Projects are an essential part of any project management. You can create projects when you go to Projects&Ressources -> Projects. Here you see all existing projects, and you are able to create them. You can also create projects when you open a customer an go in the navigation bar to Projects. In our basic Module we have projects and subporjects. You can also define if a project has a fixed price or not.
Controlling and ETC (Estimated Time to Complete)are used for later evaluations and proRM Modules like Project Controlling. In addition to that there are several reports to analyze efforts.
| Field Name: | Description: |
|---|---|
| Parent Project | Via this field a treestructure is created in CRM. This structure can be graphically shown in the project tree view |
| Project Name | Create the project name manually or create your own workflows for this task |
| Project Number | Give a project number manually or create your own workflows for this task |
| Customer | Linked to your customer for this project |
| Status Reason | Activate a project to book times |
| Start Date | Set start date |
| End Date | Set an end date if needed |
| Currency | This will be used for invoicing lateron |
| Hourly Rate | Type in the agreed upon hourly rate for the resources if applicable |
| Description | In this field the project can be described more detailed |
| Booking Type Constraint | If the booking type is restricted only booking types which have been set in the Allowed booking type option are possible |
| Default Booking Type | This value will be automatically used for every booking |
| Category | Specify the project type for later reports and evaluations |
| Estimated Effort(h) | Type in your estimated efforts if applicable |
| Project Effort(h) | All project efforts are shown here |
| Project Estimate to Complete | These are the total efforts for the project to be completed which have been estimated by the resources |
| Project Estimate to Complete for Subprojects | In order to evaluate the project estimate to complete more detailed, it is possible to look at the project estimate to complete for each subproject |
| Project Manager | The project leader who is responsible for the project and also for the activity approvals |
| Customer Contact | The main customer contact |
There are more ways to create a Project. We recommend for that our Gantt Chart Module.
Furthermore you can create a Project about the form. In this case go to Projects at the left Navigationbar and click on New. Now a new blank Projectform is open. Select a Name for your new Project and fill in all the required data before you press on Save to save new Project. As the Project is saved, your are able to assign Resources to the Project and create Subprojects.
A fixed price project is different from a normal project (Time & Material) in one point: It has a predefined (fixed) price.
First: a Time and Material project has no fixed price. The Project Resource book their activity records to the project, and the billable ones will be invoiced in a bill. You can add a Clearing/Service Items to both project types.
For example if you have a fixed sum for expenses.
You can use a Clearing/Service Item in Fixed Price Projects to divide the settlement into any number of sections to pay the Fixed Price. But thats not all you can do: You can use a Clearing/Service Item to invoice the expenese of your resources like travels.
To create a Clearing/Service Item you must be a project manager.
Go to your project and click in the navigation bar Clearing/Service Items.
Now click on Add new Clearing/Service Item.
Fill in all needed Data and save the Clearing/Service Item.
If your resources create a new activity record for this project, the expense is automatically assigned to this Clearing/Service Item.
ETC stands for Estimate-to-Complete. You can Estimate an amount of hours to complete your project. You are also able to estimate an amount of hours for each Project Resource to complete their tasks.
To enable/disable ETC go to your project. At the Additional section you can choose if you want to enable or disable the ETC function.
In the booking type it is defined how the internal booking types are named and billed. For starters it will be sufficient to have the booking type Billable, Not Billable and perhaps Vacation and Illness. You can also restric the booking types for a project. For example: If you have a Support project for a customer, you can restrict the booking types for this project to "Support" and perhaps "Not billable". If a resource wants to book time to a project, he can only choose between this two booking types.
| Field Name: | Description: |
|---|---|
| Client Name | Client Name of the booking |
| Definition | specifies if billable or not |
First you have to choose a Default Booking Type when you create a new Project. Here you can choose every booking type you want. To restrain now the booking types, choose Booking Type Constraint: Yes. Now you have to define which booking types are allowed. For that go in the navigation bar to Allowed Booking Types. Here You can add all allowed booking types. Save the changes to your project.
If more complex project structures are used, it is possible to assign new projects to an existing main projects via the Subprojects Option.
The Project Tree gives the possibility to easyly access more complex project structures. The project resource as well as the respective customer account are shown directly as well. To read more about it follow this link.
| Field Name: | Description: |
|---|---|
| Resource Name | This is an automatically filled field with a combination of the resource and the respective project. |
| Resource | The assigned Resource |
| Project | The assigned project |
| Start Date | Defines the validity of the resource for the project |
| End Date | Defines the validity of the resource for the project |
| Currency | For invoicing purposes |
| Hourly Rate | Defined hourly rate of the resource for this project |
| Estimated Efforts | The estimated effort for the resource can be specified here |
| Total Effort | Shows the already completed efforts of the resource for this project ´ |
| Estimated to Complete | The time estimated by the resource to complete the task |
All project resources are added to the projects including an hourly rate and an estimated effort for this project. This makes it possible to look at every Project Resource more detailed.
Like at the creating of a Project, there are more ways to assign a resource to a Project. You can use the Gantt Chart Module, the Skill Management, the Projekt Planning, the Workload application, or the standart form.
The fastest and easiest way is to use one of the apps we listet above.
To assign a resource with the form to a project go to the projecte to which you want to assign the resource and go to Project Resources. Click Add new Project Resource and fill in all needed Data. Now you have added a new resource to your project.
Please note: before your resource can book activity records to a project, it has to be added as a Project resource. If not, he can´t see the project in any the Time Tracking Clients!
Bookings are booked or approved, but not jet invoiced activity records. You can find them in the project under Bookings. You can also see bookings and expenses if you go in the project to Project Resource. Open the project resource you want to see in detail. After you opened the project resource, you can see all bookings from this resource under "Bookings". You are also able to see all expenses the resource created for this project under Expenses.
| Field Name: | Description: |
|---|---|
| Start | Starting time of the task |
| Break | If applicable |
| End | End of task |
| Duration (h) | result of end - break - start |
| Billable Duration | This duration is used for the invoicing process. If e.g. 8 minutes are recorded but 15 minutes are to be billed then the billable duration would be 0,25 (15 minutes). |
| ETC (h) | The estimated time of the resource to complete the task |
| Subject | Is filled in during the booking by the resource |
| Description | Details about the task |
| Booking Type | This defines whether the booking is billable or not |
| Booking Status | This shows if the the booking has been booked, approved or billed. |
| Currency | For invoicing purposes |
| Invoice | If the booking is already linked to an invoice |
| Hourly Rate | The fixed hourly rate of the resource for this project |
