Be “In the Know” With These 5 Useful and Rarely Used OpenAir Features

We all know that OpenAir is an incredibly feature-rich and flexible professional services automation (PSA) platform. In fact, there is so much functionality available and so many ways to customize the tool that it can be easy to miss important, native features that can make your life easier.

You don’t always need to jump to custom calculations or scripts to get what you want out of your PSA. There’s a host of built-in features that we find aren’t taken advantage of nearly enough. Here is a countdown of five useful but rarely used features in NetSuite’s OpenAir platform we believe you should know about. If you’d like to learn more about any one of these features or see them in action, you can check out our webinar on the topic.

#5: Conditional Dropdown Custom Fields

Driving the content for one dropdown depending on the selection from another is a handy feature that can save a lot of time and confusion. As many companies already know, it’s possible to do this using form permissions.

However, that’s not a scalable solution. The more form permissions you have, the more time you’ll be spending maintaining them. Instead, you can use advanced custom fields to drive conditional dropdowns.

To do this, you must have Advanced Custom Field Value and Conditional Associations enabled between values of separate custom fields. This is something that must be requested from OpenAir support to be enabled.  Once enabled, you’ll have drag and drop and editable functionality to create conditional dropdowns without the overhead of forms permission management.

#4: Allocation Grid Custom Field

There are instances where it’s helpful to see percentage values for your fields. For example, when you’re computing revenue credit across salespeople or regions, you may need to translate the information you have into percentages, even requiring that those percentages equal 100. You can do this with the Allocation Grid custom field.

The Allocation Grid solves the issue of doing this with custom calculations that can cause problems with reporting. It’s standard functionality in newer OpenAir systems and can be enabled with the custom field allocation grid switch in older systems. This will eliminate the challenges of trying to report from a custom calculation. However, it does have one shortcoming. The data entered into the Allocation Grid must be added manually – it’s currently not possible to upload data into it via an integration.

#3: Timesheet Approval and Rejection Options

Timesheets are necessary for professional services but can cause several operational issues. We’ve all had that instance where we’ve submitted a timesheet in error – we forgot to add time off or realize only after hitting “Submit” that we miscoded a task. This usually results in phone calls, emails, and even trips across the office to request an approver to reject the entire timesheet so that corrections can be made.

Just as frustrating is when a timesheet is received by an approver that is mostly correct but has items that need to be corrected. An approver’s only option is to reject the entire timesheet, delaying billing and schedules.

OpenAir, however, offers options for both of these scenarios. Setting OpenAir to allow users to reject their own timesheets – as long as no approvals have been completed – adds a layer of self-services that can minimize issues for multiple team members over a small and easily corrected mistake.

Line item rejections are also possible for timesheets. By enabling line-item rejection and rejection of multiple time entry line items in one action, approvers can quickly send back only those items that were problematic.

Bonus: In our webinar, we also discuss how you can invoice based on line items that have been approved, even when others were rejected.

#2: Bookings Created from Task Assignments

Looking for a way to streamline your initial booking and schedule creation process? It’s possible to do this based on task assignments, even with generic resource assignments.

When creating a project task structure with defined start and end dates and assigned users, OpenAir allows you to “push” these tasks to bookings. Only the initial bookings are created, so further management of those bookings needs to be done within the bookings module.

To do this, project booking automation must be enabled. By setting the approver to “Submitter” as the single approver, it mimics the auto-approval process, similar to the one for self-approval of timesheets.

#1: Cost Adjustments Based on Utilization

A salaried employee’s rate is based on the assumption of a specific level of utilization or number of hours worked. But when they exceed the allotted time, the costs for the project go up. If an employee puts in more time on a project than allocated, that can impact invoicing, requiring credits to the client.

Correcting this is often done with a custom calculation, but there is an easier way. There is a built-in report within OpenAir that allows you to adjust costs based on utilization. Using Advanced Historical Utilization reporting, you can normalize costs based on the utilization percentage reported for a defined period of time.

This report gives you more accurate cost accounting for labor and caps costs based on salary. Using filters, you can adjust the report to show only those team members that you want to make adjustments on, such as those above 100% or even those approaching that amount.

Using this doesn’t require enabling a switch. However, it’s only available when the Report Management Interface is not enabled. Also of note – while it’s possible to load up to three costs for a resource, only the primary loaded cost is available for cost adjustment using this report.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you found a useful OpenAir feature in this list that you weren’t aware of before, and that it makes your life easier. If you’d like more help in learning how to set up these, or any other, OpenAir features, Top Step is here to help. We maintain an extensive tips library and run webinars monthly to help OpenAir owners get the most out of their PSA. We also can help you set up, configure, and customize your OpenAir platform – contact us and we’d be happy to set up a time to discuss your needs!