App do?
updates the currency exchange rate on a set of records in a specific time range
What does the Calculate Future Time on Schedules action in the PSA Admin App update?
Future scheduled hours on Schedules associated to Assignments or Resource Requests
What does the App Log Cleanup Job action in the PSA Admin App do?
Delete app logs for actuals or billing
When is it suggested that you run the App Log Cleanup Job?
Periodically when there are old logs that have not been deleted
What does the Utilization Engine do?
Generates Availability % for any resource that has not yet had any assignments
What does the Recalculate Schedules on Assignments action do?
Recalculates schedules for related assignments on projects when project tasks, or project task assignments, have been updated
*What does Project Variance compare?
Planned hours against the number of hours spent to determine if a project is over or under the original estimate
What is the best way to view the data from utilization and backlog?
Using reports and dashboards
What is Utilization run from?
Region, Practice, or Group
*What does Utilization measure?
How effectively an organization uses its billable resource over time by calculating both historical and scheduled usage
How does PSA calculate historical utilization?
Billable hours on timecards divided by available hours from the work calendar
How does PSA calculate scheduled utilization?
Future hours on assignments divided by available hours from the work calendar
What two components does utilization have?
Historical and scheduled utilization
Historical utilization is calculated using ____.
Timecards
Scheduled utilization is calculated using ____.
Assignments and Held Resources
When a utilization job runs, what are detail records created for?
Resources and Region, Practice, or Group (depending on which object was used when the job was scheduled)
What type of utilization do Summary records look at?
Only utilization by Resource Role and Region, Practice, or Group.
What is the formula for overall utilization?
(Billed Hours + Credited Hours) / (Calendar Hours - Excluded Hours)
What is the formula for billable-only utilization?
(Billed Hours) / (Calendar Hours - Excluded Hours)
What date plays a key role in determining which timecards will be used towards a resource’s utilization calculation?
Resource’s start date
What is the default Current Time Period on Resources?
All Time Periods
What 4 things does a utilization calculation look at?
Work Calendars, Timecards, Assignments, Resource Requests
What is Backlog?
The remaining work (revenue) you still must complete on your projects
What does Scheduled Backlog refer to?
Expected Revenue from resources assigned (assignments) or milestones scheduled on a project.
What is Unscheduled Backlog?
Total expected revenue minus billings and scheduled revenue
What two ways is Backlog recorded?
Scheduled and Unscheduled
How is Scheduled Backlog recorded?
Time Revenue and Milestone Revenue (respectively)
In Scheduled Backlog, where does time revenue come from?
Future hours on an Assignment’s schedule where the bill rate is not $0
When are Milestones included in Scheduled Backlog?
When the Milestone Amount is not $0, the Include in Financials field is unchecked, the Target Date is greater than the backlog calculation start date, and the milestone status is not Canceled
What is the formula for Unscheduled Backlog?
(Bookings) - (Billings and Scheduled Revenue)
What revenue does Backlog look at?
Only future scheduled revenue, not revenue actually earned
When are issues with Utilization and Backlog usually identified?
By running reports and getting unexpected results
*Where can you configure Missing Timecards?
Configuration Groups, Configuration Options, Custom Settings
*What does Time Variance measure?
Number of hours being entered by resources weekly against the hours scheduled in their work calendar
How many releases does FinancialForce have per year and when are they?
3 - Spring (April), Summer (August), and Winter (December)
What is released between the 3 big releases?
Service Packs
What do Service Packs include?
Fixes to known issues. Does NOT contain changes to feature functionality
What should you do if you uncover a bug in the FinancialForce solution?
Open a case in the community
*When you upgrade to the new release, are all enhancements enabled automatically or do you need to do them manually?
Most are enabled automatically but some are put in as Features in the Feature Console which you must activate manually
*When you upgrade to the new release, what type of features might be disabled?
Any features that might have a significant impact on your data or processes
*What process should you take when activating new features that have multiple steps?
Turn the steps on one at a time in sequential order
What is suggested by FinancialForce for the max amount of time you should schedule assignments out to?
3-5 years max
What needs to be deleted before running the Actuals Verifier or Actuals Recalculation?
Actuals job
How does PSA categorize time?
Actual, Calendar, Scheduled
What time category refers to the amount of time resource have logged against assignments or project tasks on their timecards?
Actual
What time category refers to the amount of time resources are expected to work?
Calendar
What time category refers to the amount of time resources are scheduled to work?
Scheduled
Where does PSA track actuals prior to billing?
RPG, resource, and project
What is the result of calculations that are run on the transactions that occur in a business record?
Actuals
What do Actuals include?
Bookings, Billings, Revenue, Cost, Margin
What modes are Actuals processed in?
Immediate or Scheduled mode
How are actuals processed in Immediate mode?
Real-time
How are actuals processed in Scheduled mode?
A batch mechanism which processes changes to transactions resulting from actions on a business record
