Add, Change, and Delete values of various Kompass fields
Table of Contents
Abandoned Reasons, Categories, Confirmations and Sources
Introduction
If you spend some time in Kompass BMS, you will find several fields with drop-down menus. Many of the values in these drop-down menus are pre-filled when your Kompass account is created. You can add, change, and delete these values by accessing your API Admin. Only users with the appropriate permissions can access the API Admin of your organization, and you can do so by adding "/api/admin" after your Kompass webpage. For instance, the link will appear as follows: (your-Kompass-server-name).kompassbms.com/api/admin. In this article, we will discuss all the main sections of your API Admin and demonstrate how you can modify your choices.
The API Admin home page includes the following items:
- Groups: Each group is a collection of relevant categories.
- Categories: To make any changes in the API Admin, you will have to select a category.
- List of recent actions.
- Logging off and changing to dark mode.
Upon selecting a category, you will be taken to the category page.
- This section allows you to have quick access to other groups and categories within this section.
- You will find all existing entries in this area. Please note that some entries have an end date. Even though they exist in the database, they will not be displayed on the front end after the end date. This is helpful for items that cannot be deleted since they are already assigned to Kompass entries. In the example above, it appears that the Construction client category is discontinued. However, some existing clients/organizations might still be listed under Construction.
- Each category has an action list on the top left. Most frequently, this is where the delete option is located. Simply select the tick-box next to the items that need to be deleted, choose the relevant action, and click "Go".
- If you need to add a new item, click the Add button on the top right of the page.
Please note that this article is relevant if you need to add and/or change a few values. If you need to add/change more than ~15 entries, please contact the Kompass BMS helpdesk, and we will be able to assist you.
If you try to create new entries for some of the categories, you will be asked to assign an organization. Most companies have just one organization, but if your company has more than two, you might have to assign the categories to all of them (if needed). Companies have more than one organization if they have offices in different areas and/or if they need to keep their SBUs separated.
Please note that attempting to delete any of the items below will usually affect other entries that are already linked to them. The API Admin will not allow you to delete those items before deleting the linked entries. In general, it is better to set an end date for the items rather than deleting them.
Calendar
Holidays
Under the Calendar group, Holidays is the only category we will have to visit. This is where we will be adding any bank holidays or vacations. These will have to be added manually at the beginning of each year. A reminder will be sent by Kompass BMS to your Kompass Champion close to the end of each year. You can find how to add these holidays in this article https://support.kompassbms.com/article/118-add-public-bank-holidays. It is important to set your bank holidays/vacations in Kompass to assist with payroll calculations.
Clients
Clients are called "Organizations" in Kompass's frontend.
Client Categories
Client/Organization categories are a mandatory field in Kompass.
To add a new client/organization category, click the "Add" button in the top right.
Select the name (1), start and end date of the category (2), (3), and remember that you will have to assign the category under an organization. Click "Add another Org" and select your organization from the drop-down menu (4).
Clients
There is no access to add new clients in this category since you can do so in the front end. However, you will need to access this page for merging clients.
Select the clients that need to be merged: (1) select "Merge clients" from the actions drop-down menu, (2) and click "Go". (3) On the following page, select the target client and click "Merge".
When merging clients, all contacts, projects, comments, invoices, payments, and purchase orders will be merged into the target client.
IMPORTANT: The data on the target client (address, category, etc) will not be changed. Therefore, any custom data on the other clients will be lost.
VERY IMPORTANT: Clients will not be merged in SugarCRM/Quickbooks/Sage. This can lead to inconsistencies between these systems and Kompass which might need to be addressed manually.
Types
Client/organization types can be added to help on grouping clients/organizations.
Use this page to add, edit, and delete a type.
Company
This group has some of the most important categories in the API Admin.
Departments and Services
You can add, change, and deactivate departments and services. Be extra careful before deleting a department or service. You can find departments and services in nearly every screen of Kompass, from setting them in proposal/quote items to the employees' page, filters, in the dashboard, and many more. When creating a new department or service, apart from adding the name, dates, and organizations (as seen already in other categories above), you will also have to select whether they are billable, set a predefined gross margin for them, and choose their color as seen in the dashboard charts. Note that if you do not select a gross margin for a service, it will inherit the department's one. Similarly, a department with no gross margin percentage will inherit the organization's gross margin percentage.
