Available in: All Plans
Overview
You can manage a project's settings from its Project Settings page, which is grouped into categories that make it easy to find the specific project details you're looking for.
To access the Project Settings page, select Settings from the Actions (“ ”) drop-down menu located to the right of the project name in the project workspace.
General
The General section is where you can adjust the following project information:
- Project name
- Client and Provider names
- Start and Due dates
- Description
- Project Color
- Task Status Set
Note: If you are using integrations triggered by issue status changes in Kantata OX, you may want to avoid applying a Task Status Set in a project to avoid any interruptions to the integration. For more information, see Task Status Sets.
You can also enable the Estimate stage, choose to include archived projects in the project percentage complete, and include non-billable time on this project's invoices.
Project Name
You can update the project's name at any point during the project timeline by entering the new name in the Project Name field.
Estimate Stage
There are two stages in a project, the Estimate stage and the Project stage. You can move the project to a different stage at any time.
To enable the Estimate stage, toggle Estimate stage is active to On and then click the Update Project button in the top-right corner.
Provider Name and Client Name
In this section, you can enter new team names for both the Provider and Client.
- Provider—The team that is providing the service. The Provider sends invoices and creates time entries and expenses.
- Client—The requester of the service. The Client receives invoices and pays for the services rendered.
Project Start and Due Dates
You can select a new Start and Due Date for a project by clicking in the corresponding field and selecting a new date from the date picker that appears.
Please note there may be some instances where the Due Date is grayed out. When this happens, it means that changes to the schedule must be approved by a client with View Financials permissions (or higher). If there are no clients with the appropriate permissions, a Project Administrator can approve schedule changes.
Project Description
Use the Description field to add or update the project's description.
Project Color
Use the Project Color drop-down menu to change the color of the current project. This menu only appears if Project Colors are enabled in General Settings.
Task Status Sets
In the Task Status Set field, you can select which status set to use in this project.
The task status set is a collection of default and custom task statuses that will be available to use in the project. An account member with the Edit Task Status Sets access group set permissions can add sets and custom task statuses at Settings > Task Status Sets.
Project Completion and Non-Billable Time
At the bottom of the General section are two settings:
- Include archived tasks in percentage complete—This determines whether archived tasks are included in the overall project completion percentage shown as % Done in the Project List page, Global Gantt chart, and Project Task Tracker.
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Include non-billable time on invoices—This determines whether invoices can include non-billable time entries. This setting can be turned off or on at any time, but will only affect current or future invoices; previously-generated invoices remain unchanged.
Note: This setting similarly affects invoicing with the QuickBooks integration.
Privacy
In the Privacy section, you can select who can access the project and set a default post setting.
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Who Can Participate—Designate which account members the project is open to:
- Invitation Only—Makes the project accessible by invite only.
- Open to Admin Only—The project is only open to Project Administrators.
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Open to All Account Members—Open to all members on your account. All open projects can be accessed from the Project List page.
Note: If Organizations are enabled, this option will be labeled Open to Organization Members instead.
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Who Can See Communications—Designate the default visibility of project posts in the project’s Activity Feed:
- Posts are Private by Default—Project posts are accessible only by team members tagged in the post.
- Posts are Public by Default—Public posts are accessible by everyone in the project, including team members on the Client-side of the project.
Financials
Members with Project Lead account permissions (or higher) can enable a project's budget by selecting Enable financial features in the Financials section. This allows you to set the project’s budget, currency type, and include expenses in your project’s burn rate.
There are useful presets in the Financials section, such as defaulting your tasks to be Time & Materials or Fixed Fee as well as defaulting a task to be billable or non-billable. The billable/non-billable default is particularly useful if you’re tracking an internal project where you still want to keep track of your employee’s costs.
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Budget—Enter the project’s budget.
Note: The budget amount must be a whole number and cannot contain a non-numeric character. If the number you enter contains a decimal, that decimal amount will not be included. For example, if you enter an amount of 500.75, the number will display as 500.
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Activate Expense Budgets—Select this checkbox to activate Expense Budgets, which allow you to plan for non-labor expenses. This option is only available when Expense Budgets are activated on the account. See the Expense Budgets Overview article to learn more.
Note: This setting has restrictions on when you can activate or deactivate it after project creation. To deactivate this setting after a project has been created and expenses have been logged, any expenses that are logged to expense budgets must be unassociated from the expense budget and all expense budgets must be deleted. To activate this setting after a project has been created and expenses have been logged, any expenses that are logged to tasks must be unassociated from the task first.
- Include Billable Expenses in Actual Fees Calculation—Select this checkbox to include billable expenses in the project’s actual fees calculation (billable time x bill rate).
- Include Additional Line Items in Actual Fees Calculation—Select this checkbox to include additional invoice line items in the project’s actual fees calculation (billable time x bill rate).
