Problem Definition: As soon I upgraded my PSA version from V2 to V3, I saw that the role field got deprecated. Not only that, it was removed from Schedule (WBS in V2). We now had the functionality to directly assign resource to the task against having assign role. The projects that got migrated from V2 to V3 were all tagged with the resource named “Auto-Developer” and were with the roles, but, was not advisable to go the deprecated way. We now as an organization, heavily dependent on our day-to-day activities had to change the way we work and had to understand and reframe the working methodology for the following things: How to take care of the tasks that we need to make it Non-Billable Where to assign roles and learn to assign Resources instead. Solution: The above problem was not an easy cake to eat. The impact went all the way to Schedule Board and we need to redesign the way we allocate on tasks, since, I started seeing duplicate tasks on schedule board, one with Role and one without Role. I had to change the view query to reflect the tasks without role and match the remaining hours to the previously assigned hours on the task. Now this became a major challenge. We had to export all the bookings from the system and delete the previous allocations on the task with role to the task without role. This would then match the remaining hours to allocate on the task. The next things I did to make the tasks be treated as Non-Billable was to add the Column in the Schedule named Category, Wherein I added a Category named “Non-Billable”. This category was made Non-Chargeable. This is the Transaction Category which can be added from SettingsàTransaction Categories. I added a Calculated Field on the Project form then to calculate the Billable Hours which excluded this Non-billable Category task to see the correct Billable estimate of the project. BI Team in your organization will now need to change the reports adjusting to the above criteria to reflect the correct data. This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.

Often, one of the real-life scenarios is making time entries by either remembering what you did the whole week or looking at the Schedule Board and based on what you were booked, making each Time Entry in PSA manually. Tiresome and inefficient, right? Not any more, a cool feature let’s you just create Time Entries in PSA v3 by a single click. Now, let’s say your Bookings look like the below. I’m booked on 2 projects across the week. And now let’s see how we import these. Import Time Entries Let’s see you want to make time entries now based on you Bookings in D365. On the Time Entries scree, drop down to the arrow besides Import. Select Resource Bookings. (Obviously, like this method – you can import from Resource Assignments and Outlook Sync too! But we will keep that for some other day) Then, you can select what all Time Entries should actually make it to the records. So you can select the ones you need and leave the rest. Once you click on Import, it’s done! Time Entries are created. Works like a breeze!

Problem Definition: As soon I upgraded my PSA version from V2 to V3, I saw that the role field got deprecated. Not only that, it was removed from Schedule (WBS in V2). We now had the functionality to directly assign resource to the task against having assign role. The projects that got migrated from V2 to V3 were all tagged with the resource named “Auto-Developer” and were with the roles, but, was not advisable to go the deprecated way. We now as an organization, heavily dependent on our day-to-day activities had to change the way we work and had to understand and reframe the working methodology for the following things: How to take care of the tasks that we need to make it Non-Billable Where to assign roles and learn to assign Resources instead. Solution: The above problem was not an easy cake to eat. The impact went all the way to Schedule Board and we need to redesign the way we allocate on tasks, since, I started seeing duplicate tasks on schedule board, one with Role and one without Role. I had to change the view query to reflect the tasks without role and match the remaining hours to the previously assigned hours on the task. Now this became a major challenge. We had to export all the bookings from the system and delete the previous allocations on the task with role to the task without role. This would then match the remaining hours to allocate on the task. The next things I did to make the tasks be treated as Non-Billable was to add the Column in the Schedule named Category, Wherein I added a Category named “Non-Billable”. This category was made Non-Chargeable. This is the Transaction Category which can be added from SettingsàTransaction Categories. I added a Calculated Field on the Project form then to calculate the Billable Hours which excluded this Non-billable Category task to see the correct Billable estimate of the project. BI Team in your organization will now need to change the reports adjusting to the above criteria to reflect the correct data. This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation.  

