UniPhi 12 - Upgraded cash flow phasing

Key to the successful deployment at a recent client of ours was the upgrading of our cash flow capabilities. We have already referenced some of these including the only known software product on the market that can phase cash flows based off the earned value profile of a collection of similar projects. However, there is much more just in time for our 12 release including:

• More user friendly navigation of cash flow forecasts with more filters and an excel grid look and feel
• Linking the start of one cost or revenue codes phasing based off the end of another
• Linking the phasing of a cost or revenue code to the start and/or finish date of a lifecycle phase
• Applying a non-benchmarked "S" curve algorithm
• Productivity adjustments for auto phasing
• Ability to shift the start date of a project which already has a cash flow

We will now go through each new feature one by one:

When entering the phasing screen the default start month is either the first month that already has a value or the start date of the project. You are then presented with a 12 month period and Previous/Next navigation options. You can jump to a date in the future by selecting the start date.
The real key is the presentation of all data on one screen (including children projects within the parent and contracts phasing in the same screen). Filtering then allows the user to remove the noise including a levels filter to display the relevant level of codes/contract deliverables that you wish to phase against and focusing on either forecasts or budget. Of course there's still the "All" view that shows budget versus actual and variance for analysis purposes.

The new cash flow phasing screen with contracts displayed against their relevant code.

The key to the next two features is to streamline the adjustment of cash flow phasing as things change. An example of this is the fact that settlement of units sold during construction phase will always occur after a certain period (e.g. 2 weeks) that the certificate of occupancy is obtained. There are two ways to link these two events in UniPhi, 1) link the construction cost code to the revenue code or 2) link the construction lifecycle phase to the revenue code. In both events, changing the end date of construction will automatically push out the start date for sales settlements.

Linking dates for automated cash flow phasing

Added to the automated phasing methods are our unique "Benchmark" method and a standard construction 'S' Curve algorithm. These methods can be chosen per cost code or for the project as a whole with the relationship maintained for any changes to dates and durations. Also included is the simple "adjust start" function which allows you to shift the phasing profile forward or backwards in time to allow for changes to planning decisions and internal approvals (as are wont to occur).

Finally, the 'S' curve algorithm's can be adjusted via a simple productivity percentage applied to financial months that are typical of down time in your industry or geographic location. As an example, you might apply a 50% reduction adjustment for December January in Australia to allow for the fact that the construction industry shuts down for four weeks over the Christmas and New Year period.

UniPhi 12 - No more change requests!

Sayonara Change Requests!

UniPhi 12 now brings a new way of implementing change request through delegations of authority enhancements, expansion of our budget template control and a re-design of the budget snapshot process. So how does it all work?

Once a budget, either Cost or Revenue - it works the same for both sides, is entered and ready to be approved, a document containing the budget control needs to be signed off. When creating the document, you're given status options for your budget, either mark it as Original, Approved or both.

Once signed-off, the status of the budget will be updated accordingly. In the case below, the budget was marked as Original and Approved. Subsequent changes can be made to the budget without affecting the approved budget.

Combined with our document sign-off role feature strengthens security over budget control compared to the existing change request functionality. Additionally, thanks to our document management, there is now a clear audit trail of budget changes. As always we are now proud to implement this new feature in UniPhi 12 to push the boundary's of budget and financial management control.

UniPhi 12 - Advanced document search

The use of UniPhi for independent verification work is unique to off the shelf software. Independent verification of construction and infrastructure projects is in growing demand due to the increase in infrastructure spending in eastern Australia with governments utilising strong tax receipts generated from growing house prices and low interest rates to invest in new transport and other infrastructure.

UniPhi's issues, document template and custom list capability added to its OnSite mobile apps provides unlimited capacity to tailor the capture of audit information right there at the site of the audit . However, like many database driven structures, UniPhi provided great data capture capability but limited output capability. Listening to our end users, UniPhi 12 comes with an advanced search feature that means your search capability grows with the custom lists you create to conduct your audits.

There are two types of custom lists that UniPhi allows you to create and embed in documents; Checklists and single select drop downs. When a user enters advanced document search, if all templates have been selected, all custom lists that have been included in a template are dynamically displayed in the search screen. Selecting an option in the drop downs returns a list of all documents where that particular option has been selected. An example in the independent verification world would be all "Hold Point" surveillance's. If the user selects a template to filter on, then only the custom lists used in that template are shown.



This functionality has led to new template structures that have solved another problem in the UniPhi documents module. Using UniPhi to share and collaborate with drawings often meant the creation of various discipline templates that were the same as each other but were used to differentiate the discipline (e.g. Engineering versus Architectural drawings). Now the discipline can be selected as part of the document and advanced search can be used to list all the specific disciplines drawings. By reducing the number of templates, end user experience is improved and the simplicity of the system increased.



The advanced search feature has also improved the ability to utilise custom checklists. A user can find all documents where a specific checklist item was ticked by pasting the name of one checklist item into the free text search.

