Deltek Vantagepoint Security Series: Roles Planning Tab - Learning Video

Welcome to Deltek Vantagepoint Security Series: Roles Planning Tab.

My name is Marlaina Mandeville and I will be your Instructor.

This learning video is part of the Deltek Vantagepoint Security Series, and will walk you through the options on the Planning tab of the Role Security Settings.

Deltek Vantagepoint Security Series is intended for people who manage security access or act as system administrators in their respective organizations.

The Planning tab in Deltek Vantagepoint Roles Security Settings is used to define access to Planning related functions including permissions to Change Plan Baselines, the ability to override Plan Settings and the rights to enter Hard Booked Hours on Project Plans.

This is a screenshot of the Planning tab in Roles Security. The fields on this screen are separated into three sections, which are outlined in blue and listed on the right side of your screen:

1. General Planning options
2. Plan settings
3. Resource Management settings

The default information that appears in a new plan, when a new plan is created, is defined under, Settings > Resource Planning.

The Planning tab in Roles Security Settings allows you to specify whether Resource Planning users can change those default values.

I'll open my database to discuss these fields.

In this demonstration we’ll use the Project Manager role. So I'll select that from my dropdown.

General Section

1. On this Planning tab > General Section > Allow Changes to Baseline, this would allow users assigned to this role to be able to change the Baseline Plan. Now, in Vantagepoint, you can have only one Baseline version of a plan at any given time.

2. If there's already a Baseline saved on a plan, and someone clicks on the Save Baseline option again for the same plan, they will overwrite the previous contents of the baseline.

3. So if the original baseline on your plans is important, you'll want to give this permission out sparingly, and only allow a few users to be able to make changes to the baseline.

Plan Settings

The next section is Plan Settings.

1. Allow Changes to Budget Type, allows users assigned to this role to change the budget type. There's three possible budget types. You can budget based on Cost, based on Billing, or based on Cost and Billing.

   Cost Rates represent your company's cost to produce a service.

   Billing Rates represent the amount that the client will pay for the service.

   And if someone changes the budget type on a plan, let's say from Cost and Billing to just Billing, and there was already cost budget amounts entered on the plan, it's possible that data would be lost.

2. The next option, Allow Changes to the Overhead Percent. This would allow users assigned to this Role to be able to change the percentage of overhead to be applied on the Planned Labor Cost. So, this could potentially, seriously, over or under estimate plan amounts depending on the overhead percent that is entered. So you'll want to take that into consideration before giving a Role access to this feature if you depend on Overhead Amounts being included in your Plan Amounts.

3. Allow Changes to Rate Method Tables. This would allow users to change the rate and method tables on the Rates tab of the Plan.

   This is another option that could have a pretty big impact on your plan amounts. If you have Rate Tables set up with a wide range of rates. So maybe one table has a cost of labor set to $25 an hour. And a different table has the same labor cost set at $35 an hour. And let's say you have over 1000 hours assigned on your plan that would cause a difference of $10,000 in your Plan Cost. So take that into consideration before you allow roles the rights to be able to change those tables on their plans.

Resource Management

The Resource Management section only displays on this screen if the option to Use Soft and Hard Booking for Assignments is selected under Settings > Resource Planning on the Resource Settings form.

Now in Vantagepoint, Soft Booked Hours are considered tentative. Hard Booked Hours are considered confirmed or approved. So if you select Allow to Hard Book Planned Hours for this role, users assigned to this role will be able to Soft Book and Hard Book hours on their plan. If this option is not selected, the role is not allowed to change the booking status to Hard Booked Hours, and the hours will automatically default to being Soft Booked Hours.

This concludes the training on the Planning tab of Roles Security Settings.

Thank you for attending this course.

For feedback or comments, please contact us at DeltekUniversity@dlz.deltek.com

And please check the Deltek Learning Zone for additional courses.