Overview
The Customization page allows you to set default settings for your People, Projects, and the Views within your Shaper and Assignments View. Once set, they can be adjusted as needed at a later time by Users with the appropriate Permissions.
What are Customization Settings?
Customization represents a group of Settings that you apply as defaults to your entire Organization within Parallax. Some of these Customization Settings can be overruled by Role or Person settings (such as Organization Base Schedule), and not all settings can be managed at this level, but think of Customization as your starting point.
What you will see in Customization
Customization can be broadly divided up into defaults for three segments, plus the Save button. Those segments are:
- Business Settings - These are Settings that relate to how your business operates, things like Timezone or Schedule.
- Timeline Settings - These are Settings related to default Views you see in the Project Shaper and Assignments View.
- Financial Settings - These are Settings centered around Project financials, things like the default Model when a Project is created.
- Save Button - Click this button to save changes.
Business Settings
In Default Business Settings, you will find:
- Default Timezone - This is the timezone used for all dates within Parallax. Some examples are Project Start/End Dates, a Person's Start/Termination Date and Effective Dates.
- Qualified Threshold (optional) - This is an optional way of setting default filters on the Sales Pipeline based on a specific Deal threshold. Users will be able to apply their own filters, and set their own default Views, but this creates a starting point.
- Organization Base - This is the starting Schedule for each Person in your Organization. You can override this in Settings > People for individuals as needed.
-
Utilization Configuration* - This helps Parallax define how Capacity and Utilization are calculated by including/excluding categories of Hours.
- Holidays (default unchecked) - This decides whether or not Holidays reduce Available Capacity. By checking this box a Holiday does not reduce available capacity, which means a full-time employee would still be expected to hit 40 hours during a week with a scheduled holiday.
- PTO (default unchecked) - This decides whether or not PTO reduces Available Capacity. By checking this box PTO does not reduce available capacity, which means a full-time employee would still be expected to hit 40 hours during a week despite having scheduled PTO.
- Client Non-Bill (checked) - This determines whether you consider Hours completed on Client-type Projects, in Non-Bill Model Offerings to count towards completion of Billable Hours.
*Parallax Tip - "Take the Client Non-Bill... leave the PTO/Holiday."
By default PTO and Holidays will be excluded from Available Capacity - this is our strong recommendation. PTO and Holidays are intended to be a reduction of Capacity, not consumption of Hours, so calculating Capacity based on the time a Person is actually present just makes sense.
Client Non-Bill hours are widely considered to be time you are spending on a Project on behalf of a Client that you are choosing to Bill at $0, so it's usually still considered "billable" and best included in Billable Utilization.
Timeline Settings
Within the Shaper and Assignments View you have the ability to switch between time-increment Views (Day View, Week View, Month View) to bunch time into blocks by different periods, and you can also switch between Allocations/Actuals displaying in number of Hours or the percentage of an FTE**. This section lets you set the Defaults that load when first opening the Shaper or Assignments View.
Parallax is designed around the Week fidelity, and we find that Hours are gong to be the most versatile metric - but you can change these defaults as needed!
**Parallax Tip - What is an FTE?
An FTE is considered the Organization Baseline Schedule for a week. If you have a 40h Schedule, then 1 FTE is one block of 40h.
Financial Settings
This section is primarily targeted on three things - the settings a Project starts from when it arrives in Parallax from your CRM, the way the Projected Calculation is calculated and managing any Exchange Rates you've created in Parallax:
- Financial Model - This is the Financial Model a Project will start with when your CRM creates a Project in Parallax. It can be changed on a Project's Financial Settings.
- Percent of Margin -This is the Target Margin that a Project will start with when your CRM creates a Project in Parallax. It can also be changed on a Project's Financial Settings.
- Projected Calculation*** - This is the cut-off point between Past and Future when Parallax calculates Projected data and other time-based calculations. We've created a whole article about this setting, which you can check out here: Projected Calculation.
- Exchange Rate Table - If you utilize different Currencies in different Locations, you will use this Table to create exchange rates between your Default Currency (usually USD) and any other Currencies you'll want to use. Check out our article on Secondary Currency for more info!
***Parallax Tip: Why do Actuals stop at last week in some places?
If you are using the Last Week setting for Projected Calculations, you will still see this weeks Actuals within the Shaper, however, calculations and projections within Parallax will only include actuals through the end of the previous week. This is useful for companies who provide reporting to clients on a weekly basis, since if time logged to projects are updated weekly instead of daily.