Manage Users Page

This page lets you manage users.

Users list

This tab shows the users in the system. Each person who is to be managed by Ketura, or who wishes to log on to Ketura, needs to be listed here.

Depending on your permissions, you may be able to perform the actions below.

To change the sort order of the users:

• Click one of the column heading links. Each time you click the same link, the order in which users are sorted will be reversed.

To filter the list of users:

• Select All users, Active users or Inactive users from the Filter by drop-down.
• Optionally, enter the name or partial name of the user.
• Click the Filter button.

To create a new user:

• Click the New… button.

To manage an existing user:

• Click the id of the user to go to the user’s management page.

To modify an existing user:

• Click the Profile link next to the id of the user.

Active and inactive users

Only active users are allowed to log on, and only active users count towards the maximum number of users determined by your Ketura licence. When a user leaves an organization, he or she can be marked as inactive, so that his or her licence to use Ketura can be used by someone else. Inactive users are also useful, for example, for managing contractors and other people outside your organization whose work needs to be part of a Ketura project, who do not need to log onto Ketura.

About the admin user

When a Ketura database is first created, a special account with a log on user id of admin is created. This account always has full access to the Ketura system and is intended to be used for administrative tasks. This account cannot be deleted, although it is possible to change its log on user id, as well as other related details.

Deleting users

Deleting a user will cause all references to the user (for example, in work journal and audit trail entries) to be replaced by a special user called Deleted User. Valuable information (about who did what) might, therefore, be lost. Deleting a user may also take a very long time. It is, therefore, recommended that you simply mark unwanted users as being inactive, rather than deleting them.

To delete one or more users:

• Select the users you wish to delete.
• Click the Delete button.

Description of table columns

Availability calendars

The availability calendars accessible on this tab are used to tell Ketura when a user is available to undertake work. Note that these calendars do not specify what users will work upon; that is determined by users’ allocation calendars. Ketura uses the availability calendars, together with allocation calendars, to determine project schedules.

Each user’s availability calendar specifies their normal working hours. Non-working time, such as planned vacation and sick leave can also be recorded, and subsequently viewed on the Non working time tab on this page. The different categories of non working time act only as labels for the benefit of project or personnel managers, and may therefore be used in whatever way is appropriate to your organization.

A legend exists at the bottom of the calendar explaining the uses of colour for the days of the calendar.

Depending on your permissions, you may be able to perform the actions below.

To view the calendar for a specific year:

• Select one of the years from the Show year drop-down.

Default availability calendar for all users

A special default availability calendar exists. This allows the specification for all the users in the system of normal daily working hours, as well as any exceptions to these, such as public holidays.

To view the default availability calendar for all users:

• Select from the calendar for drop-down list box.

To specify the default normal daily working hours:

• Ensure that is selected in the calendar for drop-down list box.
• Enter the typical working hours for each day of the week in the entry fields in the Normal daily working hours section of this tab.
• Click the Apply button.

User-specific availability calendars

A user’s own availability calendar is used to override the defaults specified on the default calendar for all users. This is useful for recording sickness, planned vacations and other non-working time that varies on user-by-user basis. Some users, such as part-time employees, might work different working hours than the defaults specified. These can also be specified on a particular users’s availability calendar.

To view the calendar for a specific user:

• Select the user from the calendar for drop-down list box.

To specify that a particular user works the default normal daily working hours:

• Ensure that the user is selected in the calendar for drop-down list box.
• In the Normal daily working hours section of this tab, select The normal working hours specified as the default for all users.
• Click the Apply button.

To specify that a particular user works the normal daily working hours other than the default for all users:

• Ensure that the user is selected in the calendar for drop-down list box.
• In the Normal daily working hours section of this tab, select These specific working hours.
• Enter the typical working hours for each day of the week in the entry fields in the Normal daily working hours section of this tab.
• Click the Apply button.

Selecting dates in the calendar

To specify exceptions to the normal working hours, it is necessary to select particular dates in the calendar. There are several ways to do this.

To select a single calendar date:

• Click on the date in the calendar. Any other selected dates will be deselected.

To select all occurrences of a particular week day in a given month:

• In the calendar, click on the day name for the particular month. Any other selected dates will be deselected.

To select all the days in a month:

• In the calendar, click name of the month. Any other selected dates will be deselected.

To select multiple dates on the calendar:

• Select the first date, week day, or month.
• Press and hold down the Ctrl (Option on the Macintosh).
• Click on additional dates, week days or months, as necessary.
• Release the Ctrl (Option on the Macintosh).

To select a range of dates on the calendar:

• Select the first date, week day, or month in the range.
• Hold down the Shift key.
• Click on the last date, week day or month in the range.
• Release the Shift key.

Specifying exceptions to the normal daily working hours

Having specified the normal working hours for a particular user (or the default for all users), it is necessary to tell Ketura of any exceptions, such as planned vacations, sickness, etc.

It is best to enter exceptions as soon as you know them, so that Ketura is immediately able to take them into account when calculating project schedules.

To apply exceptions to normal daily working hours:

• Select an item or number of items (as explained above).
• Select the appropriate exception type from the list.
• Click the Apply button.

To throw away any unapplied changes:

• Click the Reset button.

Allocation calendars

The allocation calendars accessible on this tab are used to tell Ketura what each user is intended to be working upon in the available working time specified on the user’s availability calendar. Ketura uses the allocation calendars, together with availability calendars, to determine project schedules.