- Target Margin—Enter the project’s Target Margin percentage in this field. This percentage represents the desired profit minus the cost divided by revenue.
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Currency—Select the project’s currency from the drop-down. If you are using Rate Cards, only the currencies assigned to the selected Rate Card will appear.
Note: You cannot change the project's currency if any invoices, time entries, expenses, or budgeted tasks are recorded on the project.
- Rate Card—If Rate Cards are enabled, select the appropriate Rate Card for the project. By default, the Account Rate Card is automatically applied.
- Revenue Recognition Method—Select the criteria that determines how the project’s revenue is recognized and accounted for.
- Task Billing Mode—Select if a task’s default billing mode is Fixed Fee or Time & Materials.
- Task Default—Select if a task’s default billing mode is Billable or Non-Billable.
- Schedule and budget changes must be approved—Toggle this setting On to require all schedule and budget changes to be approved by a Client with View Financials (or higher) or a Project Administrator on the Provider-side of the project. For more information how these approval processes work, see Project Admin: Box: Schedule Tab or Project Admin Box: Budget Tab.
- Allow tracking time—If active, allows users to track time to the project. Based on Time & Expense account settings, this setting may be restricted to Account Administrators or turning this setting off may not possible.
- Require notes on time entries—If active, requires users to add notes when they are entering time. Depending on your Time & Expense account settings, notes may be required or optional by default and you may be unable to change whether notes are required at the project level.
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Time entries must be approved before invoicing—Toggle this setting On to require approvals on all submitted time before invoicing. Toggling this option will cause the Approvals section to appear below.
Note: When you toggle this setting On for an existing project, you can choose to automatically approve existing time entries through a specific date. If a time lock has been set in Time & Expense Settings, you must approve all time entries in the project through at least the lock date.
This setting can’t be turned Off if there are active submissions or approvals for the project. -
Expenses must be approved before invoicing—Toggle this setting On to require approvals on all submitted expenses.
Note: When you toggle this setting On for an existing project, you can choose to automatically approve existing expenses through a specific date.
This setting can’t be turned Off if there are active submissions or approvals for the project.
Invoicing Preferences
Click the Edit invoicing preferences link at the bottom of the Financials section to access additional project invoice settings.
In this section, you can include specific information that will be automatically generated in each invoice for this project.
- Project Code—This code will automatically generate in each new invoice.
- Purchase Code—This code will automatically generate in each new invoice.
- Client Invoice Name—The client's name will automatically generate in each new invoice.
- Client Invoice Address—This address will automatically generate in each new invoice and will override the default Invoice Address found in Settings > Invoices.
- Provider Invoice Name—The provider's name will automatically be included in each invoice.
- Provider Invoice Address—This address will override the default Invoice Address found in Settings > Invoices.
Approvals
The Approvals section allows you to designate up to 25 users to approve time for a project. Having more than one person responsible for time approvals guarantees that the workflow won’t stop if a designated approver is unavailable.
Groups
In the Groups section, you can add the project to a Group, which is a collection of related data that is used for reporting and filtering.
While a Group is commonly used to capture Client information for a project, you can use them in a variety of ways, such as collecting data related to a specific industry or region you’re working in.
Additionally, you can select a specific group as your Primary Group in this section to enhance custom reporting in Insights. For example, after assigning a primary group to your project, you can then use it to calculate hours and financial information or place it in tables.
To assign a primary group, select an option from the Select Primary Group drop-down menu.
In the Select Groups drop-down menu, select each secondary group that you want to add the project to.
Additional Tabs
The Additional Tabs section is where you can choose to add the following items as tabs in the project:
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Forms—Forms can be used to display and update project information—including custom fields—based on your preferences. You can only see forms in the drop-down that an Account Administrator has published for use.
Note: Once a form has been added to a project workspace, any project participant can view the form, but permission to view and edit custom field information is based on Custom Fields permissions. Additionally, only Project Administrators can update project data for fields that appear in the Project Settings page.
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Dynamic Dashboards—Dashboards can be used to stay aligned and quickly see data and important metrics related to the project. You can only see and select dashboards in the drop-down if they have been shared with you.
Note: Only project members who have access to see specific dashboards will be able to see those dashboards as tabs and the level of data they are able to see is dependent on their Insights Access Groups settings.
Each added tab appears as a gray box within the respective drop-down menu. You can also Remove (“ ”) options within the field.
Once saved, your form and dashboard selections will appear as tabs in the project workspace.
Comments
4 comments
This article has been updated to clarify that you can not include decimal amounts in the Budget field.
This article has been updated with additional information on permissions for Forms.
This article has been updated to include information on Time Tracking Enhancements—now in Early Access.
This article has been updated to include information on the new time tracking enhancements.
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