Project Management

Odoo Project Management is a Kanban view management system,similar to the whiteboard concept we look for. The Project’s overview runs as a short description for a project. This includes the basic general information, with no much detailing. Utilizing Odoo project module, one can easily analyze a solitary project or the overall projects. You are simply embedded with the visual overview of all our ongoing projects. Thanks to the Odoo apps that it will be easy to know what’s been worked on, who is working on it and how far they have gotten.

In order to analyze a project, one needs to priory install the Project Module, Timesheet Module, and Sales module. In the absence of the Timesheet and Sales Module, there lays no provision to check the overview report in a project module.

Once the installation is complete, open the project module and create a new project via clicking the “create” button.

Create a Project/Task

While in the project app, you can either select an existing project or create a new one.

So let’s go ahead and check this out in Odoo.

Once you are in the project application, the first thing you gonna see is the dashboard which will show all the projects that we currently have. However, one can also create a new one, via clicking on the CREATE button on top right.

Upon clicking the new button, you are navigated to a new screen like below image.

So here you can add the project name, and either select Allow Forecast or Allow Timesheet. Via selecting the option Allow Forecast –the feature shows the forecast link in the Kanban view. On the other hand, via selecting Allow Timesheet option- the feature displays the timesheet.

Later click CREATE button.

Upon clicking create button, you will be redirected to the project page and will be prompted to add some columns. These columns acts as different stages for your tasks. If you don’t know where to start, you can ask for certain examples just like below.

Odoo have set different examples for different projects that you may have. So here we have Software Development, Digital Marketing, Getting things done, Research Project and more. So definitely the end user can use them as the reference if they are confused where to start.

In order to close this window, you can click the button GOT IT.

And now you can add your titles

Once you add your desired columns, and create the few tasks via clicking on CREATE button.

Now you have a new window, where you can add the Task Title and Individual to whom the task is assigned to .

One can also edit this particular task created via clicking on the EDIT button.

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Here you get the task page, of course you can change the task title if you need to, you can even assign someone, and can also change the project under which the task belongs to.This can be helpful if you have multiple teams working on multiple projects and you want this task to be transferred to another team. Therefore,in that case, from the task page itself you can change the name of the project under which the task has to be scheduled. One can also even add the deadline and use tags.

Tags can be helpful, as it helps you in quickly identifying the tasks in the Kanban view or in the task overview.

One can also create a new tag via simply typing the text, this is shown in the below image.

One can also add the descriptions, time sheets and extra information such as leaving specific messages to a customer.

From the task dashboard one can also do some cool activities such as prioritizing

Also even check out the activities that have been planned for the tasks and also plan some new activities if you want to.

View your tasks

Kandan view of Odoo can be of great help to the user as it allows for seamless management and follow up of created tasks. Kanban view is moreover like the post-it like view, being segregated in different stages. It simply helps the user to get a clear insight on the task stages based on their priority.

Notify Task

One can also notify the co-workers the task status from Kanban view via making use of the little dot. The grey button, if you click on that you can mark this task as ready for next stage or block it from further proceedings and it will notify task follower if the task is ready or not.

Sub Tasks

Configuration

Go to Projects> Configuration>Settings

Under settings, you will find couple of options under Task Management. You can activate the option sub tasks. Click SAVE button to mark the changes.

Later go to the project that we have created, select any task we have created and you can find the new option subtask on top of the window.

And if you click on the sub task button, you will be navigated to a new window were you can create a new sub task for the parent task.

There you can find the task title and the person to whom the sub task is assigned to .

Later click on the Add button. One can also modify the sub task via clicking on the edit button.

One can access the parent task from here itself.

Timesheets

Odoo provisions to record the time spend by an employee over a specific project or specific task.

Configuration

In order to record the time spent on projects, one must firstly activate the invoicing of timesheets.

Configuration ‣Settings. And under Timesheets section, enable the option Activate timesheets on issues.

Recording timesheets

User can record the time spent on projects straight away from the projects application. User can either record timesheets in a project, or in a task.

Recording in a project

Under the Project application dashboard, open the More option in order to record timesheets.

In the new window, click on Create and insert the required details, then click on Save.

Recording in a task

Under the Project application, open the task under the project for recording the timesheets. In the task, click on Edit, open the Timesheets tab and click on Add an item. Insert the required details, then click on Save.

Project Forecast

The forecasting feature in Odoo Project Management helps in setting projects under a specific deadline. One can seamlessly schedule their tasks under forecasting and the feature helps with analyzing or estimating the time needed for each task by different employees.

