Projects:Project Service Management Review/Specifications

Contents 1 Overview 1.1 Purpose 1.2 Scope 2 Design Considerations 2.1 Assumptions 2.2 Dependencies 3 Functional Requirements 3.1 User roles & profiles 3.2 Business process definition 3.3 User Stories 3.3.1 User Story 1 3.3.2 User Story 2 3.3.3 User Story 3 3.3.4 User Story 4 3.3.5 User Story 5 3.3.6 User Story 6 3.4 Functional requirements based on business processes 3.4.1 Project Setup and Use workflow 3.4.2 Project Type window 3.4.2.1 Project Type tab 3.4.2.2 Standard Phase tab 3.4.2.3 Standard Task tab 3.4.3 Multiphase Project window 3.4.3.1 Multiphase Project tab 3.4.3.2 Project Phase tab 3.4.3.3 Project Task tab 3.4.4 Service Project window 3.4.4.1 Service Project tab 3.4.4.2 Project Line tab 3.4.4.3 Supplier tab 3.4.4.4 Proposal tab 3.4.4.5 Proposal Line tab 3.4.4.6 Followup tab 3.4.5 Expense Sheet window 3.4.5.1 Header tab 3.4.5.2 Lines tab 3.4.6 Invoiceable Expenses window 3.4.6.1 Customer tab 3.4.6.2 Lines tab 3.4.7 Create Sales Orders from Expenses process 3.4.8 Employee Expenses window 3.4.8.1 Employee tab 3.4.8.2 Lines tab 3.4.9 Create AP Expense Invoices process 3.4.10 Project Profitability report 3.4.11 Service Project Report report 3.4.12 Project Proposal Tracker window 3.4.13 Expense Report report

Overview

This project aims to review and restructure the Project and Service Management module of Openbravo ERP.

Take into account that Openbravo ERP focuses mainly in financial aspects of projects and very slightly in scheduling aspects (no Gantt nor Pert charts are supported in Openbravo ERP).

Purpose

This project will go through each window, tab, field and report of Project and Service Management module and fix the major incorrect behaviours.

Scope

Please notice that no new functionality will be added to this module during this project. Feel free to follow the development status.

Because of the little time to achieve this project, minor bugs found will be corrected between 2.40 Alpha and 2.40 Beta and labelled with QA-PSM prefix in SourceForge bug tracker.

Design Considerations

Assumptions

This review assumes a certain correct behaviour of Project and Service Management module. Even if every item of this module will be reviewed, it does not mean that they will be built from zero but just fixed in some cases.

Dependencies

Project and Service Management module is closely related to Procurement Management and Sales Management modules since projects usually require purchase of materials and services and sales of them.

Functional Requirements

User roles & profiles

The user roles affected by this functionality are:

Projects teams

Both project leader and the rest of the team should be able to set up a new standard project or launch a new project from a standard one. These users should also be able to update, control and report project status in an easy manner. They will also require to generate sales and purchase orders for each project. Finally, project teams members must be able to register their reimbursable expenses.

Generic employees

As well as projects teams, generic employees should be able to register their reimbursable expenses (associated to a project or not).

Human and financial resources controllers

As well as any generic employee, human and financial resources controllers should be able to record expenses. But they also require the ability to modify and complete existing expenses and create new ones.

Business process definition

1. Projects team manager receives a new job.
   1. If this new project does not follow the same pattern than an existing one, he registers a new project type.
   2. Projects team manager records a new project:
      1. The project can consist of multiple phases and tasks with materials associated to each one, so he will create a new Multiphase Project.
      2. The project does not follow phases nor tasks but only requires a list of materials. This project may also need to manage proposals. Projects team manager will create a new Service Project.
2. During the evolution of the project, projects team can:
   1. Generate sales and purchase orders for this project.
   2. Fill expenses sheets.
3. During the evolution of the project or after the project has finished, human and financial resources controllers can:
   1. Register and invoice employee expenses.
   2. Invoice customers with project costs.
4. Once the project has finished:
   1. Projects team can close it.
   2. Projects team can make a profitability report.

User Stories

User Story 1

• Catherine, the Consultant Manager at YaBizIT, a technological consultancy, receives a new job: it is the typical consultancy service. But this time, she will be able to easily register and track it with Openbravo ERP, the new IT tool of its company.
• This project will require the 5 standard phases used at YaBizIT for consultancy projects:
  • Project preparation.
  • Definition.
  • Iterative prototyping.
  • Final preparation.
  • Go live & adjustments.
• Catherine registers these standard phases in a project type named Consultancy project with project category equals to Multiphase project.
• Then, Catherine registers a new Multiphase project named Consultancy for Springfield City Council. She sets its project type to Consultancy project and its status to Order.
• For each of the standard phases, she changes some typical names and products and adds some specific new tasks.
• During the evolution of this project, while she completes each phase, Catherine generates sales orders for each one of them.
• When the project is over, she changes project status to Order closed and closes the project.
• Finally, she reports a profitability of Consultancy for Springfield City Council project.

