Chapter 9: Team Member Activities

In the previous chapter, we learned about the project processes that need to be performed to keep a project on time and within budget through the use of built-in tools and technologies. The Project Operations solution provides a sophisticated solution that also includes time and expense entry. The previous chapter covered time and expense entry from a setup perspective.

This chapter will identify the user processes that team members will need to do to input information into the Project Operations system. These input points will be most important as they will drive the project cost, selling, and profitability. As a team member, you are part of the largest pool of users the Project Operations system will have. As such, it is critical that we meet the requirements of the team members well.

For the purposes of this chapter, we will work with the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE) Project Operations app rather than the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for...

Technical requirements

To perform the tasks in this chapter, you will need the following:

• An Microsoft 365 account and Azure Active Directory (AD) login
• A Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations (C) license
• A Microsoft Project Plan license
• The Team Member security role

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Entering time

As a team member, entering time is something that you may typically do weekly. This process is carried out across millions of team members all doing the same thing: accounting for the time spent working in the last week. For some team members, this may be performed using a spreadsheet. For others, this involves using a browser-based system or a mobile app.

For Project Operations, time can be entered daily or weekly and submitted line by line to give the most flexibility to the system. As you are entering your time weekly, there are options that are going to help everyone's job down the line.

Requirements of time entry

For a team member to enter time, they must be set up as a resource in Project Operations. This is more than just setting up a resource, as there are costing implications related to the roles these team members are set up with.

Therefore, ensure that your team members (resources) are most minimally set up with their resource record and an...

Using Teams and Outlook time entry

There is more than one way to accomplish time entry for team members who may not be generally inclined to log in to a browser and navigate through Project Operations. Here are a couple of options you can explore.

Time entry – Outlook

To input time from your Outlook calendar will require the administrator to set up the Dynamics 365 app for Outlook as outlined in Chapter 8, Managing the Project to Success. From the Outlook calendar item, you need to select the Dynamics 365 app add-on as shown in Figure 9.11:

Figure 9.11 – Using the Dynamics 365 app for Outlook

Once you select Time Entry, enter your time into the Quick Entry screen for just this one-time transaction.

Furthermore, some team members may work from Microsoft Teams primarily and wish to have their time entry performed through this common interface.

Time entry – Teams

Utilizing the same Dynamics 365 app that we set up in Chapter...

Entering expenses

Project Operations provides for a Dynamics CE entry point of expenses into the system. This expense entry is generally very similar to the time entry functionality. It begins with navigating to the Expenses menu and selecting + New. The Quick Create form for expenses is structured very much like the time entry form and may also be configured or customized.

The out-of-the-box expense entry for our PROJ00222 for an airfare is shown in Figure 9.13:

Figure 9.13 – Quick Create: Expense

The result of the expense entry is very much the same as for the time entry. The expenses are entered into a grid view as shown in Figure 9.14:

Figure 9.14 – Expense entry – grid view

Expenses are sometimes entered through other apps that are commercially available and utilized throughout the industry. Some examples are Concur, Gorilla, and Expensify. When these applications are being used, the primary concern becomes...

Submitting and recalling time and expenses

Submitting time and expenses is almost identical in terms of process. It begins with a completed time or expense entry, as shown in the following figure:

Figure 9.15 – Submitting time for approval

Two significant elements to submitting time are the record selector on the left side of each row (highlighted in Figure 9.15) and the Submit button (also highlighted). With the record selected, you can submit one of, a variety of, or all of the records on the page. When you do, Entry Status will change to Submitted.

After this point, the project manager will be responsible for approvals and further processing. You now know how to submit the time and expenses for approval as well.

If, at some point, you wish to recall your timecard (meaning that you made a mistake that you wish to correct after submission), this is performed with a similar process to what you used to submit a time entry. Select the record you...

Summary

In this chapter, you have learned how to enter time through a variety of methods, including native time entry in Project Operations and time entry through the automated importing of information from assignments, bookings, and calendar entries. You also learned why this is useful, in that it provides team members with the ability to make their time entry process match their work style.

You also saw how you do not necessarily need to enter into Project Operations to enter time. You also learned how to enter time through the Dynamics 365 app for Outlook, which allows you to enter time from your calendar directly into your timesheet.

Furthermore, you performed the same kind of functionality through Microsoft Teams. Both approaches give you further avenues to enter time and expenses.

The final thing you learned about in this chapter was submitting time to the project manager. You now can enter time and expenses through Project Operations as well as Outlook and Teams, and...

Questions

1. True or false: Time entry in Project Operations is a weekly process.
2. What are the requirements to set up a team member for time entry?
3. Which field in the Quick Create: Time Entry form is the client-facing field?
4. To repeat the same entries from a previous week into this timesheet, what function is used?
5. Which import function will result in importing a team member's calendar information?
6. True or false: When importing time, the system always gives you a validation screen.
7. What is the app that is used to input time through Outlook?
8. True or false: While it would be nice, you cannot enter time through Microsoft Teams.
9. True or false: Only Project Operations expenses can be used to determine expense costs.
10. When submitting time or expenses, what needs to be done?