Contents of this article:
- Settings
- Invoicing
- Employees
- Category
- Requirements
- Products
- Customers
- How is the data on assignment templates visible in assignments?
Assignments templates can be used to manage recurring work that occurs for example monthly or yearly. Assign templates automate the creation of assignments.
You can create new assignment templates from "Projects" section on the "Assignment templates" tab. Click the "+Assignment template" to create a new assignment template.
The assignment template
1. Settings
- Name: Name of the assignment that is visible for employees and customers
- Comment: Comment is optional and it is meant to act as a guide for the employee.
- Validity: Here you can fill in the start and end date for the assignment. If you want to create an open-ended assignment, leave the end date empty. If you want to use this template for one-time assignments, leave both dates empty.
- Continuity: Here you can define how often you want the assignment to repeat, for instance weekly, monthly or annually. You can also create assignments that repeat for instance once in a quarter by choosing "Monthly" and " Every 3. time".
- Session offset: You can choose when the assignment is created in relation to its period. If you want to start working on August's accounting in September, you can choose "+1. mo." option and the assignment's start date will be 1st of September.
- Extra settings:
- Passive (Does not create assignments): If you select the "Passive" option, no assignments are created from this assignment template.
- Midweek public holidays and weekends: You can choose what happens if the assignments are dated for midweek public holidays or weekends. The default option is that they are advanced to the first possible work day, but you can also postpone them, advance them in a way that doesn't change their month or remove them (mark as completed).
- Date format: In this field you can define how dates are shown in assignments that are formed from this template. For instance if you choose "Monthly" the date 1.8. transforms to "August."
- Create to history: Koho will automatically generate work orders to history with the following rule: 1,5 times the continuity setting (eg. If the continuity is quarterly then Koho will generate work assignments to the history for 4 months 3x1,5=4months etc.) . This can be changed by submitting the amount of days and Koho will generate the work assignments using this day amount to the history. As a default Koho creates assignments to history for a period of time that is 1.5 times the period of the assignment. This can be changed by filling in the desired number of days.
- Color: You can choose assignments color
- Invoicing type: You can choose an invoicing type for the assignment template that will override the invoicing type of the task that has been set to the assignment template. Options are billable, contractual and internal. As a default Koho uses the invoicing type of the task.
- Passive (Does not create assignments): If you select the "Passive" option, no assignments are created from this assignment template.
You can also add attachments to the assignment template. Click "Open menu" if you want to choose an attachment that has already been uploaded to your Koho account. From the "+ Upload file" you can upload a new file.
2. Invoicing
In this section you must choose a task that will act as a principle for invoicing and reporting for sessions that are tracked for assignments formed by this assignment template. Without choosing the task, it is not possible to save the assignment template. Also each customer that is attached to the assignment template, must have this task on their project.
3. Employees
There are four ways to allocate assignments to employees:
- Customer responsibles and defined
- With this option Koho creates assignments to customer responsibles and employees that are manually selected on the assignment template.
- With this option Koho creates assignments to customer responsibles and employees that are manually selected on the assignment template.
- No responsibles - only defined
- With this option Koho creates assignments only to employees that are manually selected on the assignment template.
- Project responsibles and specified
- With this option Koho creates assignments to project responsibles and employees that are manually selected on the assignment template.
- Project participants
- With this option Koho creates assignments to all participants of the project and employees that are manually selected on the assignment template.
Restrict responsibles by roles or employee groups
You can also use roles or employee groups to restrict the employees to whom the assignments will be assigned to. If your company is using customer and project roles, in the field "Restrict to role" you can define which customer or project role the responsible employee must have in order to be assigned for the assignment. From the "Restrict responsible" section you can choose to which employee groups the assignment is assigned to. Note that you must define the roles and groups before using them on an assignment template. Read more about customer and project roles from here 3.6.6. Customer and project roles and more about employee groups from here 3.6.4 Responsibles, teams and groups.
4. Category
It is not mandatory to choose a category for the assignment template, but we recommend choosing one because it eases the management of assignment templates. You can choose an existing category from the list or add a new category. Categories can for example be based on the type of work that they present: accounting, payroll computation etc.
5. Requirements
Requirements act as a to-do list for the employee who is doing the assignment. You can add a requirement by clicking the "+ Add requirement" button. Give the requirement at least a name and a due date. You can also add a description and an estimate of the time it takes to complete this requirement.
The due date is calculated from the start date of the assignment template. From the first menu you can move the due date in months and from the second menu you can move the due date in days. After you have chosen the first due date, Koho shows a preview of the requirement's due date.
For easier tracking of assignments, it is recommended to add at least one requirement (for instance "Completed"). You can remove unnecessary requirements by choosing the "Remove" field and the chosen requirements are deleted when you save the template.
6. Products
It is possible to add default products for the assignments. After all requirements have been completed, Koho adds these products to the session automatically. The employee must then check that the amounts are correct and remove unnecessary products before the session is confirmed. Note that if all requirements are not marked as completed, the default products are not automatically added. If there are products without price, their price is taken automatically from a catalogue when the session is confirmed.
7. Customers
From the "Customers" tab you must choose all the customers that will get a copy of the assignment. Finally remember to save the assignment template!
After you have initially created the assignment template, it is easy to attach new customers to it by using the customer matrix on the "Projects" section. Read more about the matrix from this article: 3.5.4 Customer matrix.
8. How is the data on assignment templates visible on assignments?
In this section of the article you can see how different parts of the assignment template are shown in assignments.
Assignment's name is shown under the customer's name.
The assignment comment is shown in blue colour under the task name and also below the requirements.
The start date is shown under the customer's name. In this example the continuity has been set to "Monthly" so each month has its own assignment. The date format has been set to "Monthly" which forces the start date to be shown as "April".
The task that was chosen for the assignment is shown both above the comment and on the "Task" field if you expand the assignment. Requirements and their due dates are listed on the right side of the assignment. Below the requirements you can see the default products, if such were added. The customer's name is shown when the assignment is both expanded and closed.
