Using the Jobs List

Click the Jobs menu option, to display a list of all Jobs across the practice.

This article contains the following sections:

• Displaying the Jobs List
• State
• Estimated, Actual and Variance and Budget
• Expanding the Columns
• Filter Drawer in Jobs Lists
• Search, Filters and Views in the Jobs List
• Changing the Columns Displayed in the Jobs List
• Custom Fields in Jobs Lists
• Hiding Closed Jobs
• Primary Jobs
• Displaying Jobs as a Board or List
• Viewing the state, time allocations and comments on the Jobs List
• Sync
• Exporting a List
• Adding a Job

Displaying the Jobs List

The Jobs List is available from the Jobs menu, from Clients - Jobs and from your Home - My Jobs.
You can use the Jobs List to:

• Search, filter and view lists of Job.
• Use the Views selector to select the Jobs that display. An FYI administrator can set up Jobs Views for your practice (such as Jobs filtered by one or more certain Job State).
• View the state, due date and time allocations on the list of Jobs.
• View the Category that the Job has been filed under.
• View the last comment added to a job. To display all the Comments for a job, open the job and display the Comments tab.
• Locate a Job you wish to work on, and to see all the emails, documents and tasks that are relevant to a specific job.
• Job Link to create a hyperlink to a selected job.
• When displayed from the Client workspace, if Show jobs by client is ticked in the Practice Settings, only the jobs for the specific client are included. Refer to Managing Practice Settings.
  

You can select a job from the Jobs list to:

• See all the emails, documents, and tasks relevant to that specific job
• Add a comment, update the job state, and assign time to a job

Refer to the section Working with Jobs.

Video Walkthrough
For a video walkthrough of this feature, refer to Tracking WIP using the Job Board (4 min).

State

The State displays the state of each job, according to how this is held in Xero Practice Manager - for example, In Progress, At Risk or Blocked. The colour coding can be set for your practice using the Job States function in FYI. Refer to Job States.

Estimated, Actual and Variance and Budget

Estimated, Actual and Variance columns display time allocations. Estimated is imported from the XPM Tasks in Xero Practice Manager jobs. Actual is derived from the Time entries in FYI or Xero Practice Manager against those XPM Tasks. These are shown as times, in hours and minutes, for example, 01:30 for 1 hour and 30 minutes or 01:45 for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Budget displays as a monetary amount in a currency format, for example, 1,200.00 or 200.00.

Expanding the Columns

You can expand the Name, Client or Group column by clicking the Expand icon in the column heading. This is useful if the Job, Client or Group has a long name, and also when searching to see which of the documents, clients or jobs you are looking for are in the search results. Click the Expand icon again to return to the usual column width.

If you are saving the view, it can be saved with the columns expanded by saving the view with Save Advance Search selected.

Filter Drawer in Jobs Lists

In Jobs lists, you can use the Filter Drawer to easily apply filters to any of the columns that are available in the list, providing the column can have a filter applied. This allows you to filter on columns even if the view does not already show them. Refer to Filter Drawer.

The Filter Drawer is displayed in the Jobs list and in the Client - Jobs and Home - My Jobs tabs by clicking the Expand Filter Drawer button (to the left of the View button).

When selections are made from the Filter Drawer, the Jobs lists and the filters in the columns are updated automatically as you make your selections.

The Filter Drawer can be used as an alternative to, or in combination with, selecting filters from the column headings in a list (refer to Sorting and Filtering).

Note: The Filter Drawer is "Sticky" so if you leave it open (either from the Jobs list or from the Client - Jobs or Home - My Jobs tabs) and move to a different page, returning to the Jobs list, Client - Jobs or Home - My Jobs tab will re-display the Filter Drawer as expanded. Or if you close the Filter Drawer and leave the page, it will be closed when you re-display the Jobs list, or Client - Jobs or Home - My Jobs tabs.

Search, Filters and Views in the Jobs List

You can use standard functions to select a View, search and filter the Jobs List. And FYI administrator can also change and save the Views that are available. These Views are then also available on the Jobs Board. Refer to Saving Changes to the View Layout, Modifying and Deleting Views.

When searching in the Jobs list, the text you enter in the "Search jobs" field will search in the Job Name, the Job ID and also the client name and FYI searches for any of these containing the search characters.

You can also search for Jobs for clients assigned to one or more Managers or to one or more Partners. Select the Manager and/or Partner in the search boxes. To select more than one Manager or Partner, select each in turn from the drop-down lists.

If you make a selection for Manager or Partner, or enter search criteria, this is held as the selection if you then re-display the Jobs Board and vice versa.

Changing the Columns Displayed in the Jobs List

Using the Columns function, you can include additional columns in the Jobs list such as Manager, Partner and Assigned (to show who the Job is assigned to). Refer to Adding/Removing/Moving Columns in a List.

