What's coming in CMap Spring 2022?

CMap Spring 2022 Release

The end of the year is fast approaching, which can mean only one thing ... CMap's Spring 2022 Release is just around the corner!

As we build up to the opening of the beta period in March, we'll provide more detail on the upgrades to help you prepare for the changes.

In the meantime, here's a quick overview of what CMap's Spring 2022 Release has in store for you!

Writing Off Time (Part II)

Part I of Writing Off Time went live in Winter 2021. This was what will be referred to as "Detailed" write offs i.e. where you decide what you're going to do with WIP—e.g. carry forward, fully write off, partially write off, bill—at the individual timesheet entry level.

Part II will see the introduction of "Simple" write offs. Instead of dealing with individual timesheet entries, you'll instead deal with overall values i.e. there'll be an overall WIP value, you decide an overall value you'd like to write off, and an overall value you'd like to bill. Simple.

We'll also introduce the ability to do "ad hoc" write offs, as well as tighten up controls around revenue and project closure.

Rest assured, we'll provide much more information on this as we build up to the opening of beta—keep your eyes peeled!

Editions: All (except AEC)
Plans: Growth, Pro & Enterprise

Grouping of Externals in AEC

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback we've had from AEC customers could be summed up as: "improve how externals are managed". And we agree...

Which is why we're overhauling the Expenses & Externals Schedule, giving you a new tool to add externals—including the ability to apply them across multiple stages in one fell swoop—, and a new way to visualize them in the schedule itself e.g. grouping them by stage

This will be a huge leap forward in usability and practicality!

Editions: AEC only
Plans: All

New "Fee Inclusive" External Billing Type in AEC

CMap, as standard, thinks in terms of having 2 fees that combine to create an overall fee to the client (1) your fee, plus (2) the fees for externals.

The new "Fee Inclusive" billing type will enable you to work in a new way—setting an overall fee for the client, from which both your fee and the fees for externals are managed.

Editions: AEC only
Plans: All

Multi-Page Dashboards in Security Groups

You can create a "Default Dashboard" for every Security Group, and you can use the "Refresh Dashboard" feature to push the latest default dashboard out to everyone that's part of that group—which is great.

What would be even better is being able to set up multi-page dashboards for your Security Groups that you can manage centrally and push out as and when required e.g. having a "C-suite" Security Group that has dedicated dashboard pages for "Sales", "Project Performance", "Finance", "People Management", etc., etc.

Come Spring 2022, that will be a reality.

Editions: All
Plans: All (custom dashboard boxes available on Pro & Enterprise)

Further Grid Enhancements

At present, some fields are editable in the grids but others aren't—namely custom fields. As part of this upgrade, we're going to make custom fields editable in the grids. But it doesn't end there. We've conducted a review of the standard fields that aren't editable, and we're going to make those editable too—within reason e.g. you won't be able to update the "Budget Total" value in the Projects grid, as that's calculated from the set-up of the project's Fee Estimator.

Editions: All
Plans: All

Role Families (Rate Card Management)

Many CMap clients have a relatively simple structure, resulting in a relatively low number of billable roles that need to be managed and, therefore, a pretty painless experience on the rate card management front.

However, some CMap clients require much more complicated set-ups, and as a result rate card management can become somewhat trickier. The issue stems from multiple entities & business units creating a proliferation of roles to manage. If you have 10 business units, for example, you might end up with 10 "Consultant" roles you need to manage.

"Role Families" will enable you to say, "I want to group these 10 consultant roles across these 10 entities together ... and apply the same update to all of them". This update will greatly benefit CMap clients that have a rate card admin burden, and we're really excited to get it out there to help those of you that have this issue!

Editions: Enterprise only
Plans: All

Time Off Summary Report Update

We need to make some changes to the Time Off Summary report to make sure the accruals values for clients using Paid Time Off (PTO) are correct.

Editions: All
Plans: All

Report Builder Time Off Data Fixes

We're tidying up the logic behind some of the time off data, which will enable you to go further on time off reporting in Report Builder. There are also some tweaks we need to make to the handling of accruals data for clients using Paid Time Off (PTO).

Editions: All
Plans: Pro & Enterprise

Story So Far Update for AEC

The AEC Story So Far only includes the future values for won stages ... apart from for externals, where it includes those costs irrespective of whether the stage is set to 100% probability or not. We're changing the logic to bring it inline with everything else, making sure future externals costs are only factored in on stages set to 100% probability.

Editions: AEC only
Plans: All

Preparing For Launch

CMap's Spring 2022 Release will be available in beta from March 2022, with live launch following two-weeks later.

As always, we'll share movies and guides as we build up to launch, so you can prepare yourselves and make sure you're ready to take advantage of the new upgrades.

In the meantime, if you have any questions don't hesitate to get in touch!