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1. Step 8 This is the final step of the wizard To finish and import the appraisal click the Finish button Adding a second appraisal Adding a second appraisal to an existing Sequel cashflow Brief You need to import a second appraisal into your project There is an existing page 82 U DS Sequel User Manual cashflow and an existing appraisal that you have previously imported You do not want to update the appraisal you want to import this appraisal as a separate second appraisal however you want to add the values to the existing cashflow effectively creating a consolidated cashflow For example there might be a general needs appraisal and a low cost home ownership appraisal but these will be combined into a single cashflow Step 1 In the Appraisal section of your project click the Import Update button Click the ellipsis button where the wizard prompts you for the filename of the appraisal you are importing Browse for the appraisal click Open and then click Next on the wizard Step 2 As there is an existing appraisal in your project you have two choices on step 2 The first is to import the appraisal as a new appraisal the default or to update the existing appraisal in your project In this scenario we want to use the first option Step 3 The default option for step 3 is to create a new cashflow because we chose the first option in the previous step However we want to ad
2. gesneiton GS Development Services ES Sequel USER MANUAL SDS Sequel User Manual Table of Contents Contents Getting Stated ee 2 Technical Contents ee 11 Global Properties Contents 2222 20 Project Explorer Contents 22 of Reports Contents 102 page U DS Sequel User Manual Getting Started Logging In When you start Sequel you will see the Login screen This will prompt you for your username password the database server and the database itself SDS Sequel v6 0 3 Authentication Windows Login Name Password Server _ localhost lv Database Demo v This version of SDS Sequel is up to date C Co The default is that Sequel will use your Windows user details to save you from typing in a username password For more information about this please see the Technical Active Directory section You will not normally need to enter a username and password manually However you may be occasionally prompted to enter a password This will happen the first time you use Sequel and if your password expires The Database field should be filled in automatically If it is not then it is likely the Server field is not correct If you don t know what it should be please contact your IT administrator who will be able to confirm what the server name is In the screenshot above the server is called localhost which is the initial default Overwrite this with the name of your serve
3. Old school Phil Shelton Bright Fut 20 09 2010 Green Green True Options Dialog Peaceful R Phil Shelton Bright Fut 09 09 2010 Green Red True Training G Paul Kriste Bright Fut 09 09 2010 Green Green True Version 6 Paul Kriste ight Fut 07 10 2010 Green Green True List of projects Cancel J Save Layout Open Read Only _ Open Ready 192 168 0 3 Demo At this stage it is not possible to change any filters To enable the filter click the Options dialog and tick the Allow changes to filters option then click Save and close This will display a new blank row above the list of projects and the bottom of the list will display the active filter being used page 7 SDS Sequel User Manual Global Properties Start Page Open Project E Please choose a Project from the list below Export Options Drag a column header here to group by that column Projet owner Team V organi VJ pate c cf Status v wfsta Locked F active 29 07 2010 Amber Old school Phil Shelton Brig ut 20 09 2010 Green Green True al Peaceful R Phil Shelton Bright Fi 09 09 2010 Green Red True Filter Row Enable Disable Filter Option Active Filter Edit Filter Button Owner Phil Shelton And Active True G Ca
4. Expiry Dates section will trigger an amber traffic light if they have expired Additionally if the Value Limit fields have been set and the total exposure in the cashflow exceeds these limits then this will generate an amber traffic light For more information on how the cashflow can be linked to organisations please see the People Organisations Account Codes topic If the Active field is set to No or Suspended field is set to Yes then this will trigger a red traffic light These are the only two fields that can prevent an organisation from being added to a project Organisations Account Codes Organisations Account Codes This section allows you to create a link between an organisation and the account code they represent in the cashflow This link enables the program to automatically report how much has been set for the Latest Estimate for each organisation As transactions are imported they will reduce the outstanding amount accordingly To create the link select the company in the Existing Organisations list and then tick each account code that will incur spend for that company Click the Save button on the far right of the editor window to finish You must additionally set the Value Limit Per Scheme and Value Limit All Schemes options in the main organisations section People Job Titles People Job Titles This section allows you to maintain a simple list of job tit
5. Services SDS Sequel lt Version No gt Logs page 18 U DS Sequel User Manual page 19 SDS Sequel User Manual Global Properties Contents Global Properties Overview L 23 Attributes ee 24 Global eee Organisations 00 26 Manage Projects eee 29 SS a 30 SecurityLevelS kC ak 30 Users o 33 Maintain Users eee 33 Project ee 35 Project Attributes eee 35 Timesheet Categories sss 39 Project Ownership eee 35 Cashflow 37 page 20 Account Codes Interest Rates Cashflow Snapshots Appraisal Organisations Suppliers Organisations Account Codes People Job Titles page 21 SDS Sequel User Manual 37 38 39 40 40 42 42 43 43 45 45 45 45 46 47 48 52 52 52 53 53 SDS Sequel User Manual People Contacts ee 53 Organisation Attributes 54 Property eee OO Property Attributes ee 59 Reports o 56 Manage Reports 56 page 22 U DS Sequel User Manual Overview Overview Global Properties is where you will enter all the key information that Sequel needs to operate This covers a range of topics such as user information cashflow account codes workflow and suppliers First here are a few tips to help you navigate and edit data The screen is composed of four main parts as follows Se SDS Sequel v6 0 3 File SystemReports View Window Help Account Code Mappings Appraisal Attributes Appraisal File Validation E Workflow Tasks Categories Tasks
6. percentage as for the Latest Estimate The third box is the balance of the Latest Estimate less the Transactions The fourth box shows the total of the allocated Transactions as a percentage of the allocated Latest Estimate If this percentage goes over 100 then you are page 92 U DS Sequel User Manual overspending on this Task The fifth box is a repeat of the actual time spent on a Task and should be read in conjunction with the report of the actual spend percentage against Latest Estimate fourth box This will help inform you whether you are overspending or under spending too quickly or too slowly Workflow List This lists out the Workflows in your Project in the same way as they are on the Project Explorer The same conventions are used for indicating Notes i e blue italics and whether a task is completed has timings or is not completed The currently selected Task is highlighted with a pale yellow background The treeview can also be expanded or collapsed by using the small or sign Shown here below only the Viability tree is expanded the rest are collapsed Gantt Chart The Gantt chart displays the progress of your Tasks by time As timings are optional for Tasks it may be that there will be nothing to display in this view There is a red vertical line on the chart that represents today s date and as such may not always be visible The chart shows two possible sets of dates for each T
7. saving values will only affect that property Some Attributes can be linked to ProVal appraisals For example Attributes such as rent per week bedrooms unit size etc can be filled in automatically from the ProVal Appraisal data The links are set up in the Global Properties All Property records can be exported to Housing Management via the Property QuickReports page 99 U DS Sequel User Manual Importing from an Appraisal Importing from an appraisal The Import button in the property section of the project explorer allows you to import property records from the appraisal in your project The dialog lists all the available Unit Types in your appraisals in this Project The far left column tells you how many units will be imported Uncheck a row to prevent it being imported This could be useful if you have a large number of properties that you are managing in phases Clicking the Import button will create the Property records for you Each unit type will be created as a folder with the properties shown inside Clicking Exit will cancel the operation You may also want to import properties directly from an external Excel file This would be useful if you wanted to import existing properties from your housing management system for cyclical or major repairs for example Please see the topic for importing from Excel Importing from an Excel workbook Importing from an Excel workbook The Import from
8. DS Sequel User Manual Interest Rates The interest rates are used to calculate the ongoing development interest for each cashflow A cashflow can use its own fixed rate but the default behaviour is to use the rates specified here The rate can be changed each month at a minimum You can add future rate assumptions as well as historical rates Please note that Sequel does not differentiate between rates for positive balances and rates for negative balances The same rate will be applied to either type of balance The interest calculation is compound and performed as follows Cashflow in Month 2 Previous Balance Rate 12 Cashflows The interest can be calculated on a cashflow in two ways The first and simplest is to use the global rate that is defined in this section of Global Properties Sequel will then calculate a compound interest based on the averaged cashflow in the month and the previous cumulative balance as defined above The second option is to use a fixed interest rate which can be defined in the cashflow wizard or cashflow properties when in the project explorer The cashflow will not then be affected by any changes to the global interest rate The interest is calculated automatically by default on the balances as shown above However it is possible to import separately calculated interest and show this in place of the automatically calculated interest for historical months From the current month Sequ
9. Global Properties Organisations topic When you have finished entering the information click the Create button to create your project and open the Project Explorer for that project Open Project page 6 SDS Sequel User Manual The Open Project screen gives a number of options for finding and opening projects By default the initial view will be only your projects that are active A project is active when it is first created and can only be set to inactive via Global Properties Typically a project will be set as inactive once it is completed and can be archived In order to control which projects you can see you need to filter the list Filtering can be done in several ways and the methods available will depend on which options you enable in the Options dialog So the very first time you use Sequel and open this screen it will look as follows S SDS Sequel v6 0 3 File SystemReports View Window Help D Global Properties Start Page Open Project Sl z Z Please choose a Project from the list below Lock Export Options 9 Drag a column header here to group by that column 8 E Project v Owner Team Organi Date c Cf Status wfSta Locked v Active E gt RZ a iste Brig 01 20 Dream Vall Phil Shelton Bright Fut 29 07 2010 Green Amber True My NEw P Paul Kriste Bright Fut 21 01 2011 True E
10. MSXML 6 0 Parser Size 1 46MB Q Parallels Tools Size 14 51M8B 239 SDS Report Designer Size 38 65MB E sps sequel Size 60 25MB ick here for information Used frequently Last Used On 15 03 2010 Gar Spee or remove it from your computer dick SQL Server System CLR Types Size 0 81MB TortoiseSVN 1 6 6 17493 32 bit Size 27 73MB 5 UK Apple Mac Size 0 12MB 9 Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Second Edition Runtime Size 7 86MB FE Visual Studio Tools for the Office system 3 0 Runtime Size 5 21MB_ Highlight SDS Sequel and click Remove or Uninstall Registry options The standard installation of SDS Sequel will write the user name and database server to the following registry keys Computer HKEY CURRENT_USER Software Shelton Development Services SDS Sequel Database Computer HKEY CURRENT_USER Software Shelton Development Services SDS Sequel User This is used to save the user re entering these each time they run the application If you would prefer not to use the registry please modify the application shortcut as follows SdsSequel Net2 exe Server address User username The Server command line option allows you to change the default database server eg server 192 168 0 8 eg server myServer myDomain local If the server is running on a non standard port eg server myServer 1513 page 15 U DS Sequel User Manual If the server is on a non default instance eg se
11. SDS Sequel has now been released If the service can identify the version and it is out of date then a red warning will appear 2 SDS Sequel was unable to check the version number If the service cannot reach the website or determine the version number an orange warning will appear 3 This version of SDS Sequel is up to date Otherwise if it is up to date then the message will appear in green and confirm that it is the correct version page 17 U DS Sequel User Manual SDS Sequel v6 0 3 k Authentication Windows Login Name Version checking response K Server localhost K Database Demo This version of SDS Sequel is up to date Quit Connect Latest Version The latest version can always be downloaded from http downloads s d s co uk sdssequel zip Error Log Files Log Files Each time the application is run a log file keeps track of any program errors that may occur One file is used per day per user and at the end of the month the files are recycled so that no more than 31 files are kept at any one time for a user The location of the log files for Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 is C Documents and Settings lt User Name gt Application Data SDS Shelton Development Services SDS Sequel lt Version No gt Logs The location of the log files for Windows Vista 7 or Windows Server 2008 is C Users lt User Name gt AppData Roaming SDS Shelton Development
12. a different point in time The traffic lights will show a comparison between the capitalised interest from the appraisal if there is one and the current cashflow interest total The ranges for page 71 U DS Sequel User Manual triggering amber and red traffic lights are also 3 and 5 respectively Cashflow Toolbar The items on the toolbar along the top of this form are described below starting from the far left moving right 2 13 14 This symbol will inform you if another user has opened your cashflow If they have this symbol will change to a yellow warning triangle Moving your mouse over the symbol will display a tooltip which will list which user s has opened it Furthermore the background of the cashflow forecast will turn yellow If another User should make a change to the Cashflow then the warning symbol will change to a critical red symbol The tooltip will then also indicate the exact time of the change The cashflow forecast background will turn red To reload your cashflow reselect from the drop down list immediately to the right of the symbol 2 Sequel will wait five seconds between each check to the server As it is possible to have more than one Cashflow in your Project use this drop down list to select the Cashflow that you want to work with To see the overall position for this Project consolidate multiple cashflows by clicking the Consolidate button To return to a single cashflow view clic
13. a new appraisal when there is no Sequel cashflow Brief You need to import an appraisal for the first time into your project There are no existing cashflows in your project as you will be creating a cashflow from this appraisal Step 1 In the Appraisal section of your project click the Import Update button Click the ellipsis button where the wizard prompts you for the filename of the appraisal you are importing Browse for the appraisal click Open and then click Next on the wizard Step 2 As there are no existing appraisals in your project you will not be able to select any options on step 2 of the wizard The wizard will import this file as a new appraisal Step 3 As there are no existing cashflows in your project you will not be able to select any options on step 3 of the wizard The wizard will create a new cashflow for this appraisal Step 4 On step 4 you need to decide how the values in the cashflow that is going to be created by this appraisal will be set As this is going to be a new cashflow the Add options are not relevant and have been greyed out The only choice you need to make is whether the Budget and Latest Estimate will both be updated or just one of them It is highly unlikely that you will only want to update one of these so the wizard selects the first option as the most useful Step 5 On step 5 you have a similar choice to that in step 4 except this time the wizard
14. building blocks of the workflows Each workflow is made up of a series of tasks defined in this section Note that tasks need to be created here first before you can create a workflow template The editor screen is made up of four areas that are explained below Each text field has a number in brackets that refers to the maximum number of characters that can be used Essential information There are only two essential pieces of information for a task the display name and the scope The display name is what the user will see in the workflow manager and the scope is your brief description of what they need to do in order to complete the task It is intended that the scope will be supplemented by procedure documents in the resources section The edit level defaults to level one This edit level serves to restrict who can edit this task in the global properties However if you have set access to global properties to level five then this option will have no effect Optional information The help tip appears when the user hovers their mouse over the task name in the workflow manager This can be useful to provide additional information you might not be able to fit into the task name The category is used to group tasks together in the Existing Tasks list The sign off level is the minimum security level required in order for a user to complete a task Lastly the starred option is a means of flagging key tasks perhaps for reporting purposes
15. buttons to rearrange the order of the Attributes the floppy disk button to save your layout and the red cross button to delete your layout The double green arrow button refreshes the screen The box with the tick in it will select every Attribute whilst the box without a tick in it will unselect every Attribute The Project QuickReports is also different from the others in the way it responds to the Only show this Project checkbox When the report is run for all Projects the grid is pivoted so that the Attributes become columns and each row represents a Project When it is showing only the current project it is displayed in the same way as the attributes grid in the program Cashflow QuickReport Cashflow QuickReport The right hand side of the Cashflow QuickReport allows you to choose which of the five reports you would like to see In addition there are two date selectors for limiting the range of data returned The five reports for Cashflows are 1 Cashflow Summary This reports a single row for each Cashflow with details about the owner time last edited interest rate etc 2 Forecast and Actual Spend by Month This reports a row for each month in the Cashflow highlighting Forecasts Transactions Nett Cashflow Interest and Cumulative Balance 3 Budget Latest Forecast and Actual by Account Code This reports a row for each Account Code in the Cashflow and totals Budget Latest Estimate page 106 U DS Seq
16. codes for this purpose Each organisation in Sequel will require a set of account codes from the finance system These will be added in the Cashflow Account Codes section This is so that when actual transactions are imported from the finance system into Sequel they will automatically go to the right code in the cashflow You will also need to specify the financial year starting month and the accounting period format For example consider the following group structure Bright Futures HA Parent gt gt Bright Homes Ltd Subsidiary gt gt Bright Contracting Ltd Subsidiary There are three separate legal entities shown above From the finance system point of view there are two possible options 1 Each legal entity has a separate different set of account codes page 26 U DS Sequel User Manual 2 Each legal entity uses the same set of account codes In most cases the second option will apply although schemes will be coded in the finance system to different companies at a higher level So if option 1 applies you will need to add three organisations each with their own set of account codes If option 2 applies then you only need to add one organisation with the shared set of account codes Note that this doesn t preclude you from reporting on these entities separately In order to identify which project belongs to which organisation entity add a project attribute with a list of available organisations to c
