Chris Vandersluis, HMS Software’s president will once again be speaking at the prestigious ProjectWorld Canada Conference in Toronto on June 3rd and 4th.  He will be presenting a paper entitled “Cancelling a project without cancelling your career on Monday June 3rd and then will be part of a panel on when to apply Agile project management methods on June 4th.  ProjectWorld / Business Analyst World Canada will be held this year at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.  For more information on the conference, visit http://projectworldcanada.com.

“How long will it take us to get completely trained?” I was asked recently.

“That would depend completely on your definition of ‘completely’,” I replied.

The challenge with enterprise products like TimeControl is that they can be configured to be so many different things for so many different people.  The strength of TimeControl is its flexibility.  This allows TimeControl to be a multi-purpose timesheet serving the needs of many different perspectives within the organization.  It can be used for time and attendance, time and billing, project management tracking, earned value, government compliance for R&D tax credits or the DCAA.  And all this from the same interface at the same time.

Yet not every organization is created the same.  Not every organization requires the same types of functions or tracking.  Even when two clients have a similar product to like to like SAP or MS Project, those products are not configured identically either.  So each implementation of TimeControl is often unique. Oh there are common elements but there are many elements that are different and not everyone even uses the same functionality.

What we’ve discovered here at HMS when we apply this challenge to training is that training is best done in layers.  The first layer or phase occurs during the original implementation.  If our technical staff assist with the implementation, we train the administration staff as we make decisions together on how to configure the system.  This has a high degree of success but does it mean that these administrators are “completely” trained?

If your definition is, “The administrators should be able to operate TimeControl in accordance with the configuration and existing processes we have defined at the time of implementation.” then the answer is Yes. 

But, let the company advance for 6 months or a year even and we find that the level of maturity in the use of TimeControl in the organization is now such that the types of questions the client would ask have evolved.  Now there are questions on functionality that would have never been asked during the original implementation because the questions are now able to be understood or because the organization itself has evolved to have new timesheet requirements.

This isn’t unique to TimeControl.  We’ve seen similar phenomena when we look at project scheduling tools like Primavera, Open Plan or Microsoft Project Server.

Our view is that training should be an ongoing investment.  Do a little less on the first day than you’d expected.  Let that training soak in; be absorbed; be implemented in practice.  Then having a trainer come back or do another remote session for a few hours.  Use that to advance your own knowledge but also to advance the capabilities used of the software.  As new administrators come on board over time, they’ll naturally just take up training that is regularly scheduled. 

Doing training in phases or layers ultimately gives the best return on investment.

As part of our new R&D Solution Portal, we’ve created a brand new white paper that you may find of use.  The extensive paper covers an overview of how R&D tax claims work.  We cover something we call the “Triangle Audit” which describes how most government tax agencies go about doing an audit of Research and Development tax claims.  There is a section on how TimeControl timesheets work in an R&D setting and even instructions on how you can configure your own TimeControl to comply with auditing requirements.  There are screen shots of individual TimeControl tables and example reports.  The paper covers an overview of R&D claims in the regions we know best which includes: The US, Canada and within Canada, the province of Quebec where HMS Software’s headquarters are located.  HMS has extensive experience with doing our own R&D claims. 
For those who want to do more research, there are links to appropriate areas of websites at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the US, Revenue Canada (for the SRED program), Revenue Quebec, HMRC in the UK and in the EU. 
You can download the R&D white paper for free at HMS Software’s Research and Development Tax Credit Solution Center.

Users of TimeControl 6 may have found that after a few minutes their TimeControl session times out.  This is something controlled from within Internet Explorer 7.

Here is a quick little tutorial on how to modify the TimeControl 6 session timeout from within IIS 7.

1. Session State

We use the session state value as a timer to show the “Session timed out” message that will force users out of TimeControl. This value is the main control for the lifetime of session variables. To set this value:

• Open IIS and click/select the TimeControl web site; this will show a range of options on the right hand side of the screen including an item under “Application Development” titled “Session State”. Double-Click “Session State”.

• When opening the session state options a dialog will appear. All options should appear as the screen shot below does and to change the timeout value simply modify the value in the “Time-out (in minutes):” field and click “Apply”.

This tells the application how long a session is allowed to live. However, this isn’t the only option that needs to be modified because in our code we also check the validity of the user’s authentication ticket which is a separate time-out value.

2. Forms Authentication

The forms authentication uses an authentication ticket that is created when a user visits the site, and then tracks the user throughout the site. In TimeControl 6, we validate this ticket every time we load the page and if the ticket is no longer valid we redirect the user to the login page. If the session state is modified, the forms authentication will need to be modified as well.

• Open IIS and click/select the TimeControl web site. On the right hand side there will be an option under “Security” for “Authentication”. Double-Click “Authentication”.

• A list should be shown with a few items including “Forms Authentication”. Select the “Forms Authentication” item from the list and further to the right hand side of the screen an “Edit…” link will light up. Click “Edit…”.

• The options for forms authentication will appear in the dialog and should look like the screen shot below. The “Authentication cookie time-out (in minutes):” needs to change to match the setting for session state.

These two time-out settings are used by the TimeControl 6 web site code and work well for a high traffic site, but what if it isn’t a high traffic site? In IIS “Application Pools” there is a setting for an “Idle Time-out”; meaning if there is NO traffic on the web site for x number of minutes then the Application Pool will recycle the web site, terminating any and all sessions.

3. Application Pool Idle Time-out

• Open IIS and click/select the “Application Pools” from the left hand list. A list of applications pools will appear, click/select the application pool used by the TimeControl web site.

• There will be a link on the right hand side of the screen under the heading “Edit Application Pool” title “Advanced Settings…” click this link. A dialog will appear with a number of options but we are only interested in the item under “Process Model” that reads “Idle Time-out (minutes)”. This value should get a setting equal to the session state and forms authentication to ensure the web site application doesn’t force a recycle before the session is supposed to time out.

These are the values that affect the TimeControl 6 session.