Clients, projects and tasks
Clients, projects and tasks are the things you log time against. Setting them up is optional, but it lets you see where your time went, for example how many hours you spent for one client or how much of your time was billable.
There are two ways to get them:
- Load a shared configuration that someone on your team has prepared. This is the recommended way if you work in a team, because everyone then logs time against exactly the same entries. See Loading a shared configuration below.
- Create them yourself on the Clients, Projects and Tasks pages.
You can also do both: load a shared configuration and add your own entries next to it.
Information like budgets and billable hours are currently not used for dashboards or reporting, this functionality is planned for future releases.
Loading a shared configuration
A shared configuration is a file that contains a ready-made set of clients, projects and tasks. It usually comes from a colleague, for example a project lead, and its name ends in .tracer-shared-configuration.json.
- Save the file you received somewhere on your computer.
- Click Shared Configurations in the sidebar.
- Click Import Configuration and select the file.
The clients, projects and tasks from the file are added to your Clients, Projects and Tasks pages straight away, and you can start logging time against them.
The configuration is shown as a card on the Shared Configurations page. The card shows its name, the version you have loaded, who owns it, and the entries it contains.
Shared entries are locked
Entries that come from a shared configuration are locked. They show a lock icon in the first column of the Clients, Projects and Tasks tables. You cannot edit or delete them, and hovering over the icon explains why.
This is deliberate. Everyone who loaded the configuration should have identical entries, so that logs from different people can be combined later. If something in a shared entry is wrong, ask the owner of the configuration to fix it and send you a new version.
Getting a newer version
When the owner publishes a new version, they send you a new file. Import it the same way, with Import Configuration. The card then shows the new version number, and the entries on your Clients, Projects and Tasks pages are updated.
The version number on the card lets you check whether you are up to date. If a colleague mentions a newer version than the one on your card, ask for the new file.
Your existing logs are not affected by updating. They stay linked to the same entries.
Removing a shared configuration
Click Delete on the configuration's card and confirm. This removes the configuration itself, but the clients, projects and tasks it contained stay in your lists, and your logs stay linked to them. They are simply no longer locked.
For more about how shared configurations work and how to create your own, see Shared configurations.
Creating your own entries
The Clients, Projects and Tasks pages all work the same way. Each one is a table where one row is one entry.
- To add an entry, click the Add button in the table toolbar (Add Client, Add Project or Add Task). An empty row appears.
- To edit a cell, double-click it, type the new value and press Enter.
- To delete an entry, click the bin icon at the end of the row.
Changes are saved automatically. If a value cannot be saved, for example because a required field is empty, a warning is shown and the previous value is kept.
A good order is to create clients first, then projects, then tasks, because projects are linked to clients and tasks are linked to projects.
Clients
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Client ID | A short code for the client |
| Client Name | The full name of the client |
| Labels | Optional tags, see Labels |
A client needs at least an ID or a name.
Projects
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Project Number (ID) | The project number or code |
| Project Name | The full name of the project |
| Client | The client this project is for. Choose "-" for none. |
| Available Budget | The budget available for the project, for your own reference |
| Labels | Optional tags |
A project needs at least an ID or a name.
Tasks
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Task Number (ID) | The task number or code. New tasks get a name like "Task 3", which you can change. |
| Description | What the task is |
| Project | The project this task belongs to. Choose "-" for none. |
| Billable | Tick this if time on this task can be billed. Used for the billable figures in the dashboard. |
| Labels | Optional tags |
A task always needs an ID.
What appears in the task dropdowns
The dropdowns in the timer, the calendar and the Logs table list all of your projects and all of your tasks. Projects are shown as "ID | Name" and tasks as "ID | Description".
Pick a task when you want the most detail. Pick a project directly when you do not track tasks for that project.
Only tasks can be billable, so time logged directly against a project always counts as non-billable.
Deleting entries that have logs
If you delete a client, project or task, logs that were assigned to it are kept, but they no longer show what they were logged against. Check the Logs table before deleting an entry that is in use.
Labels
Labels are short tags you can add to clients, projects and tasks, for example internal, design or phase-2. They are used to filter the dashboard.
To add labels, double-click the Labels cell of a row. Type a label and press Enter, or pick one you have used before from the list. You can add as many labels as you like.
A log picks up the labels of everything it is linked to. For example, a log on a task gets the labels of that task, of the task's project, and of that project's client. So if you label a client internal, all time logged on that client's projects and tasks can be filtered as internal.