Consultants Tab of the Plan Settings Dialog Box

Use the Consultants tab on the Plan Settings dialog box to specify the planning level, rates, and multipliers for planned consultants on your plans.

This dialog box automatically displays when you create a new iAccess plan or you convert a Vision plan to an iAccess plan.

You can establish consultant plan settings under the following conditions:

• The Consultants planning tab is enabled in Vision (Configuration > Planning > Plan Settings). If you do not have the Resource Planning module, the option is on the main Plan Settings form.
  Note: If you are using Vision Multicompany, the system checks the option's setting in the Vision Plan Settings for your project's company.
• Your role has access to the Consultants planning tab on the iAccess tab on the Roles form in Vision (Configuration > Security > Roles).
• Your role has the Allow changes to rate/method tables option selected on the Planning tab on the Roles form in Vision (Configuration > Security > Roles) if you need to change reimbursable consultants rate calculations. If you do not have the Vision Resource Planning module, the Allow changes to rate/method tables option is on the iAccess tab on the Roles form.
• The project's charge type is Regular. Consultants cannot be planned on Overhead or Promotional projects.

Location

To display the Consultants tab of the Plan Settings dialog box, complete the following steps:

1. Select a project that has an iAccess plan.
2. Click Plan Settings in the upper-right corner of the workspace.

   The Plan Settings option does not display if the project does not have a plan, the plan is a Vision plan, or if you do not have appropriate access rights.

   When you click Plan Settings, iAccess automatically checks out the plan if you have appropriate access rights and no one else has the plan checked out.
3. Click the Consultants tab.

Contents

Field	Description
PLANNING LEVEL	Use this drop-down list to select the default WBS level that will be used to plan consultants for the project: Project: Select this option to plan consultants at the project level. Phase: Select this option to plan consultants at the phase level, if the project has phases. Otherwise, consultants are planned at the project level. Lowest Level: Select this option to plan consultants at the lowest level of the WBS. Note: You cannot change the planning level if the project has a baseline plan and planned consultant amounts, or if your security access does not allow you to change the baseline. Changing the planning level has multiple implications if the existing plan includes resource levels that are planned under a level that is different than the new level: Any planned resource rows under a WBS level that does not match the new planning level are removed. If any of the planned resource rows to be removed are included in the baseline, the rows will be removed from the baseline. Note that removing rows from the baseline may impact the ETC. If your access rights don't allow you to change the baseline, you cannot change the planning level. Any planned resource rows already at the new planning level remain. Resource rows with JTD will be shown at the new planning level once the change is finished. If the plan is not balanced (where some phases have tasks and some do not) and you select Lowest Level, iAccess will remove the resource rows that are lower than the selected level. If you change the level to a lower one and the project has the lower level and there are resource rows under a higher level, all the resource rows are removed.
Reimb. Consultant Billing Markup	Use these fields to define the settings for reimbursable consultant planned amounts. Note: If the budget type is set to Cost, or the Use Billing Currency not Project Currency option is selected on the Accounting System Settings form in Vision (Configuration > Accounting > System Settings) and the project currency is not equal to the billing currency, RATE METHOD automatically defaults to None and RATE METHOD , RATE TABLE, Recalculate Planned Billing, and MULTIPLIER are display-only.
Recalculate Planned Billing	Select this option to apply the current settings and recalculate the planned bill amounts for reimbursable consultants. The recalculation occurs when you click Save.
RATE METHOD	Select one of the following rate methods: Multiplier Only: The planned billing amount is calculated as Planned Cost x Multiplier. From Account Rate Table: The planned billing amount is calculated using the rate for the consultant expense account from the specified table. If no rate is found, Planned Cost x Multiplier is used. From Category Rate Table: The planned billing amount is calculated using the rate for the consultant expense category from the specified table. If no rate is found, Planned Cost x Multiplier is used. None: The planned billing amount is equal to the planned cost. RATE METHOD is initially set to the default value that is defined in Vision (Configuration > Planning > Plan Settings). If RATE METHOD is set to None, only billing amounts are visible. If RATE METHOD is set to Multiplier Only, From Account Rate Table, or From Category Rate Table, a PLANNED COST or PLANNED BILLING column displays on the Consultants grid. Use this field to view the planned consultant amounts at cost or billing.
RATE TABLE	This option is available if you select From Account Rate Table or From Category Rate Table in RRATE METHOD . Select the rate table that you want to use. This list contains either expense account tables or expense category tables, depending on the selected rate method. Only the tables you have access to appear in the list, and they must also be marked as Available for planning in Vision Billing.
MULTIPLIER	Enter a multiplier to apply to all reimbursable consultants entries when RATE METHOD is set to Multiplier Only. If RATE METHOD is set to From Account Rate Table or From Category Rate Table, the multiplier is applied to any account that is not found in the selected table.
Direct Consultants: MULTIPLIER	The multiplier is displayed for informational purposes only. The value is always 1.000 and cannot be changed. The planned cost and planned bill amounts for direct consultants are always equal to one another.