Kofi Folson

Thanks for extending the concept of Attributes from the Product information/Procurement module to HR module. 

It will really be good to have this functionality available for Master Data as well. Although D365 has come a long way with functionality we still need to go through development effort for simple custom fields that client want on master records at implementation stage. 

It will be really good to have an ATTRIBUTES fast tab, like in 'Product Configuration model' fast tab, which allows the definition of attributes for each of the master records. This will save a large amount of development during implementation where the client want a few additional fields added to the standard D365 fields  with the option of making them mandatory for selection. 

This can be started initially with say the CUSTOMER, VENDORS, PROJECT CONTRACTS and PROJECTS and then extended to Purchase Order and Sales Orders in the Future. 

Very often in project implementation most businesses will have a number of project actors on the Project who have responsibility of projects i.e. Project Manager, Sales Manager, Project controller. 

These options needs to be made configurable or expanded to about 5 or 6 and provide the ability to rename then as possible with the 'Project stages'. 

The rename will make it possible to change the naming of them depending on the industry you're deploying into. e.g. in Construction you will typically want a Quantity Surveyor and maybe a site manager identified on the Project...in a Pharmaceutical industry that name will be something different. 

Project stages can be very powerful to drive consistency of process when it comes to project setup, providing the ability to route the project setup to the different parts of the organisation who may have oversight either to the operation or financial aspects of the Project. 

The downside of the functionality as is currently, is that although you can configure the the possible actions of each project stage, you do not have the ability to restrict who has control of the project stage, either by user group or security role. 

Many times this have had to be a custom development. 

Can we have to ability to control the access to the project stages either through security (User Group and/or Security roles) or have them controlled by workflow when moving from one stage to the other. 

The word 'Estimates' have always been confusing for clients when is introduced to them first time. In addition a lot of clients use 'estimate' to actually mean the 'quotation'. 

Now that the fasttab which holds the estimate have been renamed to 'Revenue recognition' it will be appropriate to start extending the renaming of the underlying objects as well. 

• On the MANAGE tab, the 'Estimates' link can be renamed to 'Recognise revenue'
• Once clicked and the 'Estimates' form itself is open, that 'Estimate' form can also be renamed to 'Revenue recognition'. 

Then maybe we can explore making the following changes as well:

• Estimate date > Revenue recognition date
• Estimate status > Revenue recognition status
• Estimate project > Revenue recognition project

The on-account transactions form holds lines for the different on-account transactions (Milestones, Deductions, Prepayment Journal lines, Beginning balances) depending on the project type. They can be created either via Billing rules or manually. 

• Client may use it in different ways, and sometimes where this is being used to drive invoicing that has been based off quotation lines, certain clients may want to see the individual lines broken down into the elements of build-up as it was in the quote. This result in potentially having to create multiple lines on the on-account form.  
• Also in a dense project hierarchy with on-account lines at different sub-project highlighting it at the top of the hierarchy can present you with quite a large number of lines. 

Required function

• Users require a TOTAL field, which is a read-only summary on this form to show a total of the lines. This easily allows the on-account lines to be compared to either the forecast/budget/quotation lines that have been created.

• This can be implemented by choosing to provide a single TOTAL which considers all the different types of the on-account lines or a box each for each type of on-account and a TOTAL that represents the sum of the individual total. 

• The TOTAL box should be able to reflect the correct totals in a mixed hierarchy of project types and the different levels within the hierarchy (ie be able to reflect the sums of all on-account lines from child projects within the hierarchy).

This will make a massive difference and improve efficiency of using this form. 

Many project/service organisation operate through some kind of sales process to agree a budget prior to commencement of actual delivery of project/jobs upon agreement by the client. 

D365O projects now provide good options of managing budgets/forecasts either via the WBS and through the budgets and forecast. 

Many times there is quite some frustrations on the part of clients, when they've gone through the process of entering many lines through the budgeting or forecast tools, and then have to re-enter all lines again on purchase order.  Consistently you get the request from clients, why you cannot copy the lines from the budget/forecast. 

Requested functionality

Provide additional option under the COPY group under the 'Purchase order lines' menu in addition to [From all, From Journal, From line] on the purchase order line to have the following options:

• From project budget
• From project forecast
• From project WBS

This will result in the options looking as below:

• PURCHASE ORDER LINE
  
  • NEW
    • Delivery schedule
    • Credit note
  • COPY
    • From all
    • From journal
    • From line
    • From project budget
    • From project forecast
    • From project WBS

Using any of the three options should open the lines from any of the above objects.

•  ****It should ONLY present lines attached to Project Category of ITEM types.*****
• Where a project is already selected on the line, i.e. if the PO was created directly from the project, and it defaulted the project code in the background, the presented lines need to be filtered for the selected project only.
• The form should allow filtering by the user
• The form shold allow multiple selection of lines by the user
• Copying it should then populate all information on the lines from any of the above forms, which can be stipulated on the purchase order line
• For budgets, it should only use amounts from latest agreed revision. 
• it is not envisaged this will be used for updates to purchase order lines to either increase or decrease the amounts during revisions. This should continue to be a manual activity when required. 

