Retainer updates in General Availability

We are introducing a suite of updates to ensure more robust and accurate data capture, reporting on retainer periods, and improved management of rollover amounts.

The following updates have been released in General Availability on November 19, 2024. You can read more in the sections below.

1. Better control and reporting of rollover
2. Retainer period reporting in Advanced Analytics and via the API
3. “Planned” values on retainer periods

Please contact Calen Cole (Product Lead) at calen.cole@forecast.app if you have questions about this release.

1. Better control and reporting of rollover

When a Fixed Price or Fixed Hours retainer period is locked, if the Actuals are below the target, there is the option to roll over the “unused” value to a following period. If Actuals have exceeded the target, there is the option to subtract the value from the target of the subsequent period.

With this release, you can revert previously rolled-over amounts if you unlock a previously locked period. When deleting a period from which value has been rolled over, you can also choose whether to keep or remove the hours or price.

With this update, a user unlocking a previously locked period with a rolled-over value can revert the rollover.

With this update, a user deleting a period previously locked with rolled-over hours can remove the rolled-over hours.

Note: reverting or removing rollover options only apply when the impacted period is unlocked. If 5 hours were rolled over from Period A to Period B, and both periods are locked, unlocking or deleting Period A will not be able to revert the rollover since Period B itself is locked.

With this update, the Period Target field adjusts for the amount rolled over from the period. For example, if a period target is 10 hours, no hours are registered, and the period is locked. Rolling over all 10 hours will update the Period Target field to show 0 hours. This also means that the table's sum of all Period Targets will match the summary at the upper right of the page.

Note: We began storing the period in which the rollover came on June 19th, 2024, so this functionality applies to rollovers/subtractions made since that date and not before.

2. Retainer period reporting in Advanced Analytics and via the API

It is now possible to report on retainer period values via the API, and we have added them to the data model for retainers in Advanced Analytics. You can use either source for detailed and automated reporting on retainer projects and for building dashboards.

The following fields are now available to report on retainer periods in AvA.

Users can sum up the target and rollover values to get the adjusted target per period. 

Formula for adjusted target on Fixed Price

[Total Project Retainer Period Target Price] + [Total Project Retainer Period Rollover Price]

Formula for adjusted target on Fixed Hours

[Total Project Retainer Period Target Minutes] + [Total Project Retainer Period Rollover Minutes]

Note: divide minute fields by 60 to see the figures in hours.

Users can subtract actuals to see the remaining amounts or compare the period target with the work estimated for tasks.

Users can apply filters on the period start and end dates to filter for current periods only. For example, if you work in monthly periods, use Time Frame filters for the Retainer Period Start Date or Retainer Period End Date for This Month. 

It is now possible to pull retainer period-specific values via the API. See the following documentation on Github:

• Get project retainer periods: https://github.com/Forecast-it/API/blob/pr/rollover-api-updates/sections/projects.md#get-project-retainer-periods
• Get retainer periods: https://github.com/Forecast-it/API/blob/pr/rollover-api-updates/sections/retainer_periods.md

3. “Planned” values on retainer periods

On retainer tracking, some fields reflect the estimated time for tasks. These fields check if the estimated work aligns with the period targets. For Fixed-Price retainers, this is the “Planned T&M Price.” For Fixed-Hours and T&M retainers, this is a “Period Plan.” “Rem. Period Plan” and “Rem. T&M Period Plan” also reflect the remaining time on unfinished tasks.

“T&M Planned Time” and “Remaining T&M Time” are on a fixed-price retainer.

“Period Plan” and “Rem. Period Plan” are on a fixed-hours retainer.

“Planned T&M Price” in gray lines versus the Period Target in green on the Retainer Tracking chart.

Before this update, these Planned amounts were aggregated per Phase and shown only during the Period containing the start date of the Phase. With this update, Planned values on Retainer Tracking will report the values for all task estimates falling into Period dates, regardless of the Phase dates or if the tasks are in no Phase.

To calculate the distribution on Periods, hours from task estimates are evenly distributed over company working days, as defined in Default working hours in Admin > Company Details.