June Release and Resource and Timesheet Issues

​@JWilliams24 - we just installed the June release in our sandbox and started testing.  Could you help with any suggestions on what/how we should test to see if we can replicate this behavior?  This is very scary especially for such critical data. 

Thank you,
Pam Sargent
NASCO

Hi Jennifer,

Just want to see if I can help dig in a little further here. Looking back at what I think is the case this is being tracked on, the team found no data was lost or disappeared, that it is all where it had been entered on the timesheets, but that those timesheets may not have been signed/submitted & approved prior to progression? Our group can certainly get on a call at a time that works with you to discuss any concerns here. Could we coordinate that on the related case?

Thanks,

Erik

​@erik Hello Erik, sure no problem for the call, I know which examples you are talking about. Most individuals have had to go in an enter time immediately after we see the issues as it impacts our financials. We are still seeing the issue on individuals we use the portfolio timesheets for. If we do not get to them before Friday, we just lose everything and there is nothing to actually populate the timesheets with.  So, there is no data in the timesheet to sign and submit. It is just completely blank. 

Like this one here.  It is just completely blank. Now the admin or RM just have to manually go into the plan and see what split their allocations are and then populate their hours and then sign and submit.

I know from the solution or statements provide we just need to sign and submit so we can see the data unfortunately we cannot make it to that point.  

We are still working through the 7/1-7/4 cleanup.  

Before we would be able to use the portfolio timesheet tab and autofill the timesheets and then sign and submit. But after 6/30 and the weekend we did the upgrade, we now see these. 

If I go in mid-week before the time period is even done and autofill, it works, but finance and the financial auditors are not happy with this as it is not good practice to submit timesheet in advance before the work has actually been completed.  Especially for Capitalized costs. 

​@pamela.sargent If you use the portfolio timesheet functionality, please make sure to go and an see that data is still populating when you do “Autofill”. This is one of the areas we have seen issues. Also check your financial plans. We have seen the cost part of our requirements just disappear; the FTE data and Hours are there but every morning the cost is gone. We found some work around to get it to populate back.  Plus, our internal team is working on something we think we can use to fix this. Again, we have been testing requirements for the past 3-4 months for a larger rollout so we have been looking at them at least two or three times a week, and we just started to see this when July hit. Just let us know if you see anything on your end. We jumped from March to June.  Also, we cannot be sure it was the upgrade but come 7/1 we just started seeing these issues.  On a side note, we have been doing Resource management since 2022 so we are not new to it and / or we did not recently implement it. 

Many thanks for raising and sharing your experience.

Safe Releases

In my company I am the only person who looks after 300 users of Portfolios whilst driving our PPM agenda and other activities, so our requirement for releases is really simple - we would only like to upgrade to the safest releases with zero bugs treble confirmed.  Tackling with bugs in releases, triaging, supporting, workarounds - is time neither me or my users can afford.

We have requested to have one or two really safe releases a year which we can with confidence upgrade to - safe in the knowledge there will be no impacts on our day to day.  For our user case, we mostly do not need the latest improvements as soon as they are available - rather, tried and tested and safe.

I’d be interested to know if other Planview customers have similar requirements ?

​@Bruce Porter - Our requirement is that a release has to be out a minimum of 30 days before we install it in our sandbox. This allows time for bugs/defects to be identified, but that doesn’t always happen 100% of the time.  We used to upgrade once a quarter to allow for a release to be out longer, but with all the new functionality and the desire to fix things that we find do break in production we moved to every other month this year...or was the plan.  With the previous timesheet concerns we paused our upgrade schedule until key functionality issues were resolved. 

With so many connections now within and across the tools there will be times of unexpected behaviors, we understand that.  We work with our CSM to communicate our concerns and plans so they can escalate as necessary and help drive UAT process improvements. I also think it’s critical that the published known issues list is updated with all user facing issues that arise so other customers are aware and can make appropriate decisions for their upgrade process/needs. 

Best regards,

Pam Sargent
NASCO