Adding Location Details to the Booking Chart
Did you know you can add location details to the Booking Chart?
The booking chart within the Resources module (or booking tab within the Project module) displays information related to resources and their workloads. Booking types can be used to identify types of workloads or potential workloads such as tentative contracts. But do you know where your resources are when performing the work? Would you rather travel when someone is at a customer site vs. working from their office? Would you like to know where resources are in general when determining who should work the project? A feature is available to identify locations for the resource by booking transaction. The location is a 2 character code displayed under each booking bar in the chart (limitation: you must use the Color Coded by Time and Booking Type chart). An example below shows the tracking of a resource and when he is ‘At a Client Site’ setup as a value of CS.
Setup of this feature requires:
- Setup of project locations under the Administration –> Applications Settings –> Project Settings –> Project Locations. For each location, set a 2 character state code and/or country code which will be displayed on the booking chart.
- Activate the booking location code for display on the booking chart by modifying your chart settings under Resources –> Bookings –> Chart –> Setting link and check ‘show location code.’
- Update bookings with a location value if desired. You can do this quickly in the Bookings Grid or Worksheet.
Tips and Best Practices: It is best to use this feature as an exception view if possible. If you set locations only to indicate when travel is being taken, for example, it is much easier to view information. By setting a location on every booking, all locations will be displayed under the booking chart bar and may cause confusion as to where the resource actually is located that particular day, week, or month. Another useful tip is to set bookings to the resource’s home location when creating a project then updating the booking to a travel or client site when travel is being taken. This will highlight when the resource is away from the home office and still provide information to the reviewer of where the home base is for the employee/subcontractor.
