Project teams are used to limit the projects staffers have access to. They’re also used for internal organization, reporting purposes, and review and approval at the project-level.
Each team can include a "lead," or a manager with higher-level security rights. The project lead can review and approve project-related timesheets, expense reports, and budgets for the staffers on their team.
Note: Team leads who want to log time and expenses for other users need to be assigned to a security group giving them managerial rights.
In this article, we’ll explain the advantages of using project teams.
Takeaways
- Assign a team lead to a project team. The team lead can access and approve timesheets, expenses, and budgets for staffers assigned to a particular project.
- Assign multiple team leads, if you wish, in order to handle a large project with multiple staffers. It’s a way to spread out the responsibility.
- Restrict staffer ability to log time and expenses to specific projects.
Why Use Project Teams?
Use project teams to limit the projects your staffers have access to. They’re also a way to organize staffers and divide responsibility, since you don’t need all of your staffers working on the same projects. For example, assign two engineers, an account executive, and a writer to Project A. These staffers only see information in BigTime relevant to that project.
It’s important to have the correct security settings in place when using project teams. If you turn off the user right to “log time/expenses to any project,” staffers can only see projects they’re assigned to on their timesheets. Or if a staffer has the “view Project List menu” user right turned on, then they can only view projects in the Project List they’re a team member of.
When you’re ready to set up a project team, follow these step-by-step instructions for adding new team members.
On Vacation
Easily adjust a project’s workload when a staffer is out on vacation. That way, there’s someone to pick up the slack.
Say Fred is assigned to Project A, but he's on vacation. You can add Betty to the project team for Project A. Then, you can assign Betty specific tasks in the task editor. You can remove Betty from the project team upon Fred’s return.
NOTE: If you want a more comprehensive solution for managing vacations and time off, take a look at our add-on resource management forecasting module BigTime Foresight.
Team Lead Responsibilities
Team leads need to have the “act as a task/activity administrator” user right turned on in order to create tasks and add task details. They can also assign tasks to staff members, as well as identify reviews and approvals at a project level. However, you don't need to be a team lead to assign tasks. Staffers assigned to a security group with the “act as a task/activity administrator” user right can assign tasks.
Tasks help keep the project workload organized. Unassigned tasks allow all project team members to see and access the task.
Note: Instead of “tasks,” your firm may refer to these units of work as “budget items,” “phases,” “work items,” or “engagements.” It’s easy to update the lexicon settings in BigTime so that the verbiage is firm-relevant.