Configuration

Go to Project -> Configuration -> Settings, Enable the Forecasts option and Click Save to mark the changes.

Create a project:

While creating a new project, the user must select “Allow forecast” option. The action triggers Forecast option and the end user can see the forecast button on top.

Next, create new tasks under the project. The user can seamlessly forecast these tasks also via clicking on the Forecast option provisioned on top.

In order to forecast the tasks, click on ADD A LINE button. Here, the user can add the desired attributes in the creation form.

The line offers to give forecast hours for each day. One can also set forecast dependent on weeks and months. From the configuration -> settings, one can set the forecast option.

Upon clicking on the plus button, one can see all records aggregated in the particular cell. From these records, one can seamlessly manage the task forecasting.

Planned hours means the forecasted hours of the task. Effective hours are related to the timesheet and whenever an employee adds his/her working hours or timesheet for this particular task, it will display ineffective hours. %Time is the percentage of working time.

Project forecasts in different point of views

For that go to Project -> Forecast, there will be two options: By Employee and By Project.

By Employee

Under the option, user can see different employees and their consecutive planned working hours. And this information can be easily filtered and viewed under different categories like Week, Month or Year. However, one can’t directly see the project related to an employee, but can see the details via clicking the plus button provided on cells.

By Project

Under the option, one can view different projects and their planned hours. Again the information can be filtered on the basis of Week, Month and Year. One can view the details by clicking on the plus button provided on cells.

Gantt View

Gantt View is a view in which a series of rectangles shows the %Time of the projects. It simply gives a big picture of the project. Gantt view is also used in two views: By Employee and By Project.

By Employee

This will display the Gantt chart along with assigned people. On the left side, the first level, one can see which all users are involved. Following, on the second level, one can view which tasks are assigned to whom. Moving on to the third level, one can view which projects are running. Each project is represented by a rectangle and it shows the % Time of the project. One can view them in different timelines such as year, month, week, or day- wise.

Each task is represented by a colored rectangle. The top rectangle on the first level displays the sum of all the projects compiled from the third level. If the rectangle turns green, it denotes that the total time allocated to that user is less than 100%. While it turns red, it denotes that this user is assigned with multiple tasks, which totaled to more than 100% of his/her time.

By Project

This displays the Gantt chart by showing the projects. The project and their %Time can be seen under different timelines like Week, Month, Year or Daily.

On the left side, at the first level, one can see the projects. Moving on to the second level, one can see which users are assigned. And finally on the third level, one can see which tasks they're on.

Forecast Analysis:

Forecast analysis is actually a comparison of the allocated time and effective hours. Allocated time is the forecasted time of the project and effective hours are related to the timesheet. One can analyze the allocated time and effective hours using different measures.

Invoicing Project

Under the Odoo Project Management module, the invoice is mainly done on three elements.

• Timesheet
• Ordered quantity
• Milestones

Invoice Based on Time Sheet

Each project will have more than one task that are handled by different employees. Therefore, each employee’s timesheet cost will be different. Timesheet cost is the service cost of an employee per hour on a project. Invoice based on the timesheet is one kind of invoicing method that helps to invoice the exact working hours of the employees on a project.

Configuration >Project

Here you can see all projects with the respective project manager alongside the valid contacts.

Next open a project for creating the sales order.

Here one can find all pertinent project details and a button for creating the sales order. Upon clicking the button, a pop-up window will appear like below.

Under the page, one can select the customer, the service, the unit price, and the billing type. By default, there are two types of billing in Odoo:

• At employee rate
• At project rate

Under the Employee rate, the bills are calculated based on timesheet cost of the employee. However, under the project rate, the cost amounts to the fixed cost of the project.

The following action is setting the invoicing policy as ‘Timesheet on task’ (shown below).

After entering all details, click the Create Sales Order button.

It thus shows the delivered quantity i.e employee work hours and the corresponding service rate.

Invoice based on Ordered Quantity

The invoice based on ordered quantity is calculated on the basis of the quantity ordered by a customer, no matter whether the ordered quantity is received by the customer or not.

Configuration

Before creating a sales order, one must set ‘ordered quantity’ as service invoicing policy in the product details.

Product -> Sales -> Service Invoicing Policy

And creating Sales Order, fill the number of ordered quantity and create the invoice.

Invoice Based on Milestones

The ‘invoice based on milestone’ can invoice the delivered quantity of the project or the different stages of the project, that are complete. Say project designing, development and so forth. For Example: If a project runs in three stages and the supplier needs to invoice the client upon completion of each stage, it is advised that they go for service invoice policy as ‘milestones’.

