Overview
Sometimes your employees might enter their time and expenses (costs) against the wrong projects, or they might use incorrect activities and expenses against their projects. Your budget or profitability information can get skewed because of such mistakes. To ensure the right employees record the right activities and expenses to the right projects, you can restrict who can charge activities and expenses to which projects. The Project Assignments feature in BQE CORE allows you to define such restrictions, thus making data entry not only faster but also more accurate. Click to watch this video on project assignments in CORE.
When you assign activities, expenses and employees to the projects, only assigned items appear in the drop-down lists of the time and expense entry screens. So, drop-down lists are shorter, resulting in faster entry. It also increases data accuracy because there is less chance for error. For instance, if Project A has only five activities assigned to it, only these five activities appear in the time and expense entry screens for that project.
Project Assignments also allow you to change the classification of employees to match their responsibilities and role for a specific project. Typically, the Classification field retrieves the job titles from the Employees screen. While assigning employees to projects, you can change their titles. For example, Allen Marcello has a title of System Administrator; however, you can assign a different title, say General Manager, to him in the Project Assignments screen. This implies that Allen Marcello performs different functions on different projects. This classification can be used in a related fee schedule and carried forward to reports and invoices.
Project assignments apply to time and expense entry only. That is why access management takes precedence over it if both are implemented simultaneously. You can turn off assignments for a project by checking that rule in the Projects screen. This is especially helpful when implementing project assignment at a group level, but do not want it for a particular project in that group.
How To
Assign Team Members to Projects
Field Descriptions
| Field Name | Field Description |
| Project Assignments > | |
| Classification | Job title or classification of a team member or employee. It allows you to set up a different title other than the default one. This gets reflected in the time entries, invoices, and reports of a project. Example: Allen Marcello is the Senior Engineer as per the Employees screen; however, you can classify him as the General Manager for a specific project. |
| Type | Type of team member assigned to a project, such as employee or vendor. It can be a group or an individual. |
| Apply changes to all phases | This option allows you to apply any assignment changes (deletions or edits) of the parent project to all the phases automatically. It is helpful in easily adding or removing assignments to phases when doing so for the parent project as you do not have to repeat these steps for each individual phase. For example, if we update the Billable flag of an activity, it also updates for the phases, and deleting an assignment deletes it from the phases that have it. |
|
Add to Project Add to Project and Phases |
BQE CORE allows you to apply the current assignments to the selected project or to the project and all its phases, if parent project is selected. This is helpful in easily adding or removing assignments to phases when doing so for the parent project as you do not have to repeat these steps for each individual phase. If this Add to Project and Phases option is not used, then assignments added or removed only apply to the currently selected project. Note: This option is to be used independently for each type of assignment (say expenses, activities, etc.); in other words, if used for one assignment type, it is not applied for all the other types. |
Assign Team Members to Projects
Team members of a project can be the employees and vendors who can log their time and expenses against it. When adding a team member, you are presented with a list of people not yet assigned.
To assign a team member to a project, watch this video or follow these steps:
- Open the Project Assignments screen from the side menu > Projects > Templates & Tools. (Alternatively, you can access this screen from Projects > Settings > Assignment > More menu > View Assignments or Settings > Projects).
- Select a project to which you are assigning a team and then select Show: Team Members from the drop-down.
- Note: Parent projects with the Main status appear grayed out in the drop-down list.
- Click Add Team Member.
- On the Add Team Member dialog, select the relevant information:
- Type: Individuals or Groups
- Employee or Vendor
- Select the team members on the grid and click Add to select the relevant option. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
-
Add to Project
-
Add to Project and Phases
-
-
You can enter a classification for each member on the grid, if needed. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
-
Click Done.
Now only these assigned members will appear in the drop-down lists of the time and expense entry screens and can log time against the project.
Assign Activities to Projects
To assign an activity item to a project, watch this video or follow these steps:
- Open the Project Assignments screen from the side menu > Projects > Templates & Tools. (Alternatively, you can access this screen from Projects > Settings > Assignment > More menu > View Assignments or Settings > Projects).
- Select a project to which you are assigning activities and then select Show: Activity Items from the drop-down.
- Note: Parent projects with the Main status appear grayed out in the drop-down list.
-
Click Add Activity Item.
-
On the Add Activity Item dialog, select the relevant information:
- Type: Individuals or Groups
- Select the activities on the grid and click Add to select the relevant option. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
-
Add to Project
-
Add to Project and Phases
-
-
You can change the Billable status for each activity item on the grid, if needed. Click Done.
Now only these assigned items will appear in the drop-down lists of the time entry screens for the project.
Assign Expenses to Projects
To assign an expense item to a project, watch this video or follow these steps:
- Open the Project Assignments screen from the side menu > Projects > Templates & Tools. (Alternatively, you can access this screen from Projects > Settings > Assignment > More menu > View Assignments or Settings > Projects).
- Select a project to which you are assigning expense items and then select Expense Items from the drop-down. Expense is referred to as Cost in the legal industry.
- Note: Parent projects with the Main status appear grayed out in the drop-down list.
-
Click Add Expense Item.
-
On the Add Expense Item dialog, select the relevant information:
-
Type: Individuals or Groups
-
-
Select the expense items on the grid and click Add to select the relevant option. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
-
Add to Project
-
Add to Project and Phases
-
-
You can change the Billable status for each item on the grid, if needed. Click Done.
Now only these assigned items will appear in the drop-down list of the Expense Entries screen for the project.
View Reports
To view a report, watch this video or follow these steps:
- Open the Project Assignments screen from the side menu > Projects > Templates & Tools. (Alternatively, you can access this screen from Projects > Settings > Assignment > More menu > View Assignments or Settings > Projects).
- In the list view, click More > View Reports.
- Select a report from the Report List dialog. It opens in the viewer.
- Preview the report and then choose to export or print it.
You can also check the detailed video on running and managing reports in CORE.
Copy Project Assignments
Sometimes managers make changes to certain project assignments and there might be other projects that have similar requirements. To handle such scenarios, CORE allows you to copy the existing project assignments to other projects to save both time and effort. You can also copy the assignments from associated budgets.
To copy the assignments to another project, watch this video or follow these steps:
- Open the Project Assignments screen from the side menu > Projects > Templates & Tools. (Alternatively, you can access this screen from Projects > Settings > Assignment > More menu > View Assignments or Settings > Projects).
- Click Copy Assignments on the top-right.
-
On the Copy Assignments dialog, select the project in the Copy From drop-down whose assignments you want to copy.
-
Next, select the projects to which you want to copy the assignments.
-
Check the option 'Replace existing assignments when copying' if you want to overwrite any existing assignments.
-
Click Copy.
Note: You can also use the Copy from Budget option from the More menu to copy the assignments from the associated budget, if any. You are prompted to replace the existing assignments when copying.
Mark Screen as Favorite
You can mark or flag the most-often used and important screens in CORE as your favorites up to a maximum of ten. These favorite screens then display separately on the side menu under the Favorites list. You can manage all your favorite screens in CORE from User Settings.
To mark this screen as your favorite, watch this video or follow these steps:
- Open the Project Assignments screen from the side menu > Projects > Templates & Tools. (Alternatively, you can access this screen from Projects > Settings > Assignment > More menu > View Assignments or Settings > Projects).
- In the list view, click
on the top-right.
- You can access this screen from the side menu under Favorites.
You can also check the detailed video on marking screens as favorite in CORE.