Summary
There are data model permissions for "Work Role" and "Work Role Template"
It's easy to add the "Work Role" tab and column to your Workflows
You can define Billing Rate and Cost Rate on Work Roles, and this financial data flows through to Scheduled Times and Time Entries
Task Owner and Scheduled Time Assignee are populated via the Work Role if selected, or if you choose to populate it a different way (e.g. Account Owner) that would clear any selected Work Role
Unassigned work (Scheduled Times) is displayed in "Resource Allocation" System Report Pages grouped by Work Role, and you assign in bulk
Who is this article for?
It's particularly relevant for Planhat Users who work in Service Delivery / Professional Services / Project Management / Implementation etc.
It's also relevant to Planhat Admins who configure their Planhat tenant for their organization (e.g. Ops)
This feature is part of Planhat Service Automation (PSA), also sometimes referred to as Professional Services or Service Delivery.
If you don't have access to these features and would like to add them, please speak with your Planhat CSM.
Series
This article is part of both our Workflows article series and our PSA article series. The most relevant articles are:
Article contents
Introduction
"Work Roles" are part of Planhat's suite of PSA features.
Work Roles are a way to assign Workflow Task steps and Scheduled Time to job roles (e.g. Implementation Manager) rather than using a Company reference (e.g. Account Owner). For example, you may have an Onboarding Team that trains new customers, while each Company is "owned" by a CSM - Work Roles are designed for this kind of use case. In the typical process, you initially assign Tasks and Scheduled Times to Work Roles in Workflow Templates, and then in individual Workflows (belonging to individual Companies), you assign Users to those Work Roles, and that assignment follows through to the Tasks and Scheduled Times. Check out our main Work Roles overview article for more general information.
In this article, we will go over some specific Work Role topics in further detail. We will cover:
Troubleshooting the question: "why can't I see Work Roles?"
Setting financial data in Work Roles, which feeds into Scheduled Time and Time Entries
The different ways of specifying Owner/Assignee (e.g. Work Role v. Account Owner) can't be used at the same time, and so clear each other
An alternative way of assigning Scheduled Times (rather than via the Workflow)
📌 Definitions
"Work Roles" are part of Planhat's suite of PSA features. Work Roles are used in Workflow Templates to denote ownership of a Task or Scheduled Time by specifying a general job role (e.g. Project Manager), rather than referring to Company ownership (e.g. Account Owner)
"Data models" (also simply called "models") are how CRM data is organized in Planhat, similar to the "objects" you may be familiar with from other tools. Some key models in this case are:
"Company" - organizations that are your customers or prospects
"User" - users of Planhat, i.e. you and your co-workers (in contrast to "End Users", which are contacts at Companies)
"Scheduled Time" - the model for forecasted work (e.g. a training session requiring 2 hours of work)
"Time Entry" - the model for logging completed work (an amount of hours worked on a specific date)
"Records" are individual instances of those data models - e.g. for the Company model, examples of Company records could be "Salesforce" and "Apple"
Each "Workflow" is a series of steps for a process
There are two types of Workflows: "Projects" and "Sequences", the first of which we will focus on here
Projects are designed for "Task" steps - actions to be carried out
You set up Workflows via "Workflow Templates", in the "Workflows" Global Tool, where you can include dynamic references such as timings (e.g. that Step 2 is due 3 days after the Workflow starts)
Individual Workflows are created from that Workflow Template - e.g. create a Company Workflow Template, apply it to a Company, and a Workflow record will be created with the dynamic references filled in as appropriate, e.g. Step 2 is due on August 1st
You can specify Work Roles and Scheduled Times on Workflow Templates, where technically they are actually "Work Role Templates" and "Scheduled Time Templates"; the actual Work Roles and Scheduled Times are the equivalents associated with individual Workflows
📌 Important to note
Work Roles are not to be confused with two other Planhat features with similar names:
"Roles" (configured within the "Settings" Global Tool) are applied to Users, and are similar to the concepts of "profiles" or "permission sets"
"External Roles" are similar to Roles, but are applied to External Users in Portals
How to view Work Roles - permissions and layout customization
🔑 Key details
There are Role data model permissions for Work Roles and Work Role Templates
Make sure Work Role is included as a tab in the applied Workflow Full-Page Profile Template
You can add the Work Role column for Tasks and Scheduled Times, in Workflow Templates and Workflows, by right-clicking on an existing column header and adding it to the left or right
Troubleshooting the question: "why can't I see Work Roles?"
You view/configure Work Roles in Workflow Templates and Workflows via:
The "Work Roles" tab
The "Work Roles" column
If you can't see these, here we take you through settings to check and configure.
Role permissions
Within the Roles in the "Settings" Global Tool (which are not to be confused with Work Roles), in the data model permissions, there are sets of permissions for "Work Role" and "Work Role Template" (the latter referring to Work Roles within Workflow Templates). Ensure these permissions are enabled for the relevant Roles.
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If you can't see these to enable in Roles, they are likely not enabled in your Planhat tenant - please reach out to the Planhat team to discuss.
Profile Templates
If these permissions are enabled but you can't see the "Work Roles" tab in Workflows, ensure that "Work Roles" is included in the applied Full-Page Profile Template, which you configure within the "Data Model" Global Tool.
