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What's changed in this release

April 2011

This document compares the new DOVICO Timesheet version 11 to version 10.

Online Time Management SoftwareAs a supplement to the WHAT'S NEW video and brochure, the following focuses on the changes made to DOVICO Timesheet that support the new release (version 11).

It is intended for existing clients upgrading their software and it explains the major, minor and subtle changes that may not be described in other materials. Before the decision to upgrade is made, these changes should be reviewed with all DOVICO administrators and managers.

The wholly new items added in this release, such as Currencies, Attach Receipts and the new Navigation layout are not detailed.

 

Employee hourly rates

How employee hourly pay and billing rates are created, assigned to employees and administered has changed considerably.

In previous versions of DOVICO Timesheet, all hourly rates were created in the Rates view and given a name. This ‘named’ rate was then assigned to employee’s via the employee properties window - leaving the actual hourly value (e.g. $25.00) hidden from those having access to employee properties.

Employee hourly rates for version 10

In version 11, the Rates view has been removed in its entirety. Hourly rates are now entered directly in each employee’s profile. The use of ‘named’ rates is no longer available.

Employee hourly rates for version 11

During the database upgrade process, the old 'named' rates and values are automatically converted to values appropriate to each employee assigned to a rate. Any 'named' rate not linked to an employee will be removed during upgrade process. Any Custom field data entered for all 'named' rates will also be lost. Contact DOVICO to evaluate possible solutions if there a need to keep this information. The hourly rate values can be hidden from selected users who have access to employee profiles by un-checking both 'Show Costs' boxes in the user's Security Group. This will hide rates from all views.

 

Overtime rates

The modifications to Rates described previously have forced changes to how Overtime Rates are applied. Overtime rates are now applied to each employee via their employee property windows. In previous versions, the overtime rates were assigned to named rates in the Rates view. How and where Overtime Rates are created has not changed.

During the upgrade process, all overtime assignments will be converted.

Ovetime rates

 

Reports

In addition to the changes arising from entering and displaying costs in multiple currencies, there have been other changes which may affect how built-in and custom-built reports will work after the upgrade.

Budget vs. Actual Reporting
In previous versions of the software, reports showing budgeted time and costs would display the budgeted data for the entire project's date range – regardless of the dates chosen when running the report. Any dates selected were only applied to retrieve actual time and costs data. This has been corrected in version 11. For those wanting the 'old' functionality for these reports, some reporting views are available to retrofit your reports. Contact DOVICO for your price quotation

Reporting Engine
DOVICO Timesheet version 11 now uses the Crystal Reports 2008 reporting engine.

Custom Built Reports

  1. Custom built reports prepared for previous versions may not work after the upgrade. Custom built reports showing wage and charge out rates will likely have to be manually fixed. Custom built Invoices should also be reviewed after the upgrade.
  2. Crystal Parameters: Any custom built reports where a Crystal parameter has been added to the report selection criteria may not launch.
  3. Currency symbols: Any custom built reports displaying a currency should be reviewed and modified if necessary. Contact DOVICO for more information. All built-in reports display the currency symbol designated by the regional setting if Currencies are not enabled. If enabled, the currency displayed is chosen by the user generating the report.
  4. For installed (on-premise) clients only: After the upgrade, any custom reports or custom folders created for the previous version are placed in a new folder (Custom Reports). Security access to these reports is also reset to Administrators only. You must manually move them to their previous folder locations and re-apply security access as required.

Report Column widths
With Currencies enabled, currency codes and symbols (USD $, CAD $, EUR €, etc) are now displayed in reports. This added information may cause information within a report’s columns to be partially cut off.

New Reports
For all users, an Employee Utilization report is now available in the Administration/Assignments folder
For those who enable Currencies, five new reports have been added.

