Project Management Workflows in Microsoft Dynamics AX: Setup Project Based Timesheet Approvals

Posted on: May 11, 2015 | By: Jarrod Kraemer | Microsoft Dynamics AX/365

How does your company manage timesheet approvals for projects?  Does the project manager need to approve? The project controller? Your boss?  Someone else in your company’s hierarchy?

Not every professional services company manages project timesheets the same way. Every company has unique business requirements for how approvals are handled.  Microsoft Dynamics AX provides powerful and flexible workflow capabilities that allow organizations automate their unique processes for greater efficiency.  In today’s post we are going to take a look at how to set up timesheet workflows specifically for companies that need to use the project based approval functionality in AX.

Setting up a timesheet workflow is necessary if your company is using AX’s timesheet functionality.  Timesheets cannot be submitted if a timesheet approval workflow is not setup in the Project Management and Accounting module, it will just sit in draft state in the Enterprise Portal. 

There are two types of timesheet approval workflows that can be setup in AX; the review timesheet line workflow and the review timesheet workflow.  The review timesheet line workflow is the approval process that individual lines of a timesheet will go through.  The review timesheet workflow is the approval process that an entire timesheet document will go through – including every timesheet line for that document. Below we will go through the importance and setup of each of these workflows and how they relate to project based approval. 

Review Timesheet Line Workflow –The timesheet line workflow is very important for companies managing several projects.  This is where workflows can be set up based on projects, workflows can be setup to have timesheets approved by one or more project team members (Project Manager, Project Controller, Project Sales Manager, etc…). 

To create a timesheet line workflow so that timesheets must be approved by project participants follow these steps:

1)      Navigate to Project management and accounting > Setup > Project management and accounting workflows.

2)      Click ‘New’ in the ‘New’ action pane, highlight ‘Review timesheet line workflow’ and click ‘Create workflow’.  We will now be in the workflow designer form.

3)      Drag the ‘Approve a timesheet line’ workflow element onto the workflow, and connect to ‘Start’ and ‘End’ elements.

 

4)      Double click on the ‘Approve a timesheet line’ element, highlight the ‘Step 1’ element, and click on ‘Properties’ in the ‘Show’ action pane.

5)      Once in the properties form complete the following setup:

 

·        Basic Settings:  As with any workflow in AX a work item subject and work item instructions must be entered before the workflow can be activated.  The subject andinstructions will be displayed in the user’s work list in the enterprise portal.  Text placeholders can be inserted into the instructions to add project specific details.

               

Example work item subject for project based approval:

“Please review and approve %Timesheet line.Worker%'s timesheet for %Timesheet line.Total hours% on project %Timesheet line.ProjId%.”

%Timesheet line.Worker% = Workers name

%Timesheet line.Total hours% = Number of hours they worked on this timesheet line

%Timesheet line.ProjId% = Project ID for this timesheet line

 

·        Assignment: This is where you setup who will be responsible for approving the timesheet.  Time limit and completion policy can be defined here as well.

For project based approvals:

o   Assignment Type: ‘Participant’

o   Role Based – Type of Participant: choose ‘Project participant’

o   Role Based – Participant: Whatever project role you would like to handle approvals for each project (Project Manager, Project Controller, Project Sales Manager, etc.) 

·        Condition & Escalation: Can be set as with any other workflow.

Review Timesheet Workflow – approval workflows for entire timesheet documents which include all lines of a given timesheet.  For a timesheet line workflow to be used it needs to be inserted into the overall timesheet workflow.

To create a timesheet workflow that includes a timesheet line workflow follow these steps:

1)      Navigate to Project management and accounting > Setup > Project management and accounting workflows.

2)      Click ‘New’ in the ‘New’ action pane, highlight ‘Review timesheet workflow’ and click ‘Create workflow’.  You will now in the workflow designer form.

3)      Drag the ‘Timesheet line-item workflow’ workflow element on to the workflow.

4)      Drag the ‘Approve a timesheet’ workflow element onto the workflow and configure the steps and properties.

5)      Connect your workflow elements to ‘Start’ and ‘End’ elements.

 

 

Now, we are all set, all submitted timesheet entries will be sent to the responsible project participant for approval. Hopefully this helps in your efforts to create project based workflows! For additional information please feel free to reach out to us at info@loganconsulting.com or (312) 345-8817.

 

All the best!

Logan Consulting

www.loganconsulting.com  

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