As a suggestion, an introduction of additional parameters could be introduce for 'Create PO lines from Project only'  on the project, which could control whether manual lines are allowed on the PO line, or can only be copied from a project when a budget/forecast exist.

A function like this will really improve the efficiency of using already approved budget/forecast lines as the basis of project purchases. 

For many Project-based organisations, there is a requirement to manually accrue costs, as part of month-end process, where the costs are of a nature which is not directly from a system document (e.g. Insurances) or where timing of costs means it has not made it to the system.

Mostly what is required is for the cost to be posted in the period concerned and reversed out of the next period. 

Functionality required:

The request is to provide the ability to manually enter the accrual after running a report which presents the current cost position. 

I'm suggesting the Cost Control form is extended as follows (When 'Show by' is set to Category):

• On the GENERAL tab, introduce a  new ACCRUAL column between the COMMITTED COSTS and VARIANCE columns
  • All the current parameters on the Cost Control form will stay the same.
  • Each cell in the Accrual column will provide fields for user entry of amounts to accrue
  • When the Cost Control form is run and the numbers are displayed in the various columns (with the exception of the ACCRUAL column)  within the General tab, the user should be able to then manually populate the new column's fields with any amount that is to be accrued.
  • The user should be able to then click on CALCULATE option again and see the Variance column changes, based on the entered Accruals and any Actual Costs already showing in the 'Actual Cost' column. 
  • The user should then be able to Post the Accruals. 
  • The Post action will use the details from the PARAMETERS tab (Accruals field group) set by the  user using each of the Categories Post a reversing Journal. 
    • Categories for Hour should post a reversal Hour Journal
    • Categories for Expense should post a reversal GL Journal to the project coded to that category
    • Categories for Item should post a reversing item journal. (Currently there is no reversing journal for item...this can be designed as part of this modification or simply the journal could initiate 2 journals one with a +ve and other with a -ve quantity and reversal date)
  • Each transaction originating from an Accrual Posting should be marked on it's equivalent Project Transactions table with an 'Is Accrual' flag in the background. (This will give the ability to pull the transactions to different reports/forms where there is a requirement to show accruals in a separate column. 

The PARAMETERS tab (

• This will hold the following information to be set by the user
  • Reversing date:- (The date which will be used for the reversal Posting for all lines)
  • Summary Accrual (Read only on the Parameters tab, to be inherited by the Project group)
  • Summary Accrual category (Read only on the parameters tab, to be inherited by the Project group)
  • Accrual Amount:- Only enabled when 'Summary Accrual' is ticked.  Will hold a single accrual amount, if the accrual is required at a project level, rather than detailed level for each category. 

Project Group Parameters for Accrual

• • Summary Accrual  [Checkbox] - When ticked, the Summary Accrual category (Below) will be enabled for the selecting of an Expense Category.  
  • Summary Accrual category -  The selected category will be used for posting a single amount, as an overall accrual, rather than posting 

NOTE: Running the Cost Control enquiry with 'show by' set to 'Cost template' should present the Accruals column in the same same column as above but make it read-only and reportable, so that it will pull all the accrual information already posted against the project in this column (based on the flag which was set to 'Is Accrual' when the accruals was posted).

During implementations, the clients requirement may drive you to define a number of project groups for different types of projects. When in this situation you may typically want the flexibility of being able to lower some of the settings at the Parameter level to the 'Project group' level. 

Can we have the option of being able to additionally select the Project stages that apply to a particular Project Group and set the rules that apply as well. This gives the flexibility of being able to define a number of project groups of the same project type but have different stages where needed by the client. 

By introducing the option to create a free text invoice by leveraging Fee categories against the project (from AX 2012) at a line level, it has effectively made the 'Freetext' a project transaction document (although we know it results in a fee transaction against the project).  However there is no way to create this directly from the project. 

Requested function

1. To allow the ability to directly create a freetext invoice directly from the project as one of the options under the NEW > ITEM TASK.

The Free text document already hold the ability to specify at a line level the 'Project ID' and the 'Category' (project fee category). However, where there are a number of lines needed to be created for the same project, this is very tedious as the user has to manually specify the same project and category for each lines.

Required function

• Introduce the option to hold the 'Project ID' and 'Category' at the freetext HEADER. 
• In addition provide a parameter to set the default Fee category for freetext against the related Project Group.
  • If the parameter is populated then both the Project and the category is automatically populated at the header of the freetext invoice on creating it from the Project(see my other suggestion on being able to create the freetext directly from the project).
  • It is expected that the 'Project ID' and 'Category' will automatically default from the header unless overridden by the user. If  the ID and Category is not populated  at the header it will be expected that the user will manually select the project and related fee category against at the line level (in line with standard Dynamics behaviour).