Setting qualifications for work items

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If your firm is licensed for the Staff Management module, you can set up qualifications for work items such as projects, tasks, scheduled phone calls, and to-do items.

Note: Projects and tasks are part of the separately licensed Project Management module.

Qualifications overview

When qualifications are defined for a work item, that item can only be assigned to a staff member who meets those qualifications. For example, if you want to ensure that the tax return for one of your longtime clients is handled by staff who are most proficient with such returns, you can set up a qualifications filter that includes only those staff.

Typically, you would establish qualifications by setting up skill sets for your staff and then creating filters to group skill sets together to form lists of staff qualified to perform certain tasks. However, you can create qualifications filters based on certain other criteria. To set qualifications for work items, you must first create qualifications filters.

You can add scheduled items to a work queue based on qualifications. Items in the work queue appear in the Schedule Items portlet on the Staff Dashboard only for staff members who meet the qualifications. When those staff members free up from other projects, they can select additional work items from the work queue.

Items in the work queue with no defined qualifications are available to all staff members.

Setting qualifications for project templates

You can set qualifications on your project and task templates so new projects are automatically put in a work queue of qualified staff.

Note: To set qualifications for project templates, you must first create qualifications filters.

Project qualifications
  1. Choose Setup > Templates > Projects.
  2. Select a project template from the list and click the Edit button.
  3. In the Assigned section on the Main tab, select a filter from the drop-down in the Staff qualifications field. If necessary, you can click the More Ellipse button and create a new filter.
  4. To designate the project as a work queue item, click the Work queue option. This adds any projects generated from this template to the work queue for staff who pass the qualifications filter you selected.
  5. When you are finished editing the project template, click Enter to save your changes.
Task qualifications

You can also set qualifications for individual project tasks using similar steps.

  1. Choose Setup > Templates > Projects.
  2. Select a project template from the list and click the Edit button.
  3. Click the Tasks tab.
  4. Double-click a task to open it in the Task Template dialog.
  5. In the Assigned section on the Main tab, select a filter from the drop-down in the Staff qualifications field. If necessary, you can click the More Ellipse button and create a new filter.
  6. To designate the task as a work queue item, click the Work queue option. This adds any tasks generated from this template to the work queue for staff who pass the qualifications filter you selected.
  7. Click OK to save your changes to the task template.
  8. When you are finished editing the tasks and any other project information, click Enter to save your changes to the project template.

Note: You can also set qualifications for individual project tasks. Follow the steps above but click the Tasks tab, select a task, and click the Edit button. Then make the changes in the Assigned section of the Task Template dialog.

Setting qualifications for a single work item

To set qualifications for a single project, task, scheduled phone call, or to-do item, follow these steps.

Note: To set qualifications for work items, you must first create qualifications filters.

  1. Add or edit a project, task, scheduled phone call, or to-do item.
  2. In the Assigned section of the dialog, select a filter from the drop-down in the Staff qualifications field. If necessary, you can click the More Ellipse button and create a new filter.
  3. To add the item to the work queue, click the Work queue option. Otherwise, click the Staff option and select a qualified staff member.

Setting qualifications for multiple items

You can set qualifications for multiple projects or tasks at once. Follow these steps.

Note: To set qualifications for work items, you must first create qualifications filters.

  1. On the Manage Projects screen, press SHIFT or CTRL while selecting multiple projects or tasks.
  2. Right-click and choose Edit Selected Projects (or Edit Selected Tasks) from the context menu. This opens the Edit Selected Projects/Tasks dialog.
  3. In the first drop-down field, select Staff Qualification.
  4. In the next field, select the qualifications filter you want to apply to the selected items.
  5. Click the Add Row Plus button and choose Staff Assignment Method from the first field in the new row.
  6. In the next field, select Work Queue.

    Note: If you want to assign the items to a specific staff member at this point, select Assigned Staff, then click the Add Row Plus button again and select Assigned Staff and the staff member to whom you want to assign the items.

  7. Click OK.

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