Auto Assign

The ability to Auto Assign users using this feature is a great way to streamline your project intake process. However, certain guidelines must be followed and understood to archive the desired results.

To further streamline this process you can use Account Teams as part of the project creation process. Also, ensure that all users have a Default Service assigned in their employee record, as this will be what you can auto assign them to without much effort, but if a user needs to be assigned to multiple services within a schedule, then you will have to add those services manually in the team section.

NOTE: Never leave an assignment (service) with 0 hours allocated, as this process will remove that assignment all altogether. It assumes no work is being performed if there are no hours allocated. 

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Approved Estimate vs. No Estimate

This could also be compared to as Agency vs. MarCom. Meaning an Agency will always want an estimate in place before work begins. Where some MarComs do not track this level of detail and simply work by the schedule's assignments only.

Approved Estimate(s)

The system will populate your schedule based on what is in all approved estimates. Meaning, if you have a change order for more or less hours for an assignment, it will be taken into account when you Auto Assign.

No Estimate

If you do not have an estimate for the project, then you can still use the auto assign button from the team sections. However, this will keep the assignments as they are, and simply add a person with a matching service.

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Button Locations

While there are three locations for the auto assign button, they all do exactly the same thing. The reason for the button being accessible in multiple locations is to allow flexibility in your process. For example, you may have one user who can approve estimates, but cannot access the project schedule. Another user can access the project schedule and not estimates, yet this person needs to be able to use the auto assign feature and can access this button from a location they have access to.

Budget > Estimates

NOTE: This button only appears here if you have an approved estimate. However, it's recommend that you use the auto assign button from the team sections so you can manage which users are connected to which services.

 

Setup > Team

 

Schedule > Project Settings

 

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Pressing the Auto Assign button

The following process will occur when pressed and have approved estimate(s):

1. It will wipe out all Assignments already in the Schedule.

2. It will the repopulate the assignments to match the services and hours across ALL approved estimates.

3. It then looks to see what services each person in your team has, and then assigns that person to the service in your schedule.

In short, if your schedule and estimate always match (Pull From Schedule), then you wont see any differences other than if you have multiple people with the same service in the Team, at which point the assignment will get split evenly amongst the same service team members.

The following process will occur when pressed and have no estimates:

1. The system reviews the schedule for assigned services.

2. Then, the Team is reviewed to see which users have which services.

3. Any user with a matching service in the schedule are then assigned.

If you have multiple team members with the same service, then the hours get divided up among those users, and are assigned equally of the original total.

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Example

For this example, we will auto assign a user to the Account Management service.

Here the Schedule is all ready to go. All assignments are in place with hours allocated. This was then pulled into the estimate, and the estimate was approved. Now we are ready to auto assign.

 

Viewing the Team section, we assign service(s) to our team members (if not already populated with their Default Service).

 

Click the Auto Assign button.

 

Going back to the schedule, we can now see the results.

 

Now the Initials of the employee populate where the service name was (yet the service is still assigned).

Also, notice how it leaves the assignments without a matching employee and service as is. This allows you to add people to those assignments as needed.

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What about when things change?

This feature is quite flexible in that you can change who is assigned to what service in the Team section, and being able to click Auto Assign at anytime to reassign the entire schedule. Keep in mind that if you made changes elsewhere, such as Traffic, then those changes will be reverted back to the state of this feature.

Speak internally with your peers to see if this feature will work with your process, and also determine who and when this feature is to be used.

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Next Steps

Budget and Notifications

Using Estimates on Project Templates