Overview

The Project Planning module offers you:

Specification of the planned effort in hours for projects and/or tasks.
Overbooking stop (optional) at the project and/or task level.
Display of Planned Hours in the project table and in the project plan for tickets.
Notifications on project status to project managers upon reaching a specific hour quota.
Diverse display options for Planned Figures, so the whole team keeps track of the project plan.
Target/Actual comparison of time expenditure at the push of a button per project in the Project Status Plan.
Cross-project Target/Actual comparison of time expenditure for the overall overview in the Overall Status Plan.

Planned Hours in the Project

Path: Projects > [Project Name] > General > Data & Plan

If you want to enter a fixed number of Planned Hours for the overall project, enter them here or activate the checkbox "Fixed Planned Hours."

You can also enter the number of hours per task. If you have already allocated Planned Hours at the task level, the aggregated (summed) number of hours from the tasks will be displayed here in italics. (In the edit window: with the suffix "(dyn)").

You can also see here if there are "Planning Differences," meaning if more hours are planned on the lower levels (tasks) than are specified for the overall project.

Planned Hours in the Task

Path: Projects > [Project Name] > General > Tasks > [Task Name]

Planned Hours at Task Level

If you want to enter a fixed number of Planned Hours for the task, enter them here or activate the checkbox "Fixed Planned Hours."

If you plan at a lower level (subordinate task, potentially ticket/sub-task) and have already allocated Planned Hours, the aggregated (summed) number of hours from the lower levels will be displayed here in italics. (In the edit window: with the suffix (dyn)).

Prevent Overbooking

If you want to prevent more hours from being booked than you have planned, you can set the following here:

No
ZEP does not prevent more hours from being recorded than planned.
billable times only (incl. travel time)
ZEP prevents more billable hours than specified under Planned Hours from being recorded.
billable and non-billable times (incl. travel time)
ZEP prevents more hours, whether billable or non-billable, than specified under Planned Hours from being recorded.
billable times only (without travel time)
ZEP prevents more billable hours than specified under Planned Hours from being recorded. Travel time is not considered.
billable and non-billable times (excl. travel time)
ZEP prevents more hours, whether billable or non-billable, than specified under Planned Hours from being recorded. Travel time is not considered.

Overbooking Stop per Day

You can additionally specify an Overbooking Stop per day, meaning a number of hours that may not be exceeded per day.

You can only specify an Overbooking Stop per day if an Overbooking Stop is set at the project level at all.

As soon as a time entry exceeds this Planned Figure, the message appears:

"Saving failed.

This time cannot be booked because it would exceed the Planned Hours of the project/task. The Project Manager has been informed via email." and the time is not saved. This email is sent to all Project Managers with Budget Responsibility. If there is no Project Manager with Budget Responsibility (and an email address), the email is sent to all Project Managers without Budget Responsibility; if these are also absent, the Administrators/Department Managers are informed.

For employees to know how many hours they are allowed to book on a specific project or task, they can click the i-pointnext to the task in the Project Time Recording and view the current Planned and Actual Figures.

For the employee to see this information, the Administrator must select the option "Show Planned Hours during Time Recording" under Administration > Project > Settings

If you wish to apply the "Overbooking Stop" later—i.e., when hours have already been recorded—ZEP issues a warning if the number of recorded hours already exceeds the Planned Figure: "The Actual Hours already exceed the Planned Hours."

You can still set this "Overbooking Stop." By doing so, you prevent further hours from being booked on this project.

You can plan all (i.e., billable and non-billable) hours:

If so, select the option "billable and non-billable hours" in the Project Status Plan report; all Actual Hours will then be compared with the Planned Hours.

You can also plan "only billable" hours:

If so, select the option "only billable hours" in the Project Status Plan report; only the billable Actual Hours will then be compared with the Planned Hours.

Notification upon Percentage Achievement of Planned Hours

Specify here, project-specifically, whether and when the Project Manager(s) with Budget Responsibility should be notified when a certain percentage of the Planned Hours is reached. Depending on the setting, only billable booked hours or all hours are considered.

Standard Setting

The values from Administration > Project > Settings are used.

