Calculate Working Time Single Dialog Workspace

Use this workspace to manage accumulated planning data, which the Resource Planning Portal uses.

This is the data Maconomy uses in the process of booking employees for projects, including the employees' fixed working hours, absence calendars, and number of hours already allocated to other efforts.

To improve system performance, Maconomy stores this information and automatically updates it only when certain events take place. Use this workspace to set up a range of dates within which Maconomy accumulates planning data.

You use this workspace to manage accumulated planning data. "Planning data" means the data that is used in the process of booking employees for projects, that is:

1. The fixed working hours specified for the employee, either in the week calendar to which the employee is assigned, or directly in the workspace Employees
2. Effective employee absence, as specified in the Employee Absence Calendars workspace
3. The number of planned hours per day and week, that is, the number of hours already allocated to the employee

Accumulating planning data is a requirement for using the Resource Planning Portal. For more information about effective absence calendar lines, see the "Calendar lines entering into effect" in the Resource Planning module.

In the Resource Manager Dashboard, the Employee Load report, and elsewhere in the Resource Planning Portal, a system of "traffic lighting" is used. When allocating planning hours to employees, Maconomy displays a time line for each employee. The time line is divided into slots of, for example, one week. The color of each slot depends on the booking level of the employee, for example, red (overbooked), light green (free), dark green (partially booked), and so on. In the Resource Manager Dashboard and the Employee Load report, a text in each slot shows the number of hours for which the employee is booked and the employee's available hours, for example, "12/37." For more information, see the description of the Portal module Resource Planning.

To accomplish this, Maconomy needs to know for how many hours each employee is potentially available (the employee's fixed working hours), and for how many hours the employee has already been booked. If Maconomy calculates these figures every time that a resource manager changes a planning line, performance would suffer. For this reason, Maconomy accumulates and stores this information in the database for easy and fast access:

1. Fixed working hours
2. Effective employee absence
3. Number of planned hours per day and week

In this workspace, you can control the amount of data that Maconomy should manage by setting up a range of dates within which Maconomy accumulates planning data. For performance reasons, you should limit this range of dates to the probable planning span of your company, that is, the range of dates within which planning is performed in the Resource Management Portal. A typical span could be three months before today's date and one year ahead in time. Maconomy updates the amount of accumulated data when you use the Calculate and Delete actions. The date range applies to the employees whom you select in the Employee Selection Criteria island.

The calculated data is not static, however. Maconomy dynamically updates the calculated data when certain events take place:

1. If you change a week calendar. For instance, if you assign an employee to a different week calendar with fewer work hours, with a weekly day off, Maconomy automatically adjusts the accumulated planning data for that employee.
2. If you change the fixed hours in the Employees workspace. Maconomy adjusts the affected weekdays for the employee in question, but only for the period for which the change was made.
3. If you change the reduction percentage of an employee in the Employees workspace. Maconomy updates the number of the employee's available hours.
4. If you change the effective absence calendar lines for an employee, if new lines become effective, and if effective lines lose their status as effective.

Even though Maconomy recalculates the data automatically, you have the option to force a recalculation if, for example, you want a change in the fixed hours of an employee to take effect as of a date prior to today's date.

Note that if you have used planning before installing a version of Maconomy that supports the accumulation of planning data (introduced in Maconomy 8.0 Service Pack 11), you need to initialize planning data. For more information, see the description of the Initialize Data action.

The description of this workspace assumes that you perform the actions that it describes manually. However, you can import a monitor and set it up to perform the actions automatically at regular intervals. A Maconomy consultant typically imports and sets up monitors. Contact Maconomy staff for more information.