viCareerPath
Creating an availability forecasting process step by step
Prepared By:
viDesktop
June 5, 2008
Version 6.2
Creating the Career Development Process .........................................................................3
1. Create a new process - Name your process ..........................................................3
2. Update Parameters ...........................................................................................4
Enable Secondary Business Unit ................................................................................4
3. Add Practice Groups ..........................................................................................5
4. Add Levels .......................................................................................................5
5. Enable the Processes .........................................................................................5
Previewing Subject Participants .................................................................................7
Team Leader ...........................................................................................................8
7. Updating Business Unit (Practice Group) and Level .............................................. 10
Configuring and Setting up Availability Process ............................................................. 13
2. Update the participant groups .......................................................................... 13
3. Updating the Availability Schedule .................................................................... 14
4. Updating the Availability Properties ................................................................... 14
5. Updating the Availability Properties - General Properties ...................................... 15
6. Updating the Availability Properties – Color Codes............................................... 16
7. Updating the Availability Properties - Client and Matter – Properties ...................... 19
Enable Matter ................................................................................................. 20
Enable Number of Hours: ................................................................................. 20
Enable Activities .............................................................................................. 20
Enable Comments ........................................................................................... 20
Enable Supervisor ........................................................................................... 20
8.
Updating the Availability Properties – Update Activity List ................................. 20
9.
Updating the Availability Properties – Update In/Out of Office – Properties ......... 21
10.
Updating the Availability Properties – Update the “In the Office list”................... 21
11.
Updating the Availability Properties – “Update Scheduled Absence list” .............. 22
12.
Updating Work Flow ..................................................................................... 23
13.
Updating Work Flow -Matter Import ............................................................... 23
14.
Updating Work Flow - Updating Availability ..................................................... 23
15.
Updating Work Flow - Interest Area Properties ................................................ 25
16.
Out Of Office Memorandum Properties ........................................................... 27
Launching the Availability Process .................................................................................. 37
Manually initiating the process ................................................................................ 37
Verify that the cycle has successfully been initiated ................................................... 39
Sending email reminder to associates (participants) .................................................. 39
Getting the link to the Career Development home page .............................................. 42
Associate/End User’s Perspective ................................................................................... 43
Add Recent Matters ............................................................................................... 45
Creating the Career Development Process
This manual covers creating an availability process within the Career Development system of
the viDesktop enterprise suite. Within one Career Development process, the sub-processes
you can create are: Availability Forecasting, Benchmarks & Competencies, Mentoring, Career
Development Plans, and Learning Management.
For example, you can create an “Associate Career Development” process, and inside this
process, there can be a benchmarks process, a training process and a mentoring program
proecess.
From the admin area of the system, click the Processes tab > then click the Career
Development link > then click the “Create a new Process” link.
1. Create a new process - Name your process and click Publish
2. Update Parameters > Set your process parameters and aliases.
Online
This indicates that the process is online and available for the users.
Enable Secondary Business Unit
The “Enable Secondary Business Unit/Levels” allows an associate to be associated with 2
business units (practice groups). For most firms this will not be enabled.
Example.
Enable Auto Sync Business Units/Levels
This should be enabled. This feature enables the Business unit and Level information to be
automatically updated within the process.
3. Add Practice Groups to the process:
Go to Manage page > Business Units (PG) > add your Practice Groups
4. Add Levels: Go to Manage page > Levels > add your Levels
5. Enable the Processes that you wish to utilize and configure within the Career
Development System. The system consists of the following areas:
 Availability
 Benchmarks (& Competencies)
 Career Development Plan (Goal Setting)
 Mentoring
 Learning Management (LMS).
Go to Manage page > Processes > then enable the Availability process
6. Define the Groups that can participate in this process:
Go to Manage page > User Access > User Access > add the Departments/Groups that can
participate in the process with the appropriate User Type.
Note: If you are planning to do a test run, you will need to create test groups (and test users)
and use those groups. It is advisable to set up the process with test groups first and run
through setting-up/configuring the process > then do a run through as an associate so that
you can use this opportunity to familiarize yourself with the process and take screen shots for
the purpose of designing instructions for the associates to follow.
For an availability process, you only need to link the Subject User Type to groups/departments.
Team Leader and Mentors are not necessary. You can link Team Leaders user types into the
process if you wish to have the Team Leaders view the availability information on their team
members in detail. For this feature to function, you must set up teams in the system. (Update
Configuration tab > Teams link)
User Types are predefined automatically when the process is created and do not need to be
altered. You can find the User Types from Manage > User Access > User Type link. The
following are the standard user types.