Each user’s allocation calendar allocates his or her available working time, as specified on the Availability calendars tab on this page, to specific, active projects. Note that, if insufficient users’ time is allocated to a project for the users to complete the tasks assigned to them, Ketura will not be able to calculate a full (or, possibly, any) schedule for the project. This would mean that Ketura would not be able to calculate the start and/or end times for the project, its milestones and their issues.

A legend exists at the bottom of the calendar explaining the uses of colour for the days of the calendar.

Depending on your permissions, you may be able to perform the actions below.

To view the calendar for a specific year:

• Select one of the years from the Show year drop-down.

To view the calendar for a specific user:

• Select the user from the calendar for drop-down list box.

Overview

The allocation calendar highlights in red those days which still have unallocated time. For each date, it also indicates by colour (as indicated by the key underneath the calendar) whether the user will be working normal hours, exceptional hours, etc.

When days are selected on the calendar, a table of all the active projects is displayed to the right of the calendar, under the heading Allocation of user’s time to projects. This table shows how much of the user’s time is allocated to each project. If, overall, more of the user’s future available working time still needs to be allocated to the project for that user’s expected work remaining to be completed, the number of additional hours required is shown in red. If more time than necessary to complete the expected work remaining has been allocated, the number of excess hours is shown in green.

Selecting dates in the calendar

There are several ways to select particular dates in the calendar.

To select a single calendar date:

• Click on the date in the calendar. Any other selected dates will be deselected.

To select all occurrences of a particular week day in a given month:

• In the calendar, click on the day name for the particular month. Any other selected dates will be deselected.

To select all the days in a month:

• In the calendar, click name of the month. Any other selected dates will be deselected.

To select multiple dates on the calendar:

• Select the first date, week day, or month.
• Press and hold down the Ctrl (Option on the Macintosh).
• Click on additional dates, week days or months, as necessary.
• Release the Ctrl (Option on the Macintosh).

To select a range of dates on the calendar:

• Select the first date, week day, or month in the range.
• Hold down the Shift key.
• Click on the last date, week day or month in the range.
• Release the Shift key.

Adjusting the allocation of a user’s time

To distribute unallocated time to one or more projects:

• Select the dates on the calendar for which the user’s time has not yet been fully allocated. Ketura will ignore any fully-allocated days, so you may safely include these in your selection.
• Check the checkbox(es) for the project or projects to which you wish to distribute the unallocated time.
• Click the Distribute Unallocated button. Ketura will distribute the unallocated time evenly between the chosen projects on each of the dates selected on the calendar.

To remove the time allocated to one or more projects:

• Select the dates on the calendar for which you wish to unallocate the user’s time. Ketura will ignore any days with no allocated time, so you may safely include these in your selection.
• Check the checkbox(es) for the project or projects to which you wish to remove the unallocated time.
• Click the Clear Allocation button. Ketura will clear the allocation of the user’s time to the chosen projects on each of the dates selected on the calendar.

To adjust the time allocated to one or more projects:

• Select the dates on the calendar for which you wish to adjust the allocation of the user’s available working time. Ketura will ignore any days with no available working time, so you may safely include these in your selection.

• In the table to the right of the calendar, make any desired changes to the working time for each of the projects. As you move off each entry field (for example, by pressing tab, or clicking on another entry field), the total row of the table will update to show how much time is under or over allocated on the selected dates.

  You don’t need to check the checkboxes of the projects whose allocation you are changing.

• Click the Apply button. Ketura will make proportional adjustments on each selected calendar date, so that the total time allocated to each project is as you requested.

To undo any unapplied changes:

• Click the Reset button.

Understanding what happens to allocation when a user’s availability changes

Consider a user who, on his availability calendar, is available to work 40 hours in a particular week. On the allocation calendar for that month, 10 hours of the user’s time is allocated to project A, and 30 hours to project B. What happens to the allocation of the user’s time if the user then decides to work half-days for that week?

Ketura handles such situations by automatically decreasing (or increasing, if the user’s available working time increases in a period) the user’s allocation to the projects to which a user’s time is already allocated in the affected period. Ketura makes the adjustments day-by-day in proportion to the amount of time allocated each day. In this example, the user’s total working time for the week is reduced to 20 hours. After the availability change, Ketura will therefore show 5 hours of the user’s time in the week as being allocated to project A, with 15 hours allocated to project B.

Ensuring that users are able to work on the project for the full time allocated

Although the amount of extra time needed to be allocated for the chosen user to each project to complete the plan is shown, project managers should be aware that this figure does not indicate anything about when the time is required. There are circumstances in which it is possible to allocate sufficient time for each user to complete a project, but the staging of milestones is such that, for some periods, the user is unable to work on the project for the full time allocated. This problem generally arises when one or more milestones in a project have the ‘A user may start work only after all work on previous milestones is complete’ option selected.

To ensure that users are able to work on the project for the full time allocated:

• Unless it is a strict requirement of the project, configure a project’s milestone so that users start work on the milestone separately, as soon as each user has completed his or her work on previous milestones.
• Or, if a milestone has to be configured such that users start work on the milestone together, when all users have completed their work on previous milestones, ensure that the users on the previous milestones have similar work loads and are able to finish work on the milestone at roughly the same time.

Non working time

This tab shows a summary of the non-working time in a given year for all users. This can provide a helpful overview of information such as how many days a user has taken off sick, or had as vacation. Non-working time is specified using the Availability calendars tab on this page. The different categories of non working time act only as labels for the benefit of project or personnel managers, and may therefore be used in whatever way is appropriate to your organization.

To view the non-working time for a particular year:

• Select the year from the Show year drop-down.

Description of table columns