Application Guides

The "Q & Clarifications" section is designed to capture and resolve uncertainties within your project.

• Raising a Question: Click "Raise Question" to submit a query. You can select whether it is a General project question or specifically Task-related.
• Linking to Tasks: If a question is task-related, you can link it directly to an item from your To-Do list. This helps provide context for why the question is being asked.
• Ownership: You can assign an "Owner" to each question. This person is responsible for hunting down the answer and updating the resolution field.
• Deadline Tracking: Use the "Required Date" field to signal when an answer is needed to avoid project delays.
• Answer History: When a question is answered, the system records who provided the response and when, creating a valuable knowledge base for the project.

Accurate budgeting is about more than just listing costs; it's about managing uncertainty and variance.

• Contingency Buffer: In Project Overview, you can set a contingency percentage (Prince2 recommends 10-15%). This is your "insurance policy" against scope creep and unexpected risks.
• Base vs. Contingency: Your dashboard shows your "Base Working Budget." If your actual spend exceeds this, the bar turns orange to warn you that you are consuming your risk buffer.
• Variance Analysis: The "Variance" column in the budget tracker shows the gap between your Allocated (Planned) cost and Actual (Spent) cost.
  • Positive Variance: You are spending less than planned (Efficiency).
  • Negative Variance: You are over-spending (Potential Risk/Scope Creep).
• Actuals Tracking: For hourly/daily items, ensure "Link to Time Tracker" is enabled. This ensures your actual spend is calculated in real-time from the logs your team submits.

Inviting a user to your project is a simple one-step process:

1. Send the Invitation: In your project, go to the 'People' page. Use the 'Invite Collaborators' form to add the person's email address and click 'Invite'.

An email will be sent to them containing a link. When the user clicks the link, they will be prompted to sign up or log in. If they use the same email address you invited, they will automatically gain access to the project and appear on your dashboard as a project member.

Note: During this development phase, emails are not actually sent to an external provider. Instead, the content of the email is logged to the server console for testing and verification. You can view these logs to get the invitation link.

The "People" section allows you to assign roles to users, controlling what they can see and do.

• Owner: The project creator. Has full control over everything, including project settings and permanent deletion. There can only be one owner.
• Admin: Has full edit access to all project content and settings, just like the owner. The only thing an Admin cannot do is permanently delete the project.
• Collaborator: A standard team member. Collaborators can create and edit content like notes, tasks, events, and data tables. They cannot change core project settings, such as the overview, budget, or people's roles.
• Contact: This is an informational role only. People assigned as 'Contact' are listed in the 'People' section for reference but have no access to the project itself.

The Budget Tracker, Time Tracker, and To-Do List are designed to work together to give you a powerful overview of your project's health.

1. Create a Rate-Based Budget Item: In the 'Budget Tracker', add a new item and set its type to 'Hourly' or 'Daily'. Assign it a rate (e.g., £50 per hour) and a unique 'Budget Code' (e.g., "DEV-01").
2. Track Your Time: Use the 'Time Tracker' to record your work. When you stop the timer, a dialog will appear.
3. Link the Entry: In the "Stop Timer" dialog, you can select the 'Budget Code' you created ("DEV-01"). You can also optionally link this time entry to a specific task from your To-Do list.

The Magic: The system automatically calculates the cost of the time entry (e.g., 2 hours at £50/hr = £100) and adds it to the 'Spent' total for that budget item. This gives you a real-time view of how your tracked time is impacting your project's budget.

The Roadmap provides a Gantt chart-style visual timeline of your project, helping you see how all the moving parts fit together. It is populated automatically from two sources:

• Dated To-Do Items: Any task or sub-task in your 'To-Do List' that has both a start date and an end date assigned to it will appear as a bar on the roadmap. This is perfect for tracking the duration of work.
• Scheduled Events: Any event you create in the 'Event Dates' page will also be displayed on the roadmap, helping you visualize key deadlines, meetings, or milestones.

By assigning dates to your tasks and creating events, you can build a comprehensive and dynamic overview of your project's schedule without any extra effort.

Dependencies allow you to link tasks together to show a clear order of work. This is essential for complex projects where certain steps cannot begin until others are finished.

• Creating a Link: In the 'To-Do List', click the chain link icon next to a task. In the popover, you can select one or more Prerequisites. These are the tasks that must be completed before the current task can start.
• Bidirectional Visibility: The link manager shows two views. Prerequisites are tasks you are waiting on. Required For shows which tasks are waiting on the current one.
• Instant Info via Hover: You don't need to click to see links. Simply hover your mouse over the link badge or icon next to a task to see a tooltip listing all connected tasks by name.
• Visualizing on the Roadmap: On the 'Roadmap' page, these links are represented by bright yellow arrows. We've designed these to flow around the task bars (in the 'gutters') to keep your Gantt chart easy to read.

Requirement: For a task to appear in the list of available prerequisites, it must have an End Date assigned. This ensures the roadmap can accurately draw the connector arrow from a specific point in time.

In the Budget Tracker, rate-based items ('Hourly' or 'Daily') have a toggle for 'Track time against this item'. This controls how their cost is calculated.

Tracked Items (Toggle is ON)

• How it works: The cost is calculated automatically based on time logged against its 'Budget Code' in the Time Tracker. The 'Spent' value increases as you and your team log more time.
• Use Case: Perfect for tracking billable hours for development, design, or consultancy work where you are paid based on time spent. The 'Allocated Hours/Days' field acts as an estimate to compare against.

Non-Tracked Items (Toggle is OFF)

• How it works: The cost is calculated upfront: Rate × Units. The 'Units' field (Allocated Hours/Days) is used for manual calculation and the cost does not change automatically.
• Use Case: Ideal for fixed-cost services, retainers, or pre-agreed blocks of time. For example, a monthly support contract of 10 hours at £40/hr would be a non-tracked item with Rate=40 and Units=10. The full £400 cost is added to the budget immediately.

Project deletion is a two-step process to prevent accidental data loss.

1. Schedule for Deletion: In 'Project Settings', only the project owner can choose to 'Schedule Project for Deletion'. This marks the project for deletion but does not remove it immediately.
2. Recovery Period: Once scheduled, the project enters a 7-day recovery period. It will appear in the "Recently Deleted" section on your main dashboard. During this time, you can restore the project with a single click.
3. Permanent Deletion: After 7 days, the project is permanently and irretrievably deleted. You can also choose to 'Delete Permanently Now' from the "Recently Deleted" section on your dashboard if you wish to bypass the waiting period.