17. file directly to the default printer The Import File and Export Note allow you to import Microsoft Rich Text Format RTF files or to save the contents of the Summary as an RTF file This file format is supported by Microsoft Office products and preserves the formatting of the text and any files or images you may have included Alternatively you may send the Summary directly to an email recipient by specifying the email address when prompted The email will be sent from the email address specified in your User profile in Global Properties Attributes Project Attributes are defined in the Global Properties and are used to record information about your project that would be useful to group or filter by when reporting To change a value for an attribute simply click on the right column and enter the value There are many different types of attribute such as drop down lists dates text numbers etc and you will be presented with the appropriate editor for the attribute you have chosen For example clicking on the Start On Site Date attribute would change it into a date picker from which you can choose the new value Sequel will automatically save as you change each value page 63 U DS Sequel User Manual Some Attributes will be compulsory in which case they will be highlighted in red text They will turn black once a value has been entered An Attribute s group heading will also be red until all subsidiary comp
18. filter on For example if you wanted to report on all schemes in 2010 11 or 2011 12 then you would enter 2010 11 on one line press enter then enter 2011 12 on the second line To clear any filters delete the values in that cell After entering a new filter or removing one the report data will re load based on your selection Whilst it is doing this the Data Preview page title will change to Loading and you will not be able to preview the report while this is happening To check the data that will appear in the report you can use the Data Preview page This will display a grid of the information that will go into the report This can be useful for checking whether your filters are correct For more detailed information about reports and filtering please refer to the SDS Report Designer user manuals Scheduling Each of the reports can be run according to one or more schedules Clicking the Schedule button will launch the scheduling dialog To create a new schedule choose the Create new schedule option from the drop down list at the top of the dialog This will start the Windows Task Scheduler Use this to determine how often the report will be run and then click OK to return to the Sequel Report Scheduler dialog The next step is to decide where to output the report to It could either be a printer or a file type such as Excel or PDF If you choose to export to a printer you will be able to c
19. functionality there is one additional option specific to the project attributes Include this attribute in project listings This option when enabled will cause the attribute to be displayed as a column in the Open Projects screen This allows you to create your own set of information that you want to see when browsing for projects Timesheet Categories Timesheet Categories This section allows you to maintain a simple list of categories for the Timesheet function in the project section of the Project Explorer Project Ownership Project Ownership Each project is owned by a unique combination of a user and an organisation Only one user organisation combination can own a project at any one time It is not possible to transfer projects between organisations This section has two methods for transferring ownership of projects between people Assign by user This option transfers all the projects owned by a user to another user This is useful in the event that someone leaves the organisation and their schemes are transferred to one other person Assign by project page 35 U DS Sequel User Manual This option only transfers the selected project to another user Again this may be useful for transferring projects after a user has left but could also be used to move projects between departments at key stages for example from new business to development Note The standard command buttons for savin
20. in which you can enter your forecasts each column by default representing one month Months are the smallest unit of time in which you can forecast money To enter money on the Cashflow simply type the amount into the appropriate cell The cell s background will turn green when you start typing To finish editing press lt Enter gt or lt Tab gt or any of the arrow keys The cell will lose focus and its background will turn back to white indicating that it has saved your change The C f in Month row will update along with the interest calculation and the cumulative balance automatically However on a slow network you may prefer to turn off automatic updates by unticking the box Automatically update cashflow in month This means that the C f in Month Interest and Cumulative Balance will be inaccurate until you manually refresh them or close the Cashflow Manager Closing the Cashflow Manager will automatically update the balances As you move further back in time you will see the background colour of the cells turn to a pale yellow This yellow colour indicates that the month you are looking at is in the past Cells with a white background are in the current month or the future Once you have imported Transactions then the background of the cells will turn pale blue You will not then be able to edit the cells as they represent actual amounts spent Any Forecasts in these months will be replaced by the Transac
21. is page 81 U DS Sequel User Manual referring to the forecasts in the cashflow You will not have this option enabled if you have not completed the detailed fees cashflow in the appraisal as the data will not exist in that case This does not prevent you from importing the appraisal however it just means you will need to set the forecasts manually in the cashflow As with step 4 the most useful option is set automatically which is to set the forecast timings in the cashflow if they exist in the appraisal Step 6 This step is about matching the costs in your appraisal to the appropriate account code in your cashflow These may differ if the descriptions in your appraisal don t match those in your cashflow To do this click into the description in the right hand column This will then display a drop down box with a list of all available account codes Choose the account code that matches the appraisal description on the left You will not be able to proceed beyond this point until all codes have been mapped A warning message will appear if you have missed any The only exception to this rule is capitalised interest This is because the cashflow will generate its own interest so you do not need to import it into the cashflow Step 7 This step is for updating appraisal unit types As you are importing a new appraisal and not updating an existing appraisal this step is disabled and you can click Next to continue
22. is allocated but you could reduce this by altering the figure in the list if you wanted to spread the Budget over more than one Task You will not be able to finish the Wizard if the associations for an Account Code do not total 100 page 69 U DS Sequel User Manual Cashflow Manager Cashflow Manager Cashflow Manager The Cashflow Manager is the tool that you use to create your cashflow forecasts and import the transactions from the finance system The Cashflow Manager displays a large amount of information and can be thought of as dividing into three distinct sections Codes Section On the left hand side of the screen are the account codes that make up the cashflow They are grouped by income and expenditure categories The friendly description of the Account Code is displayed to see which code this represents in your finance system hover your mouse pointer over the text The tooltip that appears will tell you what the code is The tooltip will also tell you whether the Account Code is a cash or non cash item and whether it is being included in the calculation for the traffic light status report Totals Section The middle of the screen is taken up with the five main Cashflow totals These are for Budget Latest Estimate Commitments Transactions and the Balance of Latest Estimate to Spend The Balance of Latest Estimate to Spend is calculated by deducting any Transactions in the Cashflow from the Latest Estimate Co
23. lt j Merge Project management Eco Homes J Feasibility Feasibility Final Certificate Funding Letting of contract lt Replace Offer stage Planning Practical Completion Pre planning Project management Sales schemes Site Assessment In this example the following will happen when a button is clicked Copy This will copy the source Workflow into Global Properties so there will now be two page 50 U DS Sequel User Manual copies of Feasibility in Global Properties Merge This will merge the selected Project Workflow into the selected existing Template keeping any existing Template Tasks that were not in the Project Workflow Replace This will delete the selected Template first then copy the selected Project Workflow into Global Properties Note It is only possible to select one source Workflow and one Template in this view page 51 U DS Sequel User Manual People Organisations Categories Organisations Categories This section allows you to maintain a hierarchical list of categories for the organisations that you create in the People Organisations Suppliers section Once you have added a new category you can use the blue arrow buttons at the top left of the editor window to re arrange the categories in any order or hierarchy Organisations Suppliers Organisations Suppliers This section deals with all the contractors consultants suppliers and other organisations th
24. options and the shortcut to the Filter Editor The Filter Builder allows you combine many different types of filter across any of the fields in the report In this way you can customise the output of the reports to suit any requirement Summaries Right click the footer panel to open a menu which allows you to create various sums based on the data in the column The options available will vary depending on the type of data in the column Exporting To export the information click Export You will be prompted for a filename and what type of file you would like to save as The available options are Excel PDF Word page 105 U DS Sequel User Manual Rich Text and Web page html Project QuickReport Project QuickReport The Project and Property QuickReports differ from the others in that you can save layouts of which attributes you would like to report on and the order in which they appear On the left hand side are the list of all available Attributes At the top of this list are a toolbar and a drop down list The drop down list contains the definitions of the layouts you have created as well as the default layout All Items To create a new layout click the New Layout button from the mini toolbar This will add the layout into the drop down list with the name My Layout Click the item to edit the name or press lt F2 gt Tick the Attributes you would like to include Use the blue arrow
25. the individual status of each organisation This is also shown by an equivalent traffic light to the left of the selected organisation node in the list A red traffic light indicates that the organisation has been marked as not Active or has been Suspended which means they cannot be added to a new Project an amber light means that it has expired insurances or that it has exceeded specified scheme limits In this instance the User will be warned but they can choose to override and continue adding the organisation to their Project Adding an Organisation Adding an Organisation To add a supplier to your Project click the Add button at the top left of the Project Explorer The list on the left shows the user defined categories and all available suppliers organisations available to add to this Project The list view on the right shows the values stored against each supplier in the Global Properties If a supplier has been marked as not Active or is Suspended then you will not be able to add them into any Project If their insurances have expired or the scheme limits have been exceeded you will be warned but allowed to continue adding them to your Project page 96 U DS Sequel User Manual Once the organisation has been added to your Project you can add Notes to keep records of your correspondence and phone calls etc with them These Notes will appear in the view on the right hand side of the screen Notes on
26. to view the information that was imported from the appraisal You cannot make any changes to the appraisal from here If you need to update the appraisal you will need to run the appraisal wizard There are three main sections general information unit type information and the development cashflow Removing an Appraisal Removing an Appraisal Removing an appraisal has repercussions beyond just the appraisal It is possible that the appraisal has been used to populate a Cashflow A warning dialog is enabled when the appraisal has been used to populate a Cashflow By ticking the boxes on that dialog you are asking Sequel to remove any amounts from the linked cashflow that were put there by the appraisal Where removing the amount results in a negative balance a zero will remain in its place to alert you to the fact Un tick the boxes to leave the Cashflow intact Alternatively tick the Completely Clear Cashflow option to delete all forecast data from a Cashflow regardless of whether the Appraisal put it there page 87 U DS Sequel User Manual Workflow Workflow Summary Workflow Summary The Workflow section of the Project Explorer contains summary Workflow information for your Project A Workflow is a collection of Tasks that you have created All Tasks are created in the Global Properties section The Tasks created in the Global Properties are called Task Templates These Task Templates are then arranged i
27. Excel button will launch the Import From Excel dialog which will allow you to specify the file that you want to import from Browse for the Excel file you would like to import by clicking on the ellipsis button This will open a standard file browser dialog from which you can select the file Once the file has been selected you will be able to select a sheet name from the drop down list You can only import from one sheet at a time although it does not matter what the sheet is called The very first time you use this dialog you will need to create the mappings between the Excel columns and the Sequel property attributes To do this 1 First select the Excel column from the first drop down on the left in the grid 2 Next select the Sequel attribute from the drop down on the right hand side of the grid 3 You can then click the small button at the bottom of the grid which has an icon of a green tick This will save your mapping into the grid Conversely selecting an existing mapping and clicking the small button with the red cross will delete the mapping from the grid Please note that nothing is saved unless the import process is completed and also that the option Save Mappings is page 100 U DS Sequel User Manual also ticked Use the third column in the grid to pick the rows that should be used to generate the default property name In this example we have selected the plot number and address fields however yo
28. Milestones Tasks Links TE Tapio EEE Main editor window Affects transactions Fin Year Convention First Fin Month In Year Affects transactions Income Transactions are Positive K Expenditure Transactions are Positive V Affects transactions DD Global Properties EJ z Z Main Menu Existing Organisations Organisation IS G e amp Properties 9 Global Description 2 Organisations Organisations are the highest level in the hierarchy Enter your Organisation details before adding any Users aj U Manage Projects Servers z Security Levels Editor 9 Use in Users Changes will not take effect until Sequel is restarted amp Project Projectyattributes Organisation prightFuturesHA SS HC Regd No H0000 Timeshat Categories le Project prer Address 1 Redas ness SS Telephone 01483 278444 Cashflow Existing items Address2 Redcroft Walk Fax 0845 076 3777 A Existing Items H Te i Main menu e own Cranleigh hB hir County Surrey Cashflow Transactions f Cashflow Snapshots Post Code GU6 7DA E Appraisal Tasks Workflow Templates Command buttons No Of Months To Import Trans 2 v Workflow Synchronisation Account Code for Interest Not applicable lt Disable Cashfiow Vire Option K Licence Manager People Organisations Categories Organisations Suppliers Organisations Account Codes People Job Titles People Contacts Organisation Attributes 9 Property D Property Attributes E Reports B
29. Organisations when you select the organisation in the list People Manager People Manager Click the Manager button to go to a more detailed view of the organisation Attributes Organisation Attributes work in the same way as Project Attributes The Attributes are first created in the Global Properties section and are then available for use with all organisations in Sequel However the values that are stored against them will be specific to the Project that you are working on For example Bob s Architects may have been given a performance attribute of Worse than useless for one Project For a different Project however Bob s Architects may have received a performance rating of Merely useless Again as for Project Attributes there is no limit to the number of Attributes that can be created in the Global Properties Project Attributes section People If there are people listed in the organisation then you will be able to write a letter or send them an email assuming these items have been completed in the Global Properties by clicking on the relevant buttons Orders Orders placed with an organisation in Sequel do not generate a purchase order for an actual supplier They are a method of keeping track of expenditure commitments with a particular organisation Orders placed in Sequel are copied to a user specified Cashflow and are shown in the Committed column of the Cashflow This allows
30. Step Two Update all cashflows When this is ticked Sequel will update all cashflows in the database with actual data from the transaction file This is the preferred method for quickly updating all Projects otherwise each Cashflow must be done in turn Last Period End Select the last completed period in the finance system You cannot import transactions for a current or future month By default this is always set to last month Add missing Account Codes If you have an Account Code in the Global Properties master library that has not been added to this particular cashflow the import routine can add it automatically when a transaction occurs This is useful when a User may have removed Account Codes from their Cashflow for the sake of readability and you do not want to manually go through and re add them Sequel will add the Code with a zero Budget and Latest Estimate However it may be that this will result in a Code being added which shouldn t be For example if a sales transaction is wrongly posted to a General Needs Cashflow then this will be added to the Cashflow when this option is selected Step Three Import all transactions regardless of transaction period When this is ticked Sequel will replace the data in the database with that in the transactions file This means that ALL existing transactions will be deleted This is useful when initially loading Sequel with historical data but is not necessary on an ongoing monthly
31. The starred option has no impact in the workflow manager itself Timing Information There are two separate timing options here The first is the Start Description and Finish Description These are the milestone descriptions you created in the page 46 U DS Sequel User Manual Workflow Task Milestones section If appropriate select the milestones you would like to use from the dropdown boxes The second option is the duration of the task When tasks are linked together using dependencies see Workflow Workflow Templates topic you can define a standard duration thot will be used to work out how long each task should be If you do not define your own the program will use a default of one week in that scenario Resources This area lists the links and resources that you defined in the Workflow Tasks Links section Tick any resources that apply to this task Workflow Templates Workflow Templates Workflow templates can be created for any kind of process Typically these templates should be set up to follow any existing development checklists procedures Whilst you cannot have workflows within other workflows there is no limit to the number of workflows that you can have A workflow template is used to create the live workflow in a project in a similar way that a Word or Excel template can create a new document or workbook The workflow in the project is a copy of the template changes to either the template or t
