Hubstaff Projects Overview

This video is divided into chapters, to skip directly to the projects section, please click here

Projects are a great way to organize tasks. Creating projects lets you monitor how much time was spent by your team on a specific project so you can easily generate reports against them so you can stay on top of project budgets.

After creating an organization, the first thing you will need to do is create projects and assign them to your team members, or yourself. Your team won’t be able to track any time unless they are assigned to a project, so this step is important. You can also assign a specific budget to a project.

Don’t worry, creating projects within Hubstaff is simple. Click on a section below to learn more about what projects can do for you:

Table of Contents

• Creating projects
• Importing projects
• Edit project memberships and roles from the Projects section
• Edit project memberships and roles from the Members section
• How projects appear on the tracking client
• Change the project name
• Archiving projects
• Deleting projects
• Restoring archived projects
• Set project budgets
• Transfer a project to another organization

Creating Projects

Select Project management > Projects from the main navigation menu.

Click Add project.

The New project dialog will appear and you will see the General tab. Fill in the following details:

1. Project Name
2. Billable – toggle this setting on/off to include time tracked to this project in client invoices.
3. Disable activity – toggle this setting on/off to enable or disable activity recording when a user tracks time to this project. Screenshots are still recorded when this feature is enabled.
4. Disable idle time – toggle this setting on/off to define whether idle time is recorded for this project (works on Hubstaff desktop version 1.6.16 and later)
5. Client Name (optional) – choose the client you wish to bill for time tracked to this project.
6. Link to Hubstaff Tasks organization – place a checkmark on this setting to automatically create a linked project in the Hubstaff Tasks project management platform.

Next, click the Budget & Limits tab. Fill in the following details, or skip this step to add members.

1. Type – can be based on:
   1. Total cost.
   2. Total hours.
2. Based on – where the budget is based on:
   1. Pay rate – the rate you pay your team members.
   2. Bill rate – the rate your client will be charged for the time tracked by your team.
3. Cost/ hours – can be in amounts or hours depending on the type.
4. Notify at – a specific percentage of the budget where you’ll be notified through email.
5. Stop timers at – a specific percentage of the budget that will stop timer around the number set.
6. Notify project members – control whether members should be notified too.
7. Resets – control when the budget will be renewed, can be set to weekly, monthly, or never.
8. Start date – when resets is set to never, you can select the start date from which the budget is tracked.
9. Include non-billable time – control whether the non-billable time counts towards the budget.

You can also add Member limits by clicking on the Member limits tab and define a notification criteria, members, the basis of the limit (cost/hours), bill/pay rates, and frequency.

Navigate to the Members tab. Typically, team members are assigned as Users (2) within a project. This will give them the ability to track time against the project. Managers (1) will also be able to track time against the project, in addition, they will have access to view all of the data associated with that project. Please note Viewers (3) will not be able to track any time against the project. If you wish to learn more about the different role types within Hubstaff, please see our guide here. Also, moving Project viewers to Users or Managers will move them from a free seat to a paid seat, and may increase the number of paid seats on your plan, you can find more information on that here.

Alternatively, you can add members via the team option by clicking on the Teams tab. You can then assign various members to a project at once. To learn more about teams within Hubstaff, please read the Teams Overview guide here.

Once all fields are completed, click Save to finalize the project.

Importing Projects

Now you can import your projects to Hubstaff via CSV making it easier to bulk upload your project list into your Hubstaff organization. To do this, follow these steps:

Firstly, navigate to Project management > Projects.

On the projects page, click on the Import projects button.

On the dialog box, click on Download the template here to see the specific format prior to uploading your CSV file.

Open the CSV file. The file will include these rows and columns:

1. Project name
2. Billable – Yes or No
3. Record activity? – Yes or No

Replace the data with your projects and settings then save the CSV file.

Go back to the Import projects dialog, then click on Browse files, or drag the CSV you just saved to the dialog box.

After successfully uploading the CSV file, click Import.

Finally, you’ll receive a notification that the file is being processed and you will get an email when ready.

This process usually takes a minute, but may increase depending on the number of projects you’re attempting to import. Below is a sample email upon completion of the import.

