Control Which Users are Available for Assignment to a Project in OpenAir
The Assignment feature is a flexible tool that allows you to control which projects and tasks are available to users for time entry. Assignments can be done at the project level, or at the task level, depending on the desired level of granularity in your staffing model.
While it’s important for users to be able to find the correct project and task on their timesheet, it’s also good to limit this access to only those users who need it. When assigning users to the project or task, it can be difficult to select the correct users from the rest when your dropdown menu shows all users in your OpenAir instance. One solution for controlling which users appear in these dropdowns is found in your Projects Settings: Administration > Application Settings > Projects > Other Settings
On the Other settings screen there is a field called Users available for assignment to a project
Your options are All users, Booked users, or Booked users or all users if none are booked.
Which option you choose will be driven by your unique staffing process and methodology. If you are booking resources close to a project’s creation, or are fastidious in your Resource Management processes, using Booked users may be a good option for you.
See how only users with bookings against the project are available to assign:
Booked Users:
- Churchill, Tres
- Cuomo, Rivers
- Curzi, Richard
- Owen, James
- Ward, Kim
Task Assignments limited to these users:
Using the option Booked users or all users if none are booked can be useful when you only want to restrict assignments on projects that have bookings, but not all projects. For example, you may have an internal project that you don’t need to track using bookings, but users will need to enter time against it. This option would be perfect for this scenario. Any user who needs access to the project can be assigned, without the need to create bookings.
Finally, the All users setting is a good option if you don’t want your assignments controlled in any way by your bookings process. You can still book and assign the same resource, but bookings will no longer be required to do so.
