All about Projects

This lengthy help topic describes all data entry fields or options available when creating a new project or while editing an active project. Once the project and its task assignments are complete, you then activate the project to make it available for time entry (from Draft to Active).

Building a project - summary

When you click the Create Project button, you open the project creation form. It is this form you use to define all the project's details. It is where the project is setup for costing and billing, where the project's team is created (i.e. the list of employees who track time against the project), and where you add the tasks against which the project's employees track their time. These are the core elements required to build a project for time tracking.

By default, when you click the Create Project button and while you are building your project, the project is in Draft mode. While in Draft mode, the project is not available for time entry. You are free to make additions and changes as you require. You can Save the project in Draft mode to complete it at a later time. Only after you activate the project (change its status from Draft to Active), can employees begin tracking their time on the project. More information on Project Status is located further down this topic.

The project creation form is separated into the following tabs:

Details > where the project's name, manager, and dates are established.

Costing & Budget > where you define how the project is setup for billing, costing and budgets.

Team > where the employees who track time against this project are set.

Tasks > where you add the tasks against which the employees track their time on this project.

Custom Fields (Optional) > these are additional data fields added by your Dovico Administrator.

There are also a number of optional features and functions that can greatly enhance your project.

Project Costing: You can track how much this project is costing you or your company by using Employee Hourly Pay rates.

Project Billing: If billing someone for this project's time, select which billing rate to use.

Budgeted Hours: By entering budgeted time to complete your project's tasks, you can establish budgeted time and costs for the project.

Set Project Alerts to be automatically notified when time or cost targets have been reached.

Details

Project Title: The name of the project. The project name must be unique unless the project is associated to a client.

Project Manager: The project manager information is primarily used for reporting purposes only. By default, the person who creates the project is selected as the Project Manager. The Manager drop-down list includes all employees who have access to the administrative areas of the softwareThe software is designed as 2 main sections. The 'time entry' section is available to all users to enter their time and expenses. The 'administrative' section is available to certain users to create/manage and report on projects..

Client (optional): The name of the client associated to this project. When a project is associated to a client, the combined client and project name (Client abbreviation+Project Name) appears in certain drop-down fields and reports throughout the software. Clients are created in the Clients view.

Start/End dates: These 2 date fields are set manually and are used for reporting purposes.

Costing & Budget

The Costing & Budget section of the project creation form is used to set additional project details to determine your project's costs or if you are billing clients for time on the project.

Project objective: This selection determines the type of project to build in terms of billing and costing options used further down in the project creation process.

Track time only: When selected, time entry information is only used to track time on projects and tasks. This is the simplest option.
Track time for costing: Select this option to calculate your company's costs for the time entered on this project. This option requires that employees assigned to this project have hourly pay rates entered in their respective profiles.
Track time for billing: Select this option to calculate the costs to bill your clients for this project. This option requires that a billing type be selected - in the 'Bill this project using' option which follows.
Track time for costing & billing: Select this option to calculate both company and billing costs for this project.

Project Currency (This option is only available if Currencies are enabled)

Select a Currency for this project. This is the currency used when the project is billed by a Project Hourly rate or by Fixed Project Amount.

Bill this project using (This option is only displayed if 'time for billing' or 'time for costing & billing' is chosen in the Project objective above).

This selection determines which hourly billing rate is used to calculate billing costs. The selection made here determines what fields and options are available in the rest of the project creation process.

Employee Hourly: Each employee's Hourly Billing rate is used to calculate that employee's billable cost (Employee's Hours x Hourly Billing rate).
Task Hourly: Each task's Hourly Billing Task rate is used to calculate the billing cost for work done on the task (Task's Hours x Hourly Task Billing rate).
Project Hourly: The Project's Hourly Billing rate is used to calculate the billing costs for work done on all time entries on this project (All Hours x Project Hourly rate).

Enter the hourly billing rate used to calculate billing costs for all time entered on this project.

Assignment Rate: The Assignment Rate option is used to calculate the billing cost for each time entry based on both the task and employee tracking time. This is the most 'granular' billing rate available as it is a combination of both the Task Rate and Employee Rate described above.
Fixed Project Amount: When Fixed Project Amount is selected, you enter one or more fixed amounts that are then displayed in reports. Using this option means that hourly billing rates (employee, task or project rates) are not used to calculate billing costs.

Click the pencil graphic.
Enter an Amount, Start/End date and Description. The Start/End dates and Description fields are used for reporting purposes only. If Currencies have been enabled, the Fixed Project Amount value should be entered in the same currency as selected in the Project Currency.