In order to avail, firstly the supplier needs to create a sales order and fill in the field of delivered quantity.

While creating the sales order of the project for the invoice, one must also fill up the ordered quantity and the delivered quantity.

Here, one can invoice only the delivered quantity. Save the sales order and create the invoice.

Project invoice.

One can view the invoice amount of the delivered quantity in the project and a button for validating the invoice and registering the payment.

Project Profitability

For a business firm, it is highly essential to know the profitability of each project. Odoo Project, provisions easier tactics to acquire project profitability in a single click. One can also analyze the project revenue and expenses using the analytic accounting enshrined in the module.

Open Project Module

Under the Project Overview, Odoo shows the current profitability status of a project.

The profitability of a project will be calculated on the basis of 3 elements.

• Invoiced : A project has a sales order, and it may be fully invoiced when the invoicing policy is set on the basis of the ordered quantity or partially invoiced in case of invoicing policy based on timesheet of tasks. Here the invoiced amount is displayed as invoiced.
• To Invoice: A project has a sales order, and the timesheet is updated with an employee, which means service is delivered to the customer, but not invoiced.
• Timesheet Cost: Timesheet cost = Delivered Quantity * Employee Timesheet cost. Timesheet cost is the amount that a company has spent on a project.

Profitability calculation:

Total = Invoiced + To invoice - Timesheet cost

Here, the Invoiced amount is Rs 10,500/- and To invoice is Rs 21,500/-. The Timesheet cost is Rs 1,400/-. Therefore, the profitability of this project runs to Rs 30,600/-.

Profitability Using Analytical Accounts

One can also analyze a project using Analytical accounts. When we create a project, Odoo creates Analytic Account with the same name of the corresponding project itself. User can change Analytic Account from Project’s Edit menu.

To get a detailed report of the project,

Go to Accounting -> Reporting -> Analytic Report

Here, one can see different analytical accounts created for varied purposes.Create a sales order for the project, update timesheet and create an invoice for delivered quantity.

From the example, one can see that the sales order has been created for a quantity of 50. A time worth 10 hours has been added to the Timesheet and invoiced with a particular amount.

Now in the analytical accounts, those amounts will be shown as Revenue and Expenditure.

Here Rs 5000/- is the invoiced amount, and corresponding expense that got deducted based on the timesheet cost is Rs 1000/- and the current profitability of the project runs to Rs 4000/-.

Project Privacy

Privacy is always an upheld factor in project management. However, one can seamlessly handle the privacy settings in Odoo. Odoo comes with different features in Privacy setting under Project management. There are mainly three types of Privacy features in Odoo, and they are as follows-

• On Invitation only
• Visible by all employees
• Visible by following customers

Now let us see, how to set up Privacy in Odoo.

As a first step, one can create a new project and later give the desired privacy settings for that project. To do so, Go to project module -> configuration -> projects -> create

Under the project form, one can set the project name, project manager, privacy, and customer.

One can also select the privacy of choice.

On invitation only:

Upon selecting the option “On invitation only”, the privacy changes and the corresponding project, tasks, and issues can be viewed only by the internal users who are followers of the project.

The internal user view is as follows:

Marc Demo is the internal user here. In this case, the user can view these projects and the tasks underneath the project. Here, the project users can only edit the tasks and the associated timesheets. However, the user has no option either to create a project or access the project forecast.

Visible by all employees:

Upon selecting the option, one can add the desired followers to it.If you select the option “visible by all employees”, the privacy gets changed and the project, tasks, and issues could be viewed by all the employees, no matter whether they are the followers or not.

Here, Marc Demo is an internal user, but he is not a follower. The project view of Marc Demo is as follows:

Visible by following customers:

Upon selecting the option, one can add the portal user as the followers. If you select the option “visible by following customers”, the privacy changes and the project, corresponding tasks, and issues could be viewed by all the employees.

If the portal user(customer) is a follower, he/she can also view the project.

Abigail is an employee, she is a follower of this project. The project view of Abigail as follows:

And also the Marc Demo is an employee(internal user), but he is not a follower. The project view of Marc Demo is as follows:

The Joel Wills is a portal user, and he is a follower of that project. The project view of Joel Wills is as follows:

However, the portal users can access the project only through the website.

Anita Oliver is a portal user, and she is not a follower of that project. The web view of Anita Oliver is as follows: