Table of Contents

Assignments

[The Assignments Module Screen]

The Assignments module is used to book time in advance for Employees and Resources. These Assignments can either be for specific Jobs or stand alone. Once completed, these Assignments can be converted into Time Sheets to record the cost and price to invoice the work done.

Details of the currently selected Assignment are displayed on the Summary tab of the Assignments module, while multiple Assignments can be viewed on the Visual Scheduler.

Assignment Summary

A new Assignment can be created for a single Employee or Resource by selecting them from the appropriate dropdown. Note that expired Employees or Resources (those with a finish date set) will not appear in these dropdowns. Assignments can be raised for Multiple Employees/Resources at a time by clicking the appropriate button.

TSM will display a warning when creating an Assignment for a date and time which is outside the Work Hours defined on each specific Employee or Resource record.

Assignments which occur on multiple days can be created using the Recur function. Simply choose when and how many times you wish the assignment to recur, and TSM will create Assignments for each day required.

To link the current Assignment or Assignment set being created to a Job, enter a Job number or use the Search button to select a Job record. Assignments marked as the Primary Assignment on a Job will cause changes made to the Assignment to alter the details on the Job, and vice-versa. Jobs with an Employee, Due Date, and Estimated Duration set will have a Primary Assignment automatically created when the Job is raised or saved (if the Auto Create Linked Primary Assignment option is enabled in Setup).

Multiple Employees/Resources

Creating Assignments for multiple Employees and Resources at once can be done using the Select Employees/Resources Dialogue, accessed by clicking the Multiple Employees/Resources button. Choose an Employee or Resource Group from the top dropdowns, select which record to add in the Available column, and use the arrow buttons to set which Employees and Resources will have an Assignment created. Click the X button to close the dialogue, and enter the date and other Assignment information to complete the creation.

The members of Groups are set in the Groups tab of the Employee and Resource modules, or in Codes Setup.

Linked Assignments

When creating Assignments for multiple Resources and Employees, or creating Recurring Assignments, a separate Assignment record is created for each instance. Assignments associated in this way can be viewed by selecting any one of the Assignments and clicking the Linked Assignments tab.

When making changes to an Assignment, any future linked assignments will be altered as well if you click 'Yes' when prompted.

[The Visual Scheduler]

Visual Scheduler

The Visual Assignment Scheduler allows the graphical display and management of Assignments for all Employees and Resources.

The top left section displays a tree view which allows the selection of all Assignments against particular Employees, Resources, and Groups, as well as Assignment Types, Assignment Status codes, Job Locations, and Job Departments. Check the box beside each to display Assignments for these records.

Right-clicking on an Assignment brings up a menu which allows you to open the Assignment, associated Job Card, or quickly Unassign, Acknowledge, or Complete the Assignment record.

New assignments can be created by dragging an area inside the main scheduler screen. Dragging across multiple days will create multiple linked assignments, depending on the Work Hours defined in Setup.

Existing Assignments can have their date and times changed by left-clicking and dragging the box for the assignment to the new date/times.