Special Topic: Delegation

Overview

Deltek Workforce enables employees to assign their tasks to another individual or individuals when they are unable to perform those tasks themselves. They can narrow down the list of who does which task by Employee Group and then by individual person. For example, if a supervisor is going on vacation for a week, he can delegate his timesheet approvals to one person and his expense report and expense authorization approvals to another.

Depending on your system configuration, you can decide whether to restrict overall delegation from one role to another, and can limit which roles are able to delegate and which roles can receive delegated tasks. Users can then decide when to use the delegation feature and when to turn it off. The following guidelines will help you set up and maintain the Delegation feature.

General Configuration

You should first decide whether to restrict the delegation for each Functional Role to a particular Functional Role (for example, the Primary Supervisor role must delegate to the Backup Supervisor role, the Project Manager role must delegate to the System Administrator role) or whether any Functional Role can delegate to any other Functional Role (for example, the Primary Supervisor role can delegate to the Backup Supervisor role, the Primary Administrator role, or the Vice President role). To restrict delegation, select the Restrict Delegation checkbox in the Miscellaneous tab of the General Configuration screen.

Security Roles

Use the Security Roles screen to decide which employees are allowed to delegate. Select the Allow Delegation checkbox to give employees with this Security Role the ability to delegate tasks. A Delegation button will appear on the employees' desktops, which they can use to:

Add delegations.
Change Start Date and End Date information on existing delegations.
Activate or inactivate existing delegations.

If the employee has set up active delegations, the Delegation (Active) button appears If you don’t have any delegations set up or if all of your delegations are inactive, the Delegation (Inactive) button appears.

Functional Roles

Use the Functional Roles screen to determine which roles can delegate and whether that role will delegate to just one other role or any other role.

Allow delegation - Select this checkbox to allow employees with this Functional Role the ability to delegate their tasks to another Functional Role.
Functional Role - Use the drop-down box to select the role to which this role can delegate. If the system is configured to require delegation restrictions (as set up in the General Configuration screen), you must make a selection here. Otherwise, this field is optional. If you make a selection, employees with this Functional Role can delegate only to the Functional Role you select here. If you do not make a selection, employees with this Functional Role can delegate to any other Functional Role.

Desktop

The Desktop is where employees set up and maintain their delegations. If their Security Role allows them to delegate, a Delegation (Active) button will appear in the upper left corner of the desktop. If an employee selects this button, a pop-up will appear where he can add new delegations, modify existing delegations, activate or inactivate delegations, or delete delegations.

Add Delegation

Select the Delegation (Active) button. A Dialog box will appear where you can select the following information:

Delegating Role - Use the drop-down box to select the functional role that you want delegated. The drop-down box will contain all of the functional roles where you are listed as a "Supervisor" in the Employee Groups screen and that have the Allow Delegation checkbox selected in the Functional Roles screen.
Group - Use the drop-down box to select the Group that will be delegated. The drop-down box will contain all of the employee groups where you have the functional role selected in the Delegating Role column.

For example, let's say you have a functional role of "Primary Supervisor" over the following employee groups: "Group ABC" and "Group XYZ." You have a functional role of "Backup Supervisor" over the following employee groups: "Group 123" and "Group 456." If you select "Primary Supervisor" in the Delegating Role column, the groups listed will be "Group ABC" and "Group XYZ," but NOT "Group 123" and "Group 456."

Delegate - Use the drop-down box to select the individual that you want to receive the tasks of the functional role selected in the Delegating Role column. The drop-down box will contain all employees set up as Supervisors for the employee group selected in the Group column.
Start Date - Use the Calendar Lookup to select the date on which the individual selected in the Delegate drop-down box will start receiving your tasks.
End Date - Use the Calendar Lookup to select the date on which the individual selected in the Delegate drop-down box will stop receiving your tasks.

Both you and your delegate will receive notification through Workflow that a task is due. If the delegate performs the task, the task is removed from both your list of tasks and your delegate’s list of tasks.

Active - Select this checkbox to make the delegation active.

You can set up delegations for a long period of time and make them active when needed and make them inactive when you return. This is useful if you have several short periods when you will be unavailable to perform your tasks and want to use the same delegates each time.

Delete Delegations

Select the Delegation (Active) button. Use the Delegations dialog box to delete any or all of the delegations that you have set up by selecting the checkbox to the left of the row or rows that you wish to delete. Then select the Delete Line function.

If you have delegation tasks that are active, the Delegation (Active) button appears If you don’t have any delegations set up or if all of your delegations are inactive, the Delegation (Inactive) button appears.

The following is a list of options and settings that must be configured in accordance with your company's delegation requirements:

Screen/Field	Setting	Functionality
General Configuration/Restrict Delegation	Checked	Restrict functional role to delegate to only one other functional role.
General Configuration/Restrict Delegation	Unchecked	Allow any functional role to delegate to any other functional role.
Security Role/Allow Delegation	Checked	Allow employees with this security role to delegate tasks to other employees.
Security Role/Allow Delegation	Unchecked	Employees with this security role cannot delegate tasks to other employees.
Functional Role/Allow Delegation	Checked	Allows employees to delegate this functional role's tasks to other employees.
Functional Role/Allow Delegation	Unchecked	Employees cannot delegate this functional role's tasks to other employees.
Functional Role/Functional Role drop-down	Disabled	Field will be disabled if Allow Delegation checkbox is not selected.
Functional Role/Functional Role drop-down	No selection made	This functional role can delegate to any employee that is set up as a "Supervisor" in the selected employee group.
Functional Role/Functional Role drop-down	Selection made	This functional role can delegate only to an employee in the employee group that belongs to this selected functional role and is set up as a "Supervisor."