Planning Lines Sub-Tab

This section includes the fields and descriptions for the Planning Lines sub-tab.

Field Description
Job No. This field shows the job number assigned to the current planning line, if it has been created on the basis of a job budget. If you create an independent detailed plan, you can enter a job number in this field. If the system parameter “Automatically assign planning lines to budgets” is marked, Maconomy will try to link the manually entered line to an existing line in the latest approved revision of the planning budget, as described in the introduction to this window.
Empl. No. In this field, you can enter the number of the employee for whom you want to plan the specified number of hours on the job, activity, and task specified on the line. If you change the contents of this field, the system will check whether the new employee specified matches any skill requirements created for the task on the line in the window Skill Requirements. If requirements have been created which the employee does not meet, a warning will be issued for each unmet requirement.

If the planning line is created for a job which uses automatic allocation and transferred using this action “Create Plan from Job Budgets,” and if the line does not have an employee specified, the current task will be allocated automatically if you enter an employee in this field.

Employee Name This field shows the name of the employee entered in the “Empl. No.” field.
Empl. Category No. This field shows the number of the employee category assigned to the current planning line. If an employee has been specified in the field “Empl. No.,” this employee must belong to the specified employee category. If the current planning line refers to a job budget line, the employee category number must be the same as the number specified on the job budget line. If no employee category number has been specified on the job budget line, you are free to enter any number in this field. Employee categories are created in the window Employee Categories in the Set-Up module.
Booking Type In this field, you can specify the type of the allocation on the planning line. The types are “Preliminary,” “Requested,” and “Confirmed.” By specifying a booking type, you can indicate whether the planned hours should be considered tentative or permanent. Allocations of the type “Confirmed” are considered permanent, whereas the less restricted preliminary allocations are preliminary. Requested bookings are allocations that either could not be converted from “Preliminary” to “Confirmed,” or allocations that are to be reviewed by some other person before they are converted to “Confirmed.” See the introduction to the window for further details.

The default value of the field is “Confirmed,” and this type will be suggested for planning lines with no relation to planning budget lines. If the current planning line was created on the basis of a planning budget line, the planning line automatically inherits the allocation type of the related planning budget line. Any subsequent changes made to the allocation type of the related budget line are automatically transferred to the planning line. This means that the value of this field is automatically overwritten with the new type selected for the planning budget line upon approval of the budget line.

The value of the field can be changed to “Preliminary” or “Requested” as required, but it can only be changed to “Confirmed” if the current allocation does not conflict with other confirmed allocations. If a conflict occurs so that the current allocation and one or more other confirmed allocations would cause the planning time of the employee on the current line to be exceeded, the allocation type of the current line will automatically be set to “Requested.” Note that if you change the allocation type, allocations on dates before the date specified in the field “Never Before” will not be converted.

If you change the booking type on a planning line from “Confirmed” to “Preliminary,” the hours on the line will be reallocated within the time span of the confirmed allocations. However, if the field “Keep Distribution” in the card part is marked, the hours are reallocated as described in this field.

Note that you cannot create more than three versions, one of each booking type, of planning lines which are similar, that is, have the same combination of job, activity, task, and employee and/or employee category.

Quantity, Remaining This field shows the number of hours that remain to be planned after the estimate date, compared to the estimated time-to-completion for the job budget line referring to the current planning line.

As an example, 100 hours may be budgeted on a planning budget line. Now 80 hours are planned in the detailed plan before the date 01/03/2004, and 20 hours after 01/03/2004. Then the value of this field is 0, since 100 hours have been planned (and 100 hours is required by the job budget line). Then assume that it is specified on the job budget line that as of 01/03/2004, the estimated time-to-completion is 40 hours. Since only 20 hours have been planned for this task after the date 01/03/2004, it means that an additional 20 hours should be planned. Therefore, this field will now show a quantity of 20.

If no such estimate has been made for the planning budget line, this field shows the number of hours that remain to be planned in the detailed planning, compared to the quantity budgeted on the planning line.

If the value in this field is lower than zero, it means that more hours have been planned than specified on the relating job budget line.

Distribute Quantity When a number of hours is entered in this field, Maconomy will first remove all distributions already made on the current planning line. Then Maconomy distributes the entered number of hours for the specified employee on the current line’s job, activity, and task from the entered starting date and ahead in time on the basis of the strategy and distribution method selected in the island Allocation in the card part of the window. You can only enter a number in this field if you have specified an employee in the field “Empl. No.” This field is automatically reset when Maconomy has distributed the hours.