Orgs
Normally, you will not be able to add or delete an org. In case you need to change some items, you will have to select your org. There are numerous items that can be changed within this page. Treat with caution! Most of these changes will not just add or remove a value from a drop-down menu, but they have the ability to greatly impact the way your Kompass account works.
We will go through a list of the items that you could change on your org page.
General
- Gross Margin for your entire company.
- VAT/Tax number. It can then be requested on your invoice templates.
- Payment days.
- Day start and day end.
- Pre-filled day breaks in minutes.
- Option for including breaks in the daily working hours.
- Week start day.
- Location of your office. Helpful for calculating distances from your office to projects and/or to employees' home addresses (if added). Distance can be calculated "as the crow flies".
- Map bounds. Kompass will zoom to the set bounds when creating a new proposal.
Additional Configuration
- Set the default vat/tax rate.
Diary Configuration
- Decide whether you want to record travel and/or breaks on your timesheets. Also, select whether users will have to add their hours (1) or pick the exact times they start and end their work (2).
- You have the ability to set your own overtime rules in Kompass. For example, if your employees are earning double rates for hours recorded during the night, Kompass can run these calculations. Please reach out to us for additional assistance.
Leave Configuration
- Select whether time off will be shown in days or hours.
- Define the rounding of days. The default is set to half days.
- Calculate allowance accrual until year-end or from the start of the year until today.
Project Configuration
- Confirmation Warning: If you do not have a confirmation received for your projects, Kompass will raise a warning. You can deactivate it if you want to.
- Lock Days: By locking a project after a set number of days, users cannot edit it anymore. Locking will occur on the set days after the fully invoiced date.
In case you need to unlock a project, you will have to go to Projects group (1), Projects category (2), find and select the project to be unlocked and find the field "Invoiced". Remove the date from the field (3). It is a good practise to leave an invoiced note for track referencing (4).
Contacts
Sources
You can set a source for each contact to assist you with CRM analysis. As in many category entries, when adding a new entry, you will have to select the name, start and end dates, and organizations. In this case, you can also select whether source details are required.
If ticked and selected in the front end, "Source Details" will become a mandatory field.
Equipment
Categories
The equipment schedule view has a list of all equipment categories.
To add, change, or delete categories, please go to the Equipment, Categories page.
As always, add the name, (1) dates, and for organizations, select the ones you need the equipment category to be available for, then click the right arrow between the available and chosen organizations.
Owners
Add, change, and remove equipment owners from this page.
Expenses
Payment methods and Types
Add, change, and remove payment methods and expense types through these pages.
Note that you will have to allocate these types and payment methods under your organisation.
Click "Orgs" (1) under Company and select your Org (2).
Scroll down until you'll find the "Expense Configuration" section. Click "Add another Expenses Configuration".
You need to bring all types and payment methods you want to be shown under this organization in the "Chosen Types/Payment Methods" boxes (1). To do so, select all the records (2) and click the right arrow (3).
Leave/Time Off
Types
This is the page you will visit to change the available leave types in your Kompass account.
Projects
Abandoned reasons, Categories, Confirmations, and Sources
Similar to other categories seen above, select any of them and then add, edit, or delete any options. All of these categories can be found in the overview tab of a proposal/project.
Quote Items
Cost options
This is the category where you can add cost options found under the Staff (1), Equipment (2), and Subcontractors & Other Costs (3) drop-down menus.
You can find how to add, edit, and deactivate such costs in this article: https://support.kompassbms.com/article/120-change-quote-item-cost-rates
Quote item Templates
Each employee might have their own quote item templates when they are creating their proposals.
Occasionally, some of these templates may need to be made available to the entire organization. To do this, go to this category, search for the template you wish to display across your organization, and under "Template shared", choose "Org" (1).
Note that you can have templates shared only with the department of their creator.
Users
Users
There are numerous options that can be edited under each user's account. This article contains a full list of all options: https://support.kompassbms.com/article/119-add-time-off-allowance-and-other-api-fields-for-users. Additionally, if you need to reset a user's password, you can do so from this page as well. Details on how to reset it can be found in this article: https://support.kompassbms.com/article/121-reset-users-password