Owner Company/Sponsor Company
The entity that engages in business and has the complete control (or ownership) of the Unifier application with all its rights and privileges.
Overage
Used in the License Manager. The License Manager can allow for an “overage” — a certain number of users that are over the limit, as determined by the terms of the license agreement.
Partner Company/Member Company
The consultants, contractors, and vendors that have been invited to participate in a project by the Owner Company/Sponsor Company. Unifier allows adding Partner Company/ Member Company to enable project users to collaborate on (and coordinate) the execution of a project.
Payment Applications
Payment applications are a sub-type of cost-type BPs. They are used for scheduling payments against construction contracts. Transactions on this type of BP roll up to the Cost Manager.
Percentage of Work Complete
A percentage value that indicates the current status of a task, resource, or assignment, expressed as the percentage of work that has been completed. It is between 0 (when no work has been performed on the task) and 100 (when all the work has been completed on the task). Using this value, you can compare planned work to actual completed work.
Planning Item
Initiatives, projects, plans, or proposals that a company is planning to start. These are not yet real projects in Unifier; however, the planning phases can be managed as business processes in Unifier.
Planning Manager
The Planning Manager is where Unifier users can plan for new projects and proposals and create forecasts for those projects that are already running in Unifier. They cannot administer planned projects the way they administer real projects in Unifier; however, they can manage the planning phases for these projects as business processes in Unifier using the same functions used by other business processes.
Planning Sheet
The company Planning Sheet provides an overview of all plans being considered by the company. The Planning Sheet is central to Planning Manager functions. It is from this sheet that users access, create, update, and import or export company plans. From the planning sheet, users can automatically update plans with changes made on the planning sheet. Reciprocally, they can refresh the planning sheet with changes made to individual plans.
Pickers
Pickers appear as selection lists on business processes and other Unifier components. These pickers allow the user to choose elements such as dates, blanket POs, other users, companies, line items, funds, or currencies. For a complete list and description of the pickers that are shipped with uDesigner and Unifier, see Chapter 5, “Pickers”.
Predecessor
A dependency; an activity or task that must occur before another activity or task. On schedules, predecessor relationships between activities are shown as lines terminated by arrows.
Private bid
A bidding process open to a specific set of bidders that have been selected during the invitation process.
Project Administrator
Performs tasks necessary to the administration of Unifier projects; typically, creating projects, adding project users, creating groups and granting permissions, creating project cost sheets, creating business process setups, and defining workflows.
Project Funding Sheet
Project funding sheets track how your company’s funding is being spent on each project. It tracks individual transactions, which are rolled up to the company funding sheet.
Project Phase
An intermediary milestone of a project.
Public bid
A bidding process open all vendors currently active on a project.
RFB
See “Request for Bid”.
Record
A set of related data items treated as a unit. For example, in stock control, the data for each invoice could constitute one record. Also, all the fields on a BP form constitute a record.
Reference Process
A Reference Process is a business process that another business process has referenced by way of a picker on a form. Users use pickers on one business process form to call data from another—a referenced—business process. The picker establishes a link between the records of the two business processes (for example, an invoice BP to purchase order BP). Reference processes are usually used to auto-populate pickers. They are necessary for any BP form that uses BP pickers and line item pickers.
Reference processes contain the list of items the user can choose from the picker. Because a reference process establishes a link, record to record, you can populate the fields or pickers of one business process with the data from the referenced process.
Request for Bid
The Request for Bid (RFB) is a type of line item BP. RFBs are unique business processes that require participation from personnel outside your company. For an RFB, two sets of BP forms are required—one for the requestor (the Unifier user who creates the RFB and invites bids) and another for the bidders (the vendors) to fill out with bid information. An RFB must include a reference process to a vendor list business process, which contains the pool of vendors to whom the RFB will be sent.
Requestor
The Unifier user who initiates a Request for Bid (RFB) and invites bids.
Resource
Any individual who can fit a role in a project or company work and whose time and activities can be planned from the Resource Manager. Resources can be from sponsor or partner companies. This is known as a hard booked resource.
If the Administrator has imported the Earned Value-related Assignment Attribute form, resources can also be represented by resource categories, such as Man Hours or Equipment. These resource categories are defined in the Schedule Manager, on the Resources tab of the Activity Properties window for a schedule sheet.
