Hello, Deltek Vantagepoint users! We are thrilled to share recent enhancements for Deltek Vantagepoint designed to streamline workflows and boost productivity for your project managers (PMs) and resource managers. From automatically updating plans with approved absences to powerful insights into project details like scheduled & utilization hours, cost & billing rates, projected revenue and more in the project plan, Vantagepoint will transform how your project and resource managers operate. Let’s dive into these key features:
1. Automated Absence Tracking
Say goodbye to manual updates! When a manager approves an absence request, it will automatically update the plan that tracks those absences. This feature enhances visibility into time off and employee capacity, making absence management a breeze for PMs and resource managers.
“Love this feature! I know of one employee who will be thrilled to get part of her week back.”
– Pat Valliere, Design Systems, Inc., Early Adopter Participant
2. Enhanced Resource View
The Resource View now offers more detailed insights for PMs and resource managers. In addition to total planned hours or utilization % or scheduled % at the resource level, users can now see utilization hours, utilization hours and %, scheduled hours, and scheduled hours and %. These values will also include the over/under capacity colors as seen in previous releases. This provides a comprehensive understanding of the total hours that comprise the employee's scheduled and utilization %, particularly for those who prefer to analyze based on hours.
For example, the screenshot below immediately shows that next week, Karen will have 40 hours on billable projects, which is 100% utilized, and she is over capacity (red), leaving her no time for non- billable responsibilities.
This feature has been highly requested by our users.
3. Upcoming Employee Availability Dashpart
The dashboard now provides insight into employee availability! The new Upcoming Employee Availability system dashpart looks very similar to Resource View, but this feature shows how available employees will be in the coming days, weeks and months. You can even limit this view to only show available employees. Paired with the existing Upcoming Generic Assignments dashpart, this provides an easy way to see which resources are available to take on existing work that has been generically assigned, all from the dashboard.
4. Visibility into Labor Resource Cost and Billing Rates
No need to back-calculate to figure out a rate used for a resource when planning projects. On the project planning labor tab, PMs can now view resource cost and billing rates, giving project managers visibility into the rates used for resources that calculate planned labor amounts. This is the first step towards allowing the ability to update those rates in the plan, a feature to look forward to in a future release.
5. Enhanced Project Schedule Management
Dragging, dropping and resizing Gantt bars not for you? On the schedule tab in project planning, project managers can now type the dates directly in the date field for more precision, particularly when updating dates while viewing the schedule in larger scales (like months, quarters, years) where dragging and dropping or resizing Gantt bars can get a little tricky landing on an exact date. Even more powerful, users can now update durations at any level, and the end dates will automatically adjust. This feature saves PMs significant time when building out the project schedule. When knowing the task duration instead of the end date, they no longer need to count days on the calendar.
6. Detailed Revenue Forecast Reporting
When reporting on revenue forecasts, you can now report projected revenue at work breakdown structure (WBS) levels. This additional flexibility allows companies to report projected revenue at a detailed or summary level as needed.
The latest release will transform how project managers and resource managers work in Vantagepoint with features designed to boost efficiency, provide greater visibility and make your workday more productive. We are excited for you to experience these new features and can’t wait to hear your feedback!