User Story 2

• Matthew, the Engineering Manager at YaBizIT, is starting a new project to update all the communication infrastructure of Shelbyville Bank.
• His project will not require phases and tasks but only a list of materials.
• Matthew registers a new Service Project named Shelbyville Bank Comm Infrastructure with status Order and Shelbyville Bank as business partner.
• Once he finishes the project, he generates the sales order for Shelbyville Bank, changes project status to Order closed and closes the project.
• Finally, he reports a profitability of Shelbyville Bank Comm Infrastructure project.

User Story 3

• Mike, the Junior Consultant at YaBizIT, will take part both in Consultancy for Springfield City Council and Shelbyville Bank Comm Infrastructure projects.
• Apart from its normal tasks, its bosses, Catherine and Matthew, have asked him to register every single expense in expense sheets.
• Some of these expenses will be time expenses, requiring products which unit is time.
• Expenses associated to Shelbyville Bank Comm Infrastructure project will be re-invoiced, that is, they will be billed to Shelbyville Bank.
• This way, Mike will be recording and processing its own expenses as well as Catherine and Matthew ones.

• The following table summarizes all the possibilities of expenses.

	NO re-invoiced expense	Re-invoiced expense
NO time expense	A This expense associates a physical product with its quantity and price to a particular project. This expense permits: To generate a purchase invoice to the employee. To report project profitability.	B This expense associates a physical product with its quantity and price to a particular project. This expense will be billable to customers. This expense permits: To generate a purchase invoice to the employee. To report project profitability. To generate a billable sales order to the customer.
Time expense	C This expense associates products in hours to a particular project. This expense permits: To report project profitability.	D This expense associates products in hours to a particular project. This expense will be billable to customers. This expense permits: To report project profitability. To generate a billable sales order to the customer.

• After processing the expense sheet:
  • A and B expenses will lead to purchase invoices to the employee.
  • B and D expenses will lead to billable sales orders to the customer.
  • A, B, C and D expenses are included in project profitability report.

User Story 4

• Oskar, the Financial Resources Controller at YaBizIT, is in charge of invoicing customers for the projects and the re-invoicing expenses.
• To bill customers for projects, he goes to Sales Management module and completes corresponding sales orders.
• To bill re-invoicing expenses, he creates sales orders for each of the customers and then completes them.

User Story 5

• Martha, the Human Resources Controller at YaBizIT, is in charge of checking and approving employee expenses.
• For this purpose, she creates purchase invoices from expenses and completes them.
• Finally, she reports expenses by employee.

User Story 6

• Sarah, the Sales Manager at CleaningStuff, a company that sells cleaning products (but not cleaning services), is informed that Capitol City Hospital is opening a public bid for its cleaning service.
• Two companies dedicated to cleaning services will bid for this contract: CleanItAll and SuperClean.
• CleaningStuff sees the opportunity of providing cleaning products to these two bidding companies.
• Sarah opens a new Service Project header named Products for Capitol City Hospital with status Order. Since she still does not know which one of the companies will win the bid, she does not complete business partner data.
• Then, she opens two new proposal headers, one for CleanItAll and another one for SuperClean.
• Sarah makes a list of products (with their price) that she intends to sell to bidding companies during this project. She also estimates the price that she will pay for those products to CleaningStuff suppliers (vendors).
• She comes back to proposal header and copy product lines of the project to each proposal.
• Sarah sends these two proposals to CleanItAll and SuperClean.
• During some weeks, she makes a followup of the evolution of these two proposals.
• Some weeks later, Sarah is informed that CleanItAll won the bidding for Capitol City Hospital cleaning service and the winning company will finally buy cleaning products to CleaningStuff.
• Sarah opens CleanItAll proposal and declares it as winner of the bid. This way, CleanItAll becomes the business partner of this project.
• Sarah needs now to buy the cleaning products that she will sell to CleanItAll.
• For this purpose, she registers a new supplier and generates a purchase order for him.
• Once she receives the products, she generates the sales order for CleanItAll, changes project status to Order closed and closes the project.
• Finally, she makes a profitability report of this service.
• During project evolution, like in previous stories, employee expenses could have been added by Sarah and tracked by human and financial resources managers of CleaningStuff.

Functional requirements based on business processes

To achieve the desired functionalities the following windows and processes are needed.

Setup

Project Setup and Use workflow

Workflow explaining the logical steps to follow in Project & Service Management module.

