Submit Your Suggestions for Vista

In JC Job Phases, there is an active button on the Info Tab and another one on the Cost Types tab. If the Phase Category associated with Direct Labor is active on the Cost Types tab - then it will still be visible in the timekeeping portal. But if it's disabled in both, it's disabled from timekeeping use. At least that's our process here. Hope it helps.

Depending where this is an issue, you can create a ud lookup and make that the priority 1 lookup over the standard - I've done this on MANY forms where we needed a different lookup than standard and it is very helpful.

Completely agree that inactive phases should not appear in the phase lookup for timecard entry - this same lookup transfers through into the Keystyle lookup as well (same logic should apply for purchase orders, subcontracts, etc - I can't say that I've tested those).  Phase codes are changed to inactive to indicate that no new costs should be charged there - it's a way to close out various parts of a project (perhaps the job had multiple areas or sequenced phases, or even a simple mistake was made setting up the job and the team wants to close off a phase code).  JC Cost projections even supports hiding inactive phase codes, and, as previously mentioned, using them just results in batch posting errors which we would all like to prevent.

We inactivated a few phases, but when employees are charging their time those phases still show up in the phase list for them to select. So they are able to charge their time to those phases, but the time will not post because the phases are inactive. So if they were hidden or grayed out even, the users would see that they are not able to select them. This just causes issues when they are able to charge time there, but the time can't post. It causes more people to be involved to either reactivate the phases or chase down where that time should be charged to instead. I'm sure there are more examples where this would come in handy, but this is just a specific one that our company has experienced recently. Hopefully that explains it a little better and gives a more specific example. The UD field wouldn't accomplish what we are needing as we are selecting project phases that are assigned in Vista.

One thing we'd like to know more about is the specific user scenario / use case that this functionality is intended to address. Can someone please extrapolate on that? Thank you!

Make a UD lookup to suit your needs.  They are relatively quick and easy to implement.

Perhaps grayed out and unselectable in the F4 lookups? That way they are still visible, but can't be used.

I think the way "Active" is used throughout VP should be enhanced to do this by default:

•  All lookups which show both ACTIVE and INACTIVE should GRAY the INACTIVE rows, and possibly make it so they can't be selected.
•  All FORM GRIDS should include a SIMPLE toggle for "show all, show active only, show inactive only" (the toggle for a checkbox in the filter area is a pain to use. Honestly, go try to use it. Fixing that would be a good start).
•  All FORM GRIDS should show the INACTIVE lines as dark grey. this would make them much easier to spot when many columns are present.

They should be visible - but grayed out to show in-active or unavailable to select - unless there are an extreme number of inactive phases that hinder quickly selecting a specific active phase.     Inactive phases should be included for reference - because not everyone joins a project or participates in the entire project - people come & go in projects frequently.