Spring Into Action With These Three New OpenAir Features

Each year OpenAir has two releases, one in the spring (April) and one in the fall (October).  This year’s Spring Release includes requested enhancements to existing features, overall new improvements, and API performance support.

Here are Top Step’s three favorite features in the Spring 2020 Release.

1.  New Filters Available in the Dynamic and Advanced Booking Worksheets

The following filters are now available in the Dynamic and Advanced Booking Worksheets: Cost center filter, Project stage filter, Client filter, and Utilization filter.

This is an Auto Enabled feature that will automatically be in your production and sandbox accounts as part of the April 2020 release.

 

To set filters in Advanced Booking Worksheet:

1. Go to Resources > Bookings > Worksheet and click the Settings icon.
2. Click the > Create link next to the filters you want to set.
3. Select the filter settings and click OK.

The utilization filter lets you filter for resources with a specific More or Less than utilization percentage in any of the visible booking periods.

For example, select More than 80% and Less than 30% to list only those resources with more than 80% utilization or less than 30% utilization in any of the booking periods in the selected date range.

 

Please note :

• If your organization has renamed any of these filtering data fields, the organization-specific terminology will appear.
• When filtering by the filter “Cost Center” this filter will apply to the current value set of the Project, and not of the User.

2.  Exclude the Number of Incomplete Tasks from the Home Screen

This new feature allows you to exclude the number of open or incomplete tasks from the My Status and Company Status portlets on the Home screen.

This is a feature that will come to many of you as a sigh of relief!  On the OpenAir Home screen are tiles that contain useful information, or links to helpful features. On the “Company Status” tile are links to Open Charges, Unpaid Invoices, submitted timesheets, submitted expenses reports, and more. This information can be used to determine which items require action. There is a display that shows how many incomplete tasks (the task % complete is less than 100%) there are in the company. This information is generally not considered useful due to the large number of incomplete tasks (e.g., tasks that are still being worked) that exist in each OpenAir instance at any given time.

Now, there is an option to disable the display of incomplete tasks for the Company Status tile. The goal is to reduce the number of task records to be read by the system when displaying the Company Status in order to improve system performance. While this display can be bothersome to some users, the decision whether to disable it is a matter of preference or specific to your business process.

Note:  If using Incomplete Tasks as action items, or for review, then we do not recommend you disable this feature.

To remove the number of incomplete tasks, contact OpenAir Support and ask for the following internal switch to be disabled: “Display incomplete tasks on dashboard.”

3.  Project Status Tag As A List View Column

With this new feature, you can see the status of your projects straight from the list view with project status tags displayed in the new News Feed — Status column.

The News Feed — Status column shows the project status tag as a color-coded text badge, if there are any status updates for the project and if a project status tag is set in the latest status update.

Click on the tag to open the project status news feed from the projects list view and view the latest status update details. You can sort and filter your data by Status using the list view sort and filtering options.

 

Please Note :

This feature is currently only available on redesigned list views.  The Project status News Feed and Redesigned OpenAir user experience Phase 2 and/or 3 features must be enabled in your account in order to access.

• The News Feed data is not available in reports, nor is there an indication from within the project if any news feed notes exist, other than the visual indicator on the list view.
• Considerations and a defined process around this feature must be made to ensure seamless and consistent use of the news feed.
• In order to set a status for the first time, text must exist in the News Feed notes box.

Learn how you can fast track your way to utilizing the new features of the OpenAir April release. We’re offering our custom release document plus a 1 hour call to review it with you for just $700!  Let us know your interest here.

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