Maconomy distributes the hours on the basis of the principle of avoiding overtime. If this is not possible, Maconomy will try to distribute overtime equally on working days. If this is not sufficient, potential overtime is distributed on days which are typically not working days, such as Saturdays and Sundays. If you have defined that overtime is not allowed in the field “Overtime, Empl.” in the window System Information in the Set-Up module, Maconomy will issue an error message if it is not possible to plan the current number of hours without using overtime.

Note that Maconomy will never distribute so many hours to a given employee on a given date that the total distribution for the employee on this date exceeds the employee’s maximum number of working hours for the date. The employee’s maximum working hours for the employee on a given date are found in the employee revision applying on the date in question. For further information about employee revisions, see “Date-Dependent Employee Revisions” in the introduction to the window Employees.

In addition, if an estimated time-to-completion has been specified for a given task, Maconomy will never distribute hours on the task before the date specified in the field “Estimate Date” in the table part, regardless of the strategy selected in the card part.

Total This field shows the total number of hours distributed on the current planning line for the entire plan.
Act. No. This field shows the activity number assigned to the current planning line, if it has been created on the basis of a job budget. If you create an independent detailed plan, you can enter an activity number in this field.
Task This field shows the task assigned to the current planning line, if it has been created on the basis of a job budget. If you create an independent detailed plan, you can enter a task in this field.
Locked By marking this field, you specify that the current planning line is “locked.” This means that Maconomy will show a warning if you try to delete or move the allocation on the line. Locking is typically used for fixtures such as customer meetings, and so on, which cannot be moved without affecting a third party.

In the window Job Planning in the Job Cost module, you can mark a whole task this way. If you do that, all planning lines created on the basis of the task will be marked as locked. You can, however, unmark individual planning lines.

Note that you cannot change this field if the planning line is a result of automatic resource allocation in the window Job Planning.

Day/Week This field displays the number of hours during which the current employee should work on the job, activity, and task in question in the first planning unit covered by the plan’s planning span.

This unit can indicate either a day or a week, depending on what has been specified in the field “Planning Unit” in the card part of the window. If the current planning unit is “Week,” the heading of this field will be “<week number>, <the starting date of the week>” — for example, “20, 05-10-2004.” The week number displayed in this field will be the starting week specified in the island Plan. If the planning unit selected is “Day,” the heading of this field is determined by the format selected in the field “Detailed Plan Column Title Format” in the window System Information in the Set-Up module. The format can be “<weekday> <date>” (“Mon 05-10-2004”), “<weekday> <day in month>” (“Mon 10”), or simply “<day in month>” (“10”).

Quantity, Orig. This field shows the number of hours specified on the job budget line which forms the basis for the current planning line. If the planning line is created automatically by means of the action “Create Plan from Job Budgets,” the value in this field is transferred from the job budget line in question.
Est. Time to Compl. This field shows the latest approved estimated time-to-completion for the planning budget line on which the current planning line is based. If this field is blank, no estimated time-to-completion has been specified for the planning budget line on which the current planning line is based.
Estimate Date If an estimate has been specified for the current planning budget line, this field will show the date as of which the estimate applies. If this field is blank, no estimated time-to-completion has been specified for the planning budget line on which the current planning line is based.

Empl. Category Name This field shows the name of the employee category specified in the field “Empl. Category No.”

Planned Starting Date In this field, you can enter the planned starting date for the task specified on the current planning line. If this line has been created on the basis of a job budget line, the planned starting date can only be changed on the job budget line in question in the window Job Budgets in the Job Cost module.
Planned Ending Date The functionality of this field is similar to that of the field “Planned Starting Date.”
First Possible Starting Date The functionality of this field is similar to that of the field “Planned Starting Date.”
Last Possible Ending Date The functionality of this field is similar to that of the field “Planned Staring Date.”
First Planned Date This field displays the date of the first allocation, if any, on the current line.
Latest Planned Date This field displays the date of the last allocation, if any, on the current line.
Budget Type This field shows the budget type of the job budget of the job budget line on the basis of which the current planning line is created.
Budget Revision No. This field shows the revision number of the job budget line on the basis of which the current planning line is created.
Budget Line No. If the current planning line is created on the basis on a job budget, this field shows the line number of the job budget line on the basis of which the current planning line was created. Note that if the budget uses hierarchical table structure, the budget line number will be in “dotted notation,” for example “1.2,” as described in “Hierarchical Table Part Structure” in the chapter “Getting Started with the Java™ Client.”
Description This field shows the description of the job budget line on the basis of which the current planning line is created.
Activity Name This field shows the name of the activity specified in the field “Activity No.” on the current line.
Task Description This field shows the description of the task specified in the field “Task” on the current line.