vpvi-22 - microsoft · vpvi-22: solve your project tracking issues brandy timm, sga design group...
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VPVI-22:Solve Your Project Tracking Issues
Brandy Timm, SGA Design GroupDarrell Aaron, CCG Consulting Group
VPVI-22: Itinerary
| Introductions
– Brandy Timm – SGA Design Group
– Darrell Aaron – Central Consulting Group
| Overview of SGA’s Project Tracking Info Center
| How the Idea Originated
| How it Works
| How is it Used
| Future Enhancements
| What Else is Possible
Getting to Know Me
| SGA for 8 years
| Deltek Vision for 11 years
| 15 years of project accounting and analysis
experience
| Daily focus is project tracking and performance,
revenue forecasting, and accounting process
management
| One of two company vision administrators
| Facilitator of Vision database customization within my
firm
Life outside of work
Family, Hobbies, Passions…
LET’S OPEN DOORS TOGETHER.
®
SGA Design Group, P.C.
| 1995 SGA Design Group founded in Tulsa, OK with a focus on volume programs for retail and health and wellness
| 2004 SGA opens second office in Bentonville, AR
| 104 Total staff with 30 licensed architects and 20+ LEED accredited professionals
| 49 of 50 states licensed
| +4,500 Projects completed
| +1,000 Projects completed in 2018
| 2008 SGA began using Deltek Vision, currently on 7.6
Getting to Know Me
| CCG since January 2018
| Vision since 2015
| Handle mostly custom reports, invoices and
automations
| SQL, reporting and data analytics guy for the past 11
years
| I have a master’s degree
| …
| …in education
Life outside of work
Certified Urban Chicken Farmer
Other Interesting Thing About Me
Central Consulting Group
Not our logo
Our logo
| Consulting firm focusing mostly on Deltek
Vision and Vantagepoint
| Founded in 2002
| Serve over 1,200 clients worldwide
| If it’s possible, then we can make it happen
WHAT IT IS
| Project Tracking UDIC
– Our firms solution to improve project tracking and
performance visibility
– Includes tabs for monitoring:
• Contract Status and Amounts
• Invoicing Progress
• Collections
• Budget & Performance
• Milestone Dates
• Forecasting & Projections
WHAT IT DOES
| Contracts Tab– Auto Populates from
Project Info Center
Change Management
Tab
– Visibility, Project
Info Center visible to
accounting and
executives only.
WHAT IT DOES
| Invoicing Tab– Provides summary of Compensation, Billed, and Balance
– Broken Out by labor,
consultant, and
reimbursable
– Tracks at project and
phase level
– Update % Complete
feeds into projects at
Risk Metrics
WHAT IT DOES
| A/R Tab– Billed, Received, and Unpaid Summary
– Lists all invoices generated, and provides visibility to collections
progress with notes field
WHAT IT DOES
| BvA and PaR Tab– Budget versus Actual
• Present View of
Project Performance
– Projects at Risk
• Predictive View
of Project Performance
WHAT IT DOES
| Program Tracking Tab
– Tabs by program
– Access Rights by team
– Unique Tracking Fields
– Auto-Calculating dates
with override option
– Billing Milestone dates
trigger invoicing tab
updates
WHAT IT DOES
| Proto/Spec Req Tab
– Approval Tracking
– Budget Tracking
– Forecasting
– Billing Review Aid
– View by Period Cut-Off
– Status changes
– Add New
– Forecast add
HOW BRANDY CAME UP WITH THE IDEA
| How it started:
– Began as “can we track dates in Vision”.
– Asked to explore using Vision as project management platform with our Configuration, Unique Processes & Needs in mind.
• Do not own CRM or Planning
• Need management tool for influx of small, fast moving projects
• Need Central location, one source of truth
• Need to stop tracking in multiple formats
• Need Increased visibility to real time metrics
• Need Predictive tool for early identification of potential performance failure
– Based on previous Insight Sessions, customization was the solution.
– Reached out to Darrell who provided layout advice, technical expertise, homework, and lots of laughs.
– Single tab in project info center user defined grew to separate UDIC.
THE DECISION TO GO CUSTOM
| And you may find yourself
– Having you problems only partially solved by standard solutions
| And you may find yourself
– Needing reports that you just can’t seem to find
| And you may find yourself
– In another office
| And you may find yourself
– With a project info center that takes ages to load
| And you may ask yourself
– How did I get here?
