Lesson 10 - Assignment types and assigning people to the project

Table of contents

• Assignment - what is it?
  
  • Overview
  • Assignment types and designations
    
    • Assignment divided by status
    • Assignment divided by billability
    • Assignment divided by utilization configuration
  • Assignment form - explanation
  • How to create and edit assignments?
  • Filling in assignment form - example
  • Additional questions

Assignment - what is it? Assignment types in Primetric

Overview

Assignments are one of the most important things in Primetric. They provide you with information about who, for how long, and where works. What's more Primetric based on assignments calculates what incomes and costs are generated by your team members. This is the next step, after creating estimations to properly plan your project. Below you can find a summary of crucial information which helps you to plan people's work like a pro :)

Assignment types and designations

In Primetric we have several types of assignments. We can divide them based on:

Assignment divided by status

It often happens that when planning teamwork, we are not 100% sure of our decisions yet. So, we need to do simulation, create an initial assignment that is not confirmed or has only test purpose.

This is why you can find three different statuses of assignments:

And this is how they look on calendar view:

Active assignment (always filled inside) - you should set this assignment status when you are sure about your decision. The active assignment allows your team members to log work in it. 

Reserved / Draft assignment (always white inside) - you should set this assignment status when you are not sure about your decision or you want to create a simulation. This type of assignment doesn’t allow your team members to log in it.

Example:

Let's assume that I have two teams and I want to see which of the team will better suit the project in the financial and technical context. 

So, for the first team, I create reserved assignments and for the second one draft assignments. Nextly, thanks to filters I am able to see my simulation in any report and of course I can easily see how each team affects the project's budget and choose a better one.

Easy, fast and convenient.

Assignment divided by billability

You can also set up a billability of the assignment. Sometimes it happens that in billable projects you need to do some non-billable work. In Primetric you can do it easily, by selecting a "non-billable" checkbox. Thanks to differentiation, you can also track how much work hours are dedicated to billable and non-billable work.

Billable assignment (without any additional icon) - you are able to set up an hour price for your client (in T&M projects). 

Non-billable assignment (with the fire icon next to the type of assignment status) - hour price for a client is not available. 

Assignments divided by utilization configuration

In Primetric you are able to configure utilization in three basic ways:

• configuring utilization based on % of team member's capacity - if you want to schedule a number of hours based on capacity. Primetric will automatically calculate the daily scheduled utilization level and schedule an equal number of hours for the whole assignment duration.

Note: If you check use billable capacity, Primetric will schedule only the hours that the person has available

Example:

Let's assume that you want to assign Bob to a new project in March. Bob's daily capacity is equal to 8h because he works full time. (if you want to find out how to configure team member's capacity click here). If you choose utilization configuration based on % of capacity and set it up at a 50% level, Primetric will automatically schedule for Bob an equal number of hours (in this example 4h a day) for each working day in a selected period.

• configuring utilization based on a number of hours a day - this option allows you to schedule an equal number of hours in specific working days, e.g. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday each 4h throughout the assignment. Alternatively you can also assign % of capacity per weekday.

• configuring utilization based on total utilization - if you want to schedule a specific total number of hours for a whole duration of an assignment. Primetric will automatically calculate the daily scheduled utilization level and schedule an equal number of hours for the whole assignment duration.

Assignment form - explanation

The assignment form allows you to fully configure people's work. It is divided into 4 sections responsible for different areas of the project. Below you can find a short overview of each.

• General - allows you to provide basic information about an assignment, e.g:
  • assignment status (active, reserved, draft),
  • Label (name),
  • Project's phase,
  • Assignment duration,
  • is it billable or non-billable work,
  • is it background work

• Utilization with the summary of hours scheduled in an assignment - allows you to configure utilization calculation type:

• Budget with the summary of costs and incomes (if T&M project) scheduled in an assignment - allows you to:
  • see employee hour cost
  • add additional hour cost
  • set up hour price for a client (if T&M project)