You cannot add additional user types at this time. It is coming in a future version.
Previewing Subject Participants
Go to Manage page > Users > do a search
At this time you should be able to see all the Subject participants in your process.
At this time the system doesn’t know which business unit each subject is in and what level.
Also at this time the system is not aware of the team leader for each subject.
Team Leader information can be updated through the admin interface by clicking the Update
link, or the Associates can update the information when they first log in to the system. The
Associate only needs to update team leader once.
Updating the team leader information allows team leaders identified in the Availability process
to view the associate’s availability information. Shown below is the team leader (Edgar)
viewing his team member’s (Kiho) availability information.
7. Updating Business Unit (Practice Group) and Level
The system is capable of automatically updating the Subject’s Business Unit and Level. It is
dependant on the groups/departments that exist in your viDesktop system or more specifically
the groups/departments that are linked to this process.(step 6 above)
Business Unit
Go to the Manage page > Business Units (PG) > Sync Rules button
From the page below, uncheck the “Enable Auto Refresh” > then link the Business Unit (PG)
types to the appropriate department/groups. Once all the Business Units are tied to the
departments/groups, click the Refresh button.
Go back to the Sync Rules page (shown below) and make sure the “Enable Auto Refresh” is
checked.
Levels
Go to Manage page > Levels > Sync Rules button
Uncheck the “Enable Auto Refresh” as shown below > then link your levels to the appropriate
department/groups as shown below. Once all the Levels are tied to the departments/groups,
click the Refresh button.
Go back to the Sync Rules page for levels (shown below) and make sure the “Enable Auto
Refresh” is checked.
Verify Business Unit and Levels
After setting up the Sync Rules, you can verify that the updated information is correct.
Go to Manage page > Users > do a search
At this time you should now be able to see all the Subject participants in your process with the
Business Unit and Levels updated.
.
FYI: When you enable “Enable Auto Sync Business Units/Levels”, the Business Units and
Levels are updated only if the auto send mail SQL Agent Job (“viEval_Notifications”) is running.
Configuring and Setting up Availability Process
1. Go to Manage page > Processes > click the Config button
2. Update the participant groups for availability process: Click the Update button as shown
below and add the groups that are participating in the availability process
3. Updating the Availability Schedule (aka “Cycle”): Manage > Processes > Availability
Config Button > Click the Update button as shown below and add the cycles in as shown.
Note: The recommended cycle is Friday to Thursday.
Technical Notes: viDesktop can provide a script that loads some the cycles through a
database script to give you a head start in defining the cycles
4. Updating the Availability Properties: Manage > Processes > Availability Config Button
> Click the Update button by Properties as shown below
5. Updating the Availability Properties - General Properties
Update method indicates the method in which you want to measure availability.
Number of days per week to forecast: typically set as Mon-Fri
Number of hours per week: set this to the average number of hours an associate is expected
to work in a week.
Number of weeks to forecast: set this to 0. 0 means that they must update a week at a time.
If set to 1, it means that the associates must update current week and the next week for them
to have a completed status in the system.
Lock current week availability edits on: set this to Thu at whatever time you decide. Since the
suggested cycle is Fri-Thurs, the associates must update the current schedule by Thursday at
the latest.
We recommend setting to 5 pm. (the 5pm is based on the server time where viDesktop system
is installed).
6. Updating the Availability Properties – Color Codes: click the EDIT button to add your
color scheme.
Here is a list of color codes for your reference.
