18th July 2017
We've recently made some changes to the Budget tab for Jobs and Opportunities. 


This article contains:

Why are we making changes?


We had lots of feedback about the way that Metis sets up jobs and opportunities. We heard 3 things really clearly:


  • Whilst it's great that you can edit either the total for everything e.g. people revenue or the monthly detail, it's easy to get into a state where the two don't match. That can lead to misleading numbers in dashboards and forecasts.
  • It's a bit time-consuming entering data for long running jobs and there's no support for entering fixed price retainer work.
  • The resourcing plans where you set up the team for your opportunities and jobs aren't quite as clear as they could be.


So, we've made a set of changes, described below, which will make things much better.

What's changed?

Budgets & Phasing


  • We've made the Budget tab read-only by default. If you wish to edit the Budget tab you need to enter Edit mode (similar to other pages in Metis).
  • You can no longer edit both the detail and the totals for revenue, costs and resources. You can now only edit the detail and the totals are calculated automatically.
  • We've added a helpful Wizard to help you when spreading revenues and costs. To use this Wizard, click the Pencil icon next to the category you wish to edit the values for.
  • The Wizard (pencil icon) now lets you choose between:
    • auto-spreading your total revenue/costs over the duration of the job/opportunity (old default Metis functionality)
    • applying a fixed monthly amount for the duration of the job/opportunity
    • applying a markup on the costs through the duration of the job/opportunity
    • editing manually (old 2nd default Metis functionality)

spreading_wizard

  • We've made the effort-driven functionality more accessible, so it can be used from 2 different places - the top right-hand corner of the Resource Plan (where it has always lived), or when directly editing the People/Time Revenue and Costs directly from the Budget & Phasing section.

Resource Plan


  • We've made the Budget tab read-only by default. If you wish to edit the Budget tab you need to enter Edit mode (similar to other pages in Metis).
  • You can no longer edit the total number of effort days directly. You can use our helpful Wizard (pencil icon) however, where you can add a total number of effort days to spread across the role duration of a resource allocation.
  • The Wizard (pencil icon) now lets you choose between:
    • auto-spreading a total number of effort days over the role duration, with an option to choose the maximum number of days per week (even spread from previous Metis functionality)
    • a weekly target of days per week
    • editing manually (equivalent to variable spread from previous Metis functionality)

Resource_pencil

How will this affect my current jobs and opportunities?


Spreading Revenue & Cost

Before the release, Metis auto-spread the total Revenue and Cost values you entered, over the duration of the job/opportunity. You will still have the ability to use this spreading method, via the auto-spread on the wizard (pencil icon). You can also still edit the values manually as previously, by directly editing the cells. 
You can also now use the two new features: applying a fixed monthly value for the duration of the job/opportunity, or marking up the costs by a percentage.

Moving job/opportunity start and end dates

You do this in the same way as you did previously, but before doing so please check the settings of your Revenue and Cost spread, as Metis may re-spread your revenue over the duration of the project.


Tip±Make sure you double-check the settings of your Revenue and Cost spread by clicking the Wizard (pencil icon), before changing the dates on your project. If you have these set to auto-spread, a date change will also amend the monthly values. If you're using markup on costs, and your costs are auto-spread, this will also amend the monthly values.


Resource Planning

You can now continue using even spread (the new total effort days with optional max per week), or you can continue to use variable spread (manual). Now you have an easy middle way, where you can allocate a fixed number of effort days per week.

Tip±


You can add a person more than once to the same Resource Plan, to add a new period of effort or a new cost rate.


Didn't find what you need in this article? You can submit a support ticket or send an email to support@getmetis.com.