Amen.
Wouldn't it be great if user could enter their planned vacation days in Outlook, have this show up in CA PPM as 'not available' and be there on their timesheet when they are ready to book actual hours? Oh, and maybe include an optional approval process for the resource manager, possibly project managers, to accept the vacation request?
We are moving off Indirect time entry to Other Work. Other Work has its pros and cons -
- Pros: The ability to allocate, cost plan, set security access (we can't use some 'indirect' topics in some countries due to their local privacy laws).
- Cons: Additional administrative overhead to manage (allocate resources to Other Work Team\Staff pages, replicating Other Work instances by BU, product group, so that each can manage differences between the groups and not have all 7000 users on Team\Staff page of one instance,...)
But staying with Indirect really isn't an option: It's data architecture is 16+ years old, indirect hours are not being ported to the Jaspersoft DWH, and it appears that 15.1 doesn't have a means of enabling Indirect on timesheets.
I'm looking at a sandbox, now, and though 15.1 docs talk about being able to see Indirect when accessing timesheets through the new "My Timesheets" (classic) portlet, I'm not seeing any means for adding Indirect to my timesheet. Also, I don't see any means for enabling/disabling indirect on the Admin side of 15.1. It may be, that if one upgrades an existing data set where indirect is used, 15.1 will enable you to continue using it on classic timesheet view. But if starting with new data set, perhaps CA's intention is that new customers won't be able to initiate Indirect - CA is weaning everyone off the old, indirect data architecture (and some might say "Finally!").
"Other Work" is the way forward - it's not Resource Management 2.0, but there's no other option - "Indirect" has a signed DNR in effect.