#FFFFFF
#FFFFCC
#FFFF99
#FFFF66
#FFFF33
#FFFF00
#FFCCFF
#FFCCCC
#FFCC99
#FFCC66
#FFCC33
#FFCC00
#FF99FF
#FF99CC
#FF9999
#FF9966
#FF9933
#FF9900
#FF66FF
#FF66CC
#FF6699
#FF6666
#FF6633
#FF6600
#FF33FF
#FF33CC
#FF3399
#FF3366
#FF3333
#FF3300
#FF00FF
#FF00CC
#FF0099
#FF0066
#FF0033
#FF0000
#CCFFFF
#CCFFCC
#CCFF99
#CCFF66
#CCFF33
#CCFF00
#CCCCFF
#CCCCCC
#CCCC99
#CCCC66
#CCCC33
#CCCC00
#CC99FF
#CC99CC
#CC9999
#CC9966
#CC9933
#CC9900
#CC66FF
#CC66CC
#CC6699
#CC6666
#CC6633
#CC6600
#CC33FF
#CC33CC
#CC3399
#CC3366
#CC3333
#CC3300
#CC00FF
#CC00CC
#CC0099
#CC0066
#CC0033
#CC0000
#99FFFF
#99FFCC
#99FF99
#99FF66
#99FF33
#99FF00
#99CCFF
#99CCCC
#99CC99
#99CC66
#99CC33
#99CC00
#9999FF
#9999CC
#999999
#999966
#999933
#999900
#9966FF
#9966CC
#996699
#996666
#996633
#996600
#9933FF
#9933CC
#993399
#993366
#993333
#993300
#9900FF
#9900CC
#990099
#990066
#990033
#990000
#66FFFF
#66FFCC
#66FF99
#66FF66
#66FF33
#66FF00
#66CCFF
#66CCCC
#66CC99
#66CC66
#66CC33
#66CC00
#6699FF
#6699CC
#669999
#669966
#669933
#669900
#6666FF
#6666CC
#666699
#666666
#666633
#666600
#6633FF
#6633CC
#663399
#663366
#663333
#663300
#6600FF
#6600CC
#660099
#660066
#660033
#660000
#33FFFF
#33FFCC
#33FF99
#33FF66
#33FF33
#33FF00
#33CCFF
#33CCCC
#33CC99
#33CC66
#33CC33
#33CC00
#33CCFF
#33CCCC
#33CC99
#33CC66
#33CC33
#33CC00
#3399FF
#3399CC
#339999
#339966
#339933
#339900
#3366FF
#3366CC
#336699
#336666
#336633
#336600
#3333FF
#3333CC
#333399
#333366
#333333
#333300
#3300FF
#3300CC
#330099
#330066
#330033
#330000
#00FFFF
#00FFCC
#00FF99
#00FF66
#00FF33
#00FF00
#00CCFF
#00CCCC
#00CC99
#00CC66
#00CC33
#00CC00
#0099FF
#0099CC
#009999
#009966
#009933
#009900
#0066FF
#0066CC
#006699
#006666
#006633
#006600
#0033FF
#0033CC
#003399
#003366
#003333
#003300
#0000FF
#0000CC
#000099
#000066
#000033
#000000
7. Updating the Availability Properties - Client and Matter – Properties
Click the EDIT button to edit the properties as shown below.
Shown below are the Client Matter Properties and the options that control what the associates
see on their update availability page.
Enable Matter: Displays the “Step 3” section above. It allows the associates to add matters
that they are working on that week.
Enable Number of Hours: allows the associates to indicate the numbers of hours they
anticipate working on specific matter for the current week. This is not recommended as it adds
too much detail when updating availability and may discourage associates.
Enable Activities: the activities are a custom list of matter types or categories that you can
update. Not recommended as it adds additional complexity to the page.
Enable Comments: allows associates to add comments to each matter.
Enable Supervisor: allows an associate to link matters to supervisors (i.e., those who have a
“supervisory” role with the matter).
Note: the Supervisor list is populated by the team leader grouping defined in the User Access
page. Manage > User Access > User Access
8. Updating the Availability Properties – Update Activity List
Add matter/activity types if you are enabling the Activity Type. Shown below are some
examples.
9. Updating the Availability Properties – Update In/Out of Office – Properties
Click the EDIT button and update the aliases. We recommend “Working” for “Alias In the
Office” and “Not Working” for “Alias Scheduled Absence”.
10.Updating the Availability Properties – Update the “In the Office list”
Add your In/Out of office list. We recommend the following choices as shown below.
11.Updating the Availability Properties – “Update Scheduled Absence list”
Add the choice of absence types for your organization. Shown below are some examples.
Please add “Other” as one of the items.
Each of the properties affects the options on the update availability page for associates as
shown below.
12.Updating Work Flow: click the Update button
Update the Work Flow as shown below.
All the weekly cycles entered in step 3 above must be what viDesktop refers to as “Initiated”
on a week by week basis. Initializing makes the cycle officially exist in the system.
The initialization can be done manually (Manage > Processes > Availability Config button >
Select the current Cycle > Execute and optionally Schedule a Matter import) or it can be
automated.
To automate the Initialization of cycles, check the “Auto Initiate Cycles”.
Technical Note: for the Auto Initiate Cycles to work, it requires a sql agent job to be enabled
on the database. This sql agent job may already exist for some firms. The same sql agent job
that triggers auto email notifications (in work allocations, viEval, and viRecruit) also triggers
the “Auto Initiate Cycles”, if enabled.
You can replicate the sql job by hitting this page below where “YourWebServerURL/viDesktop”
is your URL for viDesktop.
http://YourWebServerURL/viDesktop/Admin/AdmMaintenance.aspx?Cmd=All
13. Updating Work Flow -Matter Import
Along with the “Auto Initiate Cycles”, you can enable the matter import also. This ensures that
the matter lookup is current.