32. When an account code has an outstanding balance to spread and there are already some forecasts predicted in the cashflow a small button will appear next to the Balance to Forecast for that row with an F as a caption Clicking this button will re forecast the outstanding balance automatically based on the existing payments It will also take into account the proportions of the existing amounts so that the payment profile will remain identical and just increase decrease in value depending on the amount being forecast For example assume an outstanding balance of 6 000 and the following existing forecasts Month 1 9 000 Month 2 3 000 Month 3 0 Month 4 6 000 There is no way to re forecast this using the Spread Forecast tool as this profile does not match an s curve or straight line However the quick forecast button will preserve this profile and pro rata the outstanding 6 000 Month 1 9 000 3 000 12 000 Month 2 3 000 1 000 4 000 Month 3 0 Month 4 6 000 2 000 8 000 page 4 U DS Sequel User Manual Virement Virement The virement tool allows you to transfer money from one account code s latest estimate to another It only affects the latest estimate and not the budget This can be useful for example if you want to move money from a contingency code to where it is needed You will need to specify the source cashflow and account code and the destination ca
33. amber to red is controlled by the tolerance The tolerance can be defined by percentage or by a specific value e g 3 of the latest estimate for that code or 100 Advanced There are four additional functions available on the editor page The first of these is the Import button This is useful if you have a large list of account codes that you would like to import in one go especially when initially setting up the system The codes are imported from an Excel file and there is additional help to set this up once you click on the button The second button is the Clone button This is used to copy all the account codes from one organisation to another This is unlikely to be needed as there shouldn t be two companies with duplicate account codes it just creates more maintenance work However if the structure is similar enough it could form a useful starting point The third option Copy to Cashflows will copy the currently selected account code into all cashflows with a zero budget and zero latest estimate When you create a new account code it is not automatically added to all cashflows as this may not be appropriate So use this function when you want to quickly copy a code to all cashflows otherwise go to the specific cashflow and add it manually there The fourth option Tolerances allows you set a single consistent tolerance for all account codes in one go Interest Rates page 38 U
34. and current Notes for your Projects Starting in next 7 days Housing Exhibition Build Contract Prog 09 09 2009 Project man We re looking forward to Overdue Community Landsca No 10 2009 Project man this years exhibition as Project Build Contract Prog Racks ieee Projectman Pe Fs a new event for us s Published Date Fri 27 Aug A note for yest 20 09 2010 ji Liaison with Hsg Mg Nof 8 2010 Project man 2010 11 14 00 GMT Site Meeting 9 x Marketing Agent Not started 01 12 2010 Project man Read the full item A note for Te Project Complete sales Notstarted 04 01 2011 Project man l Site Bes Notes Project Unit finishes Not started 14 06 2011 Project man Announcing the launch Cashflow Snagging Not started 09 08 2011 Project man of advantageSDS This phase has 09 09 2010 Cashflow Drean eire B our new Notes on Cashfi 10 09 2010 Cashflow Drean Y consultancy offering a gt uart ronan nf aduien and lt U DD Ready Selected Dream Valley Mixed Phase 1 192 168 0 3 Demo To start a new project either click the hyperlink in the My Projects section called Create New Project or go to the File menu at the top of the screen and choose New Project For more information see the New Project topic below To ope
35. as approval SoS PC defects etc When tasks are created in Global Properties they can be assigned milestones Once a task has been imported into a project as part of a workflow then the user can assign calendar dates to those milestones The Edit Milestones dialog lists all available milestones and allows you to assign a calendar date to each For each milestone that you want to update tick the Include in update option Once this has been saved the program will remember which dates you chose so when you come back you can see what was set previously After saving for each milestone that you chose to update the program will go through the tasks in your workflows and will set the appropriate planned start finish date that have the milestone set page 95 U DS Sequel User Manual People People Summary People Summary The People section of the Project Explorer contains references to the consultants contractors and other organisations that you want to use in your Project Before an organisation can be brought into a Project it must first be created in the Global Properties People section An organisation can be assigned to multiple user defined categories So a single organisation may work as an architect and employer s agent For this reason they can be used more than once in a Project and their performance tracked independently depending on the category Traffic Lights The traffic light status here indicates
36. ask The first of these is the planned start and finish dates which are represented by a blue bar the second is the actual start and finish dates which is represented by a green bar When no actual dates have been set for a Task the bar will be completely blue When actual dates have been set the bar splits into two Where there is a dependency between two tasks this will be indicated by a green arrow Moving around In order to move around in the Gantt chart move the mouse pointer over the Gantt chart until it changes into a hand icon Simply click and hold the left mouse button down which will allow you to drag the display backwards forwards up and down by moving the mouse Alternatively move the mouse pointer to the edges of the Gantt chart whereupon the cursor will change to an arrow with the word PAN inside Clicking and holding the left mouse button will scroll the display in that direction You can right click the mouse on the chart to get a context menu with shortcuts to zooming in out and displaying date labels Dependencies It is important to realise that the dependency chain is created on the planned dates page 95 U DS Sequel User Manual not the actual dates This means that you are able to create a planned programme that is not affected by actual dates You will be able to see at a glance when Tasks are late starting or finishing but this will not have the effect of adjusting subsequent dependent Tas
37. at you work with on your projects This is in effect an approved list of organisations that you want to work with In a project the user will see the list of these organisations and be able to add them to their project Any changes to the details of the organisation need to be amended here the user cannot make any changes from the project The editor screen is split vertically with essential information on the left and optional information in the grid on the right Some of the optional information can be used to trigger traffic lights on the company For example if a company has an amber traffic light the user will be warned before they add the company to their project If the company has a red traffic light the user will not be allowed to add them to their project Essential information This is information such as the organisation name and address The fields in bold are required in order to be able to save The comments field will be displayed to the user when they re in a project so you can use this to share useful information about the company The category refers to the categories you created in the Organisations Categories section A company can belong to more than one category if required simply tick each category that applies Optional information The grid on the right hand side contains a number of fields that you can make use of although none are essential page 52 U DS Sequel User Manual All the dates in the
38. available Tasks in the library on the left and the Tasks in this Workflow on the right If you are using a Template the Tasks will already be copied from the Task Library on the left into the Workflow on the right Once a Task has been added into your Workflow it will be greyed out in the Task Library view This is because a Task can only be added once to a Workflow Each of the Tasks in the Task Library is listed alphabetically and grouped by their user defined Category A more advanced feature of Sequel is the ability to make Tasks dependent on each other This means that when you are manipulating dates in the Workflow Manager page 89 U DS Sequel User Manual Sequel will ensure you are not able to time a dependent child Task before its parent Task It also allows you to move related groups of Tasks in time whilst retaining their relationship to each other You can create dependencies by using the two oval buttons underneath the list of tasks The right hand button will indent the selected Task in the Workflow to the right making it a dependent Task The left hand button will remove one level of dependency from the selected Task If you were to make a Task dependent on another Task the Workflow list will change its display accordingly Workflow Links To create a link for a Task first select the Task from the drop down list at the top of the form Links for this Task If there are any links saved in the Globa
39. basis When you tick this option the section to select a date range will not be displayed First Accounting Period Last Accounting Period If you do not choose to reload all transactions then you will need to select a specific date range This allows you to specifically target a date range in the transaction import file even if the file has earlier and later dates in It will overwrite any existing transactions between the dates specified Sequel will convert these dates to Accounting Periods It will check the accounting period of the transaction when deciding whether to import it it will not check the date the transaction was actually posted page U DS Sequel User Manual Warning It is important to remember that Sequel will always delete any existing transactions for the date range and Cashflow s specified before attempting to import new transactions This prevents any accidental duplication of transactions However it also means that you must have a complete set of transactions for the Cashflows you want to import for i e all of them or the currently open cashflow and also the date range you have specified You can always re run the transactions import at any time Step Four The grid shows the Transactions that have been scanned Transaction details are shown in a row and the reasons for failure are shown at the right hand end of the row use the scroll bar to access this If there are failed Transactions then you wil
40. ber of licences available However only those users with a valid assigned licence will be able to log in You can change the assignment of licences to user profiles at any time For example if a user leaves then you can re assign their licence to someone else Manage Projects Manage Projects This section allows you to monitor which projects are currently in use and whether they are active It will also allow you to delete projects A project must be highlighted by clicking on it in the list for any of the buttons to work There are three buttons at the bottom of the screen 1 Mark as Not Active This button will toggle the status of a project from Active to Not Active If a project is inactive it will not appear by default in the list of projects that a user will see Usually a project will be made inactive if it has completed This means that it can be filtered out of project lists and reports on a day to day basis but if necessary the project can be included in reports An inactive project can still be edited if it is opened If you do not want this to happen use the Open Projects screen and lock the project 2 Delete Project This will permanently delete a project with no undo 3 Close Project If Sequel is not closed down correctly a project may still show as open Use this option to force a project to close Whilst the same project can be opened simultaneously by different users if a project is not actually open i
41. between the Start and Finish dates In order to change the expected duration of the Project click on the down arrow to the right of the date you want to change This will pop up a date picker from which you can choose a new date There is no save button because the program will save any change automatically Traffic Lights The traffic light system instantly alerts you to any problems with the two key areas of Cashflows and Workflows The different status levels are triggered as follows e Cashflow Green All Cashflows are balanced to within one pound per Account Code s Cashflow Amber A number of Cashflows are balanced within a user defined tolerance s Cashflow Red A number of Cashflows are not balanced within a user defined tolerance e Workflow Green All Workflow Tasks are on schedule e Workflow Amber A number of Workflow Tasks are late starting e Workflow Red A number of Workflow Tasks are late finishing In both cases the number of cashflows or workflows affected will be displayed inside the traffic light So for example if two Tasks were late starting then the Workflow traffic light would be amber with the number 2 displayed inside it However if there page 62 U DS Sequel User Manual were two late starting Tasks and also one late finishing Task the traffic light would be red with the number 1 This is because these traffic lights always default to the wors
42. cation indentation and also to create bulleted lists You can resize this editor to take up the entire screen by double clicking on the title bar You can also copy and paste text from emails or Microsoft Word or other word processors Once you have finished editing then click the red cross at the top right to close the editor This will copy the contents back to the Notes form Please note that the note will not be saved until you click one of the save buttons Searching Notes The search dialog can be opened by clicking the icon of the binoculars on the toolbar There are two parts to the search dialog The right hand half allows you restrict your search to specific parts of the database such as Cashflow or Tasks Additionally you can choose to search across all projects in the database or just the currently selected open project the default The results are displayed in a grid on the left hand side You may sort or rearrange these columns in the grid by clicking and dragging the column header Type in the first blank row to filter the rows on that row e g Type p into the Project column to filter by all projects starting with the letter p Select a row or multiple rows by clicking on them with the mouse You can use the lt Shift gt or lt Ctrl gt keys whilst clicking to select a range or discrete notes respectively Once one or more notes has been highlighted you may preview it in a report by clicking t
43. cked page 27 U DS Sequel User Manual Account Code for Interest Sequel will calculate the interest for each cashflow automatically It does this by taking an average of the forecast in the month and adding the previous cumulative balance Using the interest rate defined specifically for that cashflow or the global interest rate it will then work out the interest for that month If this is not accurate enough you can import the actual interest payments and replace the calculated interest payments with those Once you reach the current month Sequel will take over the automatic calculation again but based on the actual interest so far If you would like this to happen you need to set the account code which represents the capitalised interest from the dropdown box You also need to ensure that the transactions you import from the finance system include transactions for interest Additionally with this option you do not need to import the interest payments from your appraisal into your cashflow although this will be explained in greater detail in the appraisal section of the project If you are happy with the automatic calculation and don t need to import actual interest payments then leave this option blank Licence Manager The licence key that controls which version of the software you have Cashflow Workflow Enterprise the expiry date for trial copies and the users that are allowed to log in is controlled throug
44. d e Workflow Properties Starts the Workflow Properties dialog e Task Completion The tool that lets you complete a task Milestones Descriptions of timings that can be used in the workflow e Go to Today Moves the Gantt chart to today s date N Zoom in Zooms the Gantt chart in e g from months to weeks N Zoom out Zooms the Gantt chart out e g from weeks to months N Zoom to Year Fits one calendar year in the Gantt chart e Date Label Options Turns on off the date labels at the top of the Gantt chart Property Tabs There are three property tabs each of which gives you information about the specific page 91 U DS Sequel User Manual Task that is currently selected in the Workflow list Task Properties The first of these is the Task Properties tab This summarises the key information that makes up a Task From here you can see a summary of the Task s status not started late starting on time etc the Task name the Task scope whether or not you must complete the Task and so on You can make changes to the Task name and Scope from here Simply click the Save button on the toolbar to commit your changes The last item on this tab is the Resources list This is a list of all the links attached to this Task Double clicking on the link will open it in a new window Task Timings The Task Timings tab allows you to make changes to the Task s milestone dates To make a change simp
45. d the values in this appraisal to the existing cashflow Change the selection to the third option Update an existing Cashflow and ensure the correct cashflow is selected in the list below Step 4 On step 4 you need to decide how the values in the cashflow that is going to be updated by this appraisal will be set The default option that is chosen for is the Add to Budget and Latest Estimate option This is because you have said that you are importing a new appraisal but updating an existing cashflow The implication of this is that you are consolidating adding this appraisal In this scenario you do not need to change the default option Step 5 On step 5 you have a similar choice to that in step 4 except this time the wizard is page 83 U DS Sequel User Manual referring to the forecasts in the cashflow You will not have this option enabled if you have not completed the detailed fees cashflow in the appraisal as the data will not exist in that case This does not prevent you from importing the appraisal however it just means you will need to set the forecasts manually in the cashflow As with step 4 the most useful option is set automatically which is to add the forecast timings to the cashflow if they exist in the appraisal Step 6 This step is about matching the costs in your appraisal to the appropriate account code in your cashflow These may differ if the descriptions in your appraisal don t
46. d then click the Add New Snapshot button This will add a new plan in the right hand window with the default name New Plan You can edit the name of the plan by overwriting the text directly in the grid page 40 U DS Sequel User Manual To the right of the plan name are three buttons These allow you to view edit or delete a plan Viewing a snapshot opens the cashflow snapshot in a grid window from which you can export to Excel Updating the snapshot overwrites the snapshot with the current position of the cashflow Deleting the snapshot does just that although you will be warned first there is undo if you accidentally delete a snapshot Warning The update button does not warn before it overwrites the snapshot so be careful You can also find this option in the cashflow manager it is represented by the camera icon on the toolbar and offers the same functionality It is limited in scope to only that cashflow however page 41 U DS Sequel User Manual Appraisal Account Code Mappings Appraisal Code Mappings This section is for setting up a link between the account code in Sequel and the cost analysis in the appraisal When importing an appraisal into your project you are required to map the cost descriptions in the appraisal to their appropriate account codes in Sequel Note Please note that this section is not related in any way to the transactions import from the finance system Each account cod
47. des that may be missing from your cashflow Alternatively you can remove those account codes that are not being used You cannot remove any account code once it has had a budget or latest estimate set or had transactions or forecasts Budget Once the cashflow has been created the budget and latest estimate can only be changed from the Budget page To change the budget or latest estimate select an account code and then click one of the appropriate buttons A separate dialog will open thot will prompt you for the new value and a reason for the change Click the Save button on this dialog to close it and return to the Budget page Note This is one of the most common sections to be restricted by security settings If you cannot click a button please check with your system administrator that you have authority to do this Workflow Tasks This step allows you to make a link between a Cashflow Account Code and up to 100 Tasks in any of your Workflows When in the Workflow Manager selecting a Task will show you how much of the allocated Budget has been spent Taken in conjunction with the amount of time page 68 U DS Sequel User Manual elapsed on a Task this tells you whether you are spending too quickly or slowly To create the link first select the Account Code and then the Workflow Task you want to link it to Click the Add Association button to copy it into the list view By default 100 of the Budget
