Knowledge Base > User Guides > Projects > Project Interface

in User Guides, Projects

OVERVIEW

Projects are designed to track workflow through the life of an engagement. They allow your company to track due dates of staff assignments separately from the due date of the engagement.

USER GUIDE

The Project Interface is one of the most complex screens in OfficeTools WorkSpace. To access projects, navigate to the Projects tab at the top of the screen.

First off, as a reminder you will always have a client selected while you are on any given tab. So you are viewing a specific contact’s projects, not all projects that exist for your firm. To access this type of list please run a project due date report.

The toolbar found in the Projects tab allows for functions like adding a new project, editing an existing project, deleting, printing, saving, and searching projects, tracking a time card, starting a timer, emailing various information regarding the project, and accessing the project settings. The Assign Work button is how you will first assign a project to a staff. It is the beginning process to starting a project. The Worklist/Budget button will allow you access to the full audit trail of this project. Who has worked on which step, when those steps were assigned, completed, and how much the budgets were, are, and how much was actually tracked. The Worklist is where you will go to get an idea of what has gone on during the lifetime of this project.

The Notes button allows access to a specific notes section specifically for this one project. Plug in all project related notes into this section throughout the year to make sure they are all reconciled together when needed. Project notes can also be set to rollover to the next occurrence of this project. Delivery allows you track how the project was delivered to the Government if applicable and how it was delivered to the client. There is a delivery report that can be ran to see the dates and methods your projects are being delivered by. Invoice Now takes the Estimated Fee or if there isn’t one the Actual Fee and invoices all time associated to this project for that amount. It is a great way to quickly and easily invoice a client and have WorkSpace grab all related time and invoice it from the Projects tab. The Manage button is a powerful tool that allows for mass edits, reassignments, changes to staff, and most powerfully mass deletions. Use should be limited and monitored.

Below the toolbar are all of the project related details. In the large, bright, red letters on the left is the year and name of the selected project. Directly beneath that, again in red letters, is the Project Manager and Project Lead if applicable. On the right hand side, in red letters, will be the current assignment, staff member assigned, and assignment due date. This will update as you move through the workflow of this project. All projects begin in the “Unprocessed” status. Right beneath the current assignment are your document drag and drop box. Any document can be put into this box and they will be easily accessible from the face of the project. You can have as many documents in this box, however if there are multiple documents, when you click you will be redirected to the Documents tab with those documents pre-filtered. You can access your project checklist here as well.

The Current Note field at the top area of the screen, will show the note that has been populated for the current assignment. Thus, this will update with the current assignment. The large gray grid located in the middle of the screen is for missing information items. As you are working on a project if you find you are missing something from the client, you can use the items, issuers, and description fields to keep track of those items. If you click on the email button in the toolbar, you can generate an email with all of the missing info items and send that to the client. As each item is collected, you would check the box Rcvd, and the date and staff member will be tracked who received it.

At the very bottom of the screen there are four columns of information that signify the budget information for this project. Within each column there are three rows. The top line is the budgeted amount, the second row is what has actually been tracked by staff, and last period row represents the actual totals from the previous project.

Please note the project would have to be rolled forward in order for this information to populate. The hours column represents the hours tracked against this project, the cost column is for staff cost to the firm (pay rate), delivery date helps track when you are getting work back to your client, and fee is how much you are going to charge your client.

Lastly on the far right hand side are all of your dates associated to this project including due dates and extension dates, created date, modified date, and, when applicable, completed dates. You can scroll through all projects for a specific client using the arrows in the upper right hand section below the tabs, or switch to a list view by choosing the summary button.

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