We've looked at this capability, on and off (mostly off ). Our idea has been to use Role with Department OBS in the Staff OBS field, as our rates are department based. Have not considered trying to make Staff OBS mandatory - I don't expect there's a way to make this work, out of the box, as list views ignore 'required' settings. Also, would like to limit the OBS Types that user can select - since our Rates are Department based, if they select another OBS Type, building a Cost Plan will fail with that entirely frustrating error message that 'Rate could not be found..."
Our idea has been to provide templates that user would select from, where WBS, roles and Staff OBS, are defined, including assignments. Yes, user can modify, but would be starting with most of the work done.
Appears to work ok for us - but we'd like to include "Resource Type" (e.g. Employee, Contractor, Student...) in the Team Staff page, Rate Matrix and jobs which produce Cost Plans. Can only be done with a workaround - having a job populate Transaction Class with contents of Resource Type....
Oh, and we'd like to have:
- ability to plan in local currency within one Entity (yes, we could have implemented one entity/currency, but we were advised against this)
- ability to change Fiscal Periods (we've been bought, will need to change to new owner's fiscal calendar)
- ability to change Entity currency (need to switch from USD to EUR)
- and if we must go to multiple Entities, or create a new, Euro based entity, an ability to move in-flight projects between entities (currently, must close projects on old entity/currency, reopen as new projects on new entity, with no means to move risks, issues, docs, etc. from old project to new project)
- ability to have more detail in cost plan (e.g. "Equipment" is insufficient - what equipment are you buying?)
- financial metrics include Revenue entered on Cost Plan (currently, Revenue on Cost Plan is ignored; only Revenue entered on Benefit Plan is considered - this is insufficient for us, as our Revenue is based on counst of parts sold, where counts can't be entered on Benefit Plan)
- an ability to batch adjust transactions (have requirement to update actual cost rate after the end of each month and apply the update to the month's transactions)
I've seen one company workaround many of these issues, rather skillfully - think this should be out of the box capability if selling app to global customers.