Deltek Workbook

Grow Your Agency in 2022

What Industry Leaders Predict

Hitting just about the mid-point of 2022, it’s a good time to reflect on how agencies have been performing through the first quarter, and what they should be prepared to face for the rest of the year. Deltek’s recently released 2022 Outlook: Marketing Agency Leadership Report amalgamated the experiences and expertise of hundreds of agency leaders worldwide, capturing their top concerns and noting the priority challenges they expect to face through the remainder of the year.

The good news is that the collective attitude of these agency leaders, including CEOs, owners, and department heads, is essentially optimistic. The market recovery means demand for agency services (and, accordingly, budgets!) continues to rebound. In many ways, the year ahead has potential for more performance and profit than pre-pandemic times. This can be ascribed to a kind of “great awakening” we all experienced during the past few years. We collectively realized that operational efficiency and internal systems improvement had big bottom-line impact.

Increase Investment in Technology

The takeaway from that realization, applied going forward by savvy agencies, is the importance of investing in project management systems, software and tools that make your staff as productive as possible. This might seem challenging at a time when the fight to attract and retain top talent is at the top of leadership priority lists of late, but survey respondents understand the long play here. These investments amplify the agency workflow process, efficiency and thus productivity of your talent. Furthermore, in the face of the inevitable talent churn impacting the industry, these systems and solutions keep intellectual property within an agency. Ultra-valuable information doesn’t walk out the door when there’s talent turnover.

2022 Outlook: Marketing Agency Leadership Report

Agency leaders reveal their predictions for 2022 including industry challenges, priorities and investments.

Download the Marketing Agency Leadership Report Now!

Focus on Professional Development

Stemming the tide of that turnover is another issue agency leadership is dialed into for 2022. This is driving a sharp focus on professional development, giving personnel access to training, education and certifications that make them increasingly valuable team members, and also build in some backup within teams themselves. Whether strengthening day-to-day abilities or introducing new skills that benefit clients, the agency can offer more competent, diverse services to clients while talent is incentivized to remain on board. It’s seen by enlightened leadership as a means to improving employee health and wellness as much as it is a way to better serve clients.

Emphasis on Profitable Growth

In terms of agency growth, the 2022 Outlook: Marketing Agency Leadership Report reflects a cautious optimism among industry leaders. More than 90 percent of respondents expect to realize more revenue in 2022. Interestingly, this won’t necessarily be the result of increased client expenditure. The report makes it clear that top-line and overall profits are growing, but not margin percentage. The reasons for this disparity include more detailed project scopes, better team/client communication, and meticulous review of current service agreements with key clients.

The 2022 Outlook: Marketing Agency Leadership Report is packed with revealing information and data on agency goals and challenges, and the strategies and tactics being deployed to address them. Give it a read and get a stronger sense of how your agency can move towards greater success in 2022.

Get WorkBook Certified in the Deltek Learning Zone (DLZ)

The content in this blog has been repurposed from our partner, Deltek.

Deltek University are delighted to announce the launch of the WorkBook Core Certification, giving you the opportunity to validate your WorkBook expertise by completing the WorkBook Core Certification examination.

A Deltek product certification is a great opportunity for professional development. Many Deltek customers are already taking the time to add new learning and development opportunities to their weekly to-do list and getting Deltek Certified helps demonstrate their value by going a step further with product certification. Getting noticed by your peers for earning your Deltek Certification will help demonstrate the value you bring to your organization.

The new examination will test your WorkBook knowledge with 75 multiple-choice questions covering Inbox and navigation, Time and Expense, CRM, Scheduling, Jobs, Settings and the mobile app. The Finance and Administration module will have a separate exam launching in 2022.

Once you successfully complete your exam, participants will receive an email with a link to the Deltek certification badge and a certificate of completion, which you can proudly display on your email signature or Linked-in profile.

Product certifications are valid for two years and provide quantifiable proof of product proficiency and industry expertise – a great way to help advance your career and improve overall job performance.

Deltek customers can access the exam through the Deltek Learning Zone. You can get help with logging in here or if you have any questions, please contact us at any time.

API Acronyms Uncovered

We live in a world filled with acronyms. For those who are not familiar, an acronym is an abbreviated formed word, formed by letters of other words and pronounced as a word.

The Application Program Interface (API) world is no different when it comes to abbreviations and acronyms. We have outlined some common API acronyms below.

