WorkflowMax/Xero Practice Manager Sync

Modified on Thu, 14 Nov, 2024 at 10:21 PM

In order to use PlanRight, you’ll need to connect to either WorkflowMax or Xero Practice Manager. The steps are the same, whether you are connecting to WorkflowMax or Xero Practice Manager:

How to connect to WorkflowMax/Xero Practice Manager

When you first sign up to PlanRight, you will be walked through the process to connect your PlanRight account to your WorkflowMax/Xero Practice Manager account.

You can also connect using the following steps:

Click "Settings” at the top-right
Click “XPM/WFM”
Click “Connect”

Follow the instructions on screen, enter your WFM/XPM login details. When PlanRight is successfully connected to WFM/XPM, you will be asked to select the sync option based on
how you would like to start using PlanRight.

The available Sync Options are -

Plan in PlanRight
Plan in WorkflowMax

Select the sync mode and click on the “Continue” button.

More information about PlanRight sync settings can be found here

Plan in PlanRight

Choose this option if you haven’t done any detailed planning in WorkflowMax and would like to start planning in PlanRight. With this option your clients, jobs, tasks, staff assignments, estimated efforts and timesheets will be imported into PlanRight.

Planning in PlanRight works as follow

Create Clients, Jobs, Tasks and Estimate efforts in WorkflowMax. After the initial sync, all of this information will be available in PlanRight.
Tasks Start and End Dates. (We recommend you use PlanRight to add dates):
- After the initial sync, PlanRight will create a new task assignment for each assigned staff member
  beginning on the same date as the task created in WorkflowMax.
- Task assignments will not appear on schedule until you assign them from the schedule or the
  Jobs tab.
- If a task is not given it’s own start and end dates in WorkflowMax, PlanRight will copy the start
  date of the task’s respective job.
- Dates changed in PlanRight will not sync back to WorkflowMax
Assign tasks to staff members and allocate hours. (We recommend you use PlanRight to assign tasks):
- Once a task has been synchronised with PlanRight, any changes made in WorkflowMax will not
  appear in PlanRight.
- During the planning you can assign/reassign tasks and allocate hours to staff members from the
  Jobs tab, Plan Job or from the schedule.
- Staff members can be assigned to the same task multiple times.
- Staff members assigned to tasks via PlanRight will sync back to WorkflowMax only if the Task
  Staff Assignments checkbox is enabled in the Settings > XPM/WFM tab.
- Allocated hours will never sync back to WorkflowMax.
Timesheets:
- Timesheets will sync back to WorkflowMax only if the Timesheets and checkbox is enabled in the Settings > XPM/WFM tab.

Planning in WorkflowMax

Choose this option if you have been using WorkflowMax to do your detailed planning. With this option you will be able to import all your data from WorkflowMax including your clients, jobs, tasks, staff assignments, estimated efforts, job/task dates, allocated hours and timesheets. Your PlanRight schedule will reflect these values on the schedule.

Planning in WorkflowMax works as follows:

All task assignments will appear on the schedule.
Changing task dates and staff assignments in WorkflowMax will cause the same changes to appear in PlanRight.
Changing task dates for a single staff member will update the dates for all other staff members assigned to that task as well.
Staff members can only be assigned to a task once. In this mode we do not support allocating multiple instances of a task to a staff member.
You can optionally enable or disable the synchronisation of Task Start & End Dates, Task Staff Assignments, Allocated Hours and Timesheets to and from WorkflowMax from the Settings > XPM/WFM tab.
Deallocating all staff from a task will cause the task to appear in the Unassigned row on the schedule.

More information about PlanRight sync settings can be found here

The First Sync

The time it takes for the sync to finish depends on the amount of data in your WFM/XPM account - it can be anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours (if you have thousands of open jobs).

When your sync is complete, you'll see your tasks, jobs, clients & timesheets in PlanRight. Only timesheets from the last 30 days are imported from WFM to PlanRight. If you require timesheets from earlier than this, please contact our support team at [email protected].

You can manage your connection to WFM/XPM by accessing the XPM Settings in PlanRight.

Sync Modes

PlanRight supports three sync modes:

Automatic - the daily and quick syncs will run as described below and changes made in PlanRight will sync to WFM/XPM
Manual - daily and quick syncs will not run, but changes made in PlanRight will sync to WFM/XPM
Off - daily and quick syncs will not run, changes made in PlanRight will not sync to WFM/XPM

Daily Sync

Every day, at approximately 7am, 11am, 3pm and 7pm (in your timezone), PlanRight will do a complete sync of your data from WFM/XPM to PlanRight. This includes:

Updating all staff
Updating all open jobs and tasks
Updating any jobs that have been closed or cancelled since the last sync
Updating all clients
Updating any timesheets added in the last 30 days and allocating these to tasks in PlanRight.

Quick Sync

Every 20 minutes, between 7am and 7pm (in your timezone), PlanRight will attempt to perform a quick sync of your data from WFM/XPM. This includes:

Update any new staff added since the last full sync
Update any new jobs added since the last full sync
Update any new clients added since the last full sync
Update any timesheets dated within the last day

Changes made in PlanRight

The following changes, made in PlanRight, will be updated immediately in WorkflowMax:

When a task is allocated to a staff member, that staff member will be assigned to the task in WFM
When a task is marked as completed in PlanRight, the task will updated in WFM if all tasks of that type for that job are marked as completed
When time is record in PlanRight, a timesheet will be created in WFM
When a note is added in PlanRight, a note will be added to the job in WFM

Sync Limitations

If you edit a timesheet in WFM in order to move it to a different staff person or task, then that change will not be visible in PlanRight. This means that your total Logged Hours for the task will be incorrect in PlanRight.
If you delete a timesheet in WFM it'll still be visible in PlanRight and won't update the Logged Hours.
If you delete a job in WFM, it'll still be visible in PlanRight. We recommend closing jobs that you no longer want.

The above limitations exist because the WFM API doesn't give us information on whether a timesheet or job was deleted or edited.

Only timesheets from the last 30 days are imported from WFM to PlanRight. If you require timesheets from earlier than this, please contact our support team at [email protected]

Syncing Jobs for a Client

If you have added a job in WorkflowMax and don't want to wait for the sync to happen, you can select the client from the Jobs screen and click the "Update all Jobs" button, which will update all jobs for just that client immediately.