Workbench Release Notes

General Release 4.6.12.2

Scheduled Release - 24 July 2023

Beta Release 4.6.12.1

Scheduled Release - 17 July 2023

New Features

Jobs

• Editable Job List:
  

  Editable Job List July 2023.mp4

  
  

  • Edit multiple Jobs without opening each job popup individually.

  • Update Job Manages or Account Managers in Bulk.

  • Close and Finalise Jobs in Bulk.

  • Users can now edit key details on Jobs with only a few clicks and without having to open each Job individually.

    Only users with ‘Edit Job' or ‘Edit Job Details’ permission will be able to edit. All users that have access to Jobs List will have access to this new screen.

    The same Security Access level as in Jobs List is applied.

    There are two ways to update Jobs:

    • From the grid itself, update each field and click on the SAVE button.

    • Or use the Bulk Update section at the bottom where you can select the values that will be applied to each Job selected in the list above. Use Bulk Save to save these changes.

  • Done. It’s that easy.

Administration

• Simplified User creation:
  Enhancements to the User creation process to make it faster and easier to create new users based on existing ones.
  There are now 3 ways of creating users:

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Xero

• Now supporting Leave requests in Payroll exports:
  When exporting a Payroll batch, Timesheets and Leave requests will be created in Xero. This means that when a Payroll Batch is exported, depending on the Workbench Payroll Code used in the Activity or Time Code, either a Timesheet or a Leave request will be created in Xero.

  • Leave requests are created as approved.

  • One leave request per day.
    
    Pay Items - Leave:
    The Leave Name in Xero must match the Workbench Payroll Code and must have Units  = Hours.

  • Review the Xero Payroll Integration configuration here.

...

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Feature Revisions

Purchasing

• Purchase Orders- editable after the PO is approved:

  • Extension columns are now still editable even after a PO has been approved.

  • Adding attachments after a PO has been approved is now allowed, however not editing or deleting existing attachments.

Stock

• Stock Items can now be imported directly from the Stock list:
  

  

Billing

• Surcharges and Discounts on AR Invoices:
  A few enhancements have been added to the recently released Surcharges and Discounts for AR Invoices:

  • A new tab called 'Surcharges and Discounts' has been added to Companies to display what discounts/surcharges have been set for this Company or for any of its Jobs, from the Surcharges and Discounts setup screen.

    

  • 'Apply To Code': the Discount or surcharge can now be set to be applied to more than only one Sales Code:

    • For any sales Codes use the default value: {Any}

    • For multiple Sales Codes, add a list of them separated by a comma and NO SPACES: SALES,SALESMISC,PROJ

    • Only one Sales Code can still be used.

    • If an invalid code is entered (included spaces), an error will be displayed.

...

Service Logs

• Log billing:
  Logs are sometimes billed directly, but sometimes transactions recorded on logs will instead be included on the billing of the job together with other transactions not related to the Log. To cater for the first scenario, where users want to bill the Log regardless of the Charge Type of the Workbench Job, we have introduced a new attribute on the Log itself, called Charge Type.
  
  

  

  -The Log’s Charge type is not mandatory, however it is useful to ensure all charges are invoiced to the Job (transactions or Outputs) when the Jobs charge type is Contract Claims.
  
  -Invoice button will only be enabled if a Charge type on the Log has been populated.
  

  1. If the charge type is populated, then the log may be billed directly from the Log screen with the Invoice button, and that charge type will be used in the billing process, otherwise, the Invoice button will be greyed out.

  2. When doing input/output billing on jobs, any transactions or outputs which are on logs which have a charge type populated will be excluded

  3. A Log No column has been added to Get Sales that displays the Log No that the transaction is associated with.

• Completion tab - Cost Summary duplicates costs for PO and AP Invoice:
  The Purchase Order Cost line now only includes Outstanding value.
  

  

Month End

• Utilities:
  The utility used to remove data generated when doing training generally on a new implementation (wbRemoveTrainingProfitCentre), has been improved and now also deletes Payroll Transactions (generated by EBA) and LogExtension data.

System Setup

• Licences:
  Licence access changes:

  • Subcontract Portal List and Subcontract Portal Work Order List are now included on the External Contractor licence.

  • Utilities and Job Reports are now included in all role licences.

  • My Datasheets are now included in Advanced Timesheets licence.

  • Purchase Requisitions are now included in all role licences.
    

Administration

• Data Transfers - Data Imports:

  • Job Outputs imports now validate that the Schedule being used is a valid Output Schedule for the Job, otherwise, a message is displayed stating the error for the exact line that requires attention.
    Data imports are:

    • wbImportJobOutputs

    • wbImportJobOutputsByLogNo

General

• File attachments:
  An intermittent error 'The request signature we calculated does not match the signature' when accessing attachments has been rectified.

• Licence Administrator validation:
  Updated warning message when there are no licence administrators assigned - it now includes instructions on how to designate a Licence Administrator.
  

  

Integrations

Xero

• Improved Message about Duplicate Invoices:
  Before the export of an invoice (both AP and AR), Workbench checks whether the invoice already exists in Xero (based on the invoice number and Contact). If it does, the invoice is not exported and instead a message is displayed "AP Invoice already exists in Xero".
  To make it easier to find the duplicate invoice in Xero, the error message has been enhanced to display in the following format:

"AP Invoice '{invoiceRef}' already exists in Xero for Contact '{contactName}' (with a status of {status})."

• Meaningful Error Message when Token Expires:
  If the token has expired when the user tries to export a batch, the call to the Xero API fails (message: “invalid grant”), which causes multiple errors. The user just gets an error message: “One or more errors occurred.” and they have to look in the App Log to see what happened.

  Workbench now catches this problem before the export attempt, and shows a better error message, telling the user to refresh the token.

Upvise

• Upvise Plant Assignments quantity filed is now synced back to Workbench.

• Purchase Order attachment:
  PO attachments in Upvise now sync to the PO in Workbench as attachments.

• Equipment Custom Fields:
  When using “button” type custom fields on equipment, these will no longer create error messages when syncing data between Upvise and Workbench.

• Expense Claims - Import As Approved
  Approved Expense claims will now generate transactions in workbench when the auto-approve setting is enabled.

• New Upvise Intergration URL - Deprecation of OLD URLs 1st September 2023:
  Upvise has introduced a new Integration model available in "My Account"--> "Integration". 

  The key feature includes:

  • Unified Export URL for both archive and production database.

  • Designed for performance and scalability.

  • New Security architecture with new private API Token and secure storage of credentials.

  • Time Zone with DST support.

  • Logs & traceability of exports URLs.

  Any clients using deprecated URL links for reporting in SL or PowerBI will need to migrate over to using the new integration URL's- Please engage your consultant for guidance on this.

  The deprecated links will be removed from 1st September 2023.