See also “Role”
Resource Allocation
The process of distributing available resources, by role, to a project. Resource allocation places constraints on how much resource capacity an individual project can utilize.
Resource allocation is accomplished through the booking process. See
also “Booking Process”
Resource Daily Capacity (RDC)
The total capacity of the resource per day. The resource daily capacity for a given time period equals the RDC times the number of working days in the period.
Resource Manager
The Resource Manager is where Unifier users can set up and manage a company’s personnel resources. These resources are always maintained at the company level, to be distributed among the company’s projects.
The Resource Manager classifies job functions into roles that can then be allocated to projects. These roles are used to define billable rates, which are used in budgeting, and can also be used in planning for resource demands across projects. Roles are associated with personnel resources—the people who can perform these roles in a project. The Resource Manager is where users assign personnel to roles and projects.
The Resource Manager manages time sheets, and also hard and soft resource bookings using a calendar that shows what projects a resource has been booked for, as well as the resource’s availability.
Role
Roles are job types or functions that are necessary to carry out a project’s tasks. Roles usually include billable rates and the currency in which the rates should be paid. Roles are associated with personnel resources—the people who can perform these roles in a project. See also “Resource”
Run Time
When a report is run. Also, the duration of a project, during which time Unifier users use the business processes that were created in uDesigner for the project.
S Step
An S Step is a step that is created by a link in a workflow that automatically creates a new business process record after the form reaches a specific step. The new record will contain an exact duplicate of the information in the original record—all the information that was contained in that transaction, including forms, attachments, and comments. In Unifier, the user who owns the original BP record becomes the owner of the auto-created record. After being created, the new BP is sent automatically to the next step in the workflow.
In addition to creating a new record, you can direct the original BP record to automatically populate the upper form and detail form information on the new BP record.
An S Step is visible in the workflow, denoted by an icon in the link.
Compare to “I Step”
Salvage Value
The residual value of an asset; the value of an asset after the depreciation period. This can be zero, or a value at which the asset can be sold.
Schedule Manager
The Schedule Manager is where Unifier users can create and manage schedules at both the project/shell and program level. They can create a schedule sheet that is customized to a project's or shell’s needs. Once these sheets are created, users can then use them to create project/shell activities and tasks, assign resources to tasks, create relationships between activities, track schedule progress and variables, and calculate the schedule’s critical path.
Schedule of Values (SOV)
An SOV is a way to assemble information from contract, change order, and invoice/payment application business processes into a single sheet. This SOV sheet streamlines the process of invoicing for completed phases of a project/shell.
The Schedule of Values is a detailed statement furnished by a construction contractor, builder, or others, outlining the portions of the contract sum. It allocates values for the various parts of the work and is also used as the basis for submitting and reviewing progress payments.
An SOV works in conjunction with commit types of business processes, such as a purchase order. Commit-types of business processes can be designed to automatically create an SOV sheet when they reach a designated step in a workflow.
The following lists the types of SOV sheets:
- A General SOV.
A General SOV gathers information from any contract, change order, or invoice/payment application BP into an SOV sheet.
- A Payment SOV.
An SOV for Payment Applications allows users to enter values directly onto the SOV sheet. Unifier then automatically adds these values to the payment application sheet.
- A Summary Payment Application SOV.
An SOV for Summary payment Applications shows structured view of the SOV lines. Allows user to enter the values enter values directly onto the SOV sheet. Unifier then automatically adds these values to the payment application sheet.
Schedule Performance Index
A measure of schedule efficiency on a project. It is the ratio of earned value (EV) to planned value (PV), or EV divided by PV.
A Schedule Performance Index equal to or greater than one indicates a favorable condition; a value of less than one indicates an unfavorable condition.
Schedule Sheet
The schedule sheet shows the schedule of activities in a project. It also shows resource assignments. It is used to track progress of activities over the lifetime of the project. Multiple schedule sheets can exist within a project, but only one master schedule sheet can be created in a project.
Schedule Variance
As work is performed, it is “earned” on the same basis as it was planned, in dollars or other quantifiable units, such as labor hours. The planned value, when compared with the earned value, measures the dollar volume of work planned vs. the equivalent dollar volume of work accomplished. Any difference is called a schedule variance.
Schema
The flow of business process steps and the forms the users will use at each step.
