ClickTime's Project Insights Estimation Module allows you to create a budget for your Projects. Depending on your Billing Rate model, you will be able to set a budget by allocating resources based on the number of hours you expect to work, or total billable amount you expect the Project to create. The hours worked / billable amount can be viewed in real-time from the Project Insights page and drill into each Project for more details regarding who has worked on the Project and for which Task.
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Activating Project Insights
Accessing Project Insights
Project Insights Overview Video (full)
The term "Projects" refers to the sub-category you log time to. Your terms may differ.
In order to access Project Insights, you will first need to have the module enabled. Contact ClickTime Support if you are interested in using Project Insights.
Once you have access to the Module, make sure that both Billing and Estimation features are enabled on your Company Preferences page:
When both of these options are enabled, you'll see "Billing Rates" and "Project Estimation" sections of the Company --> Preferences page:
Expand those sections and make sure your Billing Rate Model is set up to meet your needs. Please be aware that while Project Insights supports all Billing Rate Models, you will have the most flexibility with a Billing Rate Structure that is based on the "Project", "Task or activity performed", or "Task and we make exceptions for certain projects". More information on Billing Rates can be found in this guide.
Next, change your Estimation Model to "Project Insights":
The Project Insights tab will now be available to your organization:
When Project Insights is activated, all Administrators will see the Project Insights tab in addition to the Personal and Company tabs.
Managers can be given access to some or all of the different fields and options available with the Project Insights Module. In order for them to see the Project Insights tab, they must be able to at least "View" Projects and Project Insights.
Managers who need to create or edit budgets will also need to have the ability to "Add and Edit" Projects and Project Insights.
Any Manager that can access the Project Insights pages will see a history of hours worked, and have access to the Billings details at the bottom:
In order to give someone full access to Insights, they should be able to "Add & Edit" all "Project and Project Insights", "Billing Rates", and "Cost Rates".
In addition to the options described below, the Billing Rate Model you choose may also impact Manager's ability to access Budget information. For example, if your Billing Rate Model is based on the Person, the Manager will likely need to "View People" in order to see/edit Budgets.
Read on to learn more about the different levels of permission you can give a Manager regarding Insights, Billing Rates, and Cost Rates.
If you have a Manager you'd like to view Project data but not add and edit it, give them the ability to only "View" Projects and Project Insights:
This will let them view the Project Insights tab, and they can click into a Project to view the time worked:
However, these Managers will not be able to edit the Project Details pages, or manage the Budget.
If they do not have "View" permissions, they will not be able to see the Company --> Projects or Project Insights pages at all.
Please be aware that any Managers who can view the Project Insights pages will be able to see the estimates and Billable Amounts options at the bottom:
If a Manager has access to Billing Rates AND can Add & Edit Projects and Project Insights, they will be able to access the "Budget" tab on the Project Details page:
This page can also be accessed from the "Edit Budget" icon when viewing a Project from the Insights pages:
This permission also will display Billing Rate fields when viewing Reports and the Billing Rate tabs on the appropriate pages, providing they have access to Add and Edit the appropriate pages.
Please Note: Managers who can only "View" Billing Rates cannot edit/manage budgets.
Access to Cost Rates will let Managers see the Cost Rate fields in reports, as well as on the Person Details pages:
Access to view Cost Rates will also display Profit/Cost data at the top of the Project Insights Details pages:
If the Manager does not have access to Cost Rates, these fields will not display:
More details on Billing Rates can be found here and more details on Cost Rates can be found here.
Budgets can be created (or edited) from the Project Details page. You can go to the Project Details page and navigate to the appropriate section:
You can get to the same screen by opening up the Project from the Insights page and clicking Create (or Edit) Budget:
The Available options for "Budget Type" are:
If the Project is not intended to have a Budget of hours or billings, set the Budget Type to "No Budget".
We'll still show you hours worked and what the Estimated Billings would be on the Insights page, but there will not be a concept of Remaining Hours or Billings on the Details page.
Setting the Budget by Hours will allow you to set a total number of the hours expected for the Project to be complete.
You can then monitor the amount of time spent on the Project and the Remaining Hours available in your budget. The Total or Remaining Budgets section of the page will not show data with this Budget Type.
To create your budget by Billings, enter the full amount you expect to bill as the Budget.
You can then monitor the amount you would have actually billed based on time worked, as well as the Remaining Billings. The Remaining Hours field will not display any data with this Budget Type.
When selecting this option, you can build a budget for a Project by estimating how many hours of work will need to be spent on each necessary Task for the Budget.
Please note that in order to access this Budget type, you will need to be using a Billing Rate Model that is based on the "Project", "Task or activity performed", or "the Task, and we make exceptions for certain projects". More information on Billing Rates can be found in this guide.
If you choose this option for situations where the Project has already been worked against, you will see the worked Tasks after selecting the new Budget Type with a note indicating how many hours have already been worked.
To add these hours to your Budget, click the "Budget" square for the corresponding Task.
After clicking, you will be able to edit the number of expected hours needed for each Task that has already been worked.
New Tasks that have not yet been worked can be added using the "Add Task" option.
You can always remove a Task from the Budget using the "trashcan" icon.
After the Budget is created, click Update. You'll notice those Tasks you included are now a part of Planned Tasks on the Insights Detail page for the Project. Un-budgeted Tasks will only display when you go into the Edit mode.
When selecting this option, you can build a budget for a Project by estimating how many hours of work will need to be spent by each Person working against the Budget.
