Managing a Project
My Collaborations
On the Projects Landing Page you will see a view called ‘My Collaborations’. This view will show all Projects that you are a member of. This is different from the ‘My Projects’ view as ‘My Projects’ will only show Projects that have been assigned to you.
Within your Project
Your ‘Main’ tab within a Project shows the following information.
On the left hand side you will see the details that were entered when the Project was first created. The sections on the right provide additional information on how your Project is progressing.
In the above screenshot the Progress section provides an overview of your Budget, Effort and the status of the Project Tasks.
The ‘Budget Details’ section can be expanded to display an overview of your Allocated and Used time plus a breakdown of money.
‘Spent Time Details’ gives an overview of how time has been spent so far.
Project Tasks Tab
The Project Task tab displays all Tasks. Here you are able to open each task where changes can be made.
Changes can also be made when using Grid view and the icon
Logging Time
As Team members work on Project Tasks, they will need to log time that has been spent on them. To do this, within the Task they will see the ‘Log Time’ button.
This opens a window that allows them to say how long has been spent on a Task for each date. Project Managers are able to log time for anyone who is part of the Project. Some roles that you create may also have this capability while other members are only able to log time for themselves.
In this window, you can select which date you are logging time for (which defaults to today’s date) and how much time you are logging. While this will show the units stated in the settings, these can be changed.
A Category can also be selected. These will match the ones you had set up when creating the project. The Chargeable tick box will automatically be populated depending on the Category.
Exclude From Delivery can be used if time is being logged but you do not want to include this for the moment.
On the right you can see a section called ‘Project Task. This section is only visible when the Budget is ‘Rate and Time’. This shows both the remaining Budget and Effort. These figures update when you enter a value in the ‘Spent’ field.
If more time has been logged than there is in the budget you will get a warning saying this time will be recorded as ‘Overrun’.
When logging time for a Task that has no Budget allocated, depending on which budget type has been selected will determine how the time is logged. For ‘Time Only’, this will be logged as Non-Chargeable time. With ‘Price Only’ or ‘Rate Only’, this time will be marked as Chargeable. On ‘Time and Rate’ projects Time Entries will be logged as ‘Overrun’
Time Entries
Time Entries allow the Project manager to view all logged time within the Project which is grouped by Task. This shows a breakdown including if the logged time is ‘Chargable’, ‘Non-Chargeable’ or ‘Overrun’. ‘Overrun’ entries will be highlighted in yellow.
You can also see which entries have been Approved and Delivered plus if any are to be Excluded from Delivery.
Tip
NOTE: Once a Time Entry has been marked as Delivered cannot be delete.
Adjustments
There may be a situation where you need to change time logged for a specific Project Task from Chargeable to Non-Chargeable. While this can be done within each Time Log, if this needs to be done to cover multiple logs you can create an Adjustment.
This allows you to select a Task, Team Member and date and then move time from Chargeable/Non-Chargeable/Overrun to another option.
A description can also be added explaining the reason for the adjustment. This will then recalculate the remaining budget.
After an adjustment has been made you will see an additional Time Entry showing this. In the picture below you can see an adjustment where 2 hours have been changed from Chargeable to Non-Chargeable.
WIP
The WIP tab shows a summary of how much time has been logged that needs to be billed to the customer. This is broken down per task per team member allowing the Project Manager to see where the time is going. It also allows you to report on revenue generated per person or per project task. If different team members have different rates, this is automatically calculated.
You are also able to get a view of how much Overrun you may have.
At the bottom you can see the total amount of Chargeable time and the Deliverable Revenue. If your Project it ‘Rate Only’ you would not see Chargeable time.
Within this tab, you have the ability to ‘Approve for Delivery’ which moves these records from WIP to Delivered.
While the WIP shows a Summary of the time logged, if you would like a breakdown of all the Time Entries you can use the ‘Show WIP Time Entries’ button. This will take you to the Time Entries tab and apply filters so only the relevant records are shown, grouped by Task.
The sections on the right-hand side on the Main Tab will update as changes are made.
Timesheets
When you go Start > Projects, you will see that you can also go to Timesheets.
This allows a user to log time against multiple tasks in one go rather than going into each task. When you open Timesheets, you will see all Tasks that you are scheduled to work on for that week. New Rows can be added if you have worked on something you are not scheduled to work on. If you are adding both Chargeable and Non-Chargeable time then multiple rows would need to be added.
To log time, you simply click on the day and task you are want and enter the time. To the right of these boxes you will see a speech bubble. Pressing this let you also add a description to the Time Entry.
Snags
Snags refer to any disruption or potential problem with a Project where you can see if there are any on the Main tab of a Project.
For example, this could relate to work on the Project Task being delayed or the amount of work/ effort spent on a Project Task exceeding the estimated amount. Below is a list of the potential ‘Snags’.
- “Overdue”: If the Task is still open after the Due Date, and the Due Date has passed.
- “No estimated effort”: Estimated Effort is blank.
- “Delayed Start”: The Scheduled Start has passed but the ‘Started’ date is blank.
- “Not scheduled”: ‘Start’ is not set