Successful and on time delivery of the project is the heart of the business for any professional services organization. Where services based projects are delivered. In order to ensure successful project delivery efficient tools and industries based practises needs to be implemented which is possible through Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation. Project service automation is not very easy and not something that anyone can do. By using services automation project managers have been able to deliver projects of various sizes. For industries best practices and efficient project management the set up of PSA is very much required. Apart from the above aspects, project service automation also helps to manage time and budget of the billable projects as well as estimate the quote for the project. Introduction: PSA doesn’t have the capability OOB to do the allocation’s over the task. This means the resource booked are booked for a project and we cannot identify what task they are going to perform or are booked for. How to do? This is the real time scenario which a PM regularly comes up with while allocating. To this I have figured out a solution that can be worked upon. Write a Plugin to create a Resource Requirement record on creation of Project Task in the WBS. In schedule board expose Project task Entity to be visible. This will allow you to drag and drop the allocations on to the schedule board. But, the challenge here is that the Project Tasks doesn’t comes automatically in the above grid. It comes because of the Plugin written above to create a record of Resource Requirement. Ensure the plugin will take care of the updates made to the task and will update the Resource Requirement record simultaneously. In our organisation we also, allocate resource on cases that the clients have raised. For the same, we will have to write a workflow to create a task in WBS as soon as a case is created. On the creation of a task we already have a plugin written to create a Resource Requirement record. You can then allocate Resources on cases.

Introduction: I often face difficulties while trying to import project lines from WBS while using PSA (Project Service Automation). After lot of trouble shooting I try to doubt my configuration and see if they are good. What to do? To my surprise they all appear to be good. Following two things needs to be ensured to import project lines from WBS into Quote line details. 1. On Account used in the Quote, Product Price List and Project Price list is properly set. 2. The Cost Price list attached to the Organisational Unit used in the Quote should not have Organisational units for the resource roles added in the Cost Price List of the Organization unit.

Overview: Let’s say you have a Quote which has Quote Lines and then you generate the Invoice schedule for your Time & Materials project. What decides the number of Invoice Schedules to be generated for a Quote Line record? Let’s review. Quote Lines: Now, I have a Quote Line which has Invoicing Schedule from 28th May 2018 to 6th August 2018. How did this come to be? The reason is as below: 1. The Invoice Schedule is based on Quote’s Requested Delivery Date which is 10th August 2018. 2. Now, my Invoice Frequency is weekly. 3. On top of that, my Invoice is set to generate on Monday of the week 4. And finally, since 6th August is the last Monday before the 10th August 2018, the Invoices should be generated up until then! Hence, the last Invoice will be generated on 6th August 2018 according to Quote’s Requested Delivery Date.

Overview: Often you miss doing your time entries in PSA for the work done and go on a leave! You either then need to just struggle to find a system and do it yourself or raise some other kind of request to make sure billing is done right. But, you can delegate time entries to a colleague and it is all taken care of. Assigning Delegates in PSA: In Project Service, you can see the entity Delegates. In this entity, all you need to do is create a Delegate record as shown below You can either delegate a fellow resource for Time Entries or for the Expense entries. In this case, I’ll let Somesh make Time Entries on my behalf and hence make him my Delegate in PSA for a week on which I’m on PTO. Entering Time Entries as Delegates: Now, looking at Somesh’s angle, if he has needs to make time entries on my behalf. He would need to go to Time Entries, then he will need to look at the ribbon for his name and change the user to Priyesh Wagh. Once the other user is selected, their Timesheet appears and all the time entries by the other user appear. Here, Somesh can make time entries just as he would usually do for himself and they would actually be registered for the Resource Priyesh Wagh.

Overview: Auto Scheduling in PSA’s WBS books the hours when you enter the dates and dates when you enter the hours. They are interlocked. I want to schedule a task which is less in no. of hours but will span across more than expected duration of period. Such requirement is when signing a support contract with the client. Scenario While defining WBS for a Project called Abby’s D365 Implementation. I want to schedule a UAT task to span across over 10 which has only 22 hours. If I select the days as 3, I get my 22 Hours. Or select hours as 22, I get 3 days. But then, I can’t change the same to extend for more days. If I select the desired 10 days, I get 80 hours.Hence, I’ll toggle the Task Mode to Manual. Now, I can keep my Effort Hours and Duration as desired. To represent Manual mode, the icon changes to Calendar with a Pencil on it. That’s how you can keep flexible hours for the tasks you want to expand over a long duration.