Notes:

While building the project, the 'Bill this project using' option can be changed. However, doing so may delete some of the information entered in the 'Team' and 'Tasks' sections.
Only 1 billing method can be applied per project.

Calculate a budget using

This selection determines whether or not you can add budgeted hours to your project so that you can track time and costs against this budget. The selection made here affects what fields are available in the rest of the project creation process.

No Budget: Use this option when you do not need to calculate budgeted time or budgeted costs for this project.
Budgeted Hours per Task: This option allows the project manager to enter budgeted hours for each task included in the project.

Project Budgeted Hours: This option is used to enter a single budgeted hours value that applies to the entire project. Using this option, The Budgeted Hours number you enter is a simple total. This total is not distributed to the individual tasks or employees in this project's assignments. Also, you cannot enter budgeted hours per task assignment as possible with the 'Budgeted Hours per Task' option.

This is the option you must use to take advantage of the Employee Workload module.

The 'Include Project in Schedule' checkbox must be checked to include this project in Employee Workload. The checkbox is only displayed when the project is budgeted by 'Hours per Task'.

Team

In the Team, you select the employees who track time against the project. Later in the project creation process, all project employees are available when you pick who tracks time on each individual task.

Employee: Click the Select Employees button and check one or more employees to add to the project. You can start typing a name or employee group in the Search box to locate employee. From the Add/Remove Employee window, click the Create New Employee button to add a new user to the software.

Group (for information purposes only): This is the group associated with the employee selected.

Pay Rate: The Pay Rate is only displayed if the Project Objective includes a costing component (in the Costing & Billing section). This is the hourly pay rate (and currency) for the employee. The pay rate is used to calculate your company's costs for this employee's time (Employee's Hours x Hourly Pay rate). The default rate value and currency are set in the employee's properties.

Billing Rate: The Billing Rate is only displayed if the 'Bill this project' selection (in the Costing & Billing section) is 'Employee Hourly'. This is the hourly billing rate (and currency) for the employee used to calculate this employee's billing costs for time tracked on this project. You have the option to modify this value. The new value applies to this project only.

Actions: Click the ellipsis ... button to remove the employee from the project, or to edit the employee's properties.

Tasks

In this section, you add the tasks against which time is tracked for this project, and you select which team members are able to track time on individual tasks.

Task:

Option 1: The first method is by creating a copy of an existing task with the Duplicate task menu item, as shown in the following image:

Option 2: Click the Add Task button and select a task from the list, or start typing a task name in the Search box. The Tasks shown are the predefined tasks created in the Task Template administrative view.

Note: This task's (added using Option 2) hourly billing rate, description, etc., are established from the task's properties as set in the Task Template view. By default, when you create a task from a Task Template it will remain unlinked but you can edit the task at any time to link it to a Task Template if you wish..

To link a task to a Task Template, click the ellipsis button ... at the right and select Edit, you’ll see a Task Template dropdown where you can select which task template it’s linked to, or if you want to, you can change this to [None] to delink the task and make it an ad hoc task.

Option 3: You can also create your own new task directly in the field. This new task is considered a 'one-off' task that is only available for this project, and has no default properties (hourly billing rate, description, etc.). To establish additional properties for this 'one-off' task, click the ellipsis button ... at the right and select Edit.

Tips:

You can Indent/Outdent tasks to create a hierarchical structure for your project. Please read the Indent/Outdent instructions below.
You can drag and drop tasks to different positions within the structure. Note that some moves may not be permitted because of task indentations.
The buttons located near the top of the section are used to expand and collapse the Summary task created using Indent/Outdent

The checkboxes to the far left of the Tasks column are used to select one or more tasks and then perform a group Action Delete, Copy/Paste, Indent/Outdent, etc.. using the ellipsis button above the checkboxes.

Budget: If available, this is where you enter the number of hours budgeted to complete this task. First pick the employees to assign to the task and then enter Budgeted Hours. The hours you enter here will be evenly distributed across the employees assigned to this task (in the 'Assignee' column). At that point, you also have the option to manually adjust how these hours are distributed (see Assignee below). This column is only shown if 'Budgeted Hours per Task' is selected in the Costing and Budget section's 'Calculate a budget using' drop-down list.

Start/End dates : Enter the Start and End dates for the task. These date fields are only available with the Employee Workload module.

