The Work > Planning and Budgeting > Departments module identifies the business units included in an agency's fiscal year budget. For each department, Lucity:
defines the number of workdays observed each month;
calculates work-related budget and labor day estimates (based on data from related Planning and Budgeting Task > Resource records); and
calculates actual work-related cost and labor figures (based on data from Work Orders matched to the department's Planned Tasks).
The module also allows departments to indicate how many days per month certain classes of employees and equipment are available for work so that department management can determine how its planned use of resources compares with the availability of those resources.
*Note: Each Department record applies to that department only for one fiscal year. You must create a new Department record for each Fiscal Year you wish to associate with a department.
Defining Business Units
The Planning and Budgeting > Departments module allows agencies to associate a Department with a division, sub-division, area and/or sub-area, which is critical when matching Planned Tasks to Work Orders. (Among other criteria, a Work Order must list the same department/division/sub-division/area/sub-area as a Planned Task in order for its work quantity and cost data to be factored into the Planned Task's "actual" figures.)
Note, however, that if a department is broken down into smaller business units, those units' data are not rolled into the department's quantity and cost numbers. To see combined data, you must create a custom report.
Common tasks
To open thismodule, selectWork > Planning and Budgeting > Departments.
Method 1: Create a Department in the Departments module
Open the Work > Planning and Budgeting > Departments module.
Click Add . A new Department record appears.
Select the Department (required).
Select a Fiscal Year (required).
Lucity automatically populates the Working Days per Month fields using data from the parent Fiscal Year record, if available.
Specify a Division, Sub-Division, Area and/or Sub-Area if desired.
Modify the Working Days per Month fields if this department observes a different amount of days in any particular month.
Save and close the record. The new record appears here in the Departments module, as well as in the Departments grid of the selected Fiscal Year record.
If you reopen the record, you'll notice that the Department and Fiscal Year values cannot be edited. And, although you can edit the Working Days per Month fields, the change is not carried over to the duplicate Department record added to the Fiscal Year module.
Note:The Costs fields are inactive because Lucity populates them using data from related Planning Tasks and Work Order records.
Note: The Labors Days fields are inactive because Lucity populates them using data from related Planning Tasks records.
Method 2: Create a Department in the Fiscal Year module
Open the Work > Planning and Budgeting > Fiscal Year module.
Expand the Fiscal Year record to which you want to add a Department.
Click Add . A new Department record appears with both the Fiscal Year field (required) and the Working Days per Month fields automatically populated with data from the selected Fiscal Year record.
Choose the desired Department (required).
Specify a Division, Sub-Division, Area and/or Sub-Area if desired.
Modify the Working Days per Month fields if this department observes a different amount of days in any particular month.
Save and close the record. The new record appears in the Departments grid of the selected Fiscal Year record, as well as in the Departments module.
If you reopen the record, you'll notice that the Department and Fiscal Year values cannot be edited. And, although you can edit the Working Days per Month fields, the change is not carried over to the duplicate Department record added to the Departments module.
Note:The Costs fields are inactive because Lucity populates them using data from related Planning Tasks and Work Order records.
Note: The Labors Days fields are inactive because Lucity populates them using data from related Planning Tasks records.
There are two methods for defining the availability of Employee and Equipment Resources. Choose Method 1 if you have yet to assign Resources to Planned Tasks. If you have already assigned Resources to Planned Tasks, use Method 2, which is much faster.
Method 1: Define Availability for individual resource Classifications you choose
Open the Work > Planning and Budgeting > Departments module.
Click the to expand the Department record for which you want you want to create an Availability record.
In the Availability grid, click Add . A new record appears.
Select the desired Classification/Class Type (required). Each classification option is associated with a particular group of Employees or Equipment.
Continue to Completing the record (below):
Method 2: Allow Lucity to create Availability records based on the Resources listed on Planned Tasks linked to the Department
Open the Work > Planning and Budgeting > Departments module.
Select the Departments record for which you want to create Availability records.
Click the Toolkit ,then select Populate Classifications | Selected Record. A pop-up appears asking you to confirm that you want to run the tool for the selected record.
Click OK. Lucity creates Availability records for any Classifications of Employees or Equipment that are listed as Resources on a Planning Task linked to this Department.
Note: This tool only adds Classifications to a Department; it does not remove previously added Classifications.
Click Open to edit the new Department > Availability record(s). You'll notice that the Classification/Class Type is already populated.
Continue to Completing the record (below):
Completing the record
Enter the number of hours the selected resource Classification is available for use in each [Month] Available field.
Lucity Nightly Tasks will automatically populate the monthly Planned-use fields using data from Planned Tasks related to this Classification, Department and Fiscal Year.
Enter the Total Available hours for the resource Classification.
Save and close the record. The new or updated Classification appears in the Department's Availability grid.
Open the Work > Planning and Budgeting > Departments module.
Click the to expand the Department record for which you want you want to create a Planning Task record.
Select the Tasks grid.
Click Add . A new Planned Tasks record appears with the Fiscal Year field, as well as the Department, Division, Sub-Division, Area and Sub-Area fields populated with information from the selected Department record.
Select the desired Work Task (required). (Picklist options come from the Task Setup module.)
Select a Work Category, if desired.
Lucity completes the Asset field if a default Asset Type has been assigned to the Category.
If applicable, check the Overhead Item option.
When this option is enabled, Lucity omits the Task's cost data from department cost calculations.
Identify how much work the department plans to complete during the year:
Enter the desired Units of Asset and Unit of Measure.
or
Select the Calculate Units of Asset drop-down-menu option to let Lucity supply the total number of units. (This option can be used when the related Category Setup record designates a field to sum or count.)
Convert the Asset Units to Task Asset Units:
Enter a Conversion Factor of "1" if no conversion is necessary.
or
Enter a custom multiplier as the Conversion Factor if the Asset's Unit of Measure differs from the Task's Unit of Measure (such as converting feet/miles) or the department plans to work only on a portion of the asset.
Select the Calculate Task Asset Units drop-down-menu option to direct Lucity to calculate this value.
Select the corresponding Unit of Measure.
Provide information about the department's work capabilities:
Enter the Daily Quantity (the amount of Task Asset Units a crew can complete in a day) and the # of Crews Available.
Enter the number of work hours required of each crew per day (MHs Reqd/CrewDay).
The system automatically calculates the Crew Days Needed and Min Crew Days.
In the Quantity section, estimate how much work (Est Amt or Est % of Task Asset Units) the department plans to complete on the Task each month. More information on Task Quantity fields
Lucity will calculate work estimate totals when you save the Task record.
Bypass the Labor Days section. Lucity will generate the estimated cost figures from Resources you'll later link to the Planned Task and generate the actual cost figures from matched Work Orders.
Bypass the Cost section. Lucity will generate the estimated cost figures from Resources you'll later link to the Planned Task and generate the actual cost figures from matched Work Orders. More information on Cost calculations