Please note that in order to access this Budget type, you will need to be using a Billing Rate Model that is based on the "which Person does the work", "the Project", "Person, and we make exceptions for certain clients" or "Person, and we make exceptions for certain projects".
Like "Task" and "Person by Task", if you choose this option for situations where the Project has already been worked against, you will see the worked time after selecting the new "Budget Type" with a note indicating how many hours have already been worked.
Click the "Budget" button to add those hours to the budget.
This will now allow you to add additional hours for the Person, which will add to the total budget:
When selecting this option, you can build a budget for a Project by estimating how many hours of work will need to be spent by each Person working against the Budget.
Please note that in order to access this Budget type, you may use any Billing Rate Model excluding "Task, and we make exceptions for certain people".
Like Task and Person, if you choose this option for situations where the Project has already been worked against, you will see the worked Tasks after selecting the new Budget Type with a note indicating how many hours have already been worked.
To include those worked hours in the budget, you will need to click on the "Budget" button.
This will make the "Hours" field editable so you can enter the expected number of hours, as seen below:
You can then monitor the amount of time spent on the Project and the Remaining Hours available in your budget.
When Project Insights is enabled, you will see the Project Insights tab:
On this tab you will see a list of all your Projects.
The Project Insights List View page will show you all the Projects that meet your filter at the top. Filter by Active, Active & Inactive, as well as whether a budget exists, and more.
The data displayed will be as of the last update, which is noted in the top left. You can refresh the data whenever you'd like.
You can also filter just by a specific Client, or Project using the search filter.
Next to the search filter is the option to select which columns to display.
The Projects table can be sorted by any of the column headers.
You can also use the top-right section to "Add a new Project" or "Export" your List at anytime to Excel to share.
Clicking on a Project name will show you more details. If you need to create or edit a budget, use the option at the right.
To go back to the Insights Detail page, use the "Go to Project Summary" option from the Project Details --> Budget page:
The Insights Detail pages include:
ClickTime will first display the following numbers as they relate to the Project:
We calculate them using these methods:
- Profit Margin is the percentage of profit you are making based on time worked so far. This is calculated by dividing the Profit by the total billings number.
- Cost is determined by the Cost rate of each person working on the project.
- Profit is calculated by looking at the total billing amount, and then subtracting the Costs from that amount.
You can also click on the "i" for each section to see how the numbers were calculated for all parts of the Budget Overview.
Below the Overview Numbers you'll see a graph that charts progress towards the lifetime budget.
The Graph will display data over the lifetime of the Project in either Hours or Billings.
It will show you the following:
- The top dotted line will show you the static estimated number of hours expected to complete the Project.
- The straight line shows you how many hours in total were completed.
- The circles indicate how many hours were worked on the Project for each calendar month.
Scroll your mouse over any month that has time entered to get specific numbers for each of these data points.
If you go to click on one type of data in the key section of the graph, the view will update to only show you the Monthly, Total, or Estimated data:
Use the timescale option at the top if you'd like to change the time period you are viewing:
If your company has only started logging hours for this Project in the current month, the data points will display independently. Once the next month begins, a line graph will be displayed.
Tasks Performed / People Who Have Worked
Below the graph, you can display details on either the Tasks performed, or People who worked, on your Project.
The Tasks option shows you the number of hours worked for each Task in the Project, and whether it is "Planned" or "Unplanned". It will also display what that means in terms of billings. Unplanned Tasks are Tasks that were worked but are not included in the Budget.
To add "Unplanned Tasks" to the "Planned Tasks" section, use the "Edit Budget" link at the top right and include them. More information on editing budgets is available in the Creating and Editing Budgets section of this guide.
ClickTime will color-code progress made towards your budget.
- The color green will indicate that less than 90% of the budget has been worked.
- The color yellow will indicate that 90 - 99% of the budget has been worked.
- The color red will indicate that all of your budget has been worked (or overworked).
The "People" option shows you the person who has worked on the Project, the total number of hours they have spent, and the Billings their time has generated.
The "Log" option allows you to limit the results to a specific person or Task. Make a selection from the drop-down menu to see the total hours logged and the amount of Billings that work has generated:
You can then export this using the "Export" option to share with your team or Client.
Project Insights Detail
Budgets to Watch Dashboard
The Project Insights Detail report is available in the "Projects" section of the Company --> Reports page:
This report is similar to the List View page, but can also be selected for specific Clients or Projects. The report will show you all data for the selected Projects as of when you run the report:
When viewing the report in ClickTime, you'll be able to expand or contract each Project to see more (or less) data:
You can then export the report as a pdf or Excel file:
Please note that the Excel format can be used to easily share or make small modifications to the report, but this Excel version is not currently designed to allow sorting or filtering the data.
Insights also has a corresponding "Budgets to Watch" Dashboard report. You can add this to your Dashboard using the "Add Panel" option here:
This panel will show you data for 10 Projects. You can choose to sort the Projects by which Projects have the highest worked percentage of hours, or the least worked percentage of hours using the gear icon:
You can also choose to include All Projects, or Specific Projects, as well as whether you'd like to view the data in Hours or Billings:
Scroll your mouse over the over the Project name to see more details. You'll also see a link to "Go to Project Summary":
If you'd like, you can add multiple versions of this panel with different Projects to view more than 10 Projects at a time:
Project Insights Overview Video
A comprehensive overview of all features supported in Insights. We hope this video is useful to organizations that are considering Insights, as well as those organizations that are trialing or paying for Insights:
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