Clicking on a project in your project overview opens the Work breakdown page. It allows you to make clear estimates of the required work per project phase and allows you to keep your projects perfectly under control. Read everything there is to know about the work breakdown on projects here!


Planning a project in manageable pieces and dividing the work equally among colleagues can be a feat. Especially when a project grows into several phases, then an overall picture is quickly lacking. With the work breakdown on projects, we offer a solution to that problem.


First steps

After creating your project and defining the first phase, you'll be redirected to the work breakdown page. You can add a description of the project by clicking on the pencil next to 'Description'. 


Now, plan all major phases of your project first. You do this by clicking on the button Add phase. A side panel opens on the right in which you can fill out the most important steps to bring the project to a successful conclusion.

By clicking on + Dependency, you can create dependencies between different phases. Read more about it in this article. 


When you've filled out all the information about the phase, just press Enter on your keyboard to add it or click on the button Add phase.

If you don't have a lot of time and want to quickly add phases to your project, you can also click on + Add phase at the bottom of the page. You only need to fill out the phase title and then press Enter on your keyboard. You can add some details to the phase later on by clicking on it.

Adding tasks and meetings

After you’ve added your phases it’s time to add specific tasks and meetings per project phase.


Click on Add task in the top right-hand corner to start adding tasks. If you’d rather add a meeting, click on the arrow and choose Add meeting:


The Add task/Add meeting button allows you to add these items to any phase you want by choosing the right phase in the ‘Details’:


If you want to immediately add a task/meeting to a certain phase instead of choosing one, you just need to hover over that phase to view the ‘Add task’/Add meeting button:


You can also click on + Add task right below the phase to quickly add tasks to it by filling in the task title and pressing Enter. You can add some details to the task later on by clicking on it.


So, when adding tasks, it’s not needed to choose a task assignee immediately. You can always do this later; this has the advantage to first take a look at who's available to execute the task and keep everyone happy. 

  • Important remark: when assigning a task to a certain assignee, this user will become a project participant automatically if he or she wasn’t a participant in the project already


Edit phases/tasks/meetings

If you want to edit* your phases, tasks or meetings later you just need to click on the item and then a side panel opens on the right with more details. This allows you to add/edit something whilst keeping an overview of the complete project on the left.


* Note: keep in mind that you can’t edit (or delete) tasks that are marked as ‘Done’, you need to reopen the task in order to edit it.


For phases and tasks: in the side panel, simply click on the field you want to change to edit it and press the Enter button to save your changes. You can also click on the pencil.


For meetings: in the side panel, click on the pencil to change your meeting details.

When you've finished working on a certain task, you can:

  • Click on your task in the work breakdown, the side panel opens
  • Click on Mark as done to mark it as done
  • Do you also want to track time? Then click on the arrow next to Mark as done > Track time. 
    That way it's not needed to navigate to that task first.


    Note: If you're in a hurry and want to quickly add your tasks as done, just hover over the task in your work breakdown and click on the green check mark next to your task title to mark the task as done.


Drag & drop open tasks/meetings between open phases

It's also possible to drag and drop an open task or meeting from one phase to another. Just click on them and drag them to where you want to.
This is not possible for:

  • Closed phases
  • Closed tasks/meetings
  • You can't drag & drop between different projects


Work breakdown specifics

There are some work breakdown specifics we'd like to point out to you as well in this part of the article.


Filter on time or on budget

By default, your work breakdown overview will be filtered on Time. 


You can find an overview of:

  • Time tracked: a total of all time tracked on all project phases. Click on the button 'Time tracked' in blue to immediately navigate to your timesheets overview of this project.

    • Time tracking on calls
    • Time tracking on tasks
    • Time tracking on meetings
    • Separate time trackings
  • Time estimated: total time estimated on all tasks/meetings of all project phases

    • Remark for meetings: the total time estimated for a meeting is the result of multiplying the duration of the meeting by the number of attendees: it’s all the time you and your colleagues are expected to spend on that meeting.
      Example: If the duration of a meeting is one hour but there are 6 attendees, then the time estimated will be 6 hours. Make sure every attendee then also individually marks the meeting as done.

  • Completed: counts how many of the linked items (tasks and meetings) were already marked as done compared to the total amount of items


You can find the same overview of tracked time vs estimated time in detail per phase and per task, and also in the side panel when viewing a specific task/meeting. Compare estimated time of items with tracked time in order to learn from your planning.


If you're interested in seeing at a glance the budget you spent instead of the time tracked/estimated, then you can also filter on Budget:

You'll see an overview of:

  • Budget spent: (billable hours + material) * sale price.
  • Budget provided: the budget you assigned to the complete project. 
  • Completed: counts how many of the linked items (tasks and meetings) were already marked as done compared to the total amount of items).

Find more information on budgeting by navigating to Project info in the header and scrolling down to the widget 'Budget spent'. You can also read more about budget management on projects and the exact calculation of budget spent in this article.


Due dates and statuses

In your phase overview you’ll also find the column ‘Due date’. The due date of the phase will be visible, but also the due dates of the linked tasks and meetings. A due date can have four different 'statuses':


  • Red status: the due date of the item has passed

  • Blue status: the due date of the item is today

  • Grey status: the due date of the item is somewhere in the future

  • Green status: the linked task/meeting is marked as done


Notes:

  • A red exclamation mark next to the due date of your phase simply denotes that the due date of your phase has passed and the phase was not closed yet.
  • When closing a phase, the status ‘Done’ will also be assigned to the due date of the phase.


Time trackings not linked to tasks/meetings

Time trackings that are not linked to tasks/meetings are shown separately per project phase. You can click on this notification to get an overview of these time trackings. Time trackings on calls linked to the project are shown here, as well as separate time trackings.


Closing phases/closing the project

When you've finished the tasks, meetings and calls linked to a certain phase, we advise you to close that phase. Do this by hovering over a phase and clicking on Close phase:


When every phase in a project is set to ‘Closed’, the project will be considered 'Done'. You can also close a project by navigating to your project > Project info > click on the three dots next to your project number > Close project. All phases linked to the project will be closed automatically.


Smart filters to manage your project

Each project also has some filters to make it possible to filter on which phases are still open, which phases are overdue, which work you still need to do, which work is overdue and which work is due today. You can select several filters by just clicking on them:


That’s it for the work breakdown on projects! On the Project info page, you can find your project financials such as ‘Budget spent’ and 'Profit'. The combination of this work breakdown and financial information helps you keep control of your projects at all times.