14. Updating Work Flow - Updating Availability
The “Updated By” indicates who is updating the availability. In most cases, it is the Subject
(the associate) who updates availability. Select “Subject”.
Setting the “Enable email reminder” will trigger the system to send automated email reminders.
Since the availability cycle is a weekly cycle, the “Send an email reminder X day(s) before due
date” at most can be 7 days. (The Due date is the end date of the current cycle period)
Add your reminder content as shown above. The link to update availability should be
formatted as shown above. (<a href='{Update Form URL}'> Update </a>).
“Repeat the reminder every x day(s)” refers the frequency with which reminders will be sent to
associates who have not completed the current week (cycle).
“Stop after x reminder(s)” refers to the maximum number of times associates will be reminded
for the current week (cycle). This must be set to 1 or more.
Note: The email reminder above also updates the default email template (section 17 below)
15. Updating Work Flow - Interest Area Properties
The Availability module allows for Interest Area updates by the associate.
To enable, click the Update button by the Interest Area Properties as shown below and set the
“Enable Interest Area” setting to YES.
Add the interest area categories.
The Interest area is presented to the associate in the availability page as shown below.
16. Out Of Office Memorandum Properties
This feature is used to allow associates, while updating availability, to make an out of office
memo to themselves (if they are away during the current or future week).
Shown below is an email that the associate (Adrian Tudor) can generate and send to himself so
he can forward it to individuals who may need to be aware of his absence, the matters he may
be working on, and emergency contact information.
You can also add custom fields to the Out of Office Memo. From the availability Config page
(as shown below) click the Fields button.
Add a section title and then click the Fields button by your new section as shown below. Add
the desired fields.
For each field added, click the Config button and give the field what viDesktop refers to as an
“Internal Name” as shown below.
Then enable the Out Of Office Memo by clicking on the Update button as shown below. Then
click the Edit button.
Then update your Out Of Office Memo template as shown above.
The “Send # business day(s) before the due date” is the number of days before the first “out of office
day” for the current week.
For example, if the associate was out of the office on Friday and the out of office memo was set to send
the email 1 day before, the associate should receive an email on Thursday.
Since the availability cycle is a 7 day cycle, we recommend setting this to 7 days.
The Help text is instructions that you can customize. The help text can be viewed by the
associate when they are updating their out of office memo.
Once you are done, click the Update button.
Out of Office - End user’s perspective
From the Update Availability page below, the associate clicks the Save and Close button after
updating availability.
From the page below, the associate can optionally click the Help button to display help text.
To create the Out Of Office memo, the associate clicks the Create Memo button above, updates
his/her Out Of Office contact information as shown below, and clicks the Save and Close button.
From click the Close button
Then on the screen below, click the “Out Of Office Memorandum” link.
Click the Email button as shown below to send the email to her/himself.
The Out of Office email will look similar to the one below.
Note: Regardless of whether the associate sends or does not send the email manually as
shown above, the email will be sent automatically to the associate, based on the “Send #
business day(s) before the due date” setting.
17. Defining Email Templates
Go to Manage > Processes link > click the Config button by Availability > click the Update
button by Email Templates as shown below.
Click the Edit button as shown below.
There are 2 versions of email reminder templates that can be sent from within the availability
module. One is referred to as “User Defined” and another “Update availability reminder”.
Select the “User defined email” as shown below. (The “Update availability reminder” should
already be updated from step 14 “Updating Work Flow - Updating Availability”)
Update the “User defined email” as shown below. It is best to keep this email template as
generic as possible. The custom field {Update Form URL} is a link to the availability page.
Alternatively, you can use a link to the Career Development home page.
18. Purge Data
Go to Manage > Processes link > click the Config button by Availability > click the Select
button by Purge Data as shown below.
From time to time admins should Purge the data in the availability system so that the system
can run efficiently and keep the database size to a minimum.
Launching the Availability Process
There are a few ways to “initiate” or launch the process. First you must make sure the current
week is initiated, whether automatically (via the sql agent job) or manually.
Technical Note: for the Auto Initiate Cycles to work, sql agent job must be enabled on the
database. This sql agent job may already exist for some firms. The same sql agent job that
triggers auto email notifications (in viWorkAllocation, viEval and viRecruit) also triggers the
“Auto Initiate Cycles”, if enabled.
You can replicate the sql agent job by hitting this page below where
“YourWebServerURL/viDesktop” is your URL for viDesktop.
http://YourWebServerURL/viDesktop/Admin/AdmMaintenance.aspx?Cmd=All
If you have set up the automated auto initiate cycles in step 14 above, then you do not need
to manually initiate the process.
