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Project details

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Overview

Apart from its name, a project consists of a number of fields, including text areas for the description, multi-select dropdowns, toggles, buttons, etc. As you change the value of a field, it may trigger changes in other fields, e.g. changing the start or end date causes the duration to change, too. many financial metrics are interdependent being linked by various formulas. See Billing metrics.

Some changes are undoable, e.g. can be canceled by restoring the previous value of a field. For this purpose, the Undo button is available (see below).

Project fields

When you hover over a project name and click Details in Activity center, the details panel opens on the right side of the screen. It consists of the following sections and fields:

 

Field Description Comments
Status Drop-down list with available status values.  
Name Project name Project name can be edited inline editing by clicking it as it listed in Activity center.
ID number, Date of creation, and Creator Project ID details, when created, and by whom. Not editable (system information).
Completion status message

Example 1: Project was completed 3 days after its planned end date.

Example 2: due to end in 7 days.

 Not editable.
Completion rate slider with the message "XX % done" Allows you to set the desired completion rate of the project manually. Editable.
If the project period includes today's date, it will be shown as a small light-blue circle.
Budget & costs The total budget for the project is shown as a light-blue bar (or an orange one in case of over budget). Any billable costs, including time logs (actual hours) and expenses, are shown as a darker bar on top of the first, containing a message "XX of YY spent" (e.g. "$5.28K of $9.50K spent"). Not editable.
Project estimated hours bar showing Actual hours and Hours left Project estimated hours are shown as a light-blue bar, on top of which actual hours (the total of time logs entered for the project's all activities to date) are shown as a darker bar.
  • Note 1: If Hours left is not equal to the difference between total estimated hours and actual hours, the position of the hours left on the time line is indicated by a thin vertical light-blue line.
  • Note 2: When actual hours < estimated hours the time usage bar is colored light blue with the actual hours portion darker blue.
  • Note 3: When actual hours > hours left, the bar is colored red, and the hours left value becomes undefined. "Set hours left" prompt appears next to the bar.
  • Note 4: When actual hours = estimated hours, the bar is colored yellow.
  • Hours left: The value given is reciprocal with that in Hours left filed (see below).
 Not editable.
Description Description of the project. Editable in a rich text editor. To edit, click on the description; or, if there is no description yet, click in the area with the "Add description" watermark text.
Checklist The section allows you to create a checklist of to-do or similar items related to the activity. See Checklist.
Custom fields The section contains any custom fields created for projects. The fields are editable (except a formula type field), and the changes are saved on the fly.  
Messages, Files, Audit trail The section is used to post messages, attach files, and view audit trail. See Project messages, Attaching files to project, Project audit trail.
Priority Drop-down list with available priorities.  
Time frame Indicates the project's time frame. Three scenarios are possible:
  1. From [date] - when only the start date is specified.
  2. XXd YY.ZZh - when only duration* is specified.
  3. [Start date] - [End date] (Xd YY.ZZh)** (when any two of the parameters are given, e.g Start date + Duration).
  4. For a completed project:
  • [Start date] - [Actual completion date] (Xd Y.Zh)** (the actual completion date is an editable date, which equals by default to the date when the project is given a treated as completed status, e.g. Closed).
 Editable.
Click to bring up an editor with three fields to edit:
  • Start,
  • Duration, and
  • End.
Estimated hours Contains an estimate of how many hours the activity will take to complete. Editable.
Portfolio Portfolio the project belongs to. Editable.
Customer Project's customer. Editable.
Budget Project budget.
Note: This budget does NOT include the budgets of its activities, if any. For the overall budget of the project, Billing settings below.		 Editable.
Members The section is dedicated to the project members. Editable. Click to open the assignments editor.
See Project assignments.
*
Duration accuracy is 0.25h. Minimum non-zero duration is 0.25 hours (15 minutes).
**
Duration in decimal format rounded to the closest 0.25 h.

Editing access levels and permissions of project members

To edit a project member's access role and permissions:

  1. Place the mouse pointer over the project member whose role or permissions you wish to edit (see the illustration below).
  2. Click .
  3. Select a new access level, or edit permissions for the current access level as you see fit.
  4. Click Save after you are done.

 

Warning

The new access level and permissions will only apply to this project, but neither to subsequent, nor other projects the user is a member of.

 

Edit access level.png

Project financials (mceclip2.png)

To access the project financials settings, click the dollar button in the top right corner of the details section. See Project financials.

Additional options

To access additional options, click More actions ().

  • Auto assign - is used to set which project member is automatically assigned to tasks, issues, or requests as these are added to the project.
  • Export to MS Project - is used to export the project to an XML file suitable for re-import to MS Project. To learn more, see Export to MS Project.
  • Capture baseline - you can make a snapshot of the project's start and end date at a given moment. To learn more, see Project baseline.
  • Disable/Enable dates rollup - toggles the modes of calculating the project start and end dates from its activities. To learn more, see Dates rollup.
  • Archive - allows archiving old projects that are no longer needed. To learn more, see Archiving projects.
  • Delete project - to delete the project:
  1. Select Delete project .
  2. A confirmation dialog box with a counter will pop up.
  3. Choose the action (archive or delete permanently).

Undo project editing actions

If you changed your mind or made a mistake when editing a project, you can use the undo button (undo_button.png) available for a number of project editable fields as discussed below.

Changes to the following project fields can be undone, provided the undo limitations are met (see below) are summarized in the table:

 

Field/Action Undo results
Name The previous project name has been restored.
Status The previous project status has been restored.
Project is set to completed The previous project status has been restored.
Dates and duration The previous dates and duration have been restored.

Undo button (undo_button.png)

When an undoable action is performed, e.g. the status is changed, the Undo button (undo_button.png)  appears on the tab bar. 

  • The button can undo one action at a time.
  • To check out the last action to be cancelled, use the tooltip associated with the button, as shown:

  undo_btn_tooltip.png

  • You can continue undoing actions on the undo list, until the button disappears indicating that no more undoable actions are available.
  • Check out the undo limitations below to make sure when the button cannot be expected to appear.   

Undo limitations/capabilities

  • Actions can only be undone within the current session (before the user refreshes the browser page or logs back into the system).
  • The Undo button (undo_button.png) cancels the current user's own actions only (for example, user 1 edited name of Task 1 to Task 2, then user 2 edited the same name to Task 3. If user 1 then clicks Undo, the name will revert to Task 1).
  • An action can be undone even if the user has performed any non-undoable action afterward (e.g., a user edited task name and then its estimated hours. If the user then clicks Undo, the name will be returned by its previous value, but the hours will remain the same).
  • Multiple actions can be undone in a reverse sequence (starting from the most recent).
  • A tooltip on the Undo button carries a message about the action that will be reversed on the next click.
  • If, for some reason, it’s impossible to undo an action, the system will return an error message (for example, a user edited the task name. At the same time, someone else deleted the task. If the first user clicks the Undo button, the system will show an error message).

 

 

 

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