Enabling and Managing Projects

ServiceTrade's Project Management suite of features is now available for Premium and Enterprise customers.

If you are interested in upgrading to access these features, please contact your ServiceTrade Account Manager or email am@servicetrade.com

Projects provide better insight into seen and unforeseen changes that can impact a project's bottom line.

If you want to create a Project and Budget from an Approved ServiceTrade Quote, please read this article: Creating a Project (and a Budget) from a Quote. This is the typical workflow for creating Projects.

There may be times you have an approved quote or agreement in an external system and want to create a Project and Budget from scratch.

This article will walk you through how to Enable the Job Mode 'Projects' on Jobs and how to manage these Projects.

Note: It's important to understand first how to Create and Manage Jobs before you begin working on Projects.

Enabling Job Mode 'Project'

There is a toggle in the Manage Job menu where you can indicate whether a job is a regular Job or a Project. We call this the Job Mode.

If the Job Mode is set to 'Project,' the system will enable additional features.

All newly created Jobs will default with the Job Mode Project toggle off. To set a Job's Job Mode to Project, follow the instructions below:

1. On a Job Page, click Manage Job.
2. Click to turn on the Manage Job as a Project toggle.
   
   • Note: If you cannot access this feature, the toggle will not present. Read the article How to Access Project Management Features.
   • If a Job is a Project and has an existing budget, you will also be unable to toggle off this feature.
   • If a Job has been marked complete, you cannot toggle on this feature.
     
     
3. Enter any other relevant information.
4. Click Save when done.

This will automatically enable the ability to create Budgets via the Create Budget button under the Act on this Job menu. It will also add new information, including Start Date, Days Remaining, Percentage Complete, Details Tab, and Performance Tab.

The Project Page

• You can give your Project a Name.
• With the new Project Badge, you can quickly identify if the Job is set to Project Mode.
• There is a new Start Date and % Complete option.
• The Job Details look new and are now in a Details Tab.
• There is a new Peformance Tab.

Giving Your Project a Name

1. On a Job Page, click on Manage Job.
2. Enter a Job Name.
   
3. Click Save when done.

The new Job Name will appear at the top left of the Job Page.

If no name is entered, the Job Name will auto-populate with the following information:
"{Job Type} Job #{Job Number}"

In the example below, the Job Type is a Retrofit, and the Job Number is 28541021.

So if you leave Job Name blank and then save, it will auto-populate the following information above.

The Performance Tab

The Performance Tab gives our customers a bird's eye view of how their Project is performing in relation to the proposed budget against their project's current cost and invoiced work.

The Performance Page

The Peformance Page allows you to get a detailed view of how your Project is performing in relation to your Budget. The Performance Page will change as you set job item's Used on Dates, Source Vendors, create Invoices for the Job, and create Change Orders on the Budget.

To navigate to the Performance Page:

1. On a Job Page, click the Performance Tab.
2. Click the View Performance button.
   
3. This will open the Performance Page on a separate tab or window.
4. Click Here to learn about the Performance Page.

Project Percentage Complete

Projects will have a Percentage Complete field to enter manually enter in a Job's completion. This can only be done when a budget has been enabled.

Many of our customers use different calculations to determine how far along their Project is in percentage. For this reason, this field does not auto-populate a percentage complete.

1. Click the Percentage Complete field.
2. Enter the percent number.
3. Click Save.

How do I enable and manage a Budget?

Because you have created this Project from scratch and there was no original quote for reference, you will also need to create the Budget from scratch. Read this article:

Creating Budgets for a Job (Project)

Project Search Fields on the Job List Page

There are two search fields, "Job Name" and "Job Mode", that will be added to the Job List page.

Job Name will allow you to search for a Job based on its custom Job Name.

When you enter a search in this field, it will only return matches with Job's that have a custom Job Name. You must search using the Job Number if you have not given your job a custom name.

Job Mode will allow you to narrow your search based on the job vs. project selector.

How Projects Appear in Job Lists

Anywhere that Jobs are listed will have a new format. The information will be organized in cleaner columns with a slightly different layout.

• A Project Job Mode indicator is present on the top left of any job with a job mode 'Project.'
• The new Job Name displays as the clickable link for this job. If no custom Job Name is provided, this link will default to the Job's Location Name.
• The Time Period column added a Start and Due date field.