No E-mail

Specific Setting

Here you can enter up to three project-specific percentage values (if only one value is entered, only one email is sent). As soon as a time entry exceeds one of these marks, ZEP sends a Notification via email to the Project Manager(s) stating that the Actual Hours count for the corresponding project or task has exceeded the specified value. Naturally, this only happens if an email address is specified for the employee in the Employee Administration. If there is no Project Manager, this email is sent to the Department Manager (with the Locations & Departments module) or to the Administrator.

A prerequisite for a warning is the specification of Planned Hours for the project or the task.

If no Project Manager with Budget Responsibility and an email address can be determined, all Project Managers without Budget Responsibility are informed. If there are no Project Managers, all Department Managers of the project's department are informed if applicable; if these cannot be determined either (or if the Locations & Departments module is not licensed), all Administrators are informed.

With every time entry, ZEP checks whether a percentage of the Planned Hours has been reached at the task or project level, meaning up to two emails can be sent for each percentage value entered:

One email regarding the booked Task or one of its superior tasks (depending on the level where you entered the Planned Figures).
One email regarding the Project.

Project Status Plan

Path: Reports > Projects > Project Status Plan and Projects > [Project Name] > Reports > Project Status Plan

In the ZEP Compact configuration with the Project Planning module, the Project Status Plan report evaluates how much of the planned time for a project has already been consumed since the project start.

The report compares all Planned Hours with the Actual Hours accrued up to that point.

Daily Rate Projects with specifications for Offered Daily Rates additionally have columns for Actual and Planned Daily Rates and corresponding Target/Actual or Actual/Target Daily Rates.

A comparison is made between the Planned Hours and either billable and non-billable hours or only billable hours. If you have planned all (i.e., billable and non-billable) hours for the project, select the setting "billable and non-billable hours." If you have planned only the billable hours, select the setting "only billable hours" here.

You can additionally structure the report:

by Task
planned Figures and Actual Figures are contrasted for each Task.

A Task is only displayed if the task duration (start-end date of the task) falls entirely or partially within the Reporting Period. (In the Overall Status Plan report, all tasks are displayed, but Planned Hours are only shown if the task duration falls entirely or partially within the Reporting Period.)

by Task and Activity
by Task and Employee
by Employee
For Effort Projects, the labor cost accrued so far for each employee is determined and displayed.
by Employee and Activity
A table of hours accrued so far per activity is displayed for each employee.
by Employee and Task
by Department of the Employees (only with the Locations & Departments module)
The billable working hours are displayed for each department.

Project Planning: Overall Status Plan

Path: Reports > Projects > Overall Status Plan

With the Overall Status Plan, individual, multiple, all, only internal projects (projects without a customer), or only customer projects can be viewed in an overview. If you use the Locations & Departments add-on module, you can specify a department.

You can evaluate how much of the planned time for the correspondingly selected projects has already been consumed since the project start.

You can restrict the list of projects by specifying a Project Status, the Project Type (for customer projects, further restriction to the projects of a specific customer is possible), as well as by specifying a time period for "Project Duration." Optionally select Keywords (if defined in the Master Data). You can select one, several, or all projects.

The report can be further structured:

by Task
All tasks with status and with the corresponding Planned and Actual Figures are displayed per project.
Please note: The Planned Figure for a task is only used if the task duration (start-end date of the task) falls entirely or partially within the Reporting Period.
by Employee
All employees with the corresponding Actual Figures are displayed per project.
by Department of the Employee (only with the Locations & Departments module)
All departments of the employees with the corresponding Actual Figures are displayed per project.

In the report, all Planned Hours are compared with the Actual Hours accrued up to that point.

You can choose which type of Actual Hours you want to compare with your Planned Figures: billable hours or billable and non-billable hours (i.e., all hours).

All selected projects are displayed in one line each with their respective Planned Hours (and offered daily rates, if applicable) and the corresponding Actual Figures. The marking of the project billing type is defined by the following abbreviations: S = Hourly Rate, T = Daily Rate. Additionally, internal projects (projects without a customer) are marked with an 'i'.

The results table is configurable; you can show and hide the desired columns for the HTML view and the export to Excel/CSV via Table Column Configuration.