Creating and Processing Project Milestone Events

There are three types of project milestone events that you can utilize: Project, Task Completion Event, and Performance Obligation Event. Create and manage notifications for these events, as well as fulfillment of performance obligations, by following these steps:

  1. On the Publications form, ensure that the appropriate users have subscribed to the Project Completion Alert, Project Task Completion Alert, and Project Obligation Completion Alert publications.
  2. On the Project Obligation Group Cost Codes form, specify obligation groups and their associated cost codes. Once a group has been assigned to a performance obligation event, it cannot be deleted.
  3. Open the Project Milestone Events form.
  4. Specify this information in the Project group of fields:
    Project
    Select the project.
    Enable MS for Project Completion
    Select this field to enable notifications for all users subscribed to the Project Completion Alert publication, as well as any additional users specified in the User Notification field.
  5. Specify this information in the Task Completion Event group of fields:
    Enable MS for Task Completion
    Select this field to enable notifications for all users subscribed to the Project Task Completion Alert publication, as well as any additional users specified in the User Name field.
    Task
    Ensure that the list of tasks is correct and complete. Corrections or additions can be made on the Project Tasks form.
    Enable MS for Task Completion
    Select this field to enable notifications when this specific task is complete. Notifications will be set to all user subscribed to the Project Task Completion Alert publication, as well as any additional users specified in the User Name field.
  6. For each performance obligation, specify this information in the Performance Obligation Event group of fields:
    Enable MS for Performance Obligation
    Select this field to enable notifications for all users subscribed to the Project Obligation Completion Alert publication, as well as any additional users specified in the User Name field.
    Invoicing
    Select this field to indicate that an invoice milestone must be created and processed before the Processed field is selected, which indicates that obligation event is complete.
    Obligation
    Select the cost type of the obligation. Choose Labor, Material, Other, or All.
    Obligation Group
    Select one of the obligation groups that you created in step 2. Leave this field blank to apply the event to all obligation groups.
    Project MS
    Specify the type of milestone. Choose Cost, Hours, Percent Complete, or Time Elapsed. If you select Time Elapsed, the system prompts you to create a background task. This background task will be used to trigger the event, rather than the Next MS Threshold amount that other milestone types use. If you fail to create a background task, the Project MS selection will change from Time Elapsed to Cost.
    Recurring
    Select this field if future event thresholds of this type will always be the same. When each recurring event is complete, a new event is automatically created with the same threshold. This field is disabled when Project MS is Time Elapsed.
    MS Threshold
    Meeting, or exceeding, the value specified here creates a milestone alert, which indicates that an invoice milestone can be created and processed. This field is disabled when Project MS is Time Elapsed.
    Project Task
    Select the project task with which to associate this obligation, or leave this field blank to avoid associating it with a specific project task.
  7. After all sequences are created, click Save. The system calculates the Next MS Threshold amount for the initial sequence of each Project MS type, with the exception of Time Elapsed, which uses a background task to control event triggering. However, for events marked as Recurring, the system creates a new obligation event with the same information and calculates the threshold for that event.
  8. If you have added or removed project cost codes, click the Recalculate Obligations button to recalculate the accumulated totals and next scheduled amounts. You may also perform this task on the Project Obligation Group Cost Codes form. This step is only necessary if project or job transactions have occurred. We recommend that you complete all of your modifications before you click this button.
  9. After an event is triggered, if the Invoicing field is selected, the system waits for an invoicing milestone to be processed before it marks the event as processed. If the Invoicing field is not selected, the system immediately marks the event as processed.
  10. The system looks for the next event sequence with the same Obligation, Obligation Group, Project MS, and Project Task, then calculates its Next MS Threshold amount. If the event is recurring, the system creates a new sequence, then copies that recurring sequence's information into it.