Scope Management
Scope Management is a feature of the Schedule Manager that can be used for those projects that can “self-manage” themselves. Scope Management creates project deliverables, assigns resources to the deliverables, and drives the coordinated completion of the deliverables. It initiates the activities that produce the deliverables based on fixed durations and the completion of dependencies; routes the activities to the responsible person or group; monitors their completion; and updates the activity’s status automatically.
Self-Service Portal
Log-in accessible to company user that allows them to submit request, track submitted requests, and communicate with the call center.
Sequence Policy
A sequence policy determines how the record numbers for each BP record are ordered. The record number is displayed on the form and in the business process log.
For a company, record numbering starts with this number on the first record of the first project and is sequential on each record after that, no matter what project a BP record is created in.
For a project, record numbering starts over in each new project, and is sequential within the project.
Service Providers
Partner companies whose users perform specific duties for the sponsoring company, both within and outside of a project.
Shell
A shell is a “container” in which users can organize entities, such as projects or facilities. This shell is where users can organize business information in one place to make managing it easy. A shell can include the functions and features necessary to manage the information in that shell, such as a Schedule Manager, a Document Manager, and a Cost Manager.
Standard “projects” in Unifier work in a similar manner. The difference is that a shell is not required to function like a time-based project. A shell can encompass a static entity, such as a university campus, where maintenance activities are on-going. An example of such a shell could encompass a college campus in order to track building maintenance and new additions. You could include a Space Manager for improvements and remodeling, a Document Manager for all the documents and drawings necessary for new additions, and a Generic Cost Manager for costing functions.
In Unifier, shells can be arranged in hierarchies to represent a company’s physical or organizational structure, such as:
State
City
Property
Building
Shell Dashboard
A dashboard that is accessible at the shell level and can be used to view data within a particular shell hierarchy. There are several types of shell dashboard: My Dashboard, Shell Instance Dashboard, or Custom Dashboard.
Shell Instance
See “Shell Type”
Shell Instance Dashboard
Dashboard created by an Administrator at a shell instance level. These dashboards are created in either a shell instance or a shell template. These dashboards are shell specific and not user specific. End users cannot modify these dashboards. This differs from My Dashboard in that is it a shell view of the shell for all users to use, and My Dashboard is a personalized view for a specific user, and displays the information that the user wants to see. The shell instance dashboard is a general view of specific shell data, and is not specific to any one user view of data. Administrators can create multiple shell instance dashboards per shell instance.
Shell Manager
The Shell Manager is where uDesigner users create the shell types that will be used in Unifier. In Unifier, administrators group shells into hierarchies, create shell “instances,” and specify what functions and features will be included in the shell, such as a cost manager (standard or generic), Document Manager, Schedule Manager, etc.
See also “Shell”
Shell Type
In Unifier, shells are defined by type. From this type, users can create copies, called instances. For example, a shell type could be “Country,” and instances of this type could be “Germany,” “India,” and “China.” These instances would be linked to the Country shell.
See also “Shell”
Simple BP
Business process that consists of an upper form only (like a line-item BP without the line items). It is a way to add company or project information that does not require line items.
Snapshot
The snapshot feature of Unifier takes a working “picture” of the schedule sheet, asset sheet, or planning sheet at any point in time. You can use a snapshot on these sheets to drill down into the process to expose specific activities or milestones, plans or planning phases, for particular attention. On an asset sheet, a snapshot can show the progress of an asset and its depreciation during any specific time range.
A snapshot can also be used to make working “versions” of a business process that you can use as an audit trail of the changes you have made to the process. This use of the snapshot feature makes the ongoing evolution of a business process design easier to track and control. As a business process evolves, you might need to return to a prior version of it to re-design some elements of the forms or the workflow(s). If this is the case, you can restore to uDesigner any one of the snapshots you have taken and proceed with the design.
SOV
See “Schedule of Values (SOV)”
Space
A space is an entity—such as a cubicle, office, or conference room—that resides on a level in the Space Manager.
See also “Level”
Standard Project
As of release 9.1, the concept of a project in Unifier was superseded by a new functionality called shells. However, you can still create standard projects if they are more appropriate to your business need.
A standard project is a “container” that represents a scope of work that is time-based. A standard project contains business processes, the Standard Cost Manager (CBS cost and funding data) a Document Manager, a Schedule Manager, a Resource Manager, and reports. It can also contain any configurable managers that have been designed for your company. Standard projects work in a similar manner to shells. The difference is that they cannot be part of a hierarchy, and they are time-based (where shells are not).
