Support
January 2010
In Timesheet, I use both project and period (sheet) approvals. Can I make all approvals start over if either a project or a period approver rejects a submission?
Absolutely. Approval plans are certainly a bit complex, but you can make them work together with some simple configuration changes.
Under Configuration → System Settings → Project (or your name for projects) Settings, check the "When rejected, restart approval process from the first approver" setting to make sure that project approvals start over from the beginning when a project approver rejects a submission. Under Configuration → System Settings → Approval Plans, check the "When sheet is rejected, restart approval process from the first approver" checkbox to make sure that period approvals work the same way. Also check the "When sheets are in multiple approval plans require approval by all approvers on each level prior to proceeding to next level" checkbox, so that all approvals for one level (both period and project) must be completed for the next level approver to approve a sheet or project records on that sheet. Be sure to click "Save" after changing your settings.
Now, if a project approver rejects a project entry, the sheet will have to be resubmitted for both period and project approvals.
Furthermore, if you configure your approval plans to work together in this fashion, a level 2 period approver will never see a sheet in his approval queue until all level 1 approvals are completed.
In ProjectXecute, how can I tell when a task or project is complete?
When tasks or projects are marked as complete, the Actual End Date is set to the date of the last time entry entered for the task. Prior to completion, the Actual End Date is blank. Therefore, you can see when a task or project was completed by looking at the Actual End Date field in reports and scheduled project management.
The Actual End Date for a task gets filled in when one of the following occurs: 1. All users assigned to the task have clicked the "Finished" check box on the My Assignments screen* or 2. The project manager has clicked the "Set all related tasks and assignments to be complete" check box on the task or project modification screens.
When a project or task reaches 100% of work complete (actual work = scheduled work), it does not automatically get flagged as complete. Assignees and/or project managers must indicate that assignments and/or tasks are complete. However, assignees are prompted to check the "Finished" check box when the actual work entered for an assignment equals the scheduled work for the assignment. If the assignment did require exactly the same amount of time as was estimated, the assignee doesn't have to do anything except leave the "Finished" check box checked to notify the project manager that the assignment is complete.
*Tasks and projects can be flagged as complete based on the Actual End Date even if the percent of work complete isn't at 100% (either because assignments were flagged as complete with less than or more than the scheduled work). When the project manager approves the discrepancies between actual and scheduled work, the task or project will show 100% of work complete. The Actual End Date remains the best way to confirm that a task is complete. If an Actual End Date is set and the task later requires more work, the Actual End Date will revert to a blank value when additional time is entered.