48. e A task can only appear once in any given template Dependencies At the bottom of the Tasks in this Workflow list there are two further buttons that look like ovals with horizontal lines coming out of them These are for creating or removing dependencies between the tasks The right hand button creates a dependency between the selected task and the task directly above it whilst the left hand button removes a dependency When a task is dependent on another task it means that if the task that is depended on the parent has its planned start end dates moved the dependent task the child will also have its timings updated accordingly On the Gantt chart in the workflow manager a line will be drawn between dependent tasks so that you can identify them By using the dependencies in combination with the duration property of a task it is possible to preset the order and timing of all tasks in the workflow Once ina project the user only needs to set the start date of the first task and the program will calculate all the remaining tasks timings Workflow Synchronisation Workflow Synchronisation Workflow Synchronisation allows changes in Workflow Templates to be propagated out to existing Projects and will also allow Project Workflows to be copied back to Global Properties There are two main tab windows the first is for synchronising Workflow Templates to Projects and the second is for synchronising from Projects to Global P
49. e in Sequel can be linked to many cost descriptions in the appraisal This means that cost descriptions in the appraisal can be combined if necessary into fewer account codes It is not possible to split a cost description across multiple Sequel account codes For example if you had analysed Planning Fee and Planning Fee Supervisor in your appraisal these might be mapped to a single Planning account code in Sequel But you couldn t split a single appraisal Planning cost into Planning Fee and Planning Supervisor account codes Tip If you are a level 5 user you will get the option to save changes to the mappings whilst you are importing an appraisal Mapping a code To create a mapping 1 First select the account code in the Existing Account Codes list in the middle of the screen 2 If the cost description already exists in the editor window on the right then simply put a tick in the box next to the description 3 Click the Save command button If the description does not exist and you are trying to map a fee or on cost then after step one click the Add Custom On Cost button on the far right Underneath that button there is a text box to enter the name of the cost description After entering the description click the Save Description button You will then see your new description in the list and you can continue from step two above Warning When adding a new custom on cos
50. e represented by icons but if you hover your mouse over the icon its description will appear If a note is timed for a particular date then that date can be edited using the Due date editor Once a timed note has been completed then click the green tick button to the right of the Due date picker This will highlight in blue indicating it has been completed Sequel will colour code your timed Notes as follows Black future note not completed or untimed e Blue due today not completed e Green completed e Red overdue not completed Next a title bar tells you the item that these notes belong to for example a project called Acacia Avenue Beneath this is the listing all the notes saved in that section Finally there is the window where you actually type the text in the note Type in any text that you wish to record Typing email addresses web sites or file paths will create hyperlinks directly to that resource Alternatively you can right click your mouse to bring up a context menu with further options Text editor If you feel the need to write a small novel then you can open a text editor to make page 59 U DS Sequel User Manual the job easier On the toolbar at the top there is a yellow document icon that opens a separate text editor You can use any of the standard text editing buttons along the toolbar of this editor to change the font the font size the font colour paragraph justifi
51. ect you will be presented with a dialog prompting you for some information The first item is the project name This will usually be an overall scheme name and not tenure specific Within a project Sequel can handle different tenures within the cashflow and workflow sections The timescale is your best estimate of the duration of the project The start date will be set to today and you won t be able to move this forward By definition you are starting this project now The estimated finish date we recommend to be set to when the project will be completely finished i e all paperwork is in it is out of defects and the scheme is ready to be archived However it is important to note that these dates are captured for your information only they do not impact on any other part of the program Therefore if you prefer you can create your own definition for these dates or ignore them The last item is the Organisation field You may only have one option in this dropdown box or there may be more than one company In Sequel an organisation is used to own account codes from the finance system So although in legal terms you may have multiple companies e g subsidiaries if they all use the same ledger and finance system then there should be only one company listed If you do development work for another company subsidiary which uses different account codes then that company should be listed separately For more information please see the
52. ed if you have not completed the detailed fees cashflow in the appraisal as the data will not exist in that case This does not prevent page 85 U DS Sequel User Manual you from importing the appraisal however it just means you will need to set the forecasts manually in the cashflow As with step 4 the most useful option is set automatically which is to set the forecast timings to the cashflow if they exist in the appraisal Step 6 This step is about matching the costs in your appraisal to the appropriate account code in your cashflow These may differ if the descriptions in your appraisal don t match those in your cashflow To do this click into the description in the right hand column This will then display a drop down box with a list of all available account codes Choose the account code that matches the appraisal description on the left You will not be able to proceed beyond this point until all codes have been mapped A warning message will appear if you have missed any The only exception to this rule is capitalised interest This is because the cashflow will generate its own interest so you do not need to import it into the cashflow Step 7 This step is for updating appraisal unit types The list in the window shows the existing unit types from the low cost appraisal The last column in the grid allows you to assign the new unit types to replace the existing ones Any existing unit types that are not mapped
53. el will revert to automatic calculation but will take into account the imported interest Please see the Global Organisations topic for more information on setting this up Note When you change a rate or period the program will automatically re calculate the balances for each cashflow Depending on the number of cashflows this may take a few minutes Cashflow Attributes Cashflow Attributes Please also review the Attributes topic which contains information common to all attribute sections In addition to the common functionality there is one additional option specific to the cashflow attributes Links to The dropdown box for this option contains all the page 59 U DS Sequel User Manual main appraisal fields that may be used to link to the attribute For example if the cashflow attribute was Start on site rather than entering this date manually the attribute could be linked to the First Works Payment field in the appraisal In the cashflow section of the project there is an option to fill in the attributes automatically based on the appraisal linked to that cashflow Cashflow Transactions Cashflow Transactions This section allows transactions from the finance system to be imported for any selection of cashflows It works in the same way as the wizard in the Cashflow Manager in the Project Explorer with one key difference Whereas the wizard allows you to import transactions for either the c
54. f there are multiple organisations in this list only tick those organisations for which the user is allowed to create projects This Account has been Locked As well as creating editing user details the usual reason for visiting this section is if the user has locked their account If this happens select the user profile in question then untick the This Account has been Locked option Reset Passwords If a user has forgotten their password you can reset it using the buttons at the bottom of this form Once clicked the password s will be reset to password Once the user logs in with this temporary password they will be prompted to create their own unique password User can override lock on project There is an option in the Open Projects screen that allows the user to lock a project This has the effect of making it read only for all other users except the one that page 33 U DS Sequel User Manual locked it However sometimes people may forget to unlock a project or are on holiday when you need access to the project In that case any user that has this option enabled can open the project in normal read write mode They can also unlock projects that they didn t lock themselves page 34 SDS Sequel User Manual Project Project Attributes Project Attributes Please also review the Attributes topic which contains information common to alll attribute sections In addition to the common
55. g are disabled on this screen To save your changes use the Save Changes button on the editor page page 36 U DS Sequel User Manual Cashflow Account Codes Account Codes Account Codes make up the individual lines in your cashflows It is not possible to cashflow anything unless you have an account code for it The account codes in Sequel generally represent the nominal codes in your financial system s project ledger Tip See the Global Organisations topic for more information Account Code An account code is uniquely identified by an alphanumeric code up to 20 characters in length This code should match exactly the nominal code in your finance system as it will be used to match transactions imported from the finance system Code Description This is the description that the end user will see for this code so it should explain clearly what the code represents For example the account code might be 1100 and the code description Legal Fees It is not necessary for the code description to match the finance system description Code Category In addition to the Code Type which identifies a code as income or expenditure the Code Category allows for a more detailed categorisation of the codes function This can be particularly helpful in cashflow reports that require codes to be aggregated together by category It has no effect on the display or functionality of the cashflow within the program Option
56. h the Licence Manager Click the button at the bottom of the screen to open this See the separate topic for more information Licence Manager Licence Manager The licence key controls what edition of the software you have e g Cashflow Workflow Enterprise the expiry date if you are using a trial copy and the users who are permitted to log in and use the program There are three parts to this dialog The top left of the dialog shows the full licence key This is where you can paste in a new licence key should you change the number of users etc Below that is a summary of which company the software is licensed to the version and the number type of users There are two types of user read only users and full users The number of each you can use is specified in the licence agreement The quantity of each type is displayed as two numbers in the format total used page 28 U DS Sequel User Manual Definition A read only user can access all parts of the program in the same way a full user can subject to security level restrictions but they cannot modify add or delete any information The right hand side of the screen lists all the user profiles that have been created in the Maintain Users section of Global Properties Next to each name is a dropdown box that allows you to assign a full or read only licence or to revoke a licence from a user Notice that the number of user profiles created can exceed the num
57. he Print Preview button You can then save the report in a number of different formats Please see the topics on QuickReports and Reports for more information User Help User Help This help text is displayed in the User Help popout form that the end user can access by pressing lt F2 gt or choosing User Help from the main menu The help that appears in this window is provided by the Security Levels section of Global Properties This help text is intended for you to provide specific guidance to end users that is page 60 U DS Sequel User Manual relevant to your organisation For example if this was the Project Summary help notes you could provide a template for the type of information you want your users to be entering page l U DS Sequel User Manual Project Project Summary Project Summary The project summary contains information about your scheme such as the name and other general information To change the name of the Project overwrite the existing name with your new name The background of the field will turn green to indicate it is being changed Tab out of the field or click elsewhere to save When it changes back to white the information has been saved The Organisation Created By Date Created and Duration fields cannot be changed by the user as they are recorded at the time the Project is created The Duration is simply the difference
58. he project workflow do not affect each other unless you use the synchronisation option see Workflow Workflow Synchronisation topic Creating a template A simple workflow template for purchasing a completed dwelling might contain the following tasks N Instruct estate agent e Agree purchase price e Obtain valuation report e Exchange contracts e Complete minor works e Handover to Housing Management In order to create this workflow template ensure that you have first created those tasks in the Workflow Tasks section Then give your workflow a name for example page 47 U DS Sequel User Manual Completed Property Purchase The security level defaults to level one This security level serves to restrict who can edit this template in the global properties However if you have set access to global properties to level five then this option will have no effect Next you will need to find the first task in the Existing Task Library list The tasks are grouped by their category Once you have selected your task click the blue right facing triangle button 2n9 from top to copy the task across into the Tasks in this Workflow list Alternatively you can double click the task to copy it across You can use the other triangle buttons to re arrange the order of the tasks or to remove a task you no longer need Note Once a task has been copied into a template it cannot be copied again into that templat
59. hoose from Financial Year Convention There are two options that specify how the accounting period in the transactions from your finance system should be interpreted Definition An accounting period in a transaction is made up of a year part and a month part The following examples assume you have set April as the first month in the financial year First Fin Month In Year option These are 1 Financial Year Ending 2 Financial Year Starting The first option assumes the year part of the period will be the year in which the financial year finishes For example 2011 01 is equivalent to 15 April 2010 The second option assumes the year part of the period will be the year in which the financial year starts For example 2010 01 is equivalent to 15 April 2010 Once you have decided on and or used one particular method do not change the methodology once you have imported transactions otherwise you will need to re import all transactions again It is possible to use different conventions for different organisations but only if you do separate imports for each organisation Interpreting the sign on transactions There are two checkbox options called Income Transactions are Positive and Expenditure Transactions are Positive These tell Sequel what sign it should expect on the figures in the transactions Usually income will be negative i e the checkbox is unchecked and expenditure will be positive checkbox is che
60. hoose which printer from a drop down list If you choose to export to a file you will need to choose the location it will be saved to Tip You can choose an email recipient as the destination by entering the email address instead of a file location Finally you can specify additional filters that will apply to this scheduled report only This can be useful where you have a master report that you want sent to different people departments with different filters in place for each Rather than creating copies of the report and setting up a schedule per report you can have one report with multiple schedules To delete a schedule select it from the drop down list of schedules and then click the Remove button to the right hand side page 110 U DS Sequel User Manual Note Scheduled reports can only be run if the computer is on page 111
61. hours page 64 U DS Sequel User Manual 1 Select the date from the date picker 2 Type in the hours you have completed or click the number spinner to reach the desired number 3 Optionally choose a user defined category defined in Global Properties from the drop down list 4 Optionally enter some text in the Comment box to record any further information To save this new record into the existing items list on the left click the Save As New button To change an existing item click once on the item in the list on the left make your changes and then choose Amend to save your changes Highlighting an existing item in the list and clicking Delete will remove the record permanently from the database page 65 U DS Sequel User Manual Cashflow Cashflow Summary Cashflow Summary The Cashflow section of the Project Explorer contains all the Cashflows in your Project The number of Cashflows in your project depends on the size and complexity of your scheme A good rule of thumb is to think about how the scheme will be represented on your Finance System In order to import Transactions from your Finance System Sequel requires a Scheme Code There will be one Cashflow in Sequel for every relevant development Scheme Code in your Finance System The Scheme Code is the code that identifies your scheme uniquely in the Finance System Some organisations will use different codes for differen
62. ialog that you can use to select the correct location for the file Checking the appraisal is up to date If the appraisal location is correct then Sequel will check to see if there is a newer version of the file For example if someone has updated the appraisal file but not re imported the appraisal back into Sequel If this is the case the Newer File Exists column will display Yes and the row will be displayed in red text If it can t establish the modified date of the appraisal file e g the location is incorrect it will display Possibly If you need to update the appraisal then click the ellipsis button to launch the appraisal import wizard page 44 U DS Sequel User Manual Workflow Tasks Categories Tasks Categories This section allows you to maintain a simple list of categories for the workflow tasks that you create in the Workflow Tasks section The categories are used to group the tasks when you are working with them in the Workflow Tasks or Workflow Workflow Templates sections This can make it easier to find the tasks you require Often the task categories are the same or similar to the workflow template names Tasks Milestones Tasks Milestones This section allows you to maintain a list of milestone descriptions for the workflow tasks you create in the Workflow Tasks section Each task can be assigned two milestone descriptions that will represent the start date and e
63. ill be a delay while the appraisal import wizard tries to connect before it then prompts the user for a correct server database name Security Levels Security Levels The security levels of the program work in conjunction with the security level of a user to determine whether a user can see or interact with specific parts of the program Simply put if the security level of a button is set to level 3 then the user will need to have a security level of 3 or above in order to be able to click or see that button Each part of the user interface of the program for example buttons forms menus treeviews etc can be assigned two different security levels One determines whether the user can interact with that part of the user interface e g click a button page 30 U DS Sequel User Manual the other determines whether a user can see that part of the interface The user interface is presented in a tree structure in the Existing Items section of Global Properties This tree structure is hierarchical with the main program window Main appearing first and then all the other parts of the interface are grouped below that In order to understand this structure you need to know a bit about how a program is made Here is a list of the main components of a user interface Forms these are the windows that contain all the other controls The main program window is also a form e Containers these are a special t