Introduction: In the current 8.2 version of D365 PSA, we can only Hard Book a Resource from the Project Team Member View whereas in the v9.0, we can Soft Book from the Project Team Member View from with a few extra clicks. v8.2 – Current There is a button called Hard Book which lets you Hard Book the resource selected as shown below Then, you can plainly Hard Book the resource. v9.0 There is a generic option called as Book in the Project Team Member Associated View On clicking the same, a separate window opens with the selected Resource to Book them Conclusion Soft Booking from Project Team Members Associated View is not possible in v8.2 but is possible in the v9.0 version.

Introduction: We often get issues raised by Users while training PSA – Amount entered on Expense Entry is not reflecting on Invoice in T&M Project and instead shown as $0 as below. Resolution: We need to configure PSA correctly and check below configurations. 1. Sales Price List of Project is configured with Category Prices and not as shown below 2. Cost Price List of Organization Unit is configured with Category Prices and not as shown below 3. Amount in Chargeability View of Project Contract Line should have values in Sales Price Column of Chargeable Categories for expenses and not as shown below Conclusion: Zero Amount issue get resolved after configuring Category Prices in Price List and Chargeability View of Contract Line correctly and results are as shown below  

Introduction: This blog explains how to migrate data for Many to Many or N:N relationship records. Scenario: Client always demand configuration records to be migrated from Test Env to a Production Environment.We can migrate data for Entity records and Entities with 1:N relationships records however we cannot directly migrate data for N:N relationship( intermediate entity) which is not exposed in D365 PSA. This can be achieved by using XRM Tool Box plugin – Manage NN relationships. Prerequistive: · XRM Tool Box with “Manage NN relationships” plugin installed. · Both entities having alternate key with data – This is required as a cleaner approach. Below steps explains how to achieve requirement. Steps of Implementation: 1. Open “Manage NN relationships” plugin in XRM tool box with Source Organization as connected. 2. Click Load Metadata button and then select First Entity with Specific attribute as alternate Key and same for Second Entity as shown below. 3. Click button Export button and save file. 4. Open exported file Column A is OrgUnitID and Column B is PriceLevelID data. 5. Change connection to target organization of Manage NN relationship plugin in XRM toolbox and then follow the step 1 and 2. 6. Click Import button and select the file exported in step 3. 7. Data migrated is been tracked in log section of plugin. Conclusion: N:N relationship or Many to Many relationship entity records cannot be migrated from D365 PSA as they are not been exposed however this can be achieved by using third party tool like XRM Tool Box – “Manage NN relationship”.  

Overview: Often while working on PS, I was struggling to  get the Chargeability View right. The main reason is not having the right Price List setup at the right places. There are 4 important places where the Price Lists need to be setup properly. Product Catalog with Role Prices having Org Unit A Account having corresponding Sales Price List and the same Sales Price List under it’s Project Price Lists grid. Opportunity having Org Unit A as Contracting Unit and Product Price list having Sales Price List for Org Unit A selected. Quote derived from the Opportunity having the same Account, Opportunity, Contracting unit and Product Price List selected. Organization Unit: For each Organization Unit you add to PSA, make sure you’ve added a Cost Price list to the Organization Unit as well as a Sales Price list exists for the same. Make sure Organization Units on the Role Prices are selected correctly on both the Sales and Cost Price Lists Sales Price List on Account and Opportunity: Account and Opportunity too should have the same Sales Price list whose Cost Price list is associated with the Organization Unit of the Account’s and Opportunity’s Organization Unit. Make sure you’ve correct Organization Unit and Product Price List as a Sales Price List for that Org Unit selected on the Opportunity form. Chargeability View on Quote Lines: Once everything flows from Account to Opportunity to Quote and to Quote Lines, you can see that your Chargeability View pops-up properly. Hope this helps you derive correct Chargeability View without hassle.

Introduction: Let’s consider a scenario where we need to raise an expense entry for a Fixed Bid project. PSA by definition does not charge for expenses. If you want to have fixed price for the project and expense to be charged for other things, you need to do it via adjusting the contract. Steps: Follow the steps below to prepare the contract: Prepare a contract and add a Fixed Bid project with “Time” and “Fee” as the option shown below: Add another line and create another Time and Material Type project and select “Expenses” as the option. You will have to inform the team to select the right project while raising the expense, that is the T&M one. Now when you create the invoice via that contract, you will get your milestone as well as the expenses coming up in the same invoice as shown below.