These new features dramatically increase a users ability to get the outputs they wish and have fed similar filtering capability in reports. Thanks to the OH2K team at AECOM for much of the input into this new feature. We love the fact that our clients will let us work with them to mutually benefit not just each other but the broader UniPhi community,

UniPhi 12 - Notes for resources

Until UniPhi 12, nearly all data captured in UniPhi was captured against a project. This included all CRM information. Organisations would set up sales lead projects and add issues for contacts that they are engaging with. Then all the communication features of UniPhi would come to live to track all correspondence across the entire target organisation, it's various locations and the people within that location.

However, feedback from our customers was that sometimes you just want to log a comment against a person. It may be a coffee catch up, a phone call that doesn't relate to the sales lead issue or a thought bubble. So, UniPhi 12 comes with comments made directly against the resource. This is the first bit of formal functionality that is not project based.

To add a comment a user clicks on the target contacts name or searches for them (using the new advanced resource search functionality if necessary) and there between the basic contact details of the resource and the custom fields created is a comments panel.

And just like the issues system, it is threaded with the ability to filter for who made the comment in the thread so if you have a collaborative approach you can filter out all other comments other than your own (or the BDMs or other filtered resource).

With the expansion of custom field functionality and the adding of assets to the resource module, the UniPhi 12 release comes with a range of non-project based data. I'm sure UniPhi 13 will see us leverage these steps into the non-project based world.

UniPhi 12 - Assets come to resources

Once again, UniPhi 12 has been driven by the needs of a new client in the property development sector. This major government agency required expanded and streamlined management of the developments they have from cradle to grave with this life span being as long as 40 years! This included the management of the status of their as built assets and the sub-division of them. UniPhi's resources module was easily adapted to allow for a new type of resource - Assets to be added.

The current target of this assets resource type are land and building assets and their sub-division into lots for eventual sale. However, I'm sure once this functionality in in the marketplace, there will be additional uses like plane hire management (linked to our timesheet module) and product builds for manufacturers.

In the meantime, we'll focus on supporting our current property development client with the asset management support they need. This includes the ability to add unlimited custom fields of various data types to classify and then search for assets, allocating assets to projects (ready for sale), assigning assets to a revenue contract and then reporting on the status of an asset.

Another new feature in UniPhi 12 that we needed to support the role out of assets as a resource is expanded resource custom fields. The brilliance of +Gunawan Herman can be seen through all this work. Resource custom fields can now be assigned at the organisation, site, contact and asset level. They have all relevant data types and are dynamically added to the particular type of resource's details page. They can be categorised and added in bulk. Probably the neatest feature is that they can be searched for and are returned dynamically as part of the results set. Finally, they are dynamically included in the template variable tool set for documentation. As can be seen from this, Gunawan is king of the dynamic interface design and implementation.

UniPhi users can now tailor their resource information to the data sets they need and then extract that information into "mail merged" documents, reports and dashboards. This represent an exiting expansion of the UniPhi feature set and we look forward to customer feedback on it.

UniPhi 12 - Mail Merge

UniPhi has had a "Mail Merge"type functionality for some time now. We call the mail merge fields template variables. Template variables are queries on the UniPhi database that return text, tables, paragraphs etc into a rich text box that can then be rendered to PDF as a letter or report. The key use of template variables has been in the addressing of forms and populate of paragraphs of text with specific project information like budgets, due dates etc. This significantly reduces transpose errors when issuing consulting reports.

However, again due to the requirements of a new client, we have enhanced this feature to be able to generate numerous documents in a single merge. This new functionality draws on either a selected resource list of contracts list to insert dynamic information into one document per selected resource/contract as per the screenshot below:

Mail Merge Wizard Form

The end output is a single PDF with all relevant documents combined and ready to print as well as an individual PDF per contact. This functionality will greatly reduce the administration burden of property sales for developers come settlement time.

UniPhi 12 - Resource custom fields

In UniPhi 12, a new resource type (Assets) was added to support our property development clients. When we were scoping this new type, we decided that the best way to support the unique field requirements that was going to be requested from client to client was to create an advanced and sophisticated custom field capability. Once scoped, this was designed and implemented by our dynamic interface guru +Gunawan Herman who has delivered what I believe is the most significant enhancement in the release.

Asset details with custom fields displayed from "Legal Registry Details" down.

UniPhi has always worked hard to provide methodology components that allows each client to configure the system to their own particular nuances and needs. We believe that this is why even though the focus of our software is the construction industry, we have clients ranging from software developers through to child protection agents!

The resource custom field functionality adds to this capability in a significant way. Firstly, you can categorise the custom fields and add any type of field necessary. Our consultant on large projects +Simon Day has utilised this categorisation instantly for a client to workflow how they update an assets details over time. Each asset has a collection of common fields that need updating at the same time, so by categorising the assets to these stages, an end user is able to filter for these fields and for the necessary assets that need updating and then bulk update the data in one screen in minutes.

Bulk update for a filtered list of assets

Of course, capturing data efficiently is only half the battle. The next key is to provide capability to display this data in a variety of ways. Our template variable functionality is key to being able to do this so we have now added a "Resources custom field" tab to the template variable screen. This provides powerful capability to end users and when combined with the new mail merge functionality, this means that managing the sales and settlement of a apartment block is massively reduced.

We will be extending this capability into the compilation of standard government forms further reducing the time taken to manage sales in the property sector.