64. interest rate Step Two This creates the link with your Finance System This can be left blank if you don t yet know what the code is If you have one then enter the Scheme Code in the box Step Three Finally you can choose which account codes will be included in your cashflow and the starting point for the budget and latest estimate The grid on this page is split into income and expenditure and sub totals will be shown for these sections When first setting up a cashflow the budget and latest estimate will usually be the same so the option to Copy Budget to Latest Estimate is ticked by default This means you only to enter a budget figure and the latest estimate will also show that figure page 67 U DS Sequel User Manual The final column in the grid determines whether the code should be included in the cashflow Simply untick an account code if you do not want it included You can always add codes back later via Cashflow Properties Cashflow Properties Cashflow Properties The cashflow properties dialog is used to edit the configuration of a cashflow in Sequel The first two pages Cashflow and Transactions are the same as the Cashflow Wizard with one exception on the first page you have a button to launch the audit trail The audit trail lists all changes made to the budget and latest estimate of the cashflow Account Codes You can use the Account Codes page to add in any account co
65. ionale behind any levels that you set They will only appear on this screen so the end users will not see them Help Text This help text is displayed in the User Help popout form that the end user can access by pressing lt F2 gt or choosing User Help from the main menu This text can be formatted using the editing options to the left of the text entry area You should use this help text to provide specific guidance to end users that is relevant to your organisation For example if this was the Project Summary help notes you could provide a template for the type of information you want your users to be entering page 32 U DS Sequel User Manual Users Maintain Users Maintain Users This section contains all the details about the people using Sequel Typically user profiles will be created when a user logs in for the very first time Sequel will ask the user if they wish to be added as a user in the database and additionally what type of licence they should have full or read only Sequel will use the currently logged on Windows user information to create the user profile in Sequel and then link the two together If you need to create a new user from scratch then you will need to complete all fields in bold text Organisations This option is asking which of your organisations the user works for If there is only one organisation then this is straightforward just tick the organisation However i
66. is also possible to import values from the Appraisals linked to a Cashflow To do this click the Import values from Appraisal link below the grid This will open a dialog from which you can select the source Appraisal to copy values from page 66 U DS Sequel User Manual Cashflow Wizard Cashflow Wizard The cashflow wizard is used to create cashflows in Sequel Usually cashflows will be created as a result of importing an appraisal but they can also be created before an appraisal is ready This might happen for example if you wanted to cashflow any upfront costs of getting your scheme approved Later when the appraisal is approved it can be imported and used to update your cashflow Tip Any of the options you set in the wizard can be edited later in the Cashflow Properties dialog Step One The cashflow name is free for you to decide what it should be It can be useful to include a key to indicate the tenure type The interest rate can be set in two ways The first and default option is to use the global rate that is defined in the Global Properties Sequel will then calculate a compound interest based on the averaged cashflow in the month and the previous cumulative balance This global rate may be changed at any point in time The second option is to use a fixed interest rate Use this specific interest rate Enter a value in the box provided The Cashflow will not then be affected by any changes to the global
67. is not displayed at the bottom of the list There is no best way to display the filter it really depends on what mode you prefer Once you have selected your preferred choice it will be remembered the next time you open the screen To force the layout to be saved without needing to close window click the Save Layout button at the bottom of the screen Further Options As well as filtering the list of projects you can also change the order and presentation of the columns To move a column simply click and drag the column heading into the new position You can resize the column widths by clicking and dragging the right hand edge of a column heading similar to Excel You can also right click on a column heading to get a menu with further options such as options to remove a column you don t want or to group by that column To prevent other users being able to make changes to your projects you can lock them This means other people will only be able to open your project in read only mode Only you will be able to unlock projects that you have locked To see if a project has been locked and by whom there is a column in the list called Locked By If the project is locked then the user that locked it will be displayed otherwise it will be blank The list of projects can be exported to a variety of file types such as PDF Excel Word etc This means it can be used as an ad hoc reporting tool as well Click the Export but
68. is zip file contains two files setup exe and SetupSequel msi Please run the setup exe file as this will check the client PC is capable of running the application and that all prerequisites are installed Installing the Client application After installing any prerequisites you should see the following screen appear on the installer page 15 SDS Sequel User Manual iz SDS Sequel T Aa gt M ens equel Please click Next to move to the next page You will be asked whether you want to install the desktop notes monitor application and the sample files Please select which additional options you would like to install with SDS Sequel Desktop Notes Monitor IZ Sample Appraisal and Transactions files Cancel lt Back L Next gt Once the installation has finished it will have added shortcuts to the applications in the Start Menu and also the desktop The desktop notes monitor additionally creates a shortcut in the Startup folder so that it will always start when the computer is turned on Uninstalling the Client application To uninstall the application please run the Add Remove Programs snap in from the Control Panel and locate SDS Sequel in the list page 14 U DS Sequel User Manual Add or Remove Programs amp Currently installed programs Show updates Name K Change or a Remove MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 ENU Size 1 997 00MB Programs
69. ist underneath their corresponding linked Sequel cashflow with the import date showing in brackets after the appraisal name An appraisal cannot be imported in isolation it must always be linked to a Sequel cashflow At the bottom of the screen are three sets of traffic lights These are similar to the Cashflow Manager and compare the loan NPV and interest Appraisal Attributes Appraisal Attributes are a separate set of Attributes from the Project Attributes and are used to store information at a more detailed level Typically the version of the appraisal may be used as an attribute e g Board approved so that specific appraisals can be identified when reporting Additionally at the top of the attributes grid is an option to lock the appraisal This will prevent the appraisal from being updated or removed Appraisal Wizard Appraisal Wizard When you click the Import Update button on the Appraisal section of the project explorer you are presented with the Appraisal Wizard As the button suggests this wizard will allow you to import a new appraisal add an additional appraisal or update an existing appraisal These three most common scenarios are explained in detail in their own topics You can import appraisals from either an Excel based appraisal model e g ProVal XL or from ProVal LS which uses a database instead of Excel page 80 U DS Sequel User Manual Importing a new appraisal Importing
70. k this button again The title bar of the Cashflow Manager will change accordingly so that you can see which mode you are in Clicking the spanner icon will open the Cashflow Properties This calculator icon will open the Spread Forecast tool Clicking the coins icon will open the Vire Money tool This button opens the Cash Planning Targets CPT tool This button opens the Cashflow Snapshots tool This button starts the Import Transactions wizard Moves the forecast back in time Moves the forecast forward in time When viewing the cashflow forecast it is possible to change the date view from Months to Quarters to Years Quarters and Years are based on financial years not calendar years Clicking the Today button will move the Cashflow to today s date This function will only affect the display of Transactions in the Cashflow view The dates used to display the Transactions are based on the accounting page 72 U DS Sequel User Manual period in which those Transactions fall You can switch the display to show Transactions based on the actual date they were posted onto your Finance System This could be useful for reconciliations or to assist with CPT reporting 15 If the amounts of money get too large you can divide all money by the multiplier in this drop down list Although the display will change accordingly you can always see the full amount in the tooltip by moving your mouse over
71. ks backwards or forwards by that same time period It is still up to you to decide what kind of impact this is going to have on your planned programme If you decide that this is a critical delay then you can update your planned programme accordingly which will update all dependent Tasks In this way it is always obvious that there are delays rather than these delays being hidden by the program automatically adjusting dates for you Completing a Task Completing a Task Once you have imported your Workflows into your Project you may want to set up some planned start and finish dates for the Tasks The Task Starts Completions dialog is where you will define Task timings planned and actual If a Task does not have timings associated with it then you will be able to mark the Task as started or completed instead or add timings to it When you open this dialog the top left of the form will confirm the Selected Task which is the Task you are currently working on and its status Depending on whether the Task has timings or not will influence which of the two sections on the left is selected If a Task has no timings associated with it then it is only possible to mark the Task as started or completed Choose the appropriate option to do this and complete the Notes File Ref to briefly explain that you are starting or completing the Task If a Task does have timings then you have the option of changing either the planned da
72. l Properties for this Task s Template then they will be automatically copied into the Existing Links section in the middle of the page The links by default are displayed alphabetically according to the friendly description that is given to them Uncheck the Show Friendly Names checkbox directly underneath the link list to show the actual path of the link In order to add another link from the Global Properties Link Library click on the Add Link from Library button and select the link you would like to import from the list To remove a link from a Task simply select it in the list and then click the Remove Link from Task button This will not delete the link from the Global Properties Library To create a new link from scratch use the Create New Link section at the bottom of the dialog 1 First give the link a friendly description by typing in the Link Description box 2 Next if the link points to a file click the Browse Files button This will open a standard Windows Open File dialog in which you can find the file you would like to link to Clicking Open will copy the file path into the Link Path box If the link points to a website then click Browse Web and then navigate to the page you want to link to Copy the address from the browser into the Link Path box 3 Click the Save Link button All links are saved into a central Library in the Global Pr
73. l be able to see which ones are failing and why Click the radio buttons at the top of the form to switch between Failed and Successful views The grid will always default to showing failed transactions first The radio buttons in this part of the wizard will allow you to see which transactions will fail to be imported and which will succeed Using the scroll bar and scrolling to the right will show the reasons why particular transactions will fail There is a Save button to the top right of the wizard which will prompt for a filename to save the current view i e failed or successful to an Excel workbook This means the transactions can be analysed more easily to identify reasons for failure In addition Sequel will attempt to save the failed transactions to an Excel workbook automatically once the Finish button has been clicked The location of this file is the same as the one used to load the original transactions At this stage nothing has been imported and exiting will allow the relevant codes to be inserted before trying again and getting a complete error free install Exiting the form at this point will cancel the import procedure The following is a list of possible success failure codes 1 Successful 2 Spare 3 Scheme Code matched but Account Code doesn t exist in Global Properties 4 Scheme Code doesn t exist and Account Code doesn t exist 5 Scheme Code matched but Accoun
74. les for the contacts that you create in the People Contacts section People Contacts People Contacts page 53 U DS Sequel User Manual In addition to creating organisations you can also add the people who work at those organisations In terms of importance the program works with organisations the contacts are available for information but you cannot link a contact directly to a project it must be done via an organisation Once you have created the organisations then you can create the contacts Select the organisation from the drop down list and then complete the remaining fields Only the fields in bold are essential When contacts have been added they will appear in the project explorer and the user can initiate letters or emails to them from the people manager Organisation Attributes Organisation Attributes Please also review the Attributes topic which contains information common to all attribute sections There is no additional specific functionality for the organisation attributes section page 54 U DS Sequel User Manual Property Property Attributes Property Attributes Please also review the Attributes topic which contains information common to all attribute sections In addition to the common functionality there is one additional option specific to the property attributes Links to The dropdown box for this option contains all the main appraisal unit type fields tha
75. list of every change made to the budgets of a cashflow then there is also the Audit Trail report that you can access from the Cashflow Properties dialog page 104 U DS Sequel User Manual QuickReports QuickReports Summary QuickReports Summary QuickReports are a series of preset reports that have been created for the purpose of easily exporting information in Sequel to an external source such as Microsoft Excel Although the QuickReports system is accessed from a specific Project there are no limitations on which Projects are included in the results Please see the individual topics for each section for more detail on the reports included Common Features You can rearrange column headings in the results grid by dragging them into a new position click and hold the left mouse button on the column heading and then move the mouse Alternatively drag the column headings onto the space at the top of the grid labelled Drag a column header here to group by that column Each QuickReports screen will default to the current Project but you can show all Projects by unticking the Only show this Project checkbox Use the filter row in the grid the first blank row to add additional filter criteria to your query Type directly into the row or choose an option from the drop down list Right clicking the mouse on the column headings will bring up a menu with additional options The most useful options here are the Best Fit
76. ly select the date description from the drop down list Click the Save button on the toolbar to commit your changes If a Task has milestones associated with it and you no longer want it to be affected when the milestone timings are changed then select the blank option at the top of the drop down list in order to delete the association Remember to save your changes by clicking the Save button on the toolbar The Task s planned and actual dates are also reported here although you cannot change them from this tab Click on the Task Completion button on the toolbar to make changes to the Task s timings Lastly this tab reports the amount of actual time spent on the Task as a percentage of the planned time for the Task When this percentage goes over 100 then the Task is running late Budget Info The Budget Info tab reports the relationship between this Task and an Account Code in the Cashflow In the Cashflow Wizard Properties it is possible to allocate a percentage of the Latest Estimate from an Account Code to one or more Tasks in your Workflow If this has been done then there will be figures showing here otherwise it will say n a The first box in the tab reports the amount of the Latest Estimate that has been allocated For example if 10 of the Latest Estimate total of 100 was allocated then this will report 10 The second box reports the total of the Transactions using the same allocation
77. match those in your cashflow To do this click into the description in the right hand column This will then display a drop down box with a list of all available account codes Choose the account code that matches the appraisal description on the left You will not be able to proceed beyond this point until all codes have been mapped A warning message will appear if you have missed any The only exception to this rule is capitalised interest This is because the cashflow will generate its own interest so you do not need to import it into the cashflow Step 7 This step is for updating appraisal unit types As you are importing a new appraisal and not updating an existing appraisal this step is disabled and you can click Next to continue Step 8 This is the final step of the wizard To finish and import the appraisal click the Finish button Updating an appraisal Updating an existing appraisal with a new version Brief You need to update an existing appraisal in your project This might be because the page 84 U DS Sequel User Manual scheme has changed and has been re approved There is an existing cashflow and an existing appraisal that you have previously imported You want to update the appraisal and you want to overwrite the values in the existing cashflow In the following example a general needs rent appraisal is replacing a low cost home ownership appraisal Step 1 In the Appraisal section of y
78. merge into each selected Workflow they will end up identical except for any project level changes When merging Templates we recommend only selecting one source Template at a time page 49 U DS Sequel User Manual Replace This will delete the Project Workflow first before copying in the new Template such that e Old Hospital Site will get all three selected Templates e Pirelli Fields will delete its Project Workflow and then get all three selected Templates e West Street Worcester will delete both its Project Workflows and then get all three selected Templates This option will lose any existing user data such as Notes Generally speaking the Merge and Replace options expect to take a source Template and apply it to an equivalent selected Project Workflow However if a Project is also selected then the result will be combined with a copy operation Tip For best results work with one source Template at a time and ensure only the Project Workflows you want to merge replace with this source are selected Sync ing from Project to Global Properties 1 Global Properties to Project 2 Project to Global Properties Select one target Template Select one source workflow Code for Sustainable Homes lt Copy J Old Hospital Site Completion of land purchase 2 Pirelli Fields Consultants amp Contractors Feasibility Consultation amp West Street Worcester Defects stage
