Customizing Vision Overview

You can customize Vision to suit your company's needs, on both a business logic basis and a functional basis.

You set up some of these features on a system-wide level. You set up other features on an individual level. Some features make it possible for you to customize the that way Vision looks, while others affect how Vision behaves.

For example, you can:

• Change the names of fields to confirm with your industry's terminology.
• Add and change tabs and fields in the Info Center.
• Customize your Navigation Menu.
• Customize report layouts and behavior.
• Create workflows, which perform an action when an event in an Info Center occurs.
• Create alerts to move information along and to ensure that business standards are followed.
• Create online help topics.
• Write custom programs that extend the business logic of the standard applications.

All of these features are included as standard in Vision, at no additional cost. However, certain Workflow actions require programming knowledge. For these, Deltek offers support on a time and materials basis.

User Defined Tabs

Use the User Defined Tabs application to customize your Info Center, Project Planning, and Activity Manager tabs to better suit your company's needs. Before you add new tabs, carefully determine what information you need to gather that is not captured elsewhere in Vision. Also consider how you want this information grouped.

You can:

• Add new tabs, fields, and grids.
• Change the names and order of fields on tabs.
• Change the order of tabs.

Screen Designer

Use the Screen Designer to design your own tabs in the Info Center, Project Planning, and Activity Manager. You open up a tab in "design mode" to perform a variety of actions.

You can:

• Rearrange or resize existing fields and labels.
• Change existing fields or add new ones.
• Move or change the captions on grids.
• Determine whether fields should be hidden or locked, based on a user's Security role.
• Determine whether fields are required for CRM and Accounting.

• Create custom online help.

Navigation Menu Designer

Use the Navigation Menu Designer to customize your Navigation Menu. You can:

• Rearrange menu items, at both the top and sub levels.
• Add new menu items, including http pages and reports.
• Indent or outdent menu items.
• Delete user-defined menu items.

Field Labels

Use the Field Labels feature to rename key fields, such as Project or Client, to reflect the terminology used in your industry or company. Vision then uses your new field names throughout the system (for example, on screens or reports).

Reports

Vision standard reports are designed to meet most of your business needs. In some cases, however, you may need something different in a report.

You can:

• Modify report columns, format text, set margins, or create graphs using the Options tabs in Reporting.
• Create options for custom reports.
• Create user-defined calculations with any existing numeric columns available for a given report.

Alerts and Workflows

Alerts and Workflow are two powerful features that allow you to automate simple and multi-stage processes and keep all interested parties informed and engaged.

For example, you can define a workflow so that when an opportunity record is changed from Pending to Awarded status, the workflow triggers a series of actions—Vision creates a new project, sends an email message to the project accountant, and sets up a meeting.

Lookup/Report Labels

If you change field names on standard tabs, you can create custom lookup lists and report labels to reflect these changes, including the following items:

• Lookup search types labels
• Report column labels
• Report group labels

You can also change report labels within the individual report settings.

Code Tables

Use Code Tables to custom populate drop-down lists with standard values for many Info Center fields. These values can save time during routine data entry or enforce uniformity in data fields. For example, for the Employee Role field on the Projects tab of the Employee Info Center, you can use a table to define the roles that your employees may have on projects, such as Architect and Project Manager.

Dashboard Configuration

The Dashboard is your "portal" into Vision. Use the dashboard to create a personalized view of your business world. The Dashboard combines information drawn from different areas of Vision; thus you can design a single Web page that brings together all of the information and tools that you rely on most. For example, you can:

• Drag and drop your dashparts anywhere on the Vision screen.
• Resize, hide, rename, or change the color of your dashparts.
• Create individual URL dashparts for your Dashboard.

User Options

User Options make it possible for you to do the following on an individual basis, by username:

• Set startup and viewing options.
• Change your Vision and Customer Care passwords.
• Determine lookup, search, and retrieval options.
• Enable or disable activity reminders.
• Set reporting and printer preferences.