Create a job task via copy function

This is what happens in the video

The copy job tasks function in Business Central lets you reuse the structure of an existing job instead of building every job task from scratch. You open the function from the job card, point it at a source job, and the system copies the job tasks and their structure into your new job.

You control what gets copied through the Source field. Choose Planning Lines to copy the existing budget and billable planning lines, or choose Job Ledger Entries to base your new planning lines on actual usage and invoicing from the source job.

When you copy from planning lines, you can filter by line type: Budget, Billable, or Budget and Billable. When you copy from job ledger entries, usage entries become budget planning lines and sale entries become billable planning lines.

You can also limit the copy with a job task number range, a date filter, and choose whether to include quantities and dimensions.

Copying job tasks from another job in Business Central

If you create similar jobs again and again, copying job tasks saves you a lot of manual setup. You start from the jobs list and open the job you want to work on. On a new job there are no job tasks yet, so this is exactly where the copy function helps.

Open the copy function and choose Copy Job Tasks From. There is also a function to copy job tasks from the current job to another job, but here we copy into the job we have open. Select the job number you want to copy from, and the structure of that job becomes the starting point for the new one.

Limiting which job tasks you copy

You can define a range of job task numbers you want to copy. If you leave the two range fields blank, the system copies all job tasks from the source job.

Choosing the source: planning lines or job ledger entries

The Source field decides what your new planning lines are based on. The standard source is planning lines, which copies the planning lines as they exist on the source job. You can also choose Job Ledger Entries, which creates planning lines based on the entries on the job you copy from. That way the planning lines reflect actual usage and actual invoicing rather than the original plan. A third option is None, if you only want the job task structure without planning lines.

Filtering planning lines by type

When you copy from planning lines, you decide which types of planning line to include:

• Budget and Billable copies all planning lines.
• Budget copies lines of type Budget and lines of type Both Budget and Billable.
• Billable copies lines of type Billable and lines of type Both Budget and Billable.

Filtering job ledger entries by type

If you use Job Ledger Entries as the source, the Include Planning Line field is greyed out. Instead you work with the Include Ledger Entry Line Type field.

• Usage and Sale copies all job ledger entries. Entries of type Usage become new planning lines of type Budget, and entries of type Sale become Billable.
• You can also copy only Usage, or only Sale, if you want to split them.

On top of this you can set a date filter to limit the entries by date.

Setting the target job and applying the copy

The system automatically fills in the job number you are copying to. Under Apply, you choose whether to copy quantities and dimensions to your job. When you click OK, the job tasks from the source job are copied across.

After running the function, your new job has its job tasks in place, structured exactly as they were on the job you copied from.

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