Considerations for Time Approvers and Billing Approvers

As detailed in Determining Time Approvers, time approvers are determined by multiple factors depending on work item types. The changes to such factors as resource's time sheet policy, override rule, and project setting lead to changes of time approvers. Likewise, the changes to the setting of default billing approver and override rules lead to changes of billing approvers. Besides, delegates of approvers (time approvers and billing approvers) can act on behalf of approvers, therefore, the changes to delegates also matter in evaluating approvers. The background service Evaluate TM Approvers periodically checks to determine whether the resource assigned to approve a time sheet has changed. For more information about this service, see Evaluate TM Approvers Service.

The performance of this service may be influenced in the following scenarios. PPM recommends that you avoid these scenarios in case of performance issue.

• A security group is the time approver or billing approver of a large amount of time sheets. The security group is changed by:

  • Adding or deleting group members.
  • Adding or deleting delegates of group members.
  • Enabling or disabling the security group.
  • Using (or not using) this security group for time sheets.

• A resource is the time approver or billing approver of a large amount of time sheets. The delegation of this resource is changed by:

  • Adding or deleting delegates of the resource.
  • Editing the start date or end date of a delegate.
• A resource is the creator of a large amount of time sheets. The default time approver or default billing approver of the resource is changed.

• An override rule controls a large amount of time sheets. The override rule is changed by:

  • Editing the override rule dependencies (filters).
  • Editing time approver or billing approver after the override rule dependencies (filters) are met.

Evaluate TM Approvers Service

To check whether the resource assigned to approve a time sheet is changed, every time when the Evaluate TM Approvers service runs, it not only records changes information such as Security Group Changed, Override Rule Changed, and Resource Changed, but also renders these changes information into the Reevaluate Time Sheet information.

You can configure the parameter TM_REEVALUATE_COUNT in the server.conf file to control the amount of the Reevaluate Time Sheet information. By default, the value of the parameter is 1,000,000. If the amount of information exceeds the number you specified, the system strops rendering the changes information into the Reevaluate Time Sheet information, but only deal with the Reevaluate Time Sheet information that has been rendered.

If the Reevaluate Time Sheet information is so large in quantity that it cannot be completely covered by the service in just one running process, the service will deal with the information in batches. The batches of information that is not covered in this running will be covered in the next.

If the service running time is longer than 720 minutes that is specified by the paramter JOB_STATUS_CLEANUP_INTERVAL, the service stops running. When it runs the next time, it continues dealing with the information left.

Parameters Controlling the Number of Time Approvers and Billing Approvers

For the sake of system stability and performance, the following four sever configuration parameters are added in the server.conf file to control the number of time approvers and billing approvers.

Parameter Name	Description, Usage	Default and Valid Value
TM_MAX_TIME_APPROVER_WARNING_COUNT	The maximum number of time approvers of time sheet lines allowed by the system before it throws warning.	Default Value: 80,000,000 Valid Value: Positive integer
TM_MAX_BILLING_APPROVER_WARNING_COUNT	The maximum number of billing approvers of time sheets allowed by the system before it throws warning.	Default Value: 160,000,000 Valid Value: Positive integer
TM_MAX_TIME_APPROVER_ERROR_COUNT	The maximum number of time approvers of time sheet lines allowed by the system before it throws error.	Default Value: 100,000,000 Valid Value: Positive integer
TM_MAX_BILLING_APPROVER_ERROR_COUNT	The maximum number of billing approvers of time sheets allowed by the system before it throws error.	Default Value: 200,000,000 Valid Value: Positive integer

The system reports error log to remind the system administrator to check the configuration of time approvers or billing approvers or to check the table space, if both the following happen:

• The number of time approvers exceeds the number specified in the parameter TM_MAX_TIME_APPROVER_WARNING_COUNT.
• The number of billing approvers exceeds the number specified in the parameter TM_MAX_BILLING_APPROVER_WARNING_COUNT.

If the system throw warnings or errors, but the table space of the TM_USERS_BILLING_APPROVERS table and the TM_USERS_TIME_APPROVERS table is still big enough to store more approvers, you, as an administrator, can increase values of the four parameters according to your business need.

We recommend that you use the PPM Purge Tool to purge the outdated time sheets. In this way, the records of time approvers and billing approvers would decrease and the performance of Evaluate TM Approvers Service would be better. For information about the PPM Purge Tool, see Installation and Administration Guide.