Problem definition Often clients using PSA V2 used to complain of the feature missing was copying the project as the template. A few of the Construction Company clients of mine have huge projects and have almost similar structure for many of their projects. Undoubtedly templates use to serve the purpose, but, only to a certain extent. When you have an option to copy a project exactly, I would always prefer that. Below is how you do. Mitigation: Navigate to Project Services and try creating new project by Clicking on New Project button: Type the project name which you want to copy in the Project Template field. This will start copying the tasks from the project onto Schedule of the new project. You are done. This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using Dynamic 365 Project Services Automation for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation. According to my opinion, implementation of Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation is one of the best things that we did in CloudFronts Technologies. We have gained a lot with this implementation because we save time and money due to easy access resources and ability to manage them.

Dynamics 365 Project Services Automation demands a perfect configuration and that is the proof of being a sophisticated application. You won’t see any result unless the configurations are all set right. Use Case: I am observing from quite sometime that my Accounting Team complaints that when the Actuals are created on the project they are with 0 value. This was an issue as I went out to check a couple of things: Is the project having a currency tagged to it. Is the project price list existing for the project. Is the resource having a Resourcing Unit tagged to himself. In the approval tab is the time entry submitted by the resource having a Role and is it Chargeable. To my surprise all of the above were looking correct. Out of curiosity I digged in one more step and that’s where I found out the issue: Issue Resolution: Step 1: I navigated to D365 Project ServiceàResources. Search for the resource who is working on that project. Step 2: Open the Resource by clicking on it and then navigate to the Scheduling Tab.   Step 3: Make a note of the Organizational Unit mentioned for him. In this case it is CloudFronts Mumbai (USD). Step 4: Navigate to Projects and Sales Tab and Open the Project Contract Header by clicking the link in the Project Contract grid. Step 5: Navigate to Project Price Lists and Open the Price List in the project price lists. Navigate to Role prices. Check the Role and the Resource Unit mentioned for that Role should be exactly the same as the Resourcing Unit mentioned for the Resource mentioned in Step 3.   Now when you try approving the time entries the Actuals will have correct price. You are done. This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation. According to my opinion, implementation of Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation is one of the best things that we did in CloudFronts Technologies. We have gained a lot with this implementation because we save time and money due to easy access resources and ability to manage them.

Business Use Case: Often there are team members who share the need of getting allocated on schedule board in Dynamics 365 Project Services Automation directly as soon as they book an appointment or have a meeting invite. One of the reasons for the same is for the team or anyone concerned about allocation to understand that the said team member is either having a meeting with someone or has an appointment. Hence, they do consume some time of the day. This is one of the reasons that I get when I think aloud. Since, there is lot of argument and justification the team needs to provide for these additional non-billable time that they spend. There can be many other reasons as to why this is needed by other organisations. Mitigation: Though there is an (Out of the Box) OOB solution for marking an appointment in Outlook calendar from Schedule Board, but, vice-versa is not provided OOB. MS Flows helped me here. I created a flow between Bookable Resource Booking entity and Outlook entity in Flows. I have explained the steps as to how to do the same. Steps: Step 1: Login to https://portal.office.com with your credentials. Step 2: Click on Flows as shown in below image. Step 3: This will take you to the portal where you can mange and create all your Flows: Step 4: Click on +New. Step 5: Click on Create from Blank. Step 6: Click again on Create from Blank. Step 7: Select the Outlook connector by searching the Outlook 365 Connector from the search box as show in the image below. Also, select the Triggering event on when the flow should be triggered. So we selected, When a new event is created (v2). Step 8: Select Calendar id as Calendar. Step 9: click on next step. Step 10: Select the target connector i.e. Dynamics 365 by searching in the connectors. Step 11: Click on create a new records. Step 12: Select the Organisation and the Entity where you want to create a record. Since the booking that shows up on the schedule board comes from Bookable Resource Booking, we shall select Bookable Resource Booking. Step 13: Add the mappings to the fields as shown below, by searching them from the right pane. Step 14: Once done, click on save and your flow is ready. Step 15: Once created do not forget to Turn it On. Test it by creating an event in calendar and see in the event history of the flow whether it is successful or not. Conclusion: This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation. According to my opinion, implementation of Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation is one of the best things that we did in CloudFronts Technologies. We have gained a lot with this implementation because we save time and money due to easy access resources and ability to manage them.

