A few words of explanation of how task rates & work item rates work in MapleXp 1.9
First of all, what is a rate? This is a figure telling how much you should be paid for an hour of your work. Thus all this functionality is aimed at users who need to invoice their customers and expect MapleXp to help them to do so.
So far …
Task rate was introduced about a year ago in MapleXp 1.7. How did it work? You were allowed to enter the rate for particular tasks. Having this figure allowed MapleXp to present a “value” for each registered work items. What was that value calculated? It was a product of the work item duration and the rate of the respective task.
This values were presented in two places in MapleXp:
- value column in work items registry
- summary in task tree
Now …
Now, the rate can be found in two places. (1) It is still a property of a task. (2) Additionally each work item has its own rate. How are they related?
- during database conversion the task rate is copied to all related work items
- when a new work item is created it inherits the rate from its task – since then it is independent
An interesting point is when you change the rate for an existing task. What should happen to the rates that have already been copied to work items? MapleXp gives you 3 choices:
- do not modify work items – the new rate will be applied only to future work items
- copy the new rate to all existing work items
- copy the new rate only to those work items that have not yet been invoiced – this is the place where the new flag “invoiced” plays its role
The “value” of a work item is now calculated as a product of the duration and the rate of a work item.
Would you have any questions or suggestions related to this feature I will be happy to hear from you.