Getting Started with Work Planning and Budgeting

The Work Planning and Budgeting modules enable an agency to determine its estimated budget for the fiscal year, for individual departments and for particular tasks. Each of these modules links to the Work Orders module to track actual costs of labor and materials, as well as to compare actual costs to original budget estimates.

Suggested workflow

1. Review the following Work Flow Setup modules:
   1. Task Setup - Do records exist for all of the Tasks your department wants to plan? If not, create them.
   2. Category Setup - Are the Categories related to your department's work sufficient?
   3. Resource Setup (Employee Classification, Equipment Classification, Contractor, Material and Fluid) - Consider the resources your department uses to complete its work. Do these records list the Unit of Measure and Unit Cost/Hourly Rate? This information is critical for accurate cost estimates.
      
2. Create a Fiscal Year record.
   1. Define the Start Date and End Date.
   2. Record the Estimated Budget and the Approved Budget.
   3. Enter the organization's Working Days per Month.
      
3. Create one or more Department records.
   1. Select the Fiscal Year.
   2. Select a Department or click Edit List to add a new Department Type/Code to the picklist.
   3. Indicate the Division, Sub-Division, Area and Sub-Area, if desired.
   4. If necessary, modify the Working Days per Month values, which were carried over from the Fiscal Year record.

      Later, Lucity will automatically complete the Costs and Labor Days fields.
      

4. Create Planned Task records for each of the work activities the department will perform during the year.
   1. Select a Work Task. More information on linking Planning Tasks with Work Orders.
   2. Select the Department that will work on this Task. This choice also sets the Fiscal Year for the Planned Task.
      • If multiple listings exist for the department, make sure to choose the record for the desired Fiscal Year and Division, Subdivision, Area or Sub-Area.
   3. Select a Work Category, if you choose, to associate with the Task.
      • Lucity completes the Asset field if a default Asset Type has been assigned to the Category.
   4. 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.)

      • 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 on only a portion of the asset.

      • Select the Calculate Task Asset Units drop-down-menu option to direct Lucity to calculate this value. Then, select the corresponding Unit of Measure.
   5. 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 will automatically calculate the Crew Days Needed and Min Crew Days.
   6. 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
      
5. Add Resource child records to each Planning Task to identify the Employees, Equipment, Materials, Contractors and Fluids needed to complete
   
6. Return to the Departments module to create Availability child records for each Employee or Equipment Classification assigned as a Resource to one of the Department's Planned Tasks:
   • Create individual Availability records to indicate the hours each classification type is available for work each month.

   or

   • Run the Populate Classifications toolkit to create the Availability records automatically. Then, open each record to enter the hours available.
     
7. Open the Planning Task record to view the work Costs and Labor Days estimates Lucity has calculated. More information on Planning and Budgeting Calculations and Costs.
   
8. Once you have created the Fiscal Year, Department, and Planned Task records in the Planning and Budgeting modules, the system can match related Work Orders to Planned Tasks and gather actual cost and labor data . Learn how to link Planned Tasks to Work Orders.