See also Shell
Start to Finish
Denotes that a task cannot end until another begins.
Start to Start
Denotes that a task cannot begin until another begins.
Status
Status indicates the position a record, line item, or asset is in at any point in the business process, such as “approved,” “pending,” or “closed.”
Each business process produces at least one, and sometimes many, transaction records during its workflow. At each transaction, the Unifier user must apply a status to the record. The status is what drives the workflow from one step to the next.
A line item status is distinct from a record status, and unlike a record status, it is not a visible part of a workflow; it is part of the form that moves through the workflow.
Asset statuses differ from other statuses. Instead of affecting the disposition of a BP or line item, an asset status controls which assets are displayed on an Asset class sheet.
Statuses are created in uDesigner and accompany the business process when it is imported into Unifier.
Straight Line
A method of dividing lease payments over a specific period of time. Straight line method assumes that incoming cash flow is in the form of fixed lease payments over the term of the lease. These payments are totaled and divided by the lease term to arrive at the monthly income or expense. This results in an equal impact on the income statement in each reporting period, irrespective of the fact that cash flows differ.
String Formula
A composite field that combines multiple data elements, normally used for building fund code segments. String formulas involve combining values from text box data elements and specifying a string-type pulldown; for example, designing a field called “Project Identifier” using a formula that includes Project, Record No., and location.
String formulas can be defined only for text box and text area data elements.
Summary Line Items
Cost-type and line item-type BPs support summary line items, which group multiple line items together. Only the summary will appear on the BP form. The individual line items appear on the line item window (the detail form), and can be rolled up to other elements, such as the cost sheet, as needed.
Summary Payment Applications
The Summary Payment Applications SOV allows users to allocate cost to line items based on the line item type (Lump Sum or Unit Cost).
Use the Summary Payment Applications SOV type in association with Commit and Spends Business Processes (BPs) that are designed for Summary payment applications SOV type.
Note: The Summary Payment Applications sub-node will be available under the Schedule of Values node only if a Base Commits, or Change Commits, of SOV type Summary Payment Applications is deployed in uDesigner.
System Administrator
System Administrators (or Site Administrators), are responsible for the end-to-end administration of the application. They are the only administrators who have permission to perform certain tasks (unless they grant these permissions to others), which include creating sponsor companies and partner/member companies, loading modules, loading reports, adding the first user(s) to a company, and adding a company administrator.
Tasks (Task Log)
When a BP is sent to the next step in its workflow, it becomes a task for the recipient. The recipient is notified by email that someone has sent a BP record for review or other action, and the task also appears on the BP tasks log.
Terminal Status
A terminal status denotes the end of a business process, usually on a workflow. A terminal status has a significant affect on business processes in that it can be made to trigger an automatic action in Unifier.
Once any BP reaches a terminal status, users can copy it to create another BP of the same type.
A terminal status on a change commit BP can update SOV sheet and SOV line items. If you use this feature, users will be able to access the SOV directly from the change commit BP form. On change commit BPs linked to a general spends SOV, a terminal status is not necessary for updates; it is necessary, however, on a change commit linked to a payment application BP.
A terminal status on a base commit BP can create an SOV sheet and SOV line items. If you use this feature, users will be able to access the SOV directly from the base commit BP form. On base commit BPs linked to a general spends SOV, a terminal status is not necessary for updates; it is necessary, however, on a base commit linked to a payment application BP.
A terminal status on a commit or spends BP can automate project fund consumption or appropriation. It can also create an SOV sheet. If you use this feature, users will be able to access the SOV directly from the commit or spends BP form.
Once a cost BP reaches a terminal status, users can directly view funding transaction details from the cost BP.
Once a Payment Applications BP reaches terminal status, users can directly accept line item history from the BP record.
A terminal status on a resource booking BP can assign (hard book) a resource and update the booking sheet.
On timesheet BPs, a terminal status can roll up time and monies to the master timesheet, as well as the project cost sheet.
Text Type BP
A business process that is typically a text comment in the lower portion of the form. Examples of text BPs include RFIs (Request for Information) and action items, which track issue resolution. Text BPs can be used for any text-based collaboration or discussion. Discussions are available in Classic View only.
Tracking Gantt
A tracking Gantt chart compares dates on activities.
Transient Record
A record that has not yet completed the workflow; used specifically in the Funding Manager to allow funding of “in process” records.