Managing Projects

A user can track hours once he is assigned to a Project. This article describes how you can create a Project, change it, and assign users to it. Note that only users with the Manager, Admin, or Client Manager role can create projects. Let's get you started.

Add a Project

Click on Manage in the top navigation and use either the plus sign located at the lower left or select "Add Project".

The required information

• Choose a unique name for the project.
• Based on the project name, a unique code is created. You can enter your own unique, simple, and brief project code to identify this project.
• Projects are organized by the client. Select the client that this project belongs to.
• You can make a project global. All users in your eHour account are automatically assigned to global projects. For example, when you want to track vacations, create a PTO project and make it global.
• You can make the project billable. Turnover is only calculated for billable projects and you can create separate reports for billable projects.

Project Task Template

• Pick an optional Project Task Template. This automatically adds all the tasks in the template to your project's task list.

Permissions

• Optionally set one or more project managers for the project. Project Managers can add tasks to the project, assign users or teams to the project, report on tracked time on the project and if the Project Manager approval workflow is enabled, approve hours tracked on the project.
• Add project reporters, users or teams who can run reports on this project. Project Managers and users with the Report role automatically have access to these reports so there's no need to list them. 

Budgeting

• You can set a Budget in hours or the currency you configured. Enter the maximum amount for all users assigned to the project. For example, when you set a budget of 200 hours, all users assigned to the project can track a total of 200 hours. The user's hourly rate is used for calculating the cost of each tracked hour.
• You can configure whether more hours can be tracked than budgeted. If tracking more hours is blocked, the user will receive an error message when tracking more hours. A notification email is sent to the Project Manager when the budget is reached.

Miscellaneous

• Enabling required timesheet comments, requires users to add a comment to their timesheet entry when tracking time on this project. Tracked time without a comment is rejected.
• If the approval workflow is enabled and the Project Manager workflow is selected, time tracked on the project is approved by the PM. By default, the project is included in the approval process. Excluding the project from the approval process will automatically approve any time tracked on the project; the project manager is not notified of any approval requests.
• You can enter a brief description of the project. The description can be viewed by users when tracking time.
• You can designate a contact person whom anyone with questions about this project may contact.
• Any custom fields that may have been defined can be entered here.

Edit a Project

An Admin, Manager or Project Manager can change the settings of Projects. To edit a Project:

1. Click on Manage
2. Look up the project you want to edit in the list of active projects or search using the search box.
3. Click on Settings to edit the settings of the project.
4. Change the settings you would like to change and click Save.

Copy a Project

An Admin or Manager can copy an existing project to a new project. Copying a project saves time if your new project has similar settings to an existing project.

The data that is copied over:

• All projects settings such as client, budget, billable flag, any custom fields;
• Tasks created under the original project;
• Teams and users assigned to the original project and tasks, are also assigned to the new project.

Navigate to the project in Manage, Projects and click "copy" to copy a project.

Delete or Archive a Project

An Admin or Manager can delete projects for which Users have not tracked any hours or filed any expenses. For historical reports, you can only archive Project on which hours have been tracked or expenses have been added.

Users cannot track any hours on archived Projects however any hours/expenses are still available in the reports. You can always restore an archived project, allowing users to track hours again. Deleted projects cannot be restored, they are gone forever.

How to delete or archive

1. Click on Manage
2. Look up the project you want to edit in the list of active projects or search using the search box.
3. Click on Settings.
4. In the popup, scroll all the way down.
5. Use either the Delete button or Archive button. When hours were already added to the project the Delete button is not shown.

Restore an Archived Project

An Admin or Manager can restore archived Projects. Restoring an archived Project allows assigned Users to track hours again on these projects.

To restore a Project

1. Click on Manage
2. Click on the gear icon next to the search and untick "Hide archived projects"
3. Look up the Projects you want to restore
4. Click on Restore