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
1.1	Diagram showing the logical steps to follow in Project & Service Management module.	Must have	Complete
1.2	Direct link to each step.	Must have	Complete

Project Type window

Window defining standard project types with their phases and tasks.

Project Type tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
2.1	Ability to register project types.	Must have	Complete
2.2	Ability to set a project type to projects different to multiphase ones. Add other project categories to project types.	Nice to have	In review

Standard Phase tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
3.1	Ability to define a standard phase for the current project type.	Must have	Complete

Standard Task tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
4.1	Ability to define a standard task for the current standard phase.	Must have	Complete

Transactions

Multiphase Project window

Window registering new projects with multiple phases and tasks. These phases and tasks can be taken from a standard project type.

Multiphase Project tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
5.1	Ability to register new projects with multiple phases and tasks.	Must have	Complete
5.2	Ability to set a project type using a button that fills automatically standard phases and tasks.	Must have	Complete
5.3	Ability to copy lines from other multiphase projects using a button.	Must have	Complete
5.4	Ability to change, using a button, project status in order to be able to generate sales orders or not.	Must have	Complete
5.5	Ability to generate sales orders from each of the phases using a button directly from the header.	Nice to have	In review

Project Phase tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
6.1	Ability to register new phases for the current project or edit standard ones.	Must have	Complete
6.2	Ability generate a sales order for the current phase using a button.	Must have	Complete

Project Task tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
7.1	Ability to register new tasks for the current phase or edit standard ones.	Must have	Complete

Service Project window

Window registering new projects that do not follow phases nor tasks but only require a list of materials. These projects may also need to manage proposals.

Service Project tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
8.1	Ability to register new service projects.	Must have	Complete
8.2	Ability to copy lines from other service projects using a button.	Must have	Complete
8.3	Ability to change, using a button, project status in order to be able to generate sales orders or not.	Must have	Complete
8.4	Ability to generate sales orders from the project using a button.	Must have	Complete

Project Line tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
9.1	Ability to register lines required for the current service project.	Must have	Complete

Supplier tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
10.1	Ability to register suppliers of the products of the current service project.	Must have	Complete
10.2	Ability to generate, using a button, a purchase order to the current supplier.	Must have	Complete

Proposal tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
11.1	Ability to register different proposals for the current project.	Must have	Complete
11.2	Ability to copy lines from the current project to proposal lines.	Must have	Complete
11.3	Ability to process a winning bid and declare a business partner as winner in the header of the project.	Must have	Complete

Proposal Line tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
12.1	Ability to register and edit the lines of each proposal.	Must have	Complete

Followup tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
13.1	Ability to register and track significant events of each one of the proposals.	Must have	Complete

Expense Sheet window

Window registering time and products spent on projects, both reimbursable expenses to employees and billable charges to customers.

Header tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
14.1	Ability to register expenses.	Must have	Complete
14.2	Ability to process, using a button, the current expense sheet in order to generate invoiceable expenses and employee expenses.	Must have	Complete

Lines tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
15.1	Ability to register lines for the current expense sheet.	Must have	Complete
15.2	Ability to mark a line as time expense and/or billable to customers.	Must have	Complete

Invoiceable Expenses window

Window tracking billable expenses to customers.

Customer tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
16.1	Ability to track billable expenses to customers.	Must have	Complete
16.2	Ability to update some fields.	Nice to have	In review

Lines tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
17.1	Ability to track invoiceable expense lines of the current customer.	Must have	Complete
17.2	Ability to update some fields.	Nice to have	In review

Create Sales Orders from Expenses process

Process generating sales orders for billable charges to customers.

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
18.1	Ability to generate sales orders for billable charges to customers.	Must have	Complete

Employee Expenses window

Window tracking reimbursable expenses to employees.

Employee tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
19.1	Ability to track reimbursable expenses to employees.	Must have	Complete
19.2	Ability to update some fields.	Nice to have	In review

Lines tab

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
20.1	Ability to track expense lines of the current employee.	Must have	Complete
20.2	Ability to update some fields.	Nice to have	In review

Create AP Expense Invoices process

Process generating purchase invoices containing reimbursable expenses to employees.

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
21.1	Ability to generate purchase invoices containing reimbursable expenses to employees.	Must have	Complete

Analysis Tools

Project Profitability report

Reports profitability of each project.

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
22.1	Ability to report profitability of each project.	Must have	Complete

Service Project Report report

Reports incomes of service projects.

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
23.1	Ability to report incomes of service projects.	Must have	Complete

Project Proposal Tracker window

Window that tracks all project proposals.

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
24.1	Ability to track all project proposals.	Must have	Complete

Expense Report report

Reports a list of expenses.

Num	Requirement	Importance	Status
25.1	Ability to report a list of expenses.	Must have	Complete