Business Use Case: Often there are team members who share the need of getting allocated on schedule board in PSA directly as soon as they book an appointment or have a meeting invite. One of the reasons for the same is for the team or anyone concerned about allocation to understand that the said team member is either having a meeting with someone or has an appointment. Hence, they do consume some time of the day. This is one of the reasons that I get when I think aloud. Since there is a lot of argument and justification the team needs to provide for these additional non-billable time that they spend. There can be many other reasons as to why this is needed by other organizations. Mitigation: Though there is an (Out of the Box) OOB solution for marking an appointment in Outlook calendar from Schedule Board, vice-versa is not provided OOB. MS Flows helped me here. I created a flow between Bookable Resource Booking entity and Outlookentity in Flows. I have explained the steps as to how to do the same: Steps: Step 1: Login to https://portal.office.com with your credentials. Step 2: Click on Flows as shown in below image Step 3: This will take you to the portal where you can manage and create all your Flows: Step 4: Click on +New Step 5: Click on Create from Blank Step 6: Click again on Create from Blank Step 7: Select the Outlook connector by searching the Outlook 365 Connector from the search box as shown in the image below. Also, select the Triggering event on when the flow should be triggered. So we selected When a new event is created (v2) Step 8: Select Calendar id as Calendar Step 9: click on next step Step 10: Select the target connector i.e. Dynamics 365 by searching in the connectors. Step 11: Click on create new records Step 12: Select the Organisation and the Entity where you want to create a record. Since the booking that shows up on the schedule board comes from Bookable Resource Booking, we shall select Bookable Resource Booking. Step 13: Add the mappings to the fields as shown below, by searching them from the right pane. Step 14: Once done, click on save and your flow is ready. Step 15: Once created do not forget to Turn it On. Test it by creating an event in the calendar and see in the event history of the flow whether it is successful or not. The End. This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for the last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project management, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation. According to my opinion, the implementation of Microsoft dynamics 365 for project service automation is one of the best things that we did in Cloud Front Technologies. We have gained a lot with this implementation because we save time and money due to easy access resources and ability to manage them.

Introduction: There have been instances where we feel the need of deleting some records in bulk. I was looking at options of doing advanced search and saw that there were 500+ records showing up. Also, at a time Advanced Find allows to delete 50 records in one go. We definitely needed a better option and Data Management provided that option to delete records in bulk. Use Case: I created a Project Task in a project. This was the only task in the project on which I booked all the resources in my company for 8 hours per day until dec-2022 from June-2018. There were around more then 500+ allocations done for all the Resources. Somewhere, I figured out that this was not the task I wanted to allocate and then I tried many ways deleting the allocations. Below is what all I tried. Option 1: I tried to open the schedule board and delete the allocations from there from month view. But. Deleting it from schedule board takes lot of time to delete the allocations even for one month and imagine we have so many months allocation to delete. Hence, this was not a feasible option. Option 2: I tried deleting the allocations from Advanced find by selecting the criteria as shown below in the screen shot. But, it allowed me to delete only 50 records in a go which was again an issue. After trying above 2 methods and doing some research we came across Bulk Delete option in Data Management Module. Below is the solution to the issue. Solution: Step 1: login on CRM and navigate to Settings module and Data Management in there as shown below. Step 2: Click on Bulk Record Deletion option. Step 3: Bulk deletion wizard opens Step 4: Define your search criteria that selects the records to be deleted. It is similar to the Advanced Find tool. Step 5: Name the Bulk deletion job and schedule the same. You  can also tick the check box to notify via email when the job is completed successfully. You are done with the process and it will take some time for the process to delete the records. Conclusion: This blog reflects my personal findings and based solely on my experience of using PSA for last 3 years. For those who are looking for a platform that can track and manage the entire procedures of sales and project managements, I would highly recommend them to try Microsoft dynamics 365 for project services automation. According to my opinion, implementation of Microsoft dynamics 365 for project services automation is one of the best things that we did in CloudFronts Technologies. We have gained a lot with this implementation because we save time and money due to easy access resources and ability to manage them.