Manually initiating the process
Manage > Processes > Availability Config button > then select the current week that you wish
to start with and click the Execute button. Clicking the execute button will “initiate” the
selected week and allow associates to enter and update availability for the that week.
If you are planning to import matters into the availability process, then you will need to
schedule a matter import. To import matters for the current cycle, click the Select button by
the “Schedule a Matter Import”. Enter the date range of matters you wish to import and the
rest of the parameters and import as shown below.
Parameter definitions
From and To Date = date range of matters you wish to import. This is for the purpose of
presenting current matters that the associate is working on so a date range of past 45 days is
normally sufficient.
Min. threshold = normally we recommend 1 hour so that all current matters are available for
the associate.
Preserve Assign = always select the Preserve option.
Run Date, Run Time = leave it empty as the system will default it to the most current run time.
You will have the option to override the scheduled time also by clicking on Run Now as shown
below.
Once matters have been imported, you will receive a “success” confirmation as shown above.
Verify that the cycle has successfully been initiated
Go to the Manage page > Availability > and do a search as shown below. You should be able
to see all associates participating in the process.
Sending email reminder to associates (participants)
If auto initiate cycles and email reminders are enabled, the email will automatically send to the
participants.
You can also send manual reminders from the admin interface. From the availability search
page click the Email Subject link as shown below.
Select the type of email you want to send
The screen below will display the list of recipients and the standard message body derived
from the email template. If you selected “Send the Subject one single email for all outstanding activities ”,
the custom fields in the message body will not work. (Custom fields are the fields that have
curly brackets. “{Update Form URL}” for example). If this is the case, you must edit the
Message body and manually add a link to the Career Development Home Page. (Getting the
link to this home page is explained in the next section below.)
You can choose one of 2 email templates from the “Select a template” dropdown above.
Once you click the Send button to send the email, you will see the following page that
indidcates if the email was sent.
Getting the link to the Career Development home page
Go to the main viDesktop application page as shown below and right click on the Employee
Login link under Career Development column > select Copy Shortcut.
Then paste this into the body of the message in the following format.
<A Href=http://YourViDesktopURL/viCareerDev/login.aspx>Update</A>
The blue text above represents the URL to the Career Development home page that you copied
and the rest of the text (in bold) ensures that in the email to the associate, the link to the
Career Development home page is active so they don’t have to copy and paste the link into
their browser.
Associate/End User’s Perspective
The associate receives the email and clicks the Update link as shown below. Depending on the
way the link was designed in the email template area, the link may take the associate to the
home page (on left) or the direct update availability page (on right).
The Home page lists all career development activities that the associate is participating in.
From the Home page click the Open From to get to the update availability page.
The update availability page indicates which are required weeks to update. If the availability
properties were set to forecast 2 weeks, the associate sees the 2 weeks with the “Update
required” notation.
From the update availability page shown below, the associate clicks the Update button by the
required week.
The associate then selects the days s/he is in or out, and indicates the “% of time” or “hours”
available for the week. The associate can also “Add Recent Matters” and or “Search for a
Matter” to indicate the matters s/he is working on during the week.
Add Recent Matters
Add Recent Matters is a combination of current week’s imported matters and previous cycle’s
matters.
Click the Add Recent Matters button as shown below.
From the current matter list, the associate checks the matter(s) s/he is working on and clicks
the Next button as shown above.
From the screen below, depending on what features are enabled, the associate updates the
details as shown below and clicks the Save button.
After clicking on Save above, the associate will see the matter information now associated with
the current week.
The associate can also add matters by clicking on the “Search for a Matter” button as shown
below.
After updating availability for the week, the associate clicks the Save and Close button.
If the Out of Office feature is enabled and the associate indicated in the current week that s/he
is away on any one of the days, the associate will see the following page where s/he can
update the out of office memo.
Note: The first time the associate sees this page, the contact information will be empty. The
next time s/he updates the out of office memo, the contact information will be pre-populated
with the previously entered contact information.
Save and Close from the out of office memo screen and return to the availability page as
shown below.
Now that the availability update is “completed”, the associate can return to the Homepage
(possibly to update other career development activities) or exit the system by closing the
browser.
Defining administrator access
To grant viCareerPath system administrator access (members of your HR and/or Professional
Development teams), from the Manage Window of the career development process, click
‘Admin Access’.
From the admin access screen, select the name(s) of the person(s) to whom you would like to
grant access to the career development process and click ‘Add’.