Track number of hours spend on a customer project

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Hello,

After submitting a quote to a customer from CRM online, when customer response is positive then we can start working on his project and for that we validate the Quote as Won, which then create a customer Order reference with which we can settle different task to be done for the project.
In our business we are building software and on current customer order we need to track the number of hours spend on the project by each people working on it.

To do that actually we are using an Excell sheet that each developer working on the project fill up weekly. Which is not the best solution as it is not directly linke to customer order in CRm.

I was wondering if there is a way to do such thing in the sense that from customer Order we can fill up a date, developer name, number of hours spend ?

At the end we can then compare the payed hours with real working one.

Thanks for advise

regards

serge

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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

Thanks got the point.

Will I be able with that trick to display on the Order form global project information time which is TotalOrderAmount - (CustomizeProductQuantity* HoursCost) ?

regards

serge
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Community Member on at

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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

Sure, you don't want to affect the order total so you setup a product that has a price of $0.00 and name it something like "CRM Customizations".

When your developers need to enter time, they search the Orders for the one they are currently working on, open it, click on the "Products" left nav link (or sub-grid) and click the Add New Order Product.

In the resulting form, they type in the product "CRM Customization" so the product lookup resolves...then they enter the quantity of hours worked and press Save and Close. Because they are setup as a CRM user, the Order Product Owner will be the User Entering their time. So you have captured Order, Person, Quantity, & Work Performed. And, Because you setup the Product to have a $0.00 price it has not affected the order total.

Further, if you're printing the order for the customer then you could modify that report to exclude any specific product types that you don't want to show up.
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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

hello Scott, thanks for your reply.

Sorry did not understand the path or approach you advise me to go, can you provide more details ?

With this project work hour counter the goal is not to affect the current Order Total but it is more an indication to track work hours compare to what we will charge.

In further reporting then if we see that we are all time over the estimate, it means we are not estimate work time correctly and we loose money. In case we are under, we earn money.

First steps in this for me now is finding proper way and way to setup this hour counter

thanks for help

regards

serge
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Community Member on at

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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

I would have them attach New Order Lines to the CRM Order; entering quantity for the number of hours spent and choosing the appropriate product based on the work being performed. If you don't want to affect the Order Total then you can setup the product to have a $0.00 price and use just the quantity.
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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

Thanks ben for your reply.

Creating a new entity is not an issue as it just a matter has defining a new table with field in CRM but building a plug-in is the tricky part for me has never done this and do not know how to do.

Is there a more simpler approach without developing anything new?

regards

serge
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Hosk on at

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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

I would create a new entity called Project Time

On this entity you could have a date field and an number field. You could have a lookup to user to specify which user did the time. Also have a lookup field for Account or Order.

Then for a project, quote, order you then create a new project time entity each time you want to allocate some time to the project. Somewhere you will need to add these together probably using a plugin.
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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

Hello,

I have check how workflow work that seems quite simple. In order to setup this I might need you advise on where I should better place field knowing that when a Quote is complete, an Order is created. Then in this order a set of task need to be done to fulfill the order, based on that

- can I have that counter associated to each task and then a summary info which make the Sum of all those counter ?

- How can I place that counter in each tasks associated to the Order ?

Or does my path is wrong and should work with only one counter at Order level form ?

Thanks for advise

regards

serge
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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

thanks will check that.

reagrds

serge
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pmdci 1,032 on at

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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

Hi there,

First things first... Make sure you enable the SP1 product updates. This is what will give you the timer control.

This will allow you to insert the time control into forms.

Then you need to look into combining the use of this control with the workflows and custom fields. I'm afraid that for this solution, the use of workflows are a necessity so I reckon you would have to learn how to create these.

You might find this video useful:

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo5aQJlmsm4:550:0]

I reckon that it will not be possible for me to provide you a fully fledged solution (i.e. from requirements to delivery) because this would be a consultancy work in which we would have to sit down, discuss requirements, specify those in specs (functional/technical), test, fine-tune, etc -- which is simply impractical (at least for me) in a community forum. But I hope the information provided can point you into the right direction.

Regards,
P.
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RE: Track number of hours spend on a customer project

Thnaks for your reply.

when you said :

"Then you of course will need some custom fields to take track of the total time and the billable time, and workflows that will consider the status of the record (billable, not billable) in order to calculate the hours"

Could you detail a bit how to do this, I have never play with workflow.

Where extra field need to be added? in Order form ?

If you can provide a step by step guide that will help to catch

reagrds

serge