HOW IT’S MADE: THE MUNDANE
| We met once a week on Fridays from 2 – 4 pm via
Webex and phone.
| I would remote into a computer and we would talk
through everything and test live
HOW IT’S MADE: WHO DID WHAT
| Technical Solutions
| SQL Coding
| Sounding Board
| Child-like attitude
| Vision – as what to do and what was needed
| Testing, coordinating with the business
| Project Management
| Sounding Board
| Positive Mental Attitude
PICTURE OF BRANDY
HOW IT’S MADE: WHO DID WHAT
Brandy would
provide well written
notes to keep us on
task and on-priority
HOW IT’S MADE
| Technologies/Techniques used
– Vision & SQL Server Management Studio
– These are tools you’re already paying for
HOW IT’S MADE
| Vision Skills Required
– Creating custom fields, grids, info centers, etc…
– Workflows: User Initiated and Scheduled
– Workflow Actions: Validate Error, Validate Warning, Email Alert,
Column Field Change, Stored Procedure
HOW IT’S MADE
| SQL Skills Required
– SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
– Variables
– Temp Tables
– …or table variables…
• But I’ll judge you if you use table variables
– CREATE PROCEDURE
– CREATE FUNCTION or CROSS APPLY
HOW IT’S MADE: IMPORTANT NOTE
SGA is on-premise for Vision, but this is
all possible with a cloud implementation
| SQL Server is free for developers
– You cannot run a production database on the free version
| You can request your database backup from cloud ops
– You can mess that one up, but it doesn’t matter
HOW IT’S MADE: PROGRAMMER TIPS
| Less is better
– Can you update everything at once?
| SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION READ UNCOMMITTED
| Mind your varchars and your nvarchars
| Do yourself a favor: create a function that prevents divide
by zero
| If possible, don’t update records already in a grid, just
delete them and reload them
HOW IT’S MADE: Challenges
NUMBERS!
HOW IT’S MADE: Challenges
Name Consistency
| You really want to have a good plan for naming grids
and the fields within those grids
| Examples here
HOW IT’S MADE: Challenges
Math
| Order of Operations: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
| Sorting
Grids are sorted by
only one column, so
just make a sort
column that sorts
how you want
HOW IT’S BEING USED
| Program Managers use as quick access to project status and performance
| Auto-recurring reports have been developed based on the budget vs actual and projects at risk metrics
| Forecasting previously done in separate excel sheets is now done in this UDIC
| Users have become comfortable switching to list view for searches/saved searches, exporting to excel
| Users enjoy the increased visibility and flexibility in working with and updating information
AND YOU MAY ASK YOURSELF
Can’t I do some, if not all of this already?(barring the notifications that is…)
Through...
1. Project Review
2. Reports
3. Planning
Well, let’s do some math
EVERYONE’S FAVORITE: MATH
Let’s say you got a project manager: Elizabeth
She makes $50k a year
She has a generous 6-week vacation plan so she
only works 46 weeks a year
Using standard functionality, she would need an
extra hour every week to do her job
EVERYONE’S FAVORITE: MATH
$50k / 2080 = $24.04/hour
With benefits and payroll taxes more like
$24.04 * 1.22 = $29.33
That extra time costs you $1,349.18 per year.
EVERYONE’S FAVORITE: MATH
With 10 Elizabeths that’s $13,491.80 per year
If she made $75k a year, that’s $20,237.70 per year
Now if she made $100k a year and you had 20
Elizabeths…you get the point
One single hour a week adds up
STOLEN FROM DELTEK CLARITY REPORT
STOLEN FROM DELTEK CLARITY REPORT
QUICK PLUG FOR THE CLARITY REPORT
https://info.deltek.com/40-AE-Clarity-Report
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE
ANYTHING
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 1
Commission Automation
1. Commission is paid per sale
2. Lot’s of different commission plans
3. Many different people can earn a commission on the same
opportunity
4. Commission payout has to be amortized over the life of the
contract for 606 compliance
5. Was taking someone almost an entire week to calculate each
quarter
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 1
Commission Automation
1. Set up a user-defined info center to track plans
2. Wrote SQL code to automate the calculation of commissions
3. That runs every day, so…1. People can see their commission grow (and notify early if something is odd)
2. The business can see if their estimate/accrual is appropriate
4. Custom reports for both the commission statement and the
expense
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 1
Commission Automation
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 1
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 1
The average time to calculate commissions is down to a
few hours a quarter.
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 2
Vision/Vantagepoint Plays Nicely With Others
Do You…Use a different system for…
Project ManagementCRMLab TestingCorporate Accounting
“Friends don’t let friends integrate with Microsoft Project”
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 2
Vision/Vantagepoint Plays Nicely With Others
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 2
Vision/Vantagepoint Plays Nicely With Others
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 2
Vision/Vantagepoint Plays Nicely With Others
WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE: EXAMPLE 2
Vision/Vantagepoint Plays Nicely With Others
Saves TimeSaves LicensesSaves Money
THANK YOU AND QUESTIONS
Question Time