Projects

The Projects module provides functionality for planning projects and monitoring the time and costs of these projects.

Setting up projects

When you start creating a project, you first determine the size of the project. You translate the tasks required for creating a product or rendering a service into different types of tasks within the project. These tasks are phases or subprojects subdivided into activities. These phases, subprojects and other elements are defined on underlying project lines. For every line you indicate the line type.

You then use the project lines to plan your project and to record and manage the costs and revenues. These two aspects of the projects – the time planning and the financial planning – each have their own forms. Each of these forms provide a different perspective on the project's project lines, to keep the data transparent for both disciplines.

• Project lines - planning: Specify how much time the tasks will take and enter the date on which they should be complete. Specify the order of the tasks and the relationships between the tasks. By creating a link, you indicate, for example, that the installation cannot start before the production is complete. The Gantt chart shows the planning over time, and enables you to make changes directly.

  You can assign milestones to a project to mark important moments within a project, for example the end of a phase. You can also register the employees involved in a task.

• Project lines - financial: To be able to track the costs and revenues of a project, enter hours, costs and revenues in the rough project structure. As you add more details to the project structure, the calculation will become more accurate. When order data become available, link sales orders or production orders to the project and calculate the data based on this linked information.

Monitoring projects

During the course of the project you monitor the planning and the financial progress. You monitor the progress on a continuous basis:

• You track the time planning in the Gantt chart on the Project lines - planning form. The Gantt chart gives you a quick insight into the progress and any bottlenecks in the planning. For example, you can show the project planning and the order planning side-by-side to see whether they are in step. You can also immediately see how any changes you make to the project affects the planning. Any adjustments can be made in the Gantt chart itself.
• You can view the details of the financial planning on the Project lines - financial form. To see the elements that make up the hours or sums, see the project cost analysis. It will show all the details of the linked orders.

Managing projects

If you have identified any bottlenecks, or once more accurate estimates become available, you adjust the planning.

After a task or an entire project has been completed, you finalize it. Once the status 'Finalized' has been assigned, the task can no longer be rescheduled or changed.