79. mmitments are created through the People Management section dealt with later in the manual Commitments have no direct impact on the Cashflow and are shown for information only Right click your mouse over a row to show a context menu with a shortcut link to change either the Budget or Latest Estimate This will automatically bring up the Account Code Variance dialog for the code that you clicked on This does not affect any security you may have set on the option to change Budget or Latest Estimate if a user is not permitted to change these then this will not allow them to either A sub total is shown for Income codes and also for Expenditure codes These are then summarised in a totals row at the bottom of the screen At the bottom of these totals are two traffic lights The first calculates the variance between the budget and latest estimate Loan and the second compares the appraisal TSC against the cashflow expenditure only latest estimate If either variance gets worse by 3 then an amber light is shown if the variance gets worse by 5 or more then a red traffic light is shown These ranges are not user definable page 70 U DS Sequel User Manual Forecast Section The first column Balance to Forecast takes the total amount to be forecast and then deducts any forecasts that have been made When this column shows a zero amount it means that row has been balanced correctly There are then six further columns
80. n a particular order to form a Workflow Template Please see the Global Properties manual for full details of how to do this These Templates can then be imported into your Projects saving you the effort of re inventing the wheel each time you start a Project Traffic Lights The traffic light status here indicates the individual status of each Task N A red traffic light indicates that the Task is late finishing N An amber light means that it is late starting A green light indicates you are on track N A simple tick means the task is done whether or not it had timings associated with it e A clipboard with a small red cross means the task is not done and does not have timings The Workflows will generally always be collapsed so that you only see the name of the Workflow However if a Workflow contains Tasks that have an amber or red traffic light they will be automatically expanded for you All the Workflows and their Tasks for your Project are shown in the Workflows in Project list The Workflow name is shown as a parent node Clicking the or symbol to the left of the Workflow name collapses or expands the Workflow You may change a Workflow s position relative to any other Workflows in the list by selecting it by clicking on the relevant node and using the blue arrow buttons Click the Up Down arrows to the left of the list This will shift the entire Workflow up or down
81. n an existing project either double click the project name in the My Projects list or select it and click the Open button or alternatively you can double click any of the cashflows tasks or notes to open the related project directly Finally you can also use the File menu and choose the Open Project option This latter option opens the Open Project screen and for more information please see the Open Project topic below The sections of the Start Page will update as your projects change so that you can always see those items that need your attention Tab Pages Sequel uses tab pages to display the different screens of information A tab page is identified by the title at the top of the page together with a close button page 4 SDS Sequel User Manual Se SDS Sequel v6 0 0 l diau asn g l Dream Valley Mixed Phas Dream Valley a In the screenshot above there are two tab pages open one for Global Properties and one for the Start Page This means you can switch between them by clicking on the relevant tab page title This is also true when you have projects open each project will open in its own tab page You do not lose anything you were working on if you switch between tab pages For example if you have the cashflow manager open on one tab page then switch to another project the cashflow manager will remain open as you left it Docked Windows There are two window
82. n the editor on the right hand side of the screen will be available for you Control Type This is either the name of the form or the type of control e g Button or TabPage page 31 U DS Sequel User Manual Description This is usually the text that is on the control when using the program Enabled Visible When These are the two available security levels that you can set The most commonly used is the Enable When level You have six options levels 1 5 and Inherit from parent By default when the program is supplied the main program form Main is set to security level 2 and everything else inherits from that so that everything is level 2 This means you don t need to explicitly set every control if you want to change a section Level 1 is the lowest or most open level e g guest junior level whilst level 5 would be the administrator or most secure level For example if you wanted only level 3 users to be able to use the Cashflow Properties form then you could set Form Cashflow Properties to level 3 As alll controls on that form inherit from their parent they will now have a security level of 3 If in addition you wanted to set the Change Budget button to level 4 you would do that only on that control In that way level 3 users can access all parts of the Cashflow Properties form except for the Change Budget button Admin Notes The admin notes area is for you to enter the rat
83. ncel Save Layout Open Read Only _ open _ To edit the filter you can now do one of four things 1 2 3 4 To turn on off the filter completely either tick or untick the option in the bottom left of the window Enable Disable Filter Option Type directly into the Filter Row For example to see a list of projects with unbalanced cashflows type red or amber into the Cf Status column Click the Edit Filter button at the bottom right This will open a separate editor which you can use to set the filter Click the down arrow button to the right of each column heading to access a menu of available values in the column to filter on To turn on the editor in 3 above permanently click the Options button again and this time tick the Show detailed filter editor option The screen will change to display the filter editor on the left page amp U DS Sequel User Manual Please choose a Project from the list below Use the filter control below to Drag a column header here to group by that column control which Projects are listed Projet Owner Team Organi and Dream Vall Phil Shelton Bright Fu Owner Equals Phil Shelton Old school Phil Shelton Bright Fi Peaceful R Phil Shelton Bright Fi Active Equals True T Filter Editor Note also that in this mode the current filter in use
84. nd date of the task For example if a task was called Build House the milestone description for the start date could be Start on Site whilst the milestone for the end date could Practical Completion Milestones are consistent events that apply to all schemes such as approval SoS PC defects etc When the task is imported into a project the user can assign calendar dates to these milestones that will then display on the Gantt chart Tasks Links Tasks Links Each task you create in the Workflow Tasks section can be linked to any number of links or resources These links typically point to policies or procedures on your network that give guidance to the user on completing that task Additionally they may also point to standard documents such as appointment letters or other websites This section allows you to maintain a library of links to useful resources Each resource can be assigned to multiple tasks if required You just need to enter a description of the link and provide the link itself The link can be copied and pasted from your web browser if it s a website or use the Browse for files button if it s a page 45 U DS Sequel User Manual file on your network Tip If you are linking a Word document you can set up bookmarks within the document and then reference them in the link by using the hash symbol For example C filename doc bookmark_name Tasks Tasks Tasks are the
85. ng for that code If you choose the Balance to Forecast column then only any outstanding balance will be forecast leaving any existing forecasts intact Additionally you will need to choose whether to merge the outstanding balance and the existing forecasts The default for this is to merge Add to existing amts checkbox If you do not merge then the existing forecasts will be removed and will become a new outstanding balance The bottom left of the dialog is the list of account codes that you can choose from page 73 U DS Sequel User Manual Those in blue text are those with outstanding balances in the Balance to Forecast column You can either choose a single code or multi select codes by holding lt Shift gt or lt Ctrl gt whilst clicking the mouse Retention is calculated on the latest estimate The first retention payment cannot be earlier than the end month and year you have chosen to spread to There are three payment profiles you can choose from s curve straight line and periodic payments In addition to these the s curve can modified by dragging the sliders above and below the curve from side to side Whilst not technically a payment profile the fourth option in this section allows you to shift the code s forecast as is backwards or forwards For example if the whole scheme was delayed you could select all codes and choose to push it back by however long it was delayed for Quick Forecast
86. nto account any transactions if they exist page 75 U DS Sequel User Manual You can name your snapshot by editing the name in the list You can also view or update the snapshot If you update the snapshot this has the effect of deleting the existing snapshot and re taking another snapshot You cannot delete a snapshot unless you use the Cashflow Snapshots section in Global Properties This can be useful for business planning purposes or to measure how accurate the forecasts were especially if a snapshot is taken early on in the life of the scheme Transactions Transactions Note This process will usually be done by someone in the finance department Transactions represent actual invoices created on your Finance System Through Transactions Sequel can inform you how much money has actually already been spent on each of the Account Codes in your Cashflow These figures are NOT estimates or forecasts and cannot be edited When Transactions are imported they replace your forecasts If you have a Cashflow forecast that runs from January 2007 to January 2008 and the current date is August 2007 then importing Transactions will replace all forecast amounts up to July 2007 assuming this was the last completed financial period This means that your Cashflow will always show the correct actual spend up to the current completed financial period The source for importing financial transactions is always an Excel spreadsheet which sh
87. o this attribute In this way you can create attributes designed to be completed by senior staff such as targets Notes The notes appear as a tooltip when the user hovers their mouse over the attribute They allow you to enter guidance for the user about the response you are expecting page 25 U DS Sequel User Manual for that particular attribute Constraints The number and date time fields allow you to enter a minimum and or maximum value for the attribute For example if the attribute was prompting for a plot number then you could set a minimum value of 1 which will prevent negative numbers being entered List of values If you have selected the Value List type a text area will appear for you to enter the values you want displayed as responses Place each unique response on a new line don t separate with commas There is no limit to the number of responses you can have Organisations Organisations The organisation referred to here is your own company not contractors or consultants Quite often an organisational structure may involve subsidiaries and partners within groups However it is not usually necessary to enter all of their details as separate organisations as the finance system will dictate how many organisations need to be added Terminology An account code in Sequel is equivalent to a nominal code in your finance system e g architect or works We are not interested in company or project scheme
88. oject and use MS Project s mapping tool to save a mapping between the Sequel columns and MS Project s own fields This process is one way i e Sequel will not re import this data or synchronise the information People QuickReport page 107 U DS Sequel User Manual People QuickReport The right hand side of the People QuickReport allows you to choose which of the four reports you would like to see The four reports for People are 1 Organisations This reports a single row for each organisation with details about the address category status etc 2 Contacts This reports a row for each contact in a given organisation 3 Attributes This reports a row for each organisation with the attributes appearing as columns 4 Orders This report lists all orders placed with an organisation It will also try to match the order reference with the reference in the cashflow transactions data in order to provide a match between them If there is more than one match the order will be repeated for each transaction Property QuickReport Property QuickReport The Project and Property QuickReports differ from the others in that you can save layouts of which attributes you would like to report on and the order in which they appear On the left hand side are the list of all available Attributes At the top of this list are a toolbar and a drop down list The drop down list contains the definitions of the layouts you have crea
89. operties so that they will be available for future use In order to save an email address as a link simply type mailto into the Link Path box followed by the email address you want to save It is also possible to link directly to bookmarks within a Word document 1 Insert a bookmark into your Word document For this example assume a document called MyBook doc and a bookmark called MyBookmarkedPage page 90 U DS Sequel User Manual 2 Browse for the document in Sequel as shown in 2 above 3 Adda symbol and the bookmark name to the file path e g C Documents MyBook doc MyBookmarkedPage Sequel will then open the document at the bookmark To check your link is working correctly move your mouse pointer over the Link Path label which will change to Preview link in browser Click it once to launch whatever is currently entered in the Link Path box Workflow Manager Workflow Manager The Workflow Manager is the main screen for managing and viewing the Tasks in your Workflow The Manager is split into four sections At the top of the window is the toolbar to the left are the property tabs and the right hand side is the Gantt chart Workflow Toolbar The toolbar has a number of buttons from left to right these are e Save Saves any changes to the task name scope or comment fields in the Task Properties tab N New Workflow Starts the Workflow Wizar
90. ould be prepared by the finance department The spreadsheet has to be laid out in a particular way for this to be successful and this topic is covered in the configuration training usually carried out on site when Sequel is installed An example transactions file is installed with Sequel for reference This will usually be located in C Program Files Shelton Development Services SDS Update Service SDS Sequel Transactions folder When you import the Transactions they come via an Excel report that is created by your Finance System Sequel will scan this report and give you a summary of all the Transactions that it is going to import Importantly it will also tell you Transactions that will not be imported For example a Transaction will not be imported if there is no matching Account Code in Sequel See the table in step four for more information The Transactions Import icon can be found on the Cashflow Manager toolbar Clicking the icon will start the Import Wizard This wizard consists of four steps Step One page 6 U DS Sequel User Manual The transactions file path is specified in the first field Click the ellipsis button to the right if you would like to browse for a different file Sequel will remember the last file and location you imported from If you would like to remove transactions from the database then tick the Remove Transactions option and then click Next Otherwise leave it blank and click Next
91. our project click the Import Update button Click the ellipsis button where the wizard prompts you for the filename of the appraisal you are importing Browse for the appraisal click Open and then click Next on the wizard Step 2 As there is an existing appraisal in your project you have two choices on step 2 The first is to import the appraisal as a new appraisal the default or to update the existing appraisal in your project In this scenario we want to use the second option and ensure that the correct appraisal is selected in the list Step 3 The default option for step 3 is to update the existing cashflow because we chose the second option in the previous step You do not need to change this option just ensure the correct cashflow is selected in the list below Step 4 On step 4 you need to decide how the values in the cashflow that is going to be updated by this appraisal will be set The default option that is chosen is the Set the Budget and Latest Estimate option This is because you have said that you are importing updating an appraisal and also updating an existing cashflow The implication of this is that you are overwriting this appraisal and cashflow In this scenario you do not need to change the default option Step 5 On step 5 you have a similar choice to that in step 4 except this time the wizard is referring to the forecasts in the cashflow You will not have this option enabl
92. p A 62 Project Summary eee 62 Milestones eee 64 Timesheet nh AA decces 64 Cashflow eee 66 Cashflow Summary eee 66 Cashflow Wizard eee 67 Cashflow HrOpermiies 68 Cashflow Manager 70 Appraisal i wststssi iitit 80 AppraisalSummary ee 80 Appraisal Wizard 80 page 57 Appraisal Manager page 58 SDS Sequel User Manual 87 87 88 88 89 89 91 96 96 28 97 oe U DS Sequel User Manual Using Notes Notes In each section of a Sequel project there is an area for making notes on that section Each note can be a reminder message or link to a document that you want to keep associated with a relevant section The notes editor can be accessed from the summary view of each section in the Project Explorer If the summary view is not visible i e you are working on the cashflow manager move your mouse over the tab at the top left of the screen called Notes This will cause the pop out notes editor to slide out into view Click the pin symbol at the top right of the pop out notes editor to lock it into position The pop out notes editor can be resized by clicking the left mouse button on the right hand edge of the form and dragging left or right Whether you are using the notes editor in the summary view in the project explorer or the pop out notes editor the layout and functionality is the same First are the various command buttons such as New Save Save As Delete These ar
93. r and press the lt Tab gt key to prompt Sequel to refresh its connection The database field should then be filled in The standard name for the database is Working not Demo as in the screenshot above When you click the Connect button Sequel will check to see if you have a valid licence If you do not e g the first time you use the program then it will ask you if you would like to be added as a full user If you click Yes then it will ask you to enter a password This password is what you will need to use to log in if you are not using your normal computer e g working at a colleague s computer This process will create a user entry in the Sequel database using the information from your Windows profile You do not need to do anything further so it will take you to the Start Page It is also possible that your system administrator has already created a user entry for page 2 SDS Sequel User Manual you If this is the case Sequel will display a list of the names in a dialog box and ask you to confirm which one is you Confirm Windows User Please select the SDS Sequel user details you would normally log on with Barney Rubble Username Barney Job Email barney flintstone co uk ZY Betty Rubble Username Betty Job Email betty flintstone co uk B Daffy Duck Username Daffy Job Email daffy disney co uk Dennis Menace Username Dennis Job Email denni
94. r relevant application page 24 U DS Sequel User Manual There are five sections in a Sequel project where attributes are used e Project e Cashflow e Appraisal e People N Property There is additional information in the other Global Properties xxxx Attributes help topics specific to each section However the following is common to all attributes Display Name This is what the user will see in their project Type This is one of the types listed above Report Field The report field is used when SDS write reports or if you use the built in views in the Report Designer application to write your own reports As reports can depend on the specific name of an attribute any changes to this field can break the report So if you want to tweak the name of an attribute used in a report only update the Display Name and leave the report field alone Compulsory Optional If an attribute is marked as compulsory it will display in red text in the project until it has a value entered This helps highlight the important attributes It does not prevent the user from doing anything else or send warnings if not completed If you want to check on which attributes have been completed you can either use the QuickReports or write an exception report Edit Level This is related to the security level of the user For example if the edit level is set to level 3 then only users with a security level of 3 or above can enter an answer t