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This is also how you can add tabs for Scheduled Times and Time Entries to your Workflow Profile Template.
Customize columns
Within Workflow Templates and Workflows, if the "Work Roles" column is not visible (e.g. in the "Workflow tab"), you can easily add it, in the position you like.
Simply right-click on an existing column header, select either "Add column to left" or "Add column to right", and select "Work Role" (noting that you can type into the box to find "Work Role" more quickly, as shown in the screenshot below).
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Billing Rate and Cost Rate
🔑 Key details
You can specify a Billing Rate, Cost Rate and Currency for each Work Role in a Workflow Template. Their values are copied into the Workflows created using that Workflow Template
This Work Role financial data feeds into the related data models of:
Scheduled Times - planned time (work in the future)
Time Entries - logged time (time in the past)
... which both have Billable Rate, Cost Rate and Currency as standard fields
Setup in Workflow Templates
When you are setting up Work Roles in Workflow Templates, you can specify a Billing Rate, Cost Rate and Currency for each Work Role. You can add these details in any of the following:
The Create Form
The Work Role Template Preview
The table of Work Roles in the "Work Roles" tab
Result in Workflows
Now let's say this Workflow Template is applied to a Company to create a Workflow record, and then we have assigned the Work Roles to suitable Users.
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Where else can we see these financial rates?
Firstly, the financial data from the Work Role has been included on the associated Scheduled Time records (planned time).
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In the example above, we're in the "Scheduled Times" tab on the Workflow, and we have clicked on a Scheduled Time name to open up its details (Preview) on the right-hand side. This Scheduled Time was specified as being owner by the "Engineer" Work Role, and so the Engineer's Billing Rate (Billable Rate), Cost Rate and Currency are included in this Scheduled Time.
Secondly, this financial data copies through onto Time Entries (logged time).
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In the example shown above, the User logged into Planhat is Carly, who we saw previously is set as the Engineer in this Workflow. When Carly goes to log a Time Entry on the Workflow, the financial data is pulled through from the "Engineer" Work Role.
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Interaction of Work Roles with other properties
🔑 Key details
You can't specify a Task Owner in a Workflow Template to be both an Account Owner and a Work Role, so each time you select one it will clear the other
There are other similar cases where if you make changes, other fields live-update where appropriate
Task Owners and Scheduled Time Assignees, in Workflow Templates and Workflows, can be populated in different ways:
Work Roles
Dynamic Company fields (e.g. Account Owner)
A specific named User (e.g. Bob; this is less common)
You can't use all of these at the same time for the same Task / Scheduled Time.
For example, let's say you initially have Task steps in a Workflow Template set to "Owner = Account Owner":
Then, you decide that you actually want to use Work Roles instead, so you populate the Work Role column. This will automatically remove the value of "Account Owner" from the "Owner" field.
The same thing will happen the other way around: if you start with a Work Role selected (like in the example immediately above), and then fill in "Account Owner" in the Owner column, it will remove the selected Work Role.
Remember, with Work Role specified in the Workflow Template, the Task step Owner will then be populated in the individual Workflow after you assign Work Roles (in the Work Roles tab) to Users.
This means, for example, if you then change the Work Role associated with a step in a Workflow (where the Work Roles have been assigned to Users), the Owner will update to the relevant User corresponding to that different Work Role.
If you picked a completely different User to be Task step Owner, overwriting the User added via a Work Role, it would clear the Work Role from the Work Role column.
You get the idea.
The same principles apply to Scheduled Times.
E.g. let's say these are your assigned Scheduled Times within a Workflow:
If you change the Work Role of a Scheduled Time, you will note that the User in the Assignee column automatically updates.
Work Roles in the Resource Allocation Page
🔑 Key details
Resource Allocation Pages are a way for you to assign upcoming work (Scheduled Times), reviewing User capacity/utilization
Unassigned work is grouped by Work Role, meaning it's easy to assign Scheduled Time to an appropriate User in bulk
The "Resource Allocation" System Report Page is a pre-built (but customizable) Page type that's designed for allocating upcoming work, specifically Scheduled Time records.
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Unassigned Scheduled Time is shown in the list on the left-hand side, and you can see a capacity display (like a Utilization Table) on the right-hand side. You can click into the Scheduled Time to see further details, and the dates in the table on the right automatically update to the relevant ones. You can apply filters to both sides, and further customize the Page too. For further details, see our separate article here.
With the introduction of Work Roles, you will now see the "Unassigned work" (Scheduled Times) not only grouped by the Workflow, but also by the Work Role.
This makes it really easy for you to assign upcoming work (Scheduled Time) to a User in bulk, based on their Work Role.
Looking at the example screenshot above, we can see that the Enterprise Onboarding Workflow for the Company "Tiptree Jam" has a series of Scheduled Times ("Unassigned work") that has been grouped by different Work Roles. The Project Manager has several different Scheduled Times there, for example.
We can click into that and review them as a group. Although we can use the chevrons (arrow heads) to expand/hide the details of each individual piece of work, at the bottom we can use the "Assign Work" field to assign all of these together.
