The Power of Profiles

May 18, 2018

Allow User Profiles in Deltek Costpoint to Create Custom User Experience

 

With the recent upgrades to Deltek Costpoint and the migration of Deltek Time Collection into Costpoint, it is critical that the users’ exposure to the application is the right size for their work. Traditionally, Costpoint access was usually limited to those in accounting and perhaps a bit further into the back office. With the changes to Time and Expense, the addition of Talent Management and Contracts Management, more and more of the organization will have access to Costpoint daily.

With each type of new user, the skill set and expectations of the user must be met to allow for an easy to use experience!

Creating a good experience for the user is critical; however, who want to spend hours creating an easy to use interface or increase the effort for anyone during the onboarding process?

Enter the User Profile Concept: The User Profile allows us to perform a range of customizations in the system, then apply those custom changes to a number of users quickly and easily.

Customizations:

  • Profiles- Allow us to customize a number of system features. Areas of the system, like the “My Menu”, allows users quick access to the screens they use most, eliminating the need for navigating the entire system structure to find the application they work in all the time.
  • Screen Customizations- These hold a tremendous power over the user experience; allowing us to eliminate fields that are not relevant to the user, and even remove icons to keep the screen clean and easy to read for novice users.

  • Remove surplus items in the tool bar: This will keep any user from experiencing uncertainty in what they should do next during a process.
  • Functionality: For example, Extensibility can be limited to certain users allowing for ultimate customization of your screen.

Once your customizations are done, you can simply assign this profile to a security user group or employee and they will be all set!

So many will say, “this is great, but how long will it take to setup??” the good news here is that in just a few minutes you can do all the following:

  1. Create a user profile
  2. Edit the toolbar
  3. Edit Particular Screens
  4. Setup the My Menu

The simplicity here is in the process. Simply by accessing the profile you create under your settings will allow you to create customizations as you work, then save and apply to others in the profile.

But, the best part is yet to come, with the new paste FROM excel feature (that’s right, create things in excel, and paste them back into Costpoint!!!) you can easily setup the “My Menu” functionality, then save the screen names in excel and simply paste back into Costpoint for your next profile.

As a consultant for Deltek Costpoint and other Deltek products, we are always looking to make the experience for the user something that will make their day better, even if a setting may only save five minutes, that’s five minutes every day! Using the paste from excel functionality we can set up between three and five user profiles in every system in about 10 minutes. Ten minutes for us could be the difference between a new employee understanding their daily requirements and being frustrated or confused.

Give the profile a try, you’ll be glad you did and so will all those you did it for.

 [email protected] I 732.693.5596

Further Reading…