API – Application Program Interface
WIC – Web Integration Console
SOAP and REST– types of API calls that can be made
- SOAP – Simple Object Access Protocol
- REST – Representational State Transfer
CRUD – Create, Read, Update, Delete
SFTP– Secure File Transfer Protocol
AWS – Amazon Web Services
SSS – Simple Storage Service
VPN – Virtual Private Network
SQL – Structured Query Language
CSV– Comma Separated Values
- Type of file that can be used if SFTP sites are used
JSON and XML– Formats data from API calls can be in
- JSON– JavaScript Object Notation
- XML– Extensible Markup Language
200, 400, 500 responses– responses that tell you if the API call was successful or not
- 200– indicates successful API call
- 400– indicates an error caused by the user
- 500– indicates an error caused by the server
DNS– Domain Name System
- Service that enables a link between domain names and the IP addresses with which they are associated
IP Address– Internet Protocol Address
- unique string of characters that identifies each computer communicating over a network
SSL– Secure Socket Layer
- Uses a public key to encrypt data transferred over the connection to communicate securely with the web server
TLS– Transport Layer Security
- Authentication and security protocol widely implemented in browsers and Web servers
HTTP– Hypertext Transfer Protocol
- protocol for information systems that allows users to communicate data on the World Wide Web.
HTTPS– Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
- Adds SSL/TLS to the HTTP for added security
DB/DBMS– Database/Database Management System
- Secure system where data is stored
SDK– Software Development Kit
- Collection of software development tools in one installable package
CLI– Command Line Interface
- Processes commands to a computer program in the form of lines of text
GUI– Graphical User Interface
- Type of user interface where users interact with electronic devices using visual representations

We hope you have learned a new acronym or two from this today!

PCI offers cutting-edge solution integrations to complement and enhance your Deltek product investments. Our consultants help to identify and bridge gaps between various business systems, offering several third-party integrations into Deltek Costpoint and Deltek WorkBook. Our API capabilities include data pulls and custom-built integrations.

To learn more about API integrations, visit our LINK API Integration page.

What Is New In WorkBook 13.1

WorkBook 13.1 allows users to streamline workflows to support faster performance and scalability. With enhancements to the user interface, components, and system checks, this release helps agencies manage large data sets, save time when collaborating with the team, and improve data integrity.

ADDITIONAL CHECKS WHEN ENABLING/DISABLING EMPLOYEES

WorkBook has added another level of system checks to ensure that when you enable or disable a user, you can resolve any open timesheets or expenses associated with that user before doing so. Now you can be confident that your budget data remains accurate and intact when enabling or disabling a team member in the system.

UPGRADE TO WIJMO COMPONENT

We have upgraded the Wijmo component to ensure users experience WorkBook’s newest UI improvements correctly when using Apple’s Catalina operating system.

STORED PROCEDURE RE-WRITES AND CODE REFACTORING

By re-writing and refactoring some of the stored procedures in the system, we can better ensure proper performance at scale. For example, agencies that manage large data sets will notice a faster and more streamlined experience.

Three Ways WorkBook’s Collaboration Can Help Agency Teams When Working From Home

Agency ERP system Deltek WorkBook‘s collaboration feature, allows agency teams to collaborate with ease. And best of all, all communication stays within the system so there’s no searching through emails looking for a vital piece of correspondence.

If you’re a WorkBook agency and not using this feature yet, here are 3 reasons to give it a go!

1. BRIEF COLLABORATION

Getting a brief right is important for so many reasons. In WorkBook you can collaborate on briefs at both a job level and a task level.

At a job level, collaboration helps get the initial brief right before it’s shared with the wider team.

While at a task level it allows those working on tasks to review them easily and ask any questions should anything be unclear.

2. ESTIMATE COLLABORATION

Getting an estimate right is important. Collaborating on the estimate allows the person creating it to liaise with all the individuals involved on the job. This will ensure the correct number of hours for each role have been included.

Estimate collaboration will also ensure scope creep is kept to a minimum.

3. OVERALL PROJECT COLLABORATION

Collaboration in WorkBook is not just limited to estimates and briefs, agencies can also collaborate on pipelines, invoices and purchase orders. Meaning all project related communication is stored in the system against the job, so it is easy to access and get an understanding of where a project is at any given time.

Set Up Timesheet Reminders To Improve Compliance

Nobody likes timesheets. But for agencies that scope work based on hours, unfortunately they are a necessity. That’s why WorkBook helps you take the sting out of timesheets and improve agency-wide compliance by first making timesheets easier to fill in, and secondly, by allowing you to schedule reminders that help employees remember to submit them on time.