95. roperties page 48 U DS Sequel User Manual Sync ing from Global Properties to Project 1 Global Properties to Project 2 Project to Global Properties Select one or more source Templates Select one or more target projects or workflows C Code for Sustainable Homes Old Hospital Site E Completion of land purchase Pirelli Fields C Consultants amp Contractors Feasibility Consultation B E West Street Worcester C Defects stage gt Project management C Eco Homes Feasibility Feasibility C Final Certificate C Funding E Letting of contract C Offer stage C Planning C Practical Completion Project management Replace C Sales schemes In this example the following will happen when a button is clicked Copy This will only copy Templates to selected Projects so that e Old Hospital Site will get all three selected Templates e Pirelli Fields will not change e West Street Worcester will not change Note that if a Template already exists in the Project a duplicate Workflow will be created Merge This will merge the selected Templates into each selected existing Workflow Project but without deleting any existing user data such as Notes so that e Old Hospital Site will get all three selected Templates e Pirelli Fields the three selected Templates will merge into the one Workflow s West Street Worcester the three selected Templates will
96. rties click Exit or click the cross button on the tab header Attributes Attributes This is an overview of attributes what they are and how you can make use of them An attribute is a question that you want a user to fill in For example an attribute could prompt a user to enter the funding year of a project the start on site date the location of the scheme or a link to the minutes of the meeting that approved the scheme You can create as many attributes as you need and each attribute can have a specific answer type For example the start on site attribute could have a date answer type so that the user could only enter a date against that question not text Here is a list of the available attribute types e Group Heading Doesn t store information this is just used to organise attributes into sections e Single Line Text Allows a single line of text letters and numbers to be entered e Multi Line Text Allows multiple lines of text to entered e Number Only allows numbers to be entered e Dote only Only allows a date to be entered e Time only Only allows a time to be entered Dote and Time Permits date and time to be entered e Yes No Only allows true or false yes or no responses e Value List Can contain unlimited number of preset responses User can only choose a preset response e URL Allows a hyperlink to a website or file to be entered Includes option to launch target in browser o
97. rver myServer instanceName The User command line option allows you to specify the default name with which to try to log in to Sequel This should be the username chosen by the user Active Directory Windows Authentication SDS Sequel has an option to use Windows Authentication to log into the application without the need to enter a username password When an Active Directory environment is detected this is the default option that will be used SDS Sequel v6 0 3 Authentication Windows lY Login Name Password Server localhost Database Demo E This version of SDS Sequel is up to date Quit Connect To change back to SDS Sequel authentication i e username password simply change the Authentication drop down box page 16 U DS Sequel User Manual SDS Sequel v6 0 3 Authentication SDS Sequel lv Login Name Phil Shelton Password This is useful for example if you need to log in as a different user Version Checking Version Checking SDS Sequel will automatically check to see if it is up to date It does this by querying its version number against a master version number on the SDS website using a web service The proxy credentials are set to emulate those in Internet Explorer If you do not use Internet Explorer or it is not configured correctly this checking may not work There are three possible states that Sequel will display on the login dialog 1 Version x x x of
98. s There are three options that have an impact on how account codes are presented to the user If a code is no longer required or you do not want anyone to use it untick the Is Active option In doing so the account code will not be available for use in any new cashflow Existing cashflows that already have the code in use will not be affected page 37 U DS Sequel User Manual Most account codes will be defined as cash items This means that the cash is physically paid in or out of the company such as acquisition grants fees etc A non cash item is one that is paid internally within the organisation such as capitalised interest and development admin costs Unticking this option means that the code will be displayed in a different colour on screen but will not have any other effect It can be used in cashflow reporting to easily include exclude non cash items By default all account codes will be usually be included in the calculation that works out whether a cashflow is balanced or not and hence updates the traffic light display for that cashflow If you do not want an account code to be included in that calculation then untick this option If this option is unticked the account code will be displayed in a different colour on screen Additionally regardless of whether the user has correctly forecast that line it will not trigger an amber or red traffic light Tolerances The point at which a traffic light turns from
99. s comics co uk Donald Duck Username Donald Job Email donald disney co uk Fred Flintstone Username Fred Job Email fred flintstone co uk L Lacat Murlent eens eens H Laria Inh 55 Peal tho rrint camice en sal Click here if you can t find your name in the list Once you click OK it will link the Sequel user to your Windows profile in the database and then take you to the Start Page Start Page The Start Page is your at a glance view of all your projects cashflows tasks and notes You can start new projects and open existing projects from here page 3 SDS Sequel User Manual Se SDS Sequel v6 0 0 Ele System Reports View Window Help Global Properties Start Page B SS sequel My Projects Unbalanced Cashflows in your Projects Headlines a c Cashflow cf Variance LastU Proje Acada Avenue Bracknell Dream Valley Mixed Phase 1 ERS Do you benchmark your development Dream Vall programmes site Perhaps you already do Peaceful Road but pay little attention to Cashflows the results Are you one E of the QED school Your Projects We re not taking Quod Erat Demonstrandum here No we re talking Question Explain Create New Project Dismiss lt m lt Published Date Fri 24 Sep Open Project 2010 13 01 00 GMT At Startup Read the full tem Show Start Page Task Status Start Workflow aE Late finishing Visit us at the Social Overdue
100. s which are kept hidden by default the Notes window and the User Help window You can slide these into view by moving your mouse over the title area of the window The default location for these title areas is at the top left of the screen Sa SDS Sequel v6 0 0 Eile SystemReports View Window Help ee stare Page 2 e Title Area 9 2 My Projects As you move your mouse over the title area the window will slide into view You can keep it open all the time by clicking the pin button at the top right of the window When the pin points down it is locked when the pin is horizontal the window is unlocked and will hide itself once you move the mouse focus away from it Note that when the window is pinned open you can click and drag the window to different locations on the screen When the window is attached to either side of the screen it is docked hence the name docked windows page 5 U DS Sequel User Manual Pe SDS Sequel v6 0 3 Notes E Jream Valley Bl D B x a D Due 25 01 2011 Dream Valley ma Pin button B Past 19 11 2010 Site Meeting int A Ma fax ax Pike R e io Mamad t a 0ISu sN S370N w If the window doesn t hide itself automatically you can either click the X button at the top right press lt Escape gt on the keyboard or click into a different part of the program New Project On starting a new proj
101. se B Save Manage Reports el SaveasNew Save As New x SE Ext Ready ocahost Demo On the left hand side there is a main menu structured into sections Clicking once on any of these menu items will load the data associated with that menu item into the Existing list in the middle section Clicking once on an existing item will display the data for that item on the main editing section on the right hand section This section has a traffic light status at the top A green light indicates that the item is saved an amber light indicates that all key data is entered correctly but has not yet been saved a red traffic light indicates that key data is missing Key data items that must be filled in are highlighted in bold text Each section has an description window below the traffic lights that describes what is required for the section Beneath the information window is the main editing section where you will enter the required information Beneath the Existing list are five command buttons e To clear any existing data fields and start again click the New button page 23 U DS Sequel User Manual e To save an item in the list that already exists click the Save button e To save a new item or create a copy of an existing selected item click the Save As New button To delete an item in the list click the Remove button e To close Global Prope
102. see the report on screen Alternatively click Export to save the report directly to a file Combine Batch The combine and batch functions let you run multiple reports into either the same Excel file as different worksheets or into the same folder respectively The combine function will only work by exporting to Excel as each report will appear on its own worksheet The batch function will export to any file format but instead of Excel it will export each report as a separate file into a nominated folder You will need to use the tick boxes to the left of each report name to select the reports that should be used Filtering Each report is designed with a number of fields that provide the information Each of the these is shown in a list in the Filter amp Sort Criteria page on the right hand side of the Reports window Each row represents one field that will go into the report for example project name Each of these rows can be filtered to narrow the results The type of page 109 U DS Sequel User Manual information in the field determines the likely type of filtering There are two columns called Min and Max that are intended for numbers dates and two columns called Include and Exclude that are intended for text based fields although it is possible to use any of the columns regardless of the type of data The Include Exclude columns allow you to enter multiple values to
103. ser Manual System Reports Action Logs Action Logs The action logs report keeps a list of changes made to the system by users This ranges from who is logging in to who changes project data To launch the report choose the System Reports gt Action Logs menu item from the main title bar A dialog will appear containing a number of options To show every log made just click the Preview Report button This will show the action logs in a QuickReport format However depending on how long the program has been in use this could take a few minutes to load You can use the various filter options to narrow your search e g by user or by project or even where in the program it happened You can also filter by date range Budget Variances Budget Variances The budget variance report shows a specific cashflow s budgets and latest estimates at a point in time All account codes in the cashflow will be displayed along with dates comments to show what has changed at that point To launch the report choose the System Reports gt Budget Variances menu item from the main title bar A dialog will appear containing a number of options You will need to choose which project and cashflow you are interested in Next choose the date on which the change happened and then finally click the Preview button This will show the budget variance in a QuickReport format If you would prefer to see a straightforward change
104. shflow and account code Whilst money may be moved between cashflows in the same project it cannot be moved between cashflows in different projects Once you have decided how much to transfer you can give an optional reason for the transfer Whether or not you do this the system will still log how much was moved when and who by in the audit trail Cash Planning Targets Cash Planning Targets The grant or subsidy that has been allocated to your scheme can be monitored using this tool Each cashflow can have one or more allocations For example if you have a single mixed tenure scheme you could have an allocation for each tenure The allocation contains some simple information about the region and tenure as well as target and actual dates for the allocation Each allocation then has one or more tranches of grant Each tranche can be named e g PC and three sets of amounts units can be recorded The first is the agreed HCA target the second is your internal forecast and the third is the actual amount and date Use the two buttons on the middle left to add or delete tranches The Save and Remove buttons at the bottom of the dialog will save or remove allocations so be careful when removing as there is no undo Snapshots Snapshots Cashflow snapshots are a quick way of recording a point in time for your cashflow Click the Add New Snapshot button to create a copy of your cashflow forecast This copy will take i
105. systems When you import Properties from an appraisal they are automatically grouped for you by appraisal and unit type There are arrow buttons to the left of the property list that will enable you to organise your properties as needed Use these to move the Properties around so thot they are grouped as you want them Use the New button to create additional empty Property records which can act as group headings The list of properties has two types of icon next to each property a house and a yellow folder These are explained below If you want to change the display name of the property double click on the name to open a text editor Attributes In the middle of the screen is an attributes grid that displays all the available Property Attributes that have been defined in the Global Properties When a property is selected changing values in the grid will cause them to save automatically when the icon is shown as a house If the icon is shown as a folder then a save button will become available at the top of the grid To save the changes click this Save button Any properties shown with a house icon that are in that folder will also have the same values saved In this way you can set common Attributes such as address details once for all child Properties Although you can sort properties into any configuration only items with folder icons will copy values into child properties If the property does not have a folder icon then
106. t position To get a detailed view of what is happening click the amber or red light this function is unavailable for green lights This will bring up a detailed status report Summary This text area is designed to allow you to write a summary of what the Project is about This is the first description of the project that anyone will see when opening your project so it will be helpful to at least give a broad overview However you have the same capacity and features here that are available in the notes section The text area will turn green as soon as you start typing in it this indicates you are making changes As soon as you click elsewhere on the screen or hit lt Tab gt it will turn back to white indicating that it has saved your changes Within the Project Summary and Notes you have options available to you other than just text entry Right click the mouse to get a context menu to appear The Editor option will open a larger text editor with text formatting features You can copy and paste text pictures or files from any other application into SDS Sequel and back out again by using the Copy and Paste functions The Create Link to File option allows you to create a hyperlink to files on your PC or network If you have created a hyperlink to a document or workbook then right clicking the mouse on the hyperlink itself will give the same menu but with the Print linked file option enabled This option sends the
107. t the description you enter must match the appraisal cost description exactly page 42 SDS Sequel User Manual Standard Descriptions The system comes with a number of preset appraisal descriptions e Acq VAT e Acquisition e Cop Interest e On Costs e Works e Works VAT e HCA SHG e LASHG e Other Grant 1 e Other Grant 2 e RCGF e Sales More fees can be added as necessary Appraisal Attributes Appraisal Attributes Please also review the Attributes topic which contains information common to all attribute sections There is no additional specific functionality for the appraisal attributes section Appraisal File Validation Appraisal File Validation This section is check that any imported appraisals are up to date In the editor window you will see a list of every project cashflow and appraisal in the system As Sequel is based on hierarchies each project can have multiple cashflows and each cashflow can have multiple appraisals For this reason you may see project or page 43 U DS Sequel User Manual cashflow names repeated in the list Checking the appraisal exists The appraisal path column displays where the appraisal was imported from If this file no longer exists in this location then the File Exists column will show No and the row will be highlighted in red To update the location of the appraisal file click the ellipsis button This will open a file browser d
108. t Code doesn t exist in Cashflow o Scheme Code doesn t exist but Account Code matched page 78 U DS Sequel User Manual 7 Accounting Period is not within specified parameters 8 Spare 9 Scheme Code matched but Account Code doesn t exist in Global Properties and Accounting Period is not within specified parameters 10 Spare 11 Scheme Code doesn t exist and Account Code doesn t exist and Accounting Period is not within specified parameters 12 Scheme Code doesn t exist but Accounting Period is within specified parameters and Account Code matched 13 Scheme Code doesn t exist and Accounting Period is not within specified parameters but Account Code matched Once the Finish button has been clicked Sequel will carry out three distinct stages First it will try to delete any existing transactions in the date range you have specified Second it will copy the transactions from the Excel file into the database Finally it will update every Cashflow s automatic balances and set each Cashflow to have the same period end as specified on Step 2 Once it is done you will be returned to the Cashflow Manager where you will see the Transactions in the Cashflow page 79 U DS Sequel User Manual Appraisal Appraisal Summary Appraisal Summary The Appraisal section of the Project Explorer contains all the appraisals in your Project These appraisals will be shown in a l
109. t may be used to link to the attribute For example if the property attribute was Market Value rather than entering this value manually the attribute could be linked to the Open Market Value field in the appraisal When the properties are generated from the unit types in the appraisal these linked attributes will be completed automatically page 55 U DS Sequel User Manual Reports Manage Reports Manage Reports Please also see the separate Reports topic for more information about reports There are four additional areas of functionality you can use in this section l Import You can load reports into Sequel by clicking the Import button and browsing for the report file Arrange Use the blue arrow buttons to move reports into different orders and or hierarchies Additional you can create new dummy reports that can group related reports together Click the New command button and change the display name to suit Naming You can change the display name of the report by editing the Name field and clicking the Save command button Filtering Whilst you can filter any report before you run it in this section you can save those filters So for example you could create copies of a report with each copy having its own separate filter e g region or status page 56 SDS Sequel User Manual Project Explorer Contents Project Explorer Using Notes eee 99 User Helo eee 60 EE rs
110. t tenures or phases whereas others will use a single code regardless of tenure In OpenAccounts this is called a Project Code in SunSystems it could either be called a scheme code or it may be a T code A note indicating who last edited the Cashflow and when is also displayed above the list of cashflows The Cashflow Summary gives a quick overview of the contents of each Cashflow If you have more than one Cashflow in your Project you can obtain a consolidated view by ticking the Consolidate checkbox The date summary gives the first and last date of the Transactions and Forecasts in your Cashflow s The Cashflow Summary also gives the total income and expenditure for the main areas of the Cashflow Sequel is designed to allow SDS ProVal appraisals to be imported directly to populate Cashflows If you do not have ProVal then you will need to create the Budget by hand using the Cashflow Wizard or Cashflow Properties To see how to import a ProVal appraisal then please go to the Appraisal topic Cashflow Attributes Cashflow Attributes are a separate set of Attributes from the Project Attributes and are used to store information at a more detailed level For example if you need to have multiple Cashflows because your finance system has separate codes for each tenure then you may want to store information such as start on site and practical completion dates for each Cashflow rather than as a single set of Project Attributes It
