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Assign Work to Staff

Learn how you can delegate work to staffers using projects, tasks, and activities. These resources can help keep your workload organized and on budget.

Then, use our resource allocation tool to manage your projects and staffers. See how your projects are tracking and whether they’re going to be on budget. Plus, you’ll know which staffers are over and under utilized.

This article will explain how to assign work in BigTime. It’ll also direct you to specific articles that detail each approach.

 

Takeaways

  • Delegate work using project, tasks, and activities. Think of these options as a hierarchy:
  • Projects are the broad initiatives you need to complete (e.g., create website for ABC Studios).
  • Tasks are the action items to execute in order to complete the project (e.g., write website copy; re-design homepage; obtain new images).
  • Activities are small to-do’s and reminders (e.g., send email to media contact for images; contact CEO for quotes).
  • Assign work to staffers if you’re a system admin or staffer with specific user rights.
  • Use resource allocation to manage your projects and staffers effectively. You can plan for future work, allocate your staff’s time, and make informed business decisions based on the vast amount of data at your fingertips.

 

Assign Staffers to Projects

Say you have three projects for your client, ABC Studios. You don’t need your whole staff working on all three projects. Rather, you need certain staffers on certain projects. For this reason, you’ll assign staffers to a project team for a specific project.

Follow these steps to learn how:

1. Click the MY COMPANY tab at the top of your window, and select PROJECT LIST from the picklist. 

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2. Click on a project from your list of projects.

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3. Click the TEAM tab on the gray navigation bar at the top of your project window.

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4. Add the staffers that’ll be working on this particular project. Click ADD A TEAM MEMBER to add a staffer to the list.

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When you click the arrow at the right side of the STAFF MEMBER box, a picklist will appear where you can search for and select a staffer. You can do the same thing in the PROJECT ROLE box to identify that staffer's role. The checkbox below the LEAD header allows you to indicate if that staffer a team lead.

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Note: You can customize the Project Role list. To do so, click MY COMPANY...FIELD VALUES. Then, click FIELD VALUES...TEAM ROLE on the new window that pops up. Once there, you can add new values and edit existing ones.

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5. Click SAVE CHANGES to save your work.
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Assign Staffers to Tasks With the Task Editor

Use the task editor to create project-related tasks and assign tasks to staffers. Tasks are the action items your team needs to fulfill in order to complete the project. To get to the task editor, open your project and click the TASKS tab at the top of the window. Then, select EDITOR in the tabs below, and add tasks into the 

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Consider this example: you have a project to plan a quarterly sales meeting for ABC Studios. This project may involve the following tasks:

  • Identify Boston venue that accommodates 200 people for three days.
  • Find 2-3 speakers that can speak at the sales meeting.
  • Create an agenda.
  • Obtain travel information and costs for attendees traveling from New York to Boston by plane and train.

Each task can be assigned to specific staffers. Then, allocate budgets (costs associated with each task) and estimate the number of hours it'll take to complete the task.

You can also create subtasks, which are smaller tasks, in the task editor. Under the task “create a meeting agenda,” for example, you may have a subtask to speak with the executive assistant at ABC Studios. You can allocate hours and budgets to subtasks, and assign subtasks to specific users.

To add a subtask, select the three dots next to your main task. A picklist will generate, and from that picklist you can select ADD SUB-TASK and fill in information about your subtask(s).

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Note: In the example below, the subtasks are indented beneath the main task.

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Above all, the task editor gives you the details you need—in one window—to stay organized.

Reference these articles to get started with the task editor:

Create Tasks in the Task Editor

Create Subtasks in the Task Editor

 

Add Activities

Activities are primarily used for small to-do’s and reminders, like call a client or send an email. System admins can add activities for staffers to complete. Staffers can also add their own activities. 

 

Resource Allocation

Now that you’ve got all of your project data entered, use resource allocation to see how your projects and staffers fit together. Stay on the pulse of your staffers—that is, see if they’re over or under utilized—and on top of project budgets. Select TASKS...ALLOCATIONS to view your staffer(s) utilization metrics.

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With resource allocation, you’ll also be an informed project manager who can make important business decisions. Should you move staffers around to accommodate an upcoming project? Who’s logging the most hours to a project? Get the answers to these questions and more with resource allocation.

Plus, you can be a source of information to your client. Proactively explain, for example, that you’ll need more hours to complete a project.

Resource Allocation in BigTime

Use Resource Allocation Reports

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