Budget section in assignment form for Fixed Price project

Budget section in assignment form for Time & Material project

• As you can notice, when it comes to the Time & Material Project assignment form has additional options:
  • Hour rate source - it allows you to choose where the hourly rate should be taken from:
    • Phase - if you have chosen a phase, then Primetric will take the hourly rate from the estimation tab (applicable if you added hour rate in the Estimation section),
    • Role - if you have a specified role in the assignment, then Primetric will take hour rate from the Role (applicable if you configured roles in the Organization tab),
    • Project - applicable if you specified default hour rate for the whole project,
    • Employee / contractor default - applicable if you specified default hour rate in the Settings tab in the Employee profile,
    • Employee / contractor project default - applicable if you specified default hour rate for a specific employee inside the project.
• Budget model - it allows you to specify whether you want to charge your client for scheduled hours or tracked hours. More about it you can find here: New features update! [19.03.2021]. You can choose between:
• • as tracked
  • cost as tracked, income as scheduled

• Details where you can set up Role, Assignment Hashtag, and unique assignment ID (helpful if you want to sync work logs using REST API)

How to create and edit assignments?

In Primetric you can create & edit assignments using one-click in:

• Personal employee's calendar

• Individual project's calendar

• Organization's calendar (People or Project view)

• Team Tab in the Project Profile

Filling in assignment form - example

Filling an assignment form is very simple and looks like the below:

Additional questions

What does "utilization affects the billable capacity" mean?

Utilization affects the billable capacity means that you selected a specific assignment/-s as the most important (leading one). Thanks to that Primetric will lower scheduling for other assignments, so you can be sure that assignments with selected this option will have the highest priority.

This option is available only when the utilization configuration is based on % of team member's capacity,

This is how these assignments look like on calendar view:

Example

Let's assume that Bob has 3 different assignments (A, B, C). Assignment A and Assignment B have enabled the "use billable capacity" option, which means that they have a lower priority, but assignment A has enabled "utilization affects the billable capacity" option, which means that it has higher priority. 

The first two assignments are scheduled for 50% of Bob's capacity each. So, they fulfil Bob's capacity at a 100% level. It means that Bob has no free time to schedule. When we schedule assignment C at 50% level, Primetric will automatically decrease the number of scheduled hours in Assignment A and Assignment B, so from one hand Assignment C will be scheduled at 50%, and from another hand, Bob's utilization level will not exceed 100%, so Bob will not be overscheduled.

Example 2

Input data	Before scheduling Assignment C	After scheduling Assignment C
Assignment A = 50% scheduled with "use billable capacity" option enabled Assignment B = 20% scheduled with ""use billable capacity" option enabled Assignment C = 40% scheduled with "utilization affects the billable capacity" option enabled Daily Bob's capacity is equal to 8h	Assignment A = 50% * 8h = 4h per day Assignment B = 20% * 8h = 1,6h per day Daily utilization = (4h + 1,6h) / 8h = 70%	Assignment C = 40% * 8h = 3,2h per day Assignment B = 20% * (8h - 3,2h) = 0,96h Assignment A = 50% * (8h - 3,2h) = 2,4h

What does "use billable capacity" mean?

Use billable capacity means that assignments with selected this option have lower priority than assignments with the selected option "utilization affects the billable capacity". In other words, their scheduled hours will automatically decrease as the scheduled hours for assignments with the "utilization affects the billable capacity" option enabled increase.

What does "background work" mean? 

Background work is an assignment flag that is helpful when you want to have information about, e.g. preparation work in a project.

What does "Skip days" mean?

It means that Primetric won't take into account Public Holidays AND/OR Vacations when calculating the scheduled utilization level.

How employee hour cost is calculated?

Primetric takes into account monthly employee cost and capacity from work settings (without public holidays or vacations).

Can I change a contractor's hour cost?

Yes, you can do it anytime by providing it in the specific assignment, like below:

What does "settled" assignment type mean?

It means that an assignment was settled and is finished. More about a settlement you will find in the next lessons.

You shouldn't edit settled assignments!

Can I create an assignment without a person assigned to it?

No, you cannot. You must always assign a team member to an assignment.

Can I create bulk assignments for the whole team?

Yes, you can do it in the Team Tab in Project Profile. To do it:

1. Go to the Team Tab in Project Profile
2. Scroll down and click the Search for team members button
3. Click the Bulk scheduling button
4. Select people that you want to assign and click the Assign x selected button

Go to Lesson 11 - Finance access in the manager role