Project management is the foundation for every service delivery in ZEP. This article shows how you create projects, maintain their data, deactivate a project, or, if necessary, remove it completely from the system.
Which fields on the project are available in detail depends on your product line and the licensed modules. A full field reference with all availability hints is provided in the article Project data.
Note: Project Management is part of the standard scope in ZEP Compact and ZEP Professional. It is not available in ZEP Clock. You reach the project list via the main menu Projects. How the list is configured is described in the article Project overview.
Permissions for project management
Who may create, edit, or remove projects results from the role of the logged-in employee. This overview summarises which role can perform which action. The full role reference with all permissions is provided in the article Project data.
Action | Who is authorised |
Create projects | Administrators company-wide. Employees with the additional permission Create projects. Department managers for their own departments (with the add-on module Locations & departments). |
Edit project data | Administrators company-wide. Project leads for their own projects. Department managers for projects of their own department. Employees without the project lead role cannot change project data. |
Change project status | Administrators. Project leads within the allowed status transitions of the workflow. |
Deactivate project | Administrators. Project leads can set the project status to a non-bookable status, provided the workflow allows the transition. |
Delete project | Only administrators. Prerequisite is that no invoiced receipts or released project times are attached to the project. |
Creating projects
Projects are created directly from the project list. Administrators, employees with the corresponding additional permission, and department managers are authorised.
To create a new project:
Open Projects in the main menu.
Click Create New Project above the project list.
Enter the Abbreviation in the General tab. It is the only system-side mandatory field, system-wide unique, and not changeable after saving.
Add as needed: Description, Run time, Project status, Department, Categories, Tags, and a Remark in the General tab. The project status is preset to the configured default.
In the Customer & Invoicing tab, choose the Customer (preset to internal as long as you do not select an external customer). For external projects, additionally store the Type of accounting, optionally Cost Center, Cost Unit, and Currency.
Confirm with Save. ZEP automatically forwards you to the detail page of the new project.
On the detail page, the submenu items of the project open. Here, you store all sub-areas needed for ongoing use: Project team members, Tasks, Project activities, Billability defaults, depending on the licence also Planned hours and Total rates, as well as the Price tables and Price groups. A complete overview of all submenu items with their maintenance options is provided in the article Project administration.
Warning: For employees to be able to book project times against the project, all of the following conditions must be met:
The Project status is configured as bookable (maintained under Administration > Projects > Project status).
The booking date lies within the Run time of the project (start date to end date).
At least one Project team member is stored with a valid assignment period.
At least one Task is created on the project.
For external projects, the matching Type of accounting is stored so that invoicing processes the times correctly.
If one of the prerequisites is missing, the project does not appear in the selection list of time and receipt entry. The maintenance of the sub-areas is described in the article Project administration.
Creating a project from a template
Instead of creating each project from scratch, you take over all recurring master and configuration data from an existing project. To do so, you click the copy icon in the row of the template project in the project list. The exact procedure from the table view is described in the article Project overview.
When copying, ZEP automatically takes the following content of the template project into the copy:
Project team members including their function (optionally also with the stored assignment periods).
Tasks including assigned task members (optionally also with the task periods).
Project activities, daily rate portions, Price tables, and Project price groups.
Receipt settings including project-specific receipt types.
Project additional fields, project locations, and locations with a different amount for the arrival lump sum.
With the add-on module Document Management optionally the folder structure; with the add-on module Ticketing System optionally the tickets.
For multi-customer projects, additionally the project customer assignment with shares and addresses.
The Project status and the Task status are deliberately not copied along. The copy always starts with the first status of the sequence, so that every new project is led freshly through the defined workflow.
Tip: For recurring project types, create a template project or a dummy project with complete master data, typical tasks, default team members, and price tables. For every new assignment, you copy the template project and then adjust the abbreviation, description, run time, and customer-specific fields. This saves time and ensures a consistent project structure across all assignments.
Editing projects
Project data can be updated at any time. Administrators, the project lead of the project, and department managers for projects of their department are authorised. Employees without the project lead role have no write access to the project data.
To edit a project:
Open Projects in the main menu.
Click the description of the project in the list. The detail page opens with the tab General as the start view.
Change the desired fields in the tabs General, Project times and receipts, Invoicing, or the module-dependent tabs.
Save the changes with Save.
Which fields you maintain in detail, from project number through duration to price group, is fully described in the article Project data. There you also find all availability hints per product line and module.
Deactivating projects
A project is deactivated when it should not be deleted but locked for further bookings. The deactivation is done via a non-bookable project status or by setting a project end date in the duration. Both ways preserve the historical data completely and close the project for new bookings.
Via the project status: Set the status to a status that is configured as non-bookable (for example Closed or Paused).
Via the duration: Set the Project end date to a date in the past. From that day, no new project times and receipts are possible.
The full list of non-bookable project statuses is maintained by administrators under Administration > Projects > Project status. An overview of the effect per status is provided in the article Project administration.
Deleting projects
The final deletion removes a project completely from ZEP. Only administrators are authorised. Before the execution, ZEP automatically checks whether no data is attached to the project that would prevent a deletion.
Prerequisites for the deletion:
No invoiced receipts may be present on the project.
No project times released in invoice items may be present on the project.
No invoicing transactions or open invoice items may be attached to the project.
For every dependent object, ZEP shows a concrete error message with a hint to the blocking record.
To delete a project:
Open the project via the project list.
In the submenu group Actions, open the item Delete project.
Confirm the deletion hint. ZEP shows beforehand which dependent data stands in the way of the deletion.
Note: Since a project is a legal data object, there is no pseudonymisation path analogous to employees. For GDPR-relevant personal data on a project (for example contact persons), the pseudonymisation is done via the respective employee or customer records.