Managing Projects:
Projects are useful for grouping and categorizing time entries that belong to the same type of work. Projects make it easier to analyze data, generate more useful reports, and see where and how you spend time.
Each project belongs to some Customer (Account/Contact). For tracking internal company projects, you could create a dummy customer (e.g. MyCompany Internal). A Customer can have many projects, but a project can belong to only one Customer.
Creating Projects:
Security Roles:
Zap PSA Admin role – User can create / edit all projects.
Zap PSA Manager role – User can create / edit project only where they are the Owner OR where they have been added as a Member (with Member Role: Manager)
Zap PSA User role – cannot create / edit / view project information
The owner of the project will have all permissions to modify project information and view project analytics.
Users added to the project with “Member Role”: Manager will also have permissions to modify project information and view project analytics. (however they need to have atleast “Zap PSA Manager” security role).
To create a Project:
1. Open “Zap PSA App” …in sitemap scroll to section “Manage”…and click “Projects”
2. Click “New”
To copy an existing project:
1. Open the existing project
2. Click “Copy/Clone” button from ribbon.
Pre-requisite: Zap Copy Record template for “Zap PSA Project” needs to be created. (Refer KB article)
Explanation of Project form fields:
TAB: General
Section: General
Customer: Select Project Customer (for internal projects, create a dummy customer)
Name: This is the project name. This name will appear in “projects” drop-down when user is creating time-entry record.
Public: If checked then this project is visible to all users when creating time-entry.
If not checked then this would be available only to users added in the “Members” tab of the project.
Start Date & End Date: The project will be available in “project selection” drop-down (when doing time-entry) based on these dates.
Description: can enter project details here
Section: Rates & Invoicing
Currency: This is the project billing currency. This field is automatically populated when the Project.Customer lookup is selected.
Project Rate: If set then this billable rate gets applied to each time-entry created for this project.
How is the Time-Entry Extended price calculated?
A time-entry record has an hourly rate field. This is automatically populated with the correct rate based on below hierarchy:
Project Member Rate > Job Rate >Member Rate > Project Rate
Explanation of each rate:
1. Project Rate: which you define for each project
2. Job Rate: which you define when configuring project job
3. Project Member Rate: which you define for each user added to project “members” section.
4. Member Rate: which you define in User form
(if “Project Member Rate” is not defined then we look for “Job Rate”… if not present then we look for “Member Rate”…and finally we look for “Project Rate”)
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Billing Method:
Whenever a user enters a project time-entry, the extended price (field in time entry record) is automatically calculated. This is based on the billing method selected in project.
Please note that each time-entry record has an hourly rate field which is populated with the correct rate based on the billing method selected in the project.
Below billing methods are supported:
Project Rate: which you define for each project
Job Rate: which you define when configuring project job
Project Member Rate: which you define for each user added to project “members” section.
Member Rate: which you define in User form
Hierarchy: We follow a particular hierarchy when applying the hourly rate to time-entry:
If you have changed the billing method or billing rate after the time-entry has been created then click “Recalculate” button (within the time-entry record) to get the latest rate and recalculate the time-entry “extended price”.
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Setting a billable rate for users on the project:
If you want to assign a billable rate for each user on some particular project, then open tab “Members” (within the project form)… then add the User and enter the rate in field “Billable Rate”.
Project Status:
When you and your team start tracking time for projects and jobs, you’ll be able to track progress on each project using Project status.
Project Status values: Draft, In-Progress, Completed
Draft – is the default status for newly created projects.
In-Progress – Only projects having “In-Progress” status will be visible when user is trying to create time-entry.
Completed – You can change the status of project to completed when project is finished.
Deleting Project:
Deleting a project will not delete the time-entries in which it has been selected. We suggest making the project as in-active if not needed.
Only project owners or admins will be able to delete projects.
TAB: Members
Managing users on Projects:
There are two types of projects: Public and Private
Public Project: Everyone can select project when tracking time.
Private Project: Only Users added to project (tab: Members), can select project when tracking time.
To add users to project, open tab “Members”…and click button “Add Members”
To remove a User from project, goto the “Members” tab… Select “User” and click button “Remove Member”.
Member Roles:
When you add a user to the project (Tab: Members), you have to select the member role. This can be either “User” or “Manager”.
Please note the following regarding users added in the “Members” tab of the project:
1. Users who are added in Member’s tab with member role “Manager” can: modify/view project details, add/modify/delete jobs. (we programmatically share the project record with any user who is added as a “Manager”). The user will be able to see this project in “My Active Projects” View too.
Besides they can select this project when tracking time.
2. Users who are added in Member’s tab with “User” role, will only be able to select the project when tracking time. (they will not have access to project/job details or analytics)
3. Users will automatically get access to the project once you add them (meaning, there’s no project invite).
4. You can assign a Billable rate for each member.
Working with Jobs:
Jobs are used for defining type of activity (e.g. Design, coding) while use description field for the actual thing you have worked on (e.g. “Working on designing layout of login page”).
You could name jobs by type of work (e.g. front end programming, designing, etc) and later sub-group jobs in reports to see how much time each activity took.
Adding Jobs:
Project Owners as well as Project Managers (Users added in Members section with Team Member Role selected as “Manager”) can create/modify jobs.
To create new job (manually):
Open project record… Go to Jobs tab…click button “Add Job”.
This will open the new job creation form… and you can create new jobs one-by-one.
To create new job by cloning an existing one:
– Select existing job/s
– Click button “COPY” from ribbon (pre-requisite: Copy template for “Jobs” entity needs to be created. Refer KB article)
To bulk create new jobs in few clicks:
Step 1: Create the most frequently used jobs as job templates
– Browse to “Project Jobs” from sitemap.
– Create new jobs and have “Is Template” set to yes.
Step 2: Now when managing a project… open tab “jobs”… click button “Quick Create Jobs”…select the jobs and click “Create”.
Explanation of Form Fields:
Name: Enter a User Friendly name for the job.
Public: If job is set as public then it will be available for selection (when creating time entry record) for all users who have access to the corresponding project.
Billable: If billable is checked, then when creating new time-entry…if this job is selected then “Billable” will also be checked by default… However user will have option to uncheck it.
Hourly Job Rate: This is the job rate that would be used when calculating the extended price for time-entry. However there is a hierarchy in which the hourly rate is selected. For details refer KB article.
Is Template: If this field is checked then this job will also be available when you are creating jobs for other projects – using Quick Create functionality.
(When creating new jobs for project… you can select button “Quick Create Jobs”… and this will show a list of all jobs which have “Is Template” checked.
This way you can bulk create jobs for projects easily.)
Managing Users for Jobs:
There are 2 types of jobs:
Public: These jobs are available to all users who are able to select the corresponding project when creating time-entry.
Private: These jobs are available to be selected (when creating time entry record), only to users added in the members section of the job.
To add users to job, open tab “Members”…and click button “Add Members”.
Removing users from Jobs:
To remove a User from project, goto the “Members” tab… Select “User” and click button “Remove Member”.
Bulk Add users to Multiple jobs:
To bulk add users to multiple jobs: select the jobs…click button “Add Members” and select the users.
Favorite Projects & Jobs:
Users can select their favorite projects and jobs in user personal settings. These will then appear in the top of the list when tracking time.
