At its simplest, the planning board forecasts invoice revenue and calculates workforce capacity, to help you identify and control business risk. It uses an intuitive and interactive Gantt chart tool.
The planning board works in 2 modes; planning mode and delivery mode.
Planning mode - In planning mode, the fee, the budget and your resourcing are all connected. This is great for getting quick estimates on projects that are still in the proposal status. When you set a value on a stage or on a fee, the system will automatically update your budget and estimate the resources you will need for the project. Use this as a starting point to tailor your own budget and resource plans.
Delivery mode - In delivery mode, the budget, fee and resourcing are disconnected. In the work breakdown, you can edit the fees, edit the budget, and edit the resource plan, and it will have no impact on the others.
This is useful after the project starts. For example, you might find that you need to plan for more resources on a project than you initially budgeted for. You can move resources from one project to another without changing the budget, so you will still be able to review Budget vs Actuals reports. If this is the first time your organization has used the planning board, there might be some setup work that you need to complete.
Customers using Synergy Business cannot see the stages in the planning board.
Suggested workflow
In the December 2018 release of Synergy, we introduced a customer relationship management approach to the product. This new way of doing things will be different especially for our Version 4 users who have upgraded to the cloud version. Given this, we suggest a change in workflow to make use of this new development. The suggested workflow is also relevant to our existing Synergy users.
Start in planning board to make use of the newly developed automation.
Create new jobs as projects in the opportunity status. When you do it this way, the work breakdown, resourcing and budget are all linked. This means that when you change one, the others will also update to reflect the changes.
When finalised, get it approved by a Director.
Switch the project to Active status. At this point, the work breakdown structure, budget and resourcing will become locked and independent of one another.
Detailed setup instructions
Time required: For a medium-sized company with 10 employees, this will take approximately 30 minutes.
Step 1 - Check your staff rates have been added and have the correct charge-out value (5 minutes)
The features in the planning board require that you set up the 'staff' type rates with the correct 'charge value' listed.
Check that your standard set of rates are correct before you begin setting up the forecast.
Navigation path: Settings > Financial > Rates.
Learn more about the Rates list
Step 2 - Check the financial controls have the correct values before adding staff (2 minutes)
The features in the planning board require that you set up the 'staff' type rates with the correct 'charge value' listed.
Check that your standard set of rates are correct before you begin setting up the forecast.
Navigation path: Organization > Settings > Financial > Financial controls
Learn more about Financial controls
Step 3 - Add staff records and assign a 'primary rate' (10 minutes)
The budgets used throughout the planning board are created using the 'primary rate' values assigned to each staff member.
Check that the staff primary rate selection is correct for each staff record. It’s a case of going back to the main staff grid and clicking on each record.
Navigation path: Organization > Staff > ‘Staff record’ > Employee > Rates.
Learn more about setting up Staff rates
Step 4 - Set up the staff costs and utilization details and available hours per week for each staff member (10 minutes)
The cost and utilization details are used when calculating the automatic budget for the revenue and capacity reports.
Check that the staff cost details of 'target utilization' and 'hours per year' and 'availability' are correct in staff costs for each staff record. Like the previous step, it’s a case of going back to the main staff grid and clicking on each record.
Navigation path: Organization > Staff > ‘staff record’ > Employee > Costs > Add staff cost > Select Salary under ‘Staff type’ > Cost settings.
Learn more about Staff costs.
Step 5 - Check the proposal status likelihood % (5 minutes)
The proposal likelihood percentage is used to adjust the revenue forecast figures in the forecast graph and weighed forecast report.
Check that the proposal status likelihoods have been set up with the correct percentage values before using the forecast.
Navigation path: Organization > Settings > Project Lists > Status.
Learn more about why you should use the project status options?