111. t will mean the audit logs will be incorrect as well page 29 U DS Sequel User Manual WARNING There is no undo function if you delete a project Once it s deleted it is deleted permanently If this happens by mistake to a project that you need please stop everyone using the program immediately and contact SDS for advice Servers Servers There are two servers that you can preset in this section The first server is for email and the second is for SDS ProVal LS 1 Email Server There are options within the Notes sections of Sequel to email the contents of that note to an email recipient Additionally if email links are set up for workflow tasks and or suppliers then that is also affected by this setting This server setting is the address of the IMAP server on your network It can be a name or IP address Typically for most organisations this will be the address of your Microsoft Exchange server 2 ProVal LS Server Database For those organisations using ProVal LS you can preset the server name address and the database name here The server will be the SQL Server instance and this may well be the same as the SDS Sequel server if they are installed on the same server The default database name will SDSProValWorking This setting affects the importing of appraisals when in a project SDS Sequel will try to bring back a list of appraisals from the ProVal database If this is not set or is set incorrectly there w
112. ted as well as the default layout All Items To create a new layout click the New Layout button on the mini toolbar The new layout will be added to the drop down list with a name of My Layout Click once on the name to edit it or press lt F2 gt Tick the Attributes you would like to include in the layout Use the blue arrow buttons to rearrange the order of the Attributes the floppy disk button to save your layout and the red cross button to delete your layout The double green arrow button refreshes the screen The box with the tick in it will select every Attribute whilst the box without a tick in it will unselect every Attribute page 108 U DS Sequel User Manual User Reports User Reports User Bespoke Reports The Reports page in Sequel can be accessed by pressing lt F6 gt or choosing View gt Reports from the menu in the main title bar A list of available reports will be shown on the left hand side These reports can either be provided on request to SDS or can be written in house using the SDS Report Designer supplied with Sequel or another third party tool Preview Export To preview or export a report you must first select it by highlighting it in the list On the right hand side the data for that report will then load You will not be able to preview the report or filter it until the data has finished loading Once this is completed click the Preview button at the top left to
113. tes or the actual dates If this Task has dependent Tasks then you also have the option to cascade these changes down the dependency chain This is the default option if it is applicable If any of these options are disabled then either you have selected the wrong Task or you do not have permission to make the changes See your Administrator to verify this After making changes to the actual start or finish dates or any of the options in the non timing section you will be required to enter some text in the Notes File Rer This will then be saved along with your user name and the date into an audit trail This audit trail is visible underneath the Notes File Ref text box It is not possible to amend or delete this trail This audit trail is also useful for storing references to paperwork associated with the Task you are starting completing To save the changes click the Save button at the bottom right of the form page 94 U DS Sequel User Manual Using milestones Milestones A milestone is a description of an event that occurs during a scheme Each task can be assigned two milestone descriptions that will represent the start date and end date of the task For example if a task was called Build House the milestone description for the start date could be Start on Site whilst the milestone for the end date could Practical Completion Milestones are consistent events that apply to all schemes such
114. the amount Context Menus There are three additional context menus that can be used in the cashflow forecast section 1 Forecast Context Menu This gives shortcuts to commonly used tools such as the Spread Forecast calculator It also allows you to re time a forecast line add outstanding balances into the current cell or delete existing forecasts Right click on any forecast cell background colour must be white or yellow to activate this menu 2 Balance To Forecast Context Menu This also gives a slightly reduced set of shortcuts to re time or delete forecasts 3 Transactions Context Menu Once transactions have been imported the background colour of the cell will be blue Once this happens right clicking on the cell brings up options to drill into the list of transactions that have occurred either in the current month or to date Forecast Calculators Spread Forecast Calculator The spread forecast calculator allows you to quickly spread any amount of money outstanding on a code over a period of time It can be used to spread just one code or multiple codes at the same time The top left of the dialog prompts for which column the money should be spread from either the Balance of Latest Estimate to Spend from the middle section of the cashflow manager or the Balance to Forecast column If you choose the former then any existing forecasts will be deleted first for that code So in effect you will re forecast everythi
115. the list Notes page 88 U DS Sequel User Manual The Notes system is available for Tasks not for Workflows You are not limited to the number of Notes you can store on each Task The Workflow Notes list will display any Notes that have been added to the selected Task In order to make it easier to identify which Tasks have Notes without clicking on each one the text of the Task node will change The colour will turn blue and it will be in italics Workflow Wizard Workflow Wizard The Workflow Wizard is the tool you use to add Workflows to your Project from the Global Properties library of templates The Wizard shows the available Workflow Templates already set up in Global Properties Copy the templates you want to use in your project by selecting them and then clicking the blue arrows to move them into the project Click Finish when you have copied everything you need You may add Workflows singly or in batches Workflow Properties Workflow Properties The Workflow Properties screen allows you to make changes to the Tasks in your Workflow It also allows you to add additional links resources to your Tasks You may resize this form as needed Within the Properties dialog there are three tabs along the top Clicking on the tab will display that page Once you have made changes then click the Save button at the bottom right of the screen The Tasks tab shows the Existing Task Library with all
116. tions The Balance to Forecast column will indicate whether that row has been balanced correctly An outstanding positive figure means that there is under spending in the Cashflow and you should re forecast this amount A negative figure means you have overspent in which case you should reduce the amount in your forecast Usually this manual updating will be required each month after transactions have been imported There are additional tools to help you automatically spread any outstanding balances these are discussed later You may find that you cannot reduce your forecasts enough for the Balance to Forecast to return to zero In this instance the only option is to increase the Latest Estimate to compensate This usually means depending on your procedures requesting an authorisation for additional expenditure over and above the original budget Once this has been authorised you will need to open the Cashflow Properties dialogue the spanner icon on the toolbar and then click on the Budget tab Highlight the Code you wish to change and then click the Change Latest Estimate button A second dialog will appear asking you to confirm the new amount and the reason for the change Click OK to exit this dialog then click Save then Exit to return to the Cashflow Manager Underneath the cumulative balance row is a total of the capitalised interest shown to a user specified date Change the date to show the interest at
117. ton at the top right of the screen once the list is how you would like it It is also possible to display Project Attributes as columns as well For example if you would like to filter by the Project Status attribute This must be set up in Global Properties as there is an option in the Project Attributes section of Global Properties that you can tick to include the attribute in the project listing page 9 U DS Sequel User Manual page 10 SDS Sequel User Manual Technical Contents Technical IT Requirements Installation OOO page 11 12 13 16 17 18 U DS Sequel User Manual Requirements Licensing SDS Sequel is licensed on a named user basis The Windows user profile will be used to create the licence key This means a licenced Windows user can log onto any PC and use the software without restriction It is not a concurrent licence model Once the licensed number of users have logged in for the first time no other users will be permitted Requirements for the client PC Software Microsoft Windows XP Vista 7 Microsoft NET Framework v2 Hardware We recommend as a minimum a Pentium 4 class 2Ghz CPU 512MB RAM 128MB 16bit XGA graphics card with XGA capable monitor TFT 120MB free hard disk space for installation 64 bit processors are supported Requirements for the server Software Microsoft Windows Server 2003 2008 Microsoft Windows SQL Server 2005 2008 Hardware We recommend as a minim
118. u can choose whichever makes sense to you If nothing is selected the properties will be imported with default names of Property 1 Property 2 etc Therefore it makes sense to choose something Finally there is a Create Workflow checkbox which when ticked will create a new Workflow in the Project with a task representing each property The task name will be the same as the property name To finish importing the properties click the Import button page 101 SDS Sequel User Manual Reports Contents Reports Overview page 102 103 104 104 104 105 105 106 106 107 107 107 108 109 109 U DS Sequel User Manual Overview Reports Overview SDS Sequel comes with two different types of reports System and QuickReports and Bespoke Reports The reports that are built in to Sequel are system reports such as budget variances or audit trails and QuickReports which are special reports built into each section of the Project Explorer These reports are preset and cannot be altered by the organisation The bespoke reports are written to suit the requirements of the organisation using Sequel Whilst Sequel is supplied with a number of these as standard there is the option to write your own or have them written for you by SDS Bespoke reports offer the greatest flexibility and customisation Bespoke reports are often referred to as pre compiled reports or user reports page 105 U DS Sequel U
119. uel User Manual Transactions and Forecasts 4 Detailed Cashflow Snapshot This represents your Cashflow as it appears in the Cashflow Manager 5 Cashflow Attributes This reports a row for each cashflow in your project with each of the attributes appearing as columns in the report Reports 2 3 and 4 have an additional option which will appear under the Only show this Project checkbox This option allows you to consolidate multiple cashflows within a project into a single dataset or report each cashflow separately Appraisal QuickReport Appraisal QuickReport The three reports for Appraisal are 1 Appraisal Summary This will display all of the main information imported from the Appraisal 2 Unit Details This will display any unit types in the Appraisal 3 Appraisal Cashflow If the Scheme Cashflow and Detailed On Costs in the Appraisal have been completed then this will be displayed Workflow QuickReport Workflow QuickReport This report contains all information relating to the Tasks and their timings etc There are also columns displaying days overdue starting finishing and so on It can be helpful to drag these columns onto the top of the report to group by them In this way you will get a sub report of all late starting Tasks for example It is possible to import this data into Microsoft Project by using a mapping file within MS Project After exporting the Sequel workflow to Excel import the Excel file into Pr
120. ulsory Attributes have been set Additionally some attributes may be read only depending on your security level in which case they will be greyed out and you will not be able to edit the value Importing attribute values from another project If you have already created a similar Project and would like to use the values from that Project to start you off then click the Click to import attributes from another project hyperlink underneath the Attribute grid A dialog will open which will prompt you for the name of the source Project you want to use to copy the values from Select the Project from the drop down list and then click OK Milestones Milestones A milestone is a description of an event that occurs during a scheme Each milestone can be assigned a calendar date in the project that is specific to that project These milestones are also used in the workflow section The milestone descriptions are created in Global Properties Timesheets Timesheets Clicking the Timesheets button in the Project Summary screen will open the Timesheets form in which you can save the number of hours User s have worked on the Project Use the Detail section on the right to enter the information The Project User and Cost Per Hour are filled in automatically from the current Project and the logged on User The Cost Per Hour is an optional setting in the Global Properties for each User To save a log of your
121. um a dual core CPU 2GB RAM 120MB free hard disk space for installation Graphics performance of the server is not relevant to the end user and is not specified for this reason Consider using quad core or better CPUs and more RAM if there are a high number of users 20 We recommend the use of a dedicated server where possible Remote Support A remote connection via RDP VPN or other secure third party client will be required Please contact SDS technical support for more information page 12 U DS Sequel User Manual Installation Prerequisites SDS Sequel uses the NET Framework 3 5 SP1 If you are upgrading from version 5 0 x of Sequel you may also need to upgrade the NET Framework The installer provided will check this and initiate the installation if it is required SDS Sequel is supplied as a setup application with an MSI installer package containing the following 1 SDS Sequel The main application 2 SDS Desktop Notes Monitor Small startup application to keep track of notes 3 Samples files documentation Citrix Thin Client Any reference to client PC should be taken to refer to any server hosting the application in a thin client environment SDS Sequel is compatible with thin client technologies such as Terminal Services Citrix VMWare etc Downloading the Client application You can always download the latest version from the following URL http downloads s d s co uk sdssequel zip Th
122. urrently open cashflow or all cashflows this section allows you to choose the cashflows that you want to update In this way you can update batches of cashflows for example In order for a cashflow to be updated it must be selected in the grid at the bottom of the editor You can use lt shift gt mouse click or lt ctrl gt mouse click to select either a contiguous range or specific cashflows respectively Alternatively you can use the Select All button to highlight all cashflows or use the filter row to find specific projects or owners etc Once you have selected the cashflows that you want to update click the Begin scanning transactions button This will launch the import transactions wizard The wizard will show the successful failed transactions for you to review before you commit to importing them into the database Please see the main topic for transactions in the project explorer manual for more information on what the other options mean or hover your mouse over an element to see a popup help tip Cashflow Snapshots Cashflow Snapshots At any point in a cashflow s lifecycle you can take a snapshot of the cashflow The snapshot will include all the transactions or forecasts for each account code in the cashflow You can use this option at the beginning of a cashflow to create an expected business plan cashflow for example To create the snapshot select a cashflow in the left hand list in the editor window an
123. will be highlighted in red It is important to note that these unmapped unit types will not be removed unless you explicitly set that option Most of the time you will want to set that option as the implication of not assigning a new unit type to overwrite an existing one is that the unassigned existing unit type is no longer required However the program will not delete data unless prompted to do so To set the option to delete existing unit types tick the option at the bottom of the wizard Remove n existing unit types that are unassigned When you do this the second option that refers to property records will be enabled If you have used the Property section of Sequel to create properties based on the existing unit types this gives you the option to remove those properties that were based on the old unit type that is being removed Generally we would recommend doing this unless you are going to manually update your property records for example if you had already added a lot of data to those properties If you do not want to keep any of the existing unit types you do not need to assign the new unit types to them in the grid just tick the option to remove the existing unit types that are unassigned page 86 U DS Sequel User Manual Step 8 This is the final step of the wizard To finish and import the appraisal click the Finish button Appraisal Manager Appraisal Manager The appraisal manager allows you
124. you to see what you are going to be spending before it hits the Cashflow via the Transactions To add an Order click the Add button to edit an existing Order select it in the list and click Edit To remove an Order again select it in the list and then click Remove Adding an Order page 97 U DS Sequel User Manual Clicking the Add or Edit button in the People Manager opens the orders dialog The fields highlighted in bold are essential Please select the appropriate value from the drop down lists in the order they appear The Order Ref No and Scope are optional fields that can be used to store information on what the order is for The Supply Start Date and Supply Finish Date are also optional and can be used to specify a duration over which the work will take place When Transactions are recorded in the Cashflow orders are not shown as paid automatically Once the Order Commitment is fully delivered complete the Paid Date field to mark it as paid Click the Save button to commit the changes or the Cancel button to abort page 98 U DS Sequel User Manual Property Property Summary Property Summary The Property section of the Project Explorer contains all the Property information for your Project The purpose of this section is to enable you to create individual records for each of your plots ready for exporting to Housing Management
125. ype of control that group related items together on a form for example a tabbed page control or a group box e Controls these are the parts you interact with directly for example buttons listviews treeviews menus dropdown boxes date pickers etc Forms can have either containers or controls or both on them A control cannot contain anything whereas a container may contain controls or further containers of controls Confusingly containers are also technically controls as well although you don t interact with them directly As an example consider the Change Budget button in the Cashflow Properties form This is often set to a higher security level to prevent the budget being changed To find this button you would need to follow these steps 1 Start from the top Form Main 2 Find the form called Form Cashflow Properties KR O Expand the container to find the tab page Tab Budget uo Expand the tab page to find the container Group Box 3 Expand this form to find the container Tab Control 1 6 Finally select the control Button Vary Budget Tip As you can begin to appreciate which such a big program it may not always be obvious where to find the part of the program you require We would always recommend contacting SDS directly to discuss your requirements so that we can assist you in finding what you need Once you have selected the button the options i

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