Anyone who uses a CRM on a regular basis hopes that it will work seamlessly without errors. But from time to time, when creating and qualifying a lead, confusing error messages popup and leave users wondering about a resolution.  A very common error in Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation comes up when trying to qualify a lead using the Project Information form when the lead is type is set as “Work Based.” The popup below shows the error message: This error cropped up after I did the following steps: Step 1: Create a lead with the basic required details Step 2: Ensure the form selected is Project Information form Step 3: The Type of lead field should have the value Work Based Step 4: Save the lead Step 5: Try Qualifying the lead. This will lead to the above error shown in the screen shot. The best way to resolve this issue is to check the parameter settings, shown in the screenshot below. Upon researching the issue, I found that there is an important parameter setting that is missing, which needs to be changed in order to get to a resolution. When the lead is created, even though we do not have a customer specific price list, PSA asks for a default price list, inferring that this could be a potential customer. The go to place where PSA checks the global parameter setting is Project Service–> Parameters. Click on the default organization unit. In my case, CloudFronts Mumbai. Click on the price list tab (shown in the screen shot below) and then click on the add new project parameter Price List button on the grid. A pop-up opens that asks for the price list. Select the price list and save. Now, when you create your lead in the Work Based type and qualify it, the error will not reappear. With these changes, the price list for the organization unit is updated in PSA. Whenever we use the organization unit again for a quote, contract, or project, this price list will be the default setting. Most importantly, the parameter helps to qualify the lead successfully. This process reflects my personal findings, based on my experience using PSA for the last five years. We have benefited a lot from the implementation of PSA, because we save time and money due to easy access to resources and the ability to manage them.

I was trying to explore the Extend Booking functionality in Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation (PSA) and saw that the users were getting allocated for the entire 24 hours in a day. Immediately, I realized that the issue was coming up because the work hour template was not set properly. When the new work hour template was created, the work hour parameters for the resources were not set back to eight hours. To check the work hours of a resource, navigate to Project Service–>Resources–>Select a Resource. Click on the button “show work hours” as highlighted in the screenshot below. A popup opens. The screenshot shows that the work hours are not defined for the resource as of now. As a result, the resource will be allocated for 24 hours if they are selected for a project unless there working hours are defined.    I selected the resource in the Default Work Hour Template and then created the work hours for that resource (eight hours a day and Monday-Friday working). I assigned these work hours to all the resources in the navigation shown below. Select all resources and click on the ‘Set calendar’ button from the Ribbon Control. I assumed that the new work hours will be set for all the resources selected. I then tried to allocate via extend booking and saw that the resource was still not reflecting the new work hours set. Upon further research I worked out a solution that follows the proper way to define the work hour template of the resources. I created a new work hours template by navigating to Project Service Work Hour Templates. This new work hour template was created to define the following: Working hours per day of the resource. Working days in a week. Holidays in a year. The resource selected should have the proper work hours defined. Select all the resources and assign the newly created work hour template. Because Kuldeep Gupta is a template resource in this example, all the resources will get assigned from Kuldeep Gupta. As a result, it’s not possible to select more than one resource. Now while creating the project select this newly created Work Hour Template  and the project will respect the new work hours. A word of caution: You will not be able to change the work hour template for the old projects as the field is locked and you are not allowed to change it in the midst of the project. I hope that these steps help you to create and assign the work hour template effectively.