Group (Optional): The group associated with the tasks selected are displayed. A task's group is set up in the Task Templates view.

Assignee: The employees assigned to the task. Click in the empty Assignee box, check the employees to assign to this task, click Assign, enter budgeted hours and billing rate if applicable, and then click Apply.

Billable: The Billable option establishes the default setting for the Billable checkbox in user timesheets for this task (Are you billing this Client in the time entry tool). The default status is set in the original task's properties.

Billable: The task's billable box for this task is checked and hidden from the time entry user.

Not Billable: The task's billable box for this task is cleared and hidden from the time entry user.

User Defined: The time entry user may check or clear the checkbox for this task's time entries.

Hourly Billing Rate: Only shown if the project is billed by 'Task Hourly Rate' in the Billing & Costing section above. This displays the default task hourly billing rate for the task. The hourly rate is set using the value from the task's properties and may or may not be editable. If the task is manually entered (a one-off task), then you should enter an hourly rate in this field. The task hourly billing rate is used to calculate this project's billing costs for the task (Hours worked on the task x hourly billing rate).

Export:The Export button allows you to export/save the assignment list in one of many formats (PDF, xlsx, csv, etc.). The exported file only includes those items checked in the list.

Check the task assignments to export.
Click the Export button.
Select the file format (PDF, xlsx, csv, etc).
Depending on which web browser you are using, the file is automatically downloaded or you are prompted with Download/Open, Save or Save As options. Select an option to complete the export/save process.

Indenting/Grouping Tasks

For larger projects, you can create summary tasks to better group adjacent tasks that have common characteristics or have a logical grouping. Creating summary tasks can also help reduce the visual clutter and makes the view more readable.

The following instructions assume that the summary task has not yet been added.

Check the task(s) to indent.
Click the blue ellipsis button located above the column of checkboxes.
Select Indent.
The task directly above the task(s) indented becomes a Summary task. Time cannot be tracked against a Summary task.

Notes:

You can create summary tasks within summary tasks.
Summary tasks are not available for reporting.

Other Task functions

Within the Tasks section, there are some common and related functions available such as delete, copy, etc. These actions can be performed using 1 of 2 ellipsis buttons.

To perform an action on a single task, use that task's white ellipsis button located in the task's row, at the far right.

To perform an action on multiple tasks, first check the tasks and use the blue ellipsis button located above the column of checkboxes.

You can also drag and drop tasks to different positions within the structure. Note that some moves may not be permitted because of task indentations.

Single task actions

Indent – Indent this task one level. If the task above the indented task is no longer in the same level, that task becomes a summary task, and any assignments and budgets are lost.
Outdent – Outdent this task one level.
Move Up – Move this task up the list.
Move Down – Move this task down the list.
Duplicate – Create a copy of the task and all of its properties - excluding its employee assignments and budgets.
Edit - Edit the task's properties (Description, hourly rate, etc.).
Delete - Delete this task and its assignments.

Multiple task actions

Indent – Indent this task one level. If the task above the indented task is no longer in the same level, that task becomes a summary task, and any assignments and budgets are lost.
Outdent – Outdent this task one level.
Delete - Delete this task and its assignments.

Project Status (Save/Activate)

A project can have one of the following statuses.

Draft: The project is not available for time or expense entry.

Active: The project has been activated and is available for time and expense entry. If you make changes to the project while it's active, as soon as you click Save, those changes are immediately available to the employees tracking time on the project.

Completed: The project is no longer available for time or expense entry.

While you build your project, the project is in Draft mode and therefore not available for time entry. You may Save your project and thus leave it in Draft mode until you are ready to activate it. When you do decide to activate your project, a few things happen.

The project is now available for time entry for all employees assigned to at least one task.
The project status changes to Active.

Completed Project

At any time you can set the project as Completed to close it and stop future time entry. Simply click the Mark Project as Completed button. The project remains available for reporting. A completed project can be reopened for time entry at any time.

To reopen a project, click the Reactivate Project button. 2 options are displayed:

To simply reactivate the project and continue tracking time, click the 'Reactivate as Active' button.
To return the project to its Draft state, click the 'Reactivate as Draft' button.

Project Alerts

The project alerts you create in this section permit you to track time and cost against predefined targets. Example: Alert me when my project's costs reach $50,000. When your project reaches that amount, the alert is triggered and you are notified via the software's user interface and optional e-mail. You can create alerts for total number of hours, company or client costs, when hours or costs reach a certain % of budgets, or for billable and non-billable time. The following briefly describes how to set/edit a project alert. Full details on project alerts are found in the Project Alerts topic.

