Odoo 13 - Module Project Management
Planning, steering and controlling of projects
25 June, 2020 by
Odoo 13 - Module Project Management
manaTec GmbH, Tom Pohling
 

Many companies process their orders within the framework of projects. A project is characterized by various features. It is a unique process with precisely defined activities, which are characterized by a fixed start and end time. In addition, a project works towards a clear goal, which is to be achieved taking into account various conditions, such as time and resources.

Project management is defined as the initiation, planning, control, monitoring and completion of a project. The leadership of the project lies with the project manager, who represents the project to the client and leads the project team on the other side. In the international comparison there are different project management standards, which pursue different approaches within the different project management processes.

The project management controls and monitors the activities within the individual project phases and to pursue the successful completion of a project.
The project management controls and monitors the activities within the individual project phases and to pursue the successful completion of a project.

In today's blog, we'll be looking at Odoo's Project Management module. The module comes with two different access rights, user and administrator. The user has reading rights for the projects and project tasks, and is also authorized to delete his own time entries in the project tasks as well as the project tasks themselves. The administrator has full access rights to the projects, the project tasks, the reporting and the configuration of the module.

If we are in the Odoo dashboard and open the Project Management module, we get to the overview of all projects. Here we can manage our projects and create new ones. In addition to the already known functions, such as the search, the grouping and the definition of favorites, we also have the option to highlight individual projects in different colors. We are also shown the customer as well as the number of associated project tasks per project.

The overview of all projects.
The overview of all projects.

To create a new project, we only need a name for the project. After that, we can still make various settings per project. Besides specifying the project manager and the customer, we have the possibility to control the visibility of the project. With three levels we can define whether only invited users, all users or all users as well as all portal users can access the project. In a multi-company environment, we can also assign the project to a specific company so that the project is only visible in that company.

The configuration of a project.
The configuration of a project.

Furthermore, we can activate the "Collaborative Pads" function. This changes the "Description" field of a project task into a field where we can communicate with different team members and distinguish their comments by color, for example, per user. With this, Odoo optimizes the collaboration of multiple team members within a project task.

Furthermore, we can activate time tracking within the project tasks and additionally, instead of entering them manually, have them tracked via start/stop button. If we have configured an incoming and outgoing mail server, we can define an email alias per project. If we then send an email to this alias, a project task will be created in this project based on the email.

Once we have configured all settings according to our ideas, we open the project and finally create the project stages, which we can also define per project. Within the configuration of the project stages we assign a name and have the option to define that the respective stage is collapsed by default in the project board. A very helpful functionality, especially for the management of customer projects, is the assignment of an email template to a project stage. When a project task reaches a certain stage, Odoo automatically sends an e-mail to the respective customer. This not only creates transparency in communication, but also avoids manual activities.

The overview of all tasks in a project, assigned to the respective project level.
The overview of all tasks in a project, assigned to the respective project level.

Within the project board, we can move the project tasks between the individual project stages as we wish. If we create a new project task, it will be automatically assigned to the respective project. In addition, we assign the project task to an internal user, respective to the person who will also complete the task. Furthermore, we have the possibility to select a customer or contact person of the customer Specifying the deadline and keywords allows us to prioritize and categorize the project task.

The description is used to specify the project task. We use the time recording to record our project times per project task and to evaluate them later or to invoice them to the customer. Via "Action" we can archive, delete or duplicate the project task. Finally, in the project task chatter, we find the usual Odoo functions for internal and external communication (notes, messages) as well as activity planning.

The creation of a task in the project.
The creation of a task in the project.

Within the general settings of the Project Management module we can find a few more settings that are helpful for us. So we can activate the function "subtasks" to use a second level for our project tasks. Also, we can link the Planning module to the Project Management module to perform staff scheduling at the project level. Furthermore, we have the possibility to activate the time tracking for the project tasks, which is deactivated in the Odoo standard for now.

In addition to the navigation to the general settings of the module, the configuration menu of the module leads us to a list view of all projects, via which we can access the settings of the project, to the configuration of the keywords of the project tasks, as well as to the configuration of the activity types of the module. Finally, the "Reporting" menu provides us with various evaluation options at the project level.

Therefore, we can see that the Project Management module offers us a number of helpful options and functions for our project management. How to link a project to a sales order, bill project times to a customer or define products in such a way that they generate projects or project tasks when sold you can learn in one of our next blog posts.

Are you looking for a smart and user-friendly ERP system with which you can initiate, plan, control, monitor and successfully complete your projects? No problem with Odoo! Contact us now and we are a professional and reliable Odoo partner at your side!


Sources: www.odoo.com, www.projektmagazin.de, www.wikipedia.org

 
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