Setup projects

Setting up project templates

Project templates help you to quickly add projects for your clients without duplicating data entry. Project templates contain key project information, such as date calculations, recurrence patterns, project tasks, budget information, and assignments. You can add a new blank project template and modify it, or create a copy of an existing template. You can also copy information from a tab on one template to the same tab on another template.
When you add a project to a client, you select a project template and project information such as date calculations and future project generation is filled in from that template.
To open the Project Templates screen, choose Setup > Templates > Projects, or click the Project Templates action icon in the Clients navigation pane.
note
This menu command is available only if you are licensed for the Project Management module and have security privileges to access project templates.

Adding or copying a project template

To create a new project template, do one of the following:
  • To create a new template, click the Add button.
  • To create a copy of an existing template that you can modify, right-click in the Project Templates list and choose Copy Project Template from the context menu.
After you create a new template, add (or modify) template information as described below.

Adding template information

note
Some items in the drop-down lists in this screen come from entries you have made via the Setup menu (for example, Setup > Tracking Descriptions). If you have security privileges to do so, you can also right-click in these drop-down lists to add, edit, or delete items from the list.
Main tab
In the Project Templates screen, click the Main tab and complete the fields as necessary.
  1. Identification:
    • In the
      ID
       field, enter a unique alphanumeric ID, up to 11 characters.
      note
      This is a required field. The ID will be saved in upper case letters regardless of how it is entered.
    • In the
      Description
       field, enter a brief description of the project that will be easily recognizable to your staff.
    • In the
      Invoice description
       field, enter a description of the project as you want it to appear on client invoices.
  2. Project information:
    • Engagement:
       Select the engagement to be used for the project. This is a required field. If you have security privileges, you can right-click to add or edit an engagement in the drop-down list.
    • Priority:
       Select Low, Medium, or High as the priority for the project.
    • Tracking:
       Select a tracking description for the project. If you have security privileges, you can right-click to add or edit tracking descriptions in the drop-down list.
  3. Groupings: Groupings let you categorize project templates for filtering the list of projects and for creating reports. You can group projects by the staff responsible and by department. Click the down arrow Down arrow button and select a staff role (for example, Client’s Manager) to have the application complete this information using the client’s assignments.
  4. Entities: Click the More button to select the client entities to assign to the project. When you assign an entity to the project, the application can automatically create this project for new clients that are assigned this entity. The
    Associated Entities
     field shows all of the entities that have been assigned to the project template.
  5. Budget information: Mark the
    Base on tasks
     checkbox if you want to base budget information on the information set up on the project’s tasks. Mark the
    Calculate amount automatically
     checkbox to calculate budget information based on staff rates. Leave the checkboxes unmarked if you would like to enter the budget information yourself in the
    Hours
     and/or
    Amount
     fields.
  6. Assigned: Click the More button next to the
    Staff
     field to select a staff member to assign to the project, or click the Down arrow button to assign a staff member dynamically based on their role (for example, Client’s Partner, or Engagement’s Biller). If you are licensed for the Staff Management module, you can also:
    • manually assign staff to the project based on their qualifications. Click the More button next to the
      Staff qualifications
       field and create a filter to specify which qualifications the assigned staff member must possess to work on the project.
    • automatically assign staff to the project based on a work queue. When you mark the
      Work queue
       option, the project will be placed in a queue that appears in the Work Queue portlet of the Staff Dashboard only for those staff who meet the qualifications.
  7. Generation: Click the Recurrence button to open the Recurrence dialog, where you can specify the project frequency, dates, and generation options for future projects.
  8. Solution:
    • Select solution:
       Select a solution you will use to work on the project from the drop-down list.
    • Solution path
       or
      File path:
       If you select Other for the solution, click the More button to navigate to the solution’s shortcut or application file.
  9. Extensions: If you want to be able to extend a project’s due date, enter the number of months and/or days from the original due date for each extension. The maximum number of extensions allowed is four.
    note
    If you do not set up extensions on the project template, extensions will not be available when you use it to create a project. Also, extensions that you add to a project template are not added to projects that have already been created. However, you can still extend an existing project by right-clicking and choosing Add Entry from the context menu in the Project dialog.
Tasks tab
This tab shows selected task information associated with the current project template, including the activity, staff, target completion month and day, and tracking description.
To add a task to the project template, click the Add button and complete the information in the Task Template setup dialog. You can also double-click a row in the grid to open the Task Template dialog. Click on any column heading to sort the tasks grid by items in that column.
Links tab
The Links tab enables you to add links to any items that you want to associate with the project template. You can link to files, websites, or documents outside of Digita Practice Advanced, including documents stored in Digita FileCabinet. You can also link to interaction items within Digita Practice Advanced.
The links you add to a project template will be added by default to all new projects generated from that template.
To add a link to the project template, right-click within the Links tab and choose the command from the context menu that pertains to the type of link you want to add. Navigate to that item and click OK.
Custom Fields tab
The Custom Fields tab provides fields in which you can enter additional information for the project template. Custom fields can be checkboxes, dates, lists, numeric fields, staff lists, or text-entry fields. Custom fields for dates have a drop-down calendar. Numeric custom fields have a drop-down calculator.

Modifying a project template

  1. From the Project Templates list, click the template you want to modify.
  2. Click the Edit button.
  3. Make the necessary changes to the project template information.
  4. Click the Enter button to save the changes.

Copying selected information to another project template

Digita Practice Advanced enables you to copy all of the values from a tab of one project template to the same tab of another project template.
To copy values from one project template to another, follow these steps.
  1. Right-click the source template in the Project Templates list and choose the appropriate command from the context menu:
    • Copy Main Values To...
    • Copy Dates To...
    • Copy Tasks To...
    • Copy Links To...
    • Copy Custom Field Values To...
  2. In the Copy <Items> To dialog, select the destination template from the
    Copy To
     field.
  3. Mark the
    I understand this will replace any existing data
     checkbox and click the Copy Now button.
  4. Click Enter to save your changes to the destination template.
note
After copying tab values from one project template to another, you may need to modify some information in the destination template to make it compatible with existing information in that template. For example, after copying a Tasks tab to another template, you may be prompted that the Target Start Month and Target Start Day values conflict with the dates in the project template. You will need to resolve these conflicts manually before you can save changes to the destination template.

This article applies to:

  • Product: Digita Practice Advanced