Assignments and Schedules

Resources are allocated to projects using assignments. An assignmentConnection between a resource and a project. is the connection between resources and projects. When you assign a resourceA contact that works on a project. to a projectA collection of activities and related items to be managed over a defined time range, such as timecards, expenses, milestones and budgets., you can create a schedule for that resource.

Depending on your permissions you can:

• Assign resources to projects directly by name, using Assign ResourceUnheld resource request. A resource request for a specific role. Unlike assignments and held resource requests (HRRs), URRs do not have associated schedules. in the Assignments related list, or from a resource request.
• Assign multiple resources to a project or a resource.
• Create assignments for time spent in activities not directly related to a project, such as jury duty.
• Allow resources to self-staff and bypass staffing Permission Controls for a user so they can self-staff.
• Use the Self-Assignment page to assign yourself to a project if your administrator has given you the privileges to do so.
• View, add and edit daily notes on assignments.
• Set your organization's default scheduling strategy.
• View the updated end date for a scheduling strategy based on the scheduled hours.

Rescheduling Assignments

You can conveniently recalculate schedules for related assignments on projects when project tasks or project task assignments have been updated. However, schedules exceeding 24 hours in a day will not be updated or rescheduled. See auto-recalculate-schedule-for-assignments and Eligible for Schedule Recalculation for more information about controlling this feature.

To Reschedule Assignments:

On the project's Assignment related list, click Reschedule Assignments.

Note:

Note

Your administrator can batch submit or schedule the recalculation of all rescheduled assignments. See PSA Administration.

Closing Assignments

You can close assignments for time entry and for expense entry. When you close an assignment before the original end date, the Estimates Vs Actuals records for future time periods are deleted.

When an assignment is to be aborted or canceled and a resource never does any work on it, you can also zero assignment schedule hours in addition to closing the assignment.

Warning:

Warning

You cannot undo this change.

Bill Rate on Assignments

If you have permissions to do so, you can hide the Bill Rate on an assignment from selected Salesforce user profiles using field-level security. When the bill rate is hidden for an assignment, you can still update other fields on that assignment.

Bill Rate for Timecards Copied from Milestones

Depending on the configuration options that your administrator has set and the values selected in the milestone fields, timecards with a milestone might inherit their bill rate from the parent milestone. When FinancialForce PSA is configured to do so and a timecard has an assignment and a milestone with different bill rates, the milestone bill rate takes precedence.

If a timecardA mechanism for logging time against a project or an assignment. has no milestoneA fixed target, which when achieved, can be billed to the customer for a fixed fee or by logging time against it., or the milestone has no bill rate, the timecard inherits the bill rate from its assignment.

Milestone bill rates only apply to billable timecards. Even when bill rates from milestones are applied to a non-billable timecard, this does not change the total billable amount. The total billable amount is zero, so zero rolls up to billings after inclusion in financials. If the project associated with the timecard is a global project and has no assignment, the bill rate reverts to zero. However, you can also use Milestone Default Bill Rates to set bill rates on timecards for global projects.

When you change a milestone after a timecard has been created or edited, those changes are not reflected on child timecards because each timecard only takes the bill rate from the milestone at the time you create or edit it.

Tip:

Tips

You can assign a resource to a project, with different bill rates for different kinds of work. You can also use bill rates from milestones with a single assignment.

If PSA is configured to use milestone-driven bill rates, their backlog calculations are inaccurate. This is because milestones do not have schedules associated with them, so assigned time expected to be worked at different bill rates cannot be derived.

When a timecard inherits its current bill rate from a milestone, the Bill Rate Defaulted from Milestone checkbox is automatically selected on that timecard.

Note:

Note

Timecards can only inherit bill rates from milestones when they are created or updated. If you change the bill rate on a milestone, that change is only reflected in new child timecards or when you update an existing child timecard.

Excluding Resources and Assignments from Planners

You can exclude assignments from the plannersA term referring to the project and resource planners. on the Assignment Edit page using the Exclude from Planners checkbox. You can also exclude resources from the resource plannerA graphical tool that gives you an organized, comprehensive view of resources and the projects to which they are assigned. on the Contact page using the Exclude from Resource Planner checkbox.