Edit project memberships and roles from the Projects section

Select Project management > Projects from the main navigation menu, then click on the project you wish to edit.

Next, click on the Edit members button.

A dialogue will appear under the MEMBERS tab allowing you to assign/re-assign members to the project and also change their roles.

Once the necessary edits are made, click Save to finalize the changes.

Edit project memberships and roles from the Members section

Select People > Members from the main navigation menu. Hover your cursor under the Projects column and click on the pencil icon that appears.

This will open a project and roles page, allowing you to make changes to the membership and roles for each project.

Once the necessary edits are made, click Save to finalize the changes.

Edit project memberships and roles from the Invite section

Members of your organization will need to be assigned to at least one project when they are invited to the organization, if they have the role of a “User”. Additionally, after the invite is sent, it’s possible for more projects to be assigned to them prior to them accepting the invite, in order to make the onboarding process more seamless. To do this:

Select People > Members from the main navigation menu. Once on there, click on the Invites tab.

Click on the Invites tab and then hover over either the role or projects column and click on the desired option.

Step 3

The resulting pop-up allows for the amendment of both the member role within the organization, as well as their project memberships, prior to them accepting the invite itself. As soon as the invite is accepted from their end, they will be able to see all of the assigned projects, in addition to being able to carry out actions on the organization, as per their role.

How projects appear on the tracking client

Once your team members are assigned to projects, they will appear in their tracking clients. Projects will appear in the highlighted section of the desktop tracker, as shown below. The user can simply click on the name of the project to select it, then press the Start button to begin tracking their time.

Please note team members must be assigned as either a User or Manager to be able to track time against projects.

Change the Project Name

Select Project management > Projects from the main navigation menu.

To change the name of a project, click on Actions beside the relevant project name, and select Edit project from the drop-down menu.

A pop-up dialogue will appear under the GENERAL tab. Enter the new name of the project in the Name field. Click Save to confirm the changes.

Archiving projects

Archiving a project prevents users from tracking more time to a project and “hides” the data but keeps it stored until you restore the project.

Select Project management > Projects from the main navigation menu.

Click on the Actions beside the project you wish to archive, then click Archive project.

A pop-up notification will appear. Select Archive to confirm you wish to archive the project.

Deleting projects

Select Project management > Projects from the main navigation menu.

Next to the name of the project you wish to delete, click on Actions > Delete project.

Place a checkmark on the “I understand and wish to delete this project” box, then click Delete.

A popup message will appear confirming the deletion of the project.

Restoring archived projects

Select Project management > Projects from the main navigation menu.

Click on the Archived tab, then next to the project name, click on Actions > Restore project.

Set Project Budgets

Select Project management > Projects from the main navigation menu.

Under the Budgets column, next to the relevant project name, click the pencil icon to add/edit the project budget.

The Edit project budget dialog will appear where you can edit the following details:

1. Type – can be based on:
   1. Total cost.
   2. Total hours.
2. Based on – where the budget is based on:
   1. Pay rate – the rate you pay your team members.
   2. Bill rate – the rate your client will be charged for the time tracked by your team.
3. Cost/ hours – can be in amounts or hours depending on the type.
4. Notify at – a specific percentage of the budget where you’ll be notified through email.
5. Stop timers at – a specific percentage of the budget that will stop timer around the number set.
6. Notify project members – control whether members should be notified too.
7. Resets – control when the budget will be renewed, can be set to weekly, monthly, or never.
8. Start date – when resets is set to never, you can select the start date from which the budget is tracked.
9. Include non-billable time – control whether the non-billable time counts towards the budget.

Hit Save to add the budget.

Transfer a Project to another Organization

Select Project management > Projects from the main navigation menu. Click on the Actions beside the project you wish to transfer, then click Transfer.

A pop-up dialogue will appear. Select the organization you wish to transfer the project to from the drop-down menu under the Destination Organization section. Click Save to confirm you wish to process the transfer.

After clicking Save, you’ll receive a notification that the project has been transferred.

Under your Project management > Projects section, you can confirm the project has been transferred to the new organization.