Function Point Productivity Software Inc

Depending on how many licenses you have, you can add staff members and login capabilities through your own Function Point system. If you need more licenses, pleae contact our support staff at support@functionpoint.com

Before you can add a new employee as a staff member, you need to create them as a contact in your Function Point system. Find and select your own company through a company find, and click on the "Add Contact" icon.

This will take you to an "Add Contact" page. Fill in the appropriate infomation. Under Contact Type, be sure to select "STAFF", which will allow you to add this employee to your staff list. Press submit

After you press Submit, go back to the Admin section by clicking the lock icon located in the top right corner of the screen.

Select "Manage Staff, Staff Rates, Staff Privileges" which will take you to a staff list.

On the Staff List Page, click on "Add Staff+"

ADMIN STAFF FIND LIST - Figure 1 (Below)

This will take you to an "Add Staff" page. To the right of the "Name" heading you will see a drop down menu containing all the contacts labelled staff that have not been added to your staff list.

Select one, and complete the cells below. Be sure that the status is set to "Active" and press submit when finished.

STAFF USER PRIVILEGES

This will then take you to a "Staff User Privilege" page. You can choose from one of our pre-defined privilege sets by clicking on the dropdown menu which includes Account Executive, Project Manager, Studio User, and Restricted User.You can further customize you privilege set by continuing selecting or de-selecting the individual checkboxes under each section. Remember to press "Save Privileges+" when you are finished.

TO REMOVE A STAFF
In the Function Point system, you can only delete a staff member if they are not associated with any data in the system such as jobs, notes, timesheets, etc. This is usually not the case, so when dealing with a former employee simply make their status as inactive in the staff details page. To access this simply go under your Admin Section (lock icon in the homepage) and click on "Manages Staff, Staff Rates, Staff Privileges." This will bring you to the same "Admin Staff List" page as mentioned above (Figure 1).
Click on an employee. In the "Current Status" drop-down menu, choose "Inactive"
DON'T FORGET TO SUBMIT THESE CHANGES!!!

By making the staff inactive ensures the the former employee can longer log-in, add time, or perform any other in your Function Point system. Data linked to the former employee will still appear on reports for reference purposes and you can still do searches with the former employee's name included in the search parameters as they will still appear on the related dropdown menus.
This restriction was designed intentionally so that even if an employee is no longer with the company, you can still use the former employee's profile to look up reports, or check up on any timesheets or jobs that he/she was responsible for.
TO "COMPLETELY" REMOVE A STAFF
As mentioned above you cannot delete a staff from the system. However, additional to inactivating the former staff you have the option of removing their name from any of the dropdowns as well.
To do this, go to the "Contact Details" page of the former employee, and click "Edit Details" tab.

In the "Status"drop-down menu, select "Inactive" and press "Submit" when finished. This will ensure that the employee no longer appears on any of the drop downs.

I forgot my password, what can I do?

Talk to your system administrator.
In the admin section, under "manage staff, staff rates ..." your administrator can choose your name and create a new password for you by simply typing and re-typing the password in.
We suggest you ask for a simple temporary password such as 1234 to be changed (per above) when you log in.
If your system administrator is out of the office you can e-mail support@functionpoint.com or give us a call and we can re-set it for you.

I'm trying to adjust the drop down menus -- how do I do that?

All of the drop down menus can adjusted in the List Maintenance section of the Administrative menu.

Can I restrict access to certain parts of the system?

Yes. Access to the system is taken care of in the Admin section under Staff Privileges.

Do you back up Function Point?

Yes. All of the Function Point systems are backed up every evening (around midnight).

Can we lock certain phases (brief, timeline, etc....)?

Only staff with appropriate privileges will be able to go in and make changes to estimates, briefs, timelines etc. You can’t “lock” certain phases but only staff with privileges to make the changes will be able to do so.

Do I need to use the year value when searching in date fields (i.e. 2008)?

The year value does not need to be used if you are finding information within the current year. For instance, if you are finding information from January 3 to January 5, 2009 you would enter jan 3...jan 5 and then select the find icon.

If you want to find information from a previous year or create a task for the upcoming year, you must enter that year. For example: dec 4, 07...dec 15, 07.

Remember you can use today, yesterday, tomorrow and Monday through Sunday in date fields also. Can anyone make changes to something that I have written.

Exactly who is the “CSR” and what does it stand for?

The CSR (Client Service Rep) is the main contact for the job (usually the Account Manager or Project Manager.)

Some of your documents and videos tell us to “select the Add Opportunity/Job Request”. Is this the same thing as a “Brief”?

Yes – the name of this field is customizable as are projects, estimates and jobs.

Can drop down lists be in alphabetical order?

Yes, any “drop-down” menu can be ordered or changed by going to Admin (lock) >> List Maintenance (you must have the privilege set to do this.)

What happens to jobs when they are done? Are they archived somewhere, along with history?

Jobs will always remain in the system. You can search by Company, Status etc.

It only shows the last 7 days in the timesheet window. What do we do if we have to enter time further back than one week?

You can enter time as far back as you like. This can be done by going to the Weekly View and entering time or going to the timesheet tab and entering the time there. The Weekly View is only available if you’re using “duration” and not “start – stop”. Your system administrator can also set the drop-down to show up to 30 days (admin >> system preferences).

How is Duration measured for timesheets? If you enter 15, does this put in minutes, hours, or what?

Enter time as a portion of an hour (i.e. 15 minutes = .25)

Do you have to turn off your pop-up blocker to use Function Point?

Yes, but you only need to allow pop-ups from calgary.functionpoint.com. Remember to make sure that you turn pop-up blockers off for add-ons such as Google Toolbar, Yahoo etc.

What's the difference between a service and a task?

A service is a level above a task. Estimates (ultimately Jobs) get created and billed to the service level. If you choose to task out work, you could have multiple tasks created to a single service. A task is optional but a service is required.

Why can you only see "Task" in the timesheet pop-up, not the regular view?

This is purely due to screen real-estate (tasks are located in the task pane) – you can track time to a task by using the little grey button on the task pane and it fills everything in automatically.

On the timesheet it shows "start" and "end" but I don't see a way to specify times for this.

This is a system preference. You can choose to either use duration or start/stop to create timesheets.

How does “my” and “all” in the jobs window work?

You can track time to any job – jobs will show on “my list” if you are in the contact list for the job or if you check on the box to see it. You can look at all open jobs in the dashboard by clicking on “All”.

Can you go back and view messages that you posted on the message board (without sending them to yourself).

Yes, messages that you create are stored as a note to all the recipients. You can find notes that you created by doing a note search (under contacts) and search for notes to a particular person or that you sent/posted etc.

Is add/update the same as “save”?

Yes, add/update just brings you back to the same page you’re on to make additional changes. Just like working in Word or any program it is a good idea to periodically save your work so you don’t lose anything.

In the timeline, I need to build some typical timelines for my company.

You can choose to create a timeline either from the estimate, manually or from a template that you set-up within admin.

In the timeline, what does “relation” mean?

The relation field essentially just draws lines between services/tasks that are related when you look at a gantt chart.

How do I assign a task to more than one person? (Often we have a couple people working on something.)

This will depend ultimately how you decide to work with the system. If you decide to task everything out you would just create multiple tasks under a service (one for each individual) or you can choose to use the “pass task” capability if one person starts something and then another person finishes it. If you choose not to task everything out you can just track time to the service being worked on.

In the estimate, does “submit” mean “save”?

A: Yes. Just like working in Word or any program it is a good idea to periodically save your work so you don’t lose anything.

What is the difference between Project & Job?

A job is the billable work – a project is like a “file-folder” that essentially just groups related jobs together. Project is optional within FP and is generally used if you have a large client that has campaigns with multiple jobs within it that you want to group together to be able to find and group easily.

Can we open a Job/Project without all the other steps if needed, for a quick job?

Everything is driven from the Estimate. You can create a quick job by creating an estimate and clicking on “Add Job”. This is really something that needs to be worked out for your standard process – FP is pretty open in terms of how you use it, so it’s important that you use it consistently.

Can we change the file/job number system?

You can change the start #, but not the numbering system.

Can our clients have access to view certain areas of our account?

Yes, there is a “client log-in” that will allow clients to log-in to see components of the system. Please have a look at the Client Login information.

How to deal with Credit Cards & Reimbursements in Function Point?

How to deal with Credit Cards & Reimbursements in fp

Links for larger images: Expense Form , PO/Credit Charges & Reimbursements

How secure is my data?

Function Point Data Storage Details

How come the system will not let me delete certain jobs, estimates or other items in the system?

You will notice on most detail pages, there is a delete icon located the top right corner. This button allows you to remove certain components of the system. As you continue to use the system, and start using the delete icon, you will sometimes notice an error message appears:
This is because you cannot delete any component in the system that is linked to any other section in the system, and is all baed on the hierarchy of data in fp. Common cases are staff, companies, jobs and estimates. You usually cannot delete a staff contact even if they are no longer with your company because there are such components as notes, timesheets, or tasks the are associated with. This maintains the organization and integrity of the data. To delete a long-time staff you would have to work your way backwards up the hierarchy of data, by deleting all the timesheets, tasks, notes, and any other related data. WE DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS!
For most components in the system, you can simply make them "inactive" by editing the details page. This will prevent it from appearing from most finds/dropdowns in the system.
Deleting companies, jobs, estimates, etc.
As soon as there is a job attached to an estimate, you cannot delete the estimate. As soon as you put timesheets, tasks, invoices and etc to a job, you cannot delete the job. There is no such thing as having too many estimates in your system. In fact it is good record keeping if a prospective client gets into contact with you again in the future. Most clients want to delete companies, jobs, and estimates because when they do a search, they see 100s of items that have been "inactve/idle" for quite some time. Just like former staff, you can simply make their status "inactive" through the details page so they so they no longer appear on any of the find lists.
For old jobs, simply manually change the status to "closed" if they are old completed jobs. This will remove them from your active find lists. The jobs will still be archived in the system.