Project Alerts

Project Alerts allow a project manager to set specific time, cost or expense targets for projects, and automatically receive notices by e-mail when targets have been reached.

Forewarned is forearmed

By creating project alerts, selected employees can be automatically notified whenever a project’s critical success factors are being threatened (on time, on budget, within costs). With project alert notices being sent by e-mail, there is no need to have the software continuously open and there is no need to periodically scan individual project details to determine what, if anything, is at risk. Project alert limits can be scheduled to be checked on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Project Alerts can be based on hours, company costs, client costs, expenses, billable/non-billable time and in any combination. The use of “intelligent” re-triggering means that if a project’s budget is modified, applicable alert rules are automatically adjusted to meet the new targets.

“Those who know that something is coming are better prepared to face it than those who do not know.”

Example Project Alerts:

When a project has reached 90% of budgeted hours

When a project's total time reaches 1000 hours

When the total company costs for a project reaches $25,000.

When the client costs for a project reaches 80% of the budgeted client cost.

When non-billable time for a project reaches 25% of the total time spent on the project.

When a project's company expenses exceed $1,000.

This topic describes how to create a Project Alert job. Details on each of the available rules are found in Project Alert rule details.

Structure

Alert Job
- Project(s)
- - Alert Rule(s)
- E-mail Recipient(s)
- Scheduled Run Time

Project alert jobs can be as simple as one rule for one project, or can have multiple projects and multiple rules.

Example:

Project Alert Job #1

Project A

Notify when Actual hours reach 1000 hours

Project Alert Job #2

Project A, B, C and E

Notify when at 90% of budgeted time

Notify when Client Cost is $200 from budget

Notes:

Project Alert rules are only triggered on approved time and expense entry data. Time/Expenses not submitted or yet to be approved are excluded.
Alerts are based on project time and costs. Alerts cannot be created for specific tasks, employees, task groups, teams, etc.
Trigger levels are only checked against the database at the alert job's next scheduled run time (daily, weekly, monthly). That is, e-mails are not sent immediately after a trigger level has been reached. If a certain level is triggered on a Monday and the job is scheduled to run every Friday, then the notification e-mail will only be sent on Friday.
Expense related alerts are calculated using company expense costs and not client expense costs.

To create a project alert:

Select Job Scheduler from the menu (Menu > Setup tab > Job Scheduler).
Select Notification from the drop-down list at the top left corner of the screen.

The Job Scheduler window opens.

On the Data (Step 1) tab

Enter a name for this job (up to 100 characters).
(Optional) Enter a description (up to 250 characters).
Select Project Alerts from the Notification Type drop-down list.
Select one or more projects for which this alert will apply.
Click the Add button to create the alert rule for the job. An Alert Rule window opens.
Using the Notify when drop-down list, select a rule and enter/check the appropriate trigger levels and options. See Alert rule details for detailed explanation of all available rules.
Click OK to close the Alert Rule window.
(Optional) Click the Add button again to create additional rules for this job.
(Optional) To modify an existing alert rule, select the rule and click the Edit button.
(Optional) Modify the text shown in the e-mail by clicking on the Change Notification Text... link.

Note: When multiple rules are created for one project alert job (step 10 above) and more than one rule has been reached at the job's Run time, then only one e-mail is sent containing the relevant information on all the triggered rules.

On the Recipients (Step 2) tab

From the Employees available list box, select the employees that are to be notified and move them to the Employees selected list box using the Move button .

Note: Only employees with e-mail addresses entered in their respective property windows are displayed in the list boxes.

SKIP THE SMTP (Step 3) TAB. Do Not Edit the information displayed in this tab.

On the Schedule (Step 4) tab

Set the Run schedule properties.

Once: run once at a specified date and time
Daily: run once per day at a specified time
Weekly: run on one or more days of the week, at a specified time. Note: You may select more than one day from this drop-down list. Use this option to run jobs on weekdays only (e.g. run on Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu and Fri but exclude Sat and Sun).
Monthly: run once per month at a specified day and time

Note: If your local time is different than the time on the hosted server, then the server time is displayed in parentheses to the right of the time field.

Click Done. The Project Alert notification job is now displayed in the Job Scheduler's list of jobs.

Note: All time fields in the Job Scheduler must use the 24 hour format; 23:00 instead of 11:00 PM.

Tip: It’s a good practice to set automated job run times when the system demands are low (evenings, overnight or other non-peak times).

Project Alerts and Retriggering

As a general rule, an alert e-mail is sent only once. This stops an e-mail from being repeatedly sent once the trigger has been reached. However if the trigger levels are manually modified (by editing the '%' or 'cost' fields in the rule), then the trigger is reset and an e-mail is sent when the new trigger level is reached.

There are circumstances when the alert’s trigger is reset automatically. These situations can occur when changes are made to budgets, actuals or any of the criteria that is used in the alert’s calculation. When these changes cause the new calculation to be below the already triggered alert’s targets, then an e-mail will be sent the next time the calculation exceeds the alert target.

Example:

A project alert is established to report when the project’s actual hours have reached 75% of budgeted hours. At some point, the alert is triggered and an e-mail is sent.

The project manager decides to increase the project’s scope and deliverables, and adds 100 hours to the budget. The new actual vs. budget calculation (282/460) is now below the 75% trigger level. As actual hours continue to grow against the project, the alert will be re-sent whenever the calculation reaches 75%.

Notes:

As with the budgeted hours example described above, alerts may also be retriggered if actual hours, company costs, client costs, etc., are edited in such a manner as to cause the calculation to be below the previously triggered event.
For an automatic retrigger to successfully occur, the alert must go through at least one of its scheduled run times (Step 15 in the previous instructions) where the calculation remains below the alert’s limit. This resets the alert’s status flag.

Example of how retriggering works: An alert is scheduled to be run every Friday. Previously, the alert limit had been reached and the e-mail notification sent.

- Will retrigger if the budget is modified on Monday and the new value is reached any time after Friday.
- Will not retrigger if the budget is modified on Monday and the new value is reached by Thursday of the same week. This is because the alert did not go through one scheduled run time where the calculation was below the alert’s limit.