Here’s How:

Global Settings: First, set up how far in the past WorkBook looks at incomplete timesheet registrations. Navigate to the “Settings,” find “System variables” and search for “896” to locate System variable 896.

You can set the system up to look at:

Days
Weeks
Months

Employee settings: Once the global time frame for timesheet registrations have been set up, the feature should be enabled on each employee.

Use the initials field to bring up the employee card and navigate to Employee basic settings.

Result: Next time the employee logs in, they are prompted with a “Time entry incomplete” dialog that looks like this:

From here the employee can add jobs and tasks to register time on.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If an accounting period has been closed, this will LOCK OUT the user until they either approve the day without adding hours, or a system administrator removes this pop-up from their employee settings.

Why you Should Lean on PCI for Staffing Support

The answer is easy – using a third party for staffing support saves you time, money & resources.

PCI utilizes our reputable network of industry resources to provide clients with the best finance and accounting solution for your projects. PCI Staffing Solutions can connect you to direct hire and contract staff to manage your back-office support. Our placement success spans all levels, from c-suite to entry level.

Our recruiting team has over thirteen years of recruiting experience for positions relating to finance and accounting, information technology, marketing, human resources – as well as various other roles across many industries. At PCI, we focus on helping our clients build successful teams with professionals who have a strong background in Government Contracting & Marketing Agency accounting.

Our recruiting process is comprehensive and detail oriented. We will save you time and money in the process of finding the perfect professional for your firm. We begin our staffing process with an informative introduction call to PCI Staffing Solutions with your designated PCI recruiter. In this call, we will gather information around the role to be filled, the skills that are needed for that role, and details on company culture. From there, our team is able to pick up on your needs for this position and begin the recruiting process.

PCI uses industry leading search tools to find and speak to qualified candidates. Not only will our team review all candidate’s professional background they will also screen for interpersonal and communication skills. Once qualified candidates are identified, we will then assist in coordinating interviews. If a PCI candidate is selected for the opportunity, we will help both the candidate and the client in the onboarding process to ensure a smooth start.

PCI Staffing Solutions looks forward to partnering with you to build a successful team now and in the future.

Learn more about PCI’s staffing solutions here.

Predict Job Performance With WorkBook’s Estimated Time to Completion Calculation

One of WorkBook’s most insightful features is the Estimated at Completion (EAC) algorithm. This metric shows you how WorkBook uses all the data you’ve put together in a Job plan or budget to essentially predict how your Job will turn out so that you can take preemptive action to mitigate overruns or maximize margin.

The thing that makes WorkBook exceptional is the ability to calculate a key variable in this prediction: Estimate to Complete (ETC). ETC is a calculation of the hours and costs that are left to complete within the Job’s plan. When enabling ETC in WorkBook, you trigger the system to ask the users assigned to Tasks if they are on track in completing it within assigned number of hours, or if they expect to log more hours than planned. WorkBook then takes that input and calculates the cost of what is left in the budget in order to complete the Job.

When ETC is combined with the hours and costs already incurred, you then have your predicted outcome or EAC.

How to Enable ETC:

In order to enable this feature, you need to enable system variable 405 which has three settings:

Disabled
Enabled on billable jobs
Enabled on all jobs

Once enabled for instance on all Jobs, only new Jobs will have this setting enabled. For existing Jobs, you need to enable this manually.

So let’s say you allocate a Task to an employee for twelve hours.

The employee starts working on the Task, and if they want to make a request for more hours, they can do so by right clicking on the Task in the to-do list. The ETC filled in will be the total number of hours to complete the Task.

For example, if the employee has been assigned for twelve hours and now uses two hours, and request twelve hours, then the total allocated time will be fourteen hours. In other words, the ETC request is the total hours needed.

Once the employee submits the ETC request, it will go to the Task Responsible on the job for approval. If no Task Responsible has been set, it will automatically revert to the Project Manager on the job.

If the ETC request is accepted, a notification will be sent to both the employee sending the ETC request and the Task Responsible/Project Manager.

The number of hours allocated will be increased upon acceptance of the ETC.

This new ETC calculation will then inform the EAC calculation, giving the Project Manager a new predicted outcome. At that time, they can take preemptive action and adjust the project plan to mitigate any potential overruns before it’s too late.

If you’d like to learn more about WorkBook, your can contact us or check out some of our demo videos!