You can also include the columns for Created on, Created by, Modified on and Modified by in a view. You can sort and filter on these in the Jobs list. They can also be added to views for that are used in Automations.

Custom Fields in Jobs Lists

If Custom Fields are enabled for Jobs in Xero Practice Manager, these can be included as columns in the Jobs lists in FYI (refer to Adding/Removing/Moving Columns in a List). These are selected in the same way as Custom Fields on the Clients List (refer to Searching for Clients). As well as the Job Category, these provide additional ways to sort and filter jobs. 

Hiding Closed Jobs

By default, the Jobs list will hide any jobs that are 'closed'.

To hide closed jobs, click the Hide the closed jobs button.

To show closed jobs in the selection, click Unhide the closed jobs.

Jobs are marked as being closed using the State.

When you move out of the list, this is automatically set to the default settings of Hide Closed enabled.

An FYI administrator can set up which of your Xero Practice Manager custom States indicate a closed job using the FYI Job States function. Refer to Job States.

Primary Jobs

For clients that are part of a client group, there will be a Xero Practice Manager job for each client and for each year.

In FYI, you can nominate which job is the Primary Job for that client group. Refer to Nominating the Primary Job.

Once the Primary Jobs have been nominated for clients within a client group, you can use the Jobs List to display only these primary jobs.

On the Jobs List, to show only the Primary jobs, click the Primary Only button to enable this.

When you move out of the list, this is automatically set to the default settings of Primary Only set off.

Displaying Jobs as a Board or List

The Jobs List can be displayed as a Board or List. Click the Board button in the top right-hand corner. Refer to Using the Jobs Board.

Selecting Board displays Jobs by State, with a total count of all jobs for each State, and a summary of each job within that State. Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen to scroll left and right.

Where selections have been made such as the View (Manager, Partner or a search criteria) these are carried over to the Jobs Board if this is selected.

When navigating between the Job features in Jobs, Clients - Jobs and Home - My Jobs, and when you logout, your choice of the Board or List view is automatically retained.

To re-display the workspace as a list, click the List button.

Viewing the state, time allocations and comments on the Jobs List

You can use the Jobs List to view the state and time allocations on lists of Jobs (according to how this is held in Xero Practice Manager) and Comments added to Jobs in FYI.

Opening a Job from the Jobs List

You can also use the Jobs List to locate a Job you wish to work on, and to see all the emails, documents and tasks that are relevant to a specific job. Refer to Opening a Job.

Note: When displaying the Jobs list, and clicking on a client name, the Client workspace for the relevant client is opened and the Jobs tab is displayed automatically to show the Jobs for that client.

Sync

The synchronisation of Jobs from Xero Practice Manager with FYI runs automatically every 24 hours.

If the Job State, Manager or Partner is changed for any jobs in FYI, this is synchronised with Xero Practice Manager immediately.

Providing the option Maintain Jobs in FYI is set as "Off" in the Xero Practice Manager app, a manual sync can be performed if, for example, a job has been added or changed in Xero Practice Manager and needs to be available in FYI straight away. This can be done by any user from the Jobs list by clicking the Sync button and this will only sync the Jobs. Refer also to  Synchronising Clients, Staff, Jobs, Time, Tax Returns with Xero Practice Manager and Running a Manual Sync with Xero Practice Manager and Additional Notes on Syncing.

When you have requested a Sync from the Jobs list, the following message displays and the Sync button is temporarily disabled. Redisplay the Jobs list to check the Sync has finished.

Exporting a List

You can Export the information that is currently displayed in the Jobs list as a .CSV file (Comma Delimited) which you can then open in Excel. Refer to Exporting Lists.

Using the Tool Bar to Work on Jobs

When you select one or more Jobs in a list, buttons display in the tool bar with additional functions.

These allow you to perform various functions. Refer also to Using the Document Action Tool Bar.

The tool bar functions that are relevant according to whether a single job or multiple jobs are selected. The following shows the tool bar when a single job is highlighted in the Jobs List.

You use the tool bar to do the following functions, as relevant:

• Open the selected Job to display the Job workspace.
• Open in PM opens the selected job in Xero Practice Manager.
  Note: This is not relevant for GreatSoft sites.
• Bulk Update to update the Status of the selected jobs.
• Job Link to create a hyperlink to the selected job within FYI. The Job Link is copied to your clipboard and can be pasted outside of FYI.

Adding a Job

FYI administrators or a user in a User Group that has Permissions enabled for Create Jobs, can add Jobs directly from FYI. They are added by clicking Add Job from the Jobs list or Jobs Board, or using the + New and selecting Job from the list of document types, or by clicking Add Job on the Jobs list or the Jobs Board. Jobs added in FYI are synchronised to your Xero Practice Manager. Refer to Create Job in FYI and to Managing User Groups.