[dev] Hermes - Assign Cost Objects to Employees

Manilal K M manilal at ejyothi.com
Fri Feb 13 10:40:47 UTC 2009


Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:

> Zitat von Manilal K M <manilal at ejyothi.com>:
>
>> Hello all,
>>  We have been using Hermes as our timesheet application for the  
>> past 3 years and our employees feel very much comfortable due to  
>> the simplicity of the application.
>>
>> Basically employees report their time against the  
>> Deliverables(Projects) created in Deliverables section. Initially  
>> we have only very limited number of projects and it was easy to  
>> maintain. But recently we had a rapid growth in number of Cost  
>> objects due to the implementation of certain process(more  
>> accurately CMMI).  Currently there are more than 50 cost  
>> objects/client and employees feel difficulty in choosing the right  
>> cost object.
>>
>> The possible solution is a feature to assign cost objects to the  
>> employees, so that they can view only the relevant Cost Objects.
>>
>> This would also involve addition of a database  
>> table(hermes_empdeliverables) with the following fields:
>> empdeliverable_id integer Primary key
>> employee_id varchar(255)
>> deliverable_id integer
>>
>> If this feature makes sense, then I would be happy to create a  
>> feature request in bug tracker and create a patch for the same.
>
> You should use the permissions system instead.

Thank you for your input, it makes sense. But there are some issues :
1. AFAIK, the permission system is accessible only to system  
administrators and in our firm, the deliverables are managed by  
non-techie managers.
2. In addition, the permission system is too complex for a non-techie  
user and there are chances that they will mess up everything.
3. The process would be something like this: Manager have to first  
create the deliverable in the *Deliverables* page and then move to the  
Permission system to allow access to the deliverables. This may be a  
complex procedure for the managers who are not at all IT savvy.

So, how about taking this approach:
1. Use the permission system to store the access details instead of  
creating a new database table.
2. Use Permissions API to add/edit permissions to cost objects from  
the Deliverables admin page itself while they add/edit deliverables.

I'm not sure how can I use the Permission API for this task.

Another requirement has evolved after discussion with our managers -  
They would like to see who are all associated with a cost object, and  
vice versa. is this possible with permission system?


regards
-- 
Manilal K M
eJyothi Services
http://www.ejyothi.com



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