  1. Project Assignments by Task and Employee with Rates (in the Administration/Assignments folder)
  2. Currency Exchange Rate History (in the Administration/System Administration folder)
  3. Employee Expenses with Client and Company Costs - Multi Currency (in the Expenses folder)
  4. Employee Expenses with Company Costs - Multi Currency (in the Expenses folder)
  5. Project Expenses - Multi Currency (in the Expenses folder)

Reports removed
A small number of reports have been removed when compared with DOVICO Timesheet version 10. The following reports have been removed:

  1. Project Billable Time and Company Costs by Task and Employee (with Budget)
  2. Project Non-Billable Time and Company Costs by Task and Employee (with Budget)
  3. Project Expenses with Client Costs – this report can still be created by running the Project Time and Expenses with Client and Company Costs report and then hiding the Company Costs using the option at the top of the PDF viewer.
  4. Items Flagged for Archive

Report changes
The Project Expenses with Client and Company Costs report has been modified to include a breakdown of time and expenses by employee. This report has also been renamed to Project Time and Expenses with Client and Company Costs.

 

Regional settings

Regional Settings

In previous versions, the regional setting used throughout the software was controlled by your server's regional setting. In this release, the software's regional setting is now directly set using the Database Options view. Because the currency displayed for existing data is set by the regional setting, it is important that this setting be checked for each database upgraded. (Menu > Setup tab > Database Options > General tab)

If Currencies functionality is enabled after the upgrade, then each end user has the option to change his or her personal regional setting using the Options tab (the 4th tab in the time entry tool). This setting affects how dates and numbers are displayed in views and reports. It does not change the currency symbol. The system administrator has to option to remove this control from each user and force a regional setting. (Menu > Setup tab > Timesheet Options)

 

Decimal Rounding

With the exception for Currency Exchange Rates and Expense Categories created for unit tracking (e.g. mileage), all numeric values entered into the system that are used in calculations will be rounded and stored in the database to 2 decimal places. Example: A task prorating entered as 1.2544 will be stored and displayed as 1.25. Currency Exchange Rates will be displayed and stored to 4 decimal places and Unit-based Expense Categories will be set to 6 decimal places. During the upgrade, all existing values in the database that exceed these new limits will be rounded. There is a possibility that after the upgrade, a project's total cost may vary slightly when compared to the same total before the upgrade.

 

Project Properties

Added to each project is a Freeze budget costs option. This option is used to lock down the employee pay and billing rates applied to this project. When this project option is checked, if an employee's Rate of Wages or Rate Charged values are changed, the revised rates are not automatically applied to this project’s budgeted costs. This option will default to ‘unchecked’ for existing projects during the upgrade.

 

Employee Properties - Work Days field

Each employee's Working Days setting will be reset to 5 days per week after the upgrade. This data field, formally set in the employee profile's Additional tab and only used for reporting purposes, is no longer available for editing using software's interface. It may be modified using your SQL management software.

 

Archive


The Archive function has been removed from the Database Manager utility. The Flag for archive checkbox has been removed from the following items: Employees, Tasks, Projects, Clients, Task Groups, Teams, Expense Categories, Overtime Rates, Project Groups, Regions, Leave Absence Rules and Security Groups.

 

Miscellaneous

  1. The Adjustment hours column previously available in the Budgeted Time & Costs view has been removed. During the upgrade, any adjustment hours data for a given task assignment is added to the Estimated Hours data.
  2. Expenses Reimbursable field: When entering an expense item, the reimbursable field (Yes/No) will default to the setting used in the previous expense in that sheet. Example. If the first expense is set to ‘Yes’, all subsequent expense entries will default to ‘Yes’ until manually changed.
  3. Microsoft Project - Publish feature. DOVICO Timesheet now synchronizes Microsoft Project’s Publish field when the ‘Get Assignments’ function is used. This field controls, for each task, whether the assignment is displayed or not in the employees’ time entry tool. This feature duplicates the Show/Hide feature available from the Project Assignments tab.
  4. Microsoft Project - task assignment order in the time entry tool. When a Microsoft Project plan is synchronized to DOVICO Timesheet, the tasks appearing in the time entry tool will now appear in the same order as set up in the Microsoft Project plan. They were previously displayed in alphabetical order.
  5. The old Currencies view, which was used to establish conversion rates for the currency calculator, has been replaced by the new Currencies functionality. The currency calculator, previously available when entering expenses, has been removed. Employees having security access to the old Currencies view through the pre-defined Manager security group will not have access to the new Currencies view. After the upgrade, the new Currencies view is only available to the pre-defined Administrator security group.
  6. In the new navigation menu, 'Project Workspace' is now called 'Employees and Projects'.
  7. In the new navigation menu, the time and expense entry views are now grouped under ‘My Time & Expenses’.