Period type, Periods, Worker Periods and Time sheet Periods

This topic has always confused me a hell lot. Hence trying to put down in writing my observations, so that i do not have to re-invent the wheel every time. The steps are as follows:

1. You create a Period type of 'Week' type. (Organisation administration > Common > Calendar > Period type)
2. After the period type is created, you generate the periods. While generating the periods, do not check the 'Update worker periods' and 'Update timesheet periods' checkbox, so that you can then understand the concept more correctly.
3. Now the periods are created for the period type. However there are no employees attached to the newly created period type.
4. Create a new employee and navigate to the 'Project management' tab in the ribbon. Click on the 'Project setup' icon. Project setup form would open up.
5. In this form, select the newly created 'Period type' from the 'Period code' drop down.
6. With the selection of 'Period code' in step 5 against the worker, you would assume that the periods that are created for the selected period code are assigned to the worker. However that is not the case.
7. To verify click on the 'Period status' icon and you would find out that the grid is empty. The reason for this is that though the period type is assigned to the worker, however the worker is not yet updated with the periods created for that period type.
8. To do this, there are two ways, either to do it by clicking the 'Update worker periods' button in the 'Period status' form (which would just update if for the said worker) OR to do it by clicking the 'Update worker periods' button from the 'Period type' form. If it is done from the 'Period type' form, then the worker periods are updated for all the employees associated with that period code.
9. This setup till now, still does not allow the user to submit the timesheet, as the timesheet periods are still not created for the newly created 'Period code'. Click on the 'Show timesheet periods' and verify it for yourself.
10. To do that, click the 'Update timesheet period' button and generate the timesheet periods.

Conclusion:

This means that creation of period type, generation of periods for the period type and association of that period type with an employee DOES NOT mean that the periods that are created for the period type are associated with the employee as worker periods. User will have to associate the created periods to the employee as worker periods by clicking update worker period button. Similarly the timesheet periods have to be updated for the created period type.

Thanks
Sarang