Availability control (AVC) question

[Former Member]

Hello experts,

I have the following business requirement that I need to implement in AVC. Even though my requirement pertains to the Grants management module, the concept should be the same as FM AVC - so all FM gurus, feel free to pitch in:

1. Client wants budget control at the sponsored class (budget expense category) level over the duration of the budget.

2. Client wants budget control at the entire grant budget level over the duration of the grant.

For example, if there is a $100 grant and of this, $40 is dedicated for supplies and $60 for personnel. So, warning/error messages should be displayed when: a) the total expenses meet or exceed $100; and b) total expenses for supplies meet/exceed $40.

If you could guide me as to how to configure this, that will be very helpful.

Thanks a lot.

Ajay

[iklovski]

Hi,

Normally, you can define different ledgers of AVC, but I will ask you this: if the parts (in you example supplies and personnel) always compose the whole, that is XYZ=Total, then making control on lower level (X, Y and Z accordingly) will always mean the control on higher level as well. So, what's the problem? Or am I missing something?

Regards,

Eli

[Former Member]

Thanks for your response Eli.

Here is the situation: The client wants control at the grant budget level - 90% as warnings and 100% as errors. In addition, for payroll (the only exceptional Activity group), they want a warning to be displayed at 90% as well as for 100%. In other words, they dont want to stop any payroll postings because of AVC.

So under such circumstances, how do I exclude that one activity group ('Payroll') from the 'all groups' ('++').

I hope this clarifies.

Thanks for your input.

AJ

[Former Member]

You can create an individual activity group for payroll (80) even though you still have the ++ for all groups. Matching entries are searched for first (see step b). This is how we avoid stopping any payroll processes.

The active availability control proceeds as follows when searching for matching entries:

a) Determines the tolerance profile to be used

b) Determines all matching entries (check events with their tolerance limits) of the tolerance profile, which fit the activity group

c) Checks the tolerance limit in inverted sequence of the check events, starting with the highest percentage tolerance limit

d) Determines the action (=message type and if necessary event) when the first of these tolerance limits is exceeded.

e) Suppresses the action found, if the Inactive indicator is set for the entry.

[Former Member]

Will,

Thanks for your reply - that helped. Please confirm that this setting will work:

For tolerance profile:

Ceiling type Activity group Order Inactive Message type Usage

Expenditures All groups 1 Warning 90

Expenditures All groups 2 Error 100

Expenditures All groups 1 Warning 90

Expenditures All groups 2 Warning 100

Will this work?

Thanks a lot.

AJ

[Former Member]

Are you going to add the activity group 80 like below? This is how ours is setup. This works to prevent payroll from stopping because of budget erors.

Expenditures All groups 1 Warning 90

Expenditures All groups 2 Error 100

Expenditures All groups 1 Warning 90

Expenditures All groups 2 Warning 100

Expenditures 80 1 Warning 90

Expenditures 80 2 Warning 100

[Former Member]

Expenditures All groups 1 Warning 90

Expenditures All groups 2 Error 100

Expenditures All groups 1 Warning 90

Expenditures All groups 2 Warning 100

Make sure that you don't have two identical limits with the same activities and same usage rates with different message types like with order #2 above. It has both Error 100 and Warning 100.

[Former Member]

Thank you Will. Mine had a typo - two of those entires should have been 'activity group 80' and not 'all groups' as I had mentioned (i was copying - pasting, and forgot to correct those two).

Thanks a lot for your help.

AJ

[Former Member]

Will,

Sorry for the delay in responding - but i tried this and it did not work.

I have

Exp ++ 1 90% warning

Exp ++ 2 100% Error

Exp 80 1 90% warning

Exp 80 2 100% warning

When i post a payroll related JE, it still gives me a hard stop when i post over what has been budgeted for fringes or salaires.

Please help. I am not sure what i am doing wrong.

Thank you,

AJ

Edited by: Ajay Vidya on Oct 13, 2009 3:22 PM

[Former Member]

A journal entry does not produce a "payroll activity" type entry (i wish it did because my testing would have been much easier). You have to test via a payroll test run in a sandbox client.