Project Management FAQ

 

 

Portlet components such as "Timesheet Tasks" don't appear on project page

A project needs to be of type "Consulting Project" in order for "Timesheet Tasks" and other portlet components to appear. In a similar way, there are several other special project types:

  • Consulting Project:
    Controls the appearance of timesheet tasks etc.

  • Translation Project:
    Controls the appearance of translation tasks etc.

  • Release Project:
    Controls the appearance of a "Release Items" portlet component and a "Release Project Journal".

  • Release Item:
    Only projects of type "Release Item" appear in the drop-down box of a "Release Project"

Please note that you can use the multiple inheritance feature of categories to define that other project types "are" a Consulting Project, Release Item etc.

The "Percent Completed" variable does not change

Correct, the "percent completed" variable is not (yet) connected to any other element in the system. In future, it will be part of a "Earned Value Metric" package to track the progress of long running projects and possible be connected to Translation and other workflows.

Currently, the "percent completed" variable provides the Project Manager with a way to report the completion status of his project to his boss. Sorry, no magic... :-)

How to add multiple members to a project

Starting with ]po[ V3.4.0.5, you can add multiple "employees" to a project by holding down the Ctrl-key while selecting members of the "Employees" list in the Add-Member page.

An alternative way to add groups of people to project is possible using the "Create new project from template" feature, where you can copy an entire project structure including users and sub-projects. Please check the "Clone*" parameters in the Admin -> Parameters screen that control which objects are copied.

I want to allow my customers to create new projects

In order to provide your customers with this "privilege" you have to go to "Admin" -> "Profiles" and select the checkbox "add projects" for the profile "Customers".

However, you may want to restrict the ability to create new projects only to "power customers" or a similar group, so we'd recommend you to setup a new Profile for your advanced customers.

How to log hours on non-productive hours on internal projects?

Q: I have a question regarding the way users of ]po[ handle "non client-oriented" hours or "internal projects". I am referring to hours spent on tasks such as: administration, accounting, human resources, IT support (internal), internal training, etc.

Initially, we created a parent project called "Internal projects" and several subprojects, each one for a specific set of tasks (like Internal Training). We leave these subprojects open as long as these activities last (most of them, forever).

However, I was considering another approach: creating a new "Internal" category for the Project Type field and several subcategories, such as "Accounting", "HR", etc.

What do you think of either approach? How do you input internal hours?

A: Both options are perfectly valid. The Employee Productivity Report compares productive with non-productive hours. In order to do that, it takes into account whether the customer of the project is of type "Internal Company" or not... Both of your ways of modeling should work out.

How can I delete a project?

In order ensure data integrity ]po[ does not allow the deletion of business objects such as Projects, Users, Companies, etc.
Instead change their status to 'Deleted/de-activated'. Deleting objects permanently is possible (see admin section - nuke data) but should be avoided whenever possible.

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