This article is a walkthrough of how to generate a Build Plan, create a labor-only budget for it and dispatch one of its WOs entirely in FCX web.
In your company, labor-only budgeting may be disabled, in which case you have to use FCX desktop to create a standard budget.
Overall Process
The following is an outline of the overall process:
- Generate a new BP
- Click the New BP button on the Calendar, Status or Daily dashboard to open a new BP Request card
- Select or create and select a Site
- Sites must have an ID, Carrier, Market and Address/GPS Coordinates
- Select a Project Scenario (Line of Business Scenario)
- Select or create a Customer
- Only certain users can create new Customers
- Select or create a Customer Job
- Only certain users can create Customer Jobs
- Assign a BP Owner
- Select a Class, if applicable
- Assign Project Roles
- Create a labor-only Budget on the BP card
- Dispatch a crew to one of the BP's WOs
- Dispatches combine a crew lead, optional crew members and a date range
- Dispatches must be published before time can be charged to them
Generate a new BP
Click the New BP button on the Calendar, Status or Daily dashboard to open a new BP Request card
GBP in Web Tutorial Video
Select or Create and Select a Site
Sites must have an ID, Carrier, Market and Address/GPS Coordinates
TIP
Try to select a suggested address for best results. Try different versions of abbreviations to find a match, such as St vs Steet, W vs West, etc.
Select a Project Scenario (Line of Business Scenario)
Project (or Line-Of-Business) is the top-level and Scenario is below it. There might be more than one Scenario available under a Project, reflecting "sub-scopes."
Scenario determines default Project Roles to assign for this BP, as well as available WO Types, Checklists, Milestones, Tasks, et al.
Select or create a Customer
Only certain users can create new Customers.
Customers must have a name and Abbreviation. The later is used in naming conventions.
Depending on your company's sync setup, newly created Customers may sync to your Accounting system.
There are more fields available on the Customer card in FCX Desktop.
Select or Create a Customer Job
Only certain users can create Customer Jobs.
Customer Job requires a name, which can be different from the BP name.
If your company is syncing CJs created in FCX to your external system, you should give it a name that complies with that system's character length and type requirements.
If you do not have sync, you can name the CJ to match a record in another system to ease later export-import of data.
Assign a BP Owner
This is assigned to whoever initiated the BP request and can usually be left as-is. BUT, if another person will review Time Cards for this BP, review Vendor bills or receipts for it, etc, change the Owner to match that person!
Select a Class, if Applicable
This is only required in some companies
Assign Project Roles
The Roles that should be assigned are determined by the Scenario selected.
If you do not yet know a role-assignee, your company may allow you to assign it to "Placeholder" instead.
You can delete roles that are not applicable, BUT, note that roles can control many things, such as Time Card Reviewer.
Create a labor-only Budget on the BP card
After the BP is generated, the BP card is displayed. This is a good time to enter a Labor-Only Budget, if applicable.
Some companies only allow standard budgets (which include more than labor), in which case you must enter it in FCX Desktop.
The Labor-Only Budget requires 2 things:
- Labor Cost
- Labor Hours
Labor Cost
The Labor Cost is a total dollar amount you estimate the BP's labor will cost.
This estimate should be based on a "burdened" labor rate, to include all costs associate with the labor, such as insurance, benefits, etc.
This estimate should not include non-field labor unless that non-field labor will charge to the FCX Direct Cost Hourly Field Financial Account. This usually doesn't include, for instance, PM labor.
Labor Hours
Actual hours will be compared to this estimate. You should follow the same rules applied to Labor Cost above in terms of what hours should and should not be included.
Dispatch a Crew to One of the BP's WOs
Create Dispatches on the Calendar dashboard
You must first select a WO. There may be one or more WOs under a given BP. Search for your BP's name (Site ID usually works too) to see a list of its WOs.
Dispatches combine a WO, crew lead, optional crew members and a date range.
There are many optional fields on the dispatch:
- Comments are shared with the field in publication notifications.
- Allow Overnight MUST be checked if the crew will work past midnight, as otherwise, they will be force-clocked-out!
- Prevailing Wage should be checked, if applicable.
- Expected ClockIn/Out and Arrival/Departure times show up in Time Card review to help you spot noncompliance.
Dispatches must be published before time can be charged to them
Before a Dispatch is published, it is Orange on the calendar, after publication it turns blue.
You can usually only publish draft dispatches 3-5 days ahead of deployment.
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