Examples:

When a project has reached 90% of budgeted hours

When a project's total time reaches 1000 hours

When the total company costs for a project reaches USD $25,000.

When the client costs for a project reaches 80% of the budgeted client cost.

When non-billable time for a project reaches 25% of the total time spent on the project.

See Project Alert details for a complete list of available alerts.

To create a project alert:

Open the project and click the Project Alerts button near the top of the screen.
Click the Add New Alert button to create a new alert. To edit an existing alert, that individual alert's switch must first be set to OFF.
Set the Alert Type, Value and Priority. Example: Actual Hours reach 50% of budgeted hours - flag as Normal.

Alert Type (Alert me when...): The type of alert.

Value: The numeric value to check.

Priority: Set the alert as 'Normal' or 'Critical'

Email (optional): Select the individuals who will also be notified by e-mail. You can also type in an email address directly.
Click the OFF button to turn this alert ON.

Notes:

Project Alert rules are only triggered on approved time entry data. Time not submitted or yet to be approved are excluded.
Trigger levels are checked twice per day. That is, alerts are not continually checked against the database.

Add additional alerts as required.
Click Apply.

Project Settings

The project's advanced settings contain all remaining attributes for a project.

To view or edit a project's advanced settings

Open the project and click the Project Settings button.
Select Advanced Settings.

Project Description: This project description is available for reports and is available to those entering time on this project.
Group: Groups are keywords that you associate (group) to projects. You can later perform a search for projects associated with specific groups. Groups are created by your Administrator using the Groups view.

(Optional) Select one of the available groups.

Limited Access: Select which managers or Access Groups can access this project. Only the selected managers (or members of the selected access groups) are permitted to view and report on this project.

Depending on which limited access operating mode is enabled, either a list of manager names or a hierarchical tree of access groups is displayed in the limited access drop-down list. See Notes that follow.

Check the managers (or access groups) who require access to this item.
Click anywhere outside the Limited Access window to close the list.

Notes:

If the Limited Access list displays employee names then Manager-level limited access mode is likely enabled. Otherwise, Hierarchy-based limited access mode is likely enabled.
When an access group is checked, any parent access group is automatically checked.

Budgeted Exchange rate date (only available if Currencies are enabled): This is set to prevent a project's budgeted costs from automatically changing when currency exchange rates are modified. The currency exchange rates from the date set in this field are used when viewing budgeted costs in other currencies. The date field cannot be set to a future date. It's important to highlight that this locks the currency exchange rates for budgeted costs only. Actual costs are calculated using the exchange rates for the date that the time is entered.
Expenses for this project are billable by default: This checkbox sets whether expenses for this project are defaulted to billable in the employee's expense entry tool. Note that this setting can be overridden by the employee who enters the expense.
Lock employee billing hourly rates for this project: Only applicable for projects that are billable by Employee rates, this option prevents a employee billing rate change made in the Employee's properties window to alter this project's billing rate. Note that you can still edit the employee's billing rate using the project editing form.
Hide tasks from employee (outside date range): Checking this option will prevent employees assigned to this project to enter time against a task when outside of the task or project's Start and End dates. Note that task Start and End dates are only available if you've purchased the Employee Workload module.
Flag this project for archive: Check the archive box if you want to remove this project from the database the next time the Archive Database function is run.

Click Apply to save the changes and close the window.

Copy Project

Creating a copy of a project is a powerful time saving feature since the copy can be used as a template for future projects that have common starting points or structures.

Warning: If you copy an Active project, the copied project is immediately available for time entry. You can set it to Draft by first marking it as Completed and then Reactivating it as a Draft..

To create a copy

In the Manage Projects view, open the project to copy. You can either select an existing project or select a project template.
Click the Project Settings button near the top of the window and select Copy Project.

The source project is automatically closed and the copy is opened.

The text 'Copy 1' is added to the project name.

Edit the project's list of employees, tasks, assignments, etc.. as required.

Delete project

Careful consideration and caution should be used before deleting a project as once a project has been deleted, all time and expenses for the project are also deleted. The project cannot be recovered. An alternative to deleting is to use the Flag for Archive option. The Archive function will effectively accomplish the same as delete, but the item and all associated information will be stored in a separate, archive database.

To delete a project

In the Manage Projects view, open the project to delete.
Click the Project Settings button near the top of the window and select Delete Project.
Confirm the delete action.