A project in Avaza holds everything about one piece of work. It contains the tasks, the discussions on those tasks and the files. Your team also records its time and expenses on the project. A project can be for a customer or internal, and it can be big or small. It can use as much or as little of Avaza as you need.
This guide shows how to create a project and how to view its work. It also explains the settings to know about from the first day.
Create your first project
In the left menu, open Projects and click Add Project. You can also click + Add Project on the All Projects page.
Type a Project Name. A Project Code is optional. Add one if your team refers to projects by code.
Choose the Customer the work is for. To add a new customer, click + Add new Customer and enter the customer's name and currency. A contact name and email are optional.
Leave Customer empty for an internal project.
Check the Project Members. The list already shows everyone who is set to be added to new projects. You can add or remove people now, or later in the project's settings.
Click Create. You can now add sections and tasks to the project.
Work inside a project
Every project has a row of views at the top. Each view shows the same tasks in a different way. You can switch between the views at any time.
- Summary: an overview of the project. It's made of widgets, such as the task progress chart.
- List: all tasks in a table, grouped into sections or by any field you choose.
- Board: tasks as cards in columns. Drag a card to another column to change the task's status. You can also group the board by assignee, then drag a card to give the task to someone else.
- Gantt: tasks on a timeline, with the dependencies between them.
- Calendar: tasks shown by date.
- Files: every file uploaded anywhere in the project. See the file management guide.
Each view has its own toolbar. Use it to group and sort the tasks, and to search and filter them. You can also choose which fields the view shows. When a view looks the way you want, save it as a custom view. The custom view then appears as its own tab. You can keep it for yourself or share it with your team. The custom views guide shows how.
See all your projects
Open Projects › All Projects to see every project you have access to. The page has two tabs at the top right: Active and Archived.
- Choose between the List, Board and Gantt layouts.
- On the Board, each column is a project status: Not Started, In Progress, Complete, On Hold and any statuses you add. Drag a card to another column to change the project's status. Administrators, Finance Managers and Portfolio Managers can drag cards.
- You can group, sort, filter and search the list. Use Fields to choose its columns, including budget, billing and financial columns.
- Use the ⋮ menu on a row to open that project's settings or to archive the project.
Archive a project when the work is finished. The project moves to the Archived tab. Its time, expenses and invoices stay available in reports. Archived projects don't count towards your plan's limit of active projects. So when you reach the limit, archive finished projects to make room. You can restore an archived project whenever you're under the limit. See archived projects.
To delete a project, archive it first. On the Archived tab, the ⋮ menu has Restore from Archive and Delete. Deleting can't be undone. You can't delete a project that has invoiced work. See deleting a project.
Tasks, members and settings
Sections and tasks
Each task is one piece of work in the project. A task can have an assignee, dates and an estimate. It can also have tags, attachments and subtasks. Each task can have a discussion too, and people can reply to the discussion by email. Group related tasks into sections, for example one section for each stage of the project. Drag a section to change the order of the sections. The task management guide covers tasks in detail.
Task types and statuses
Every task has a type. Each type has its own list of statuses. A new Avaza account starts with one type, Task. Its statuses are Not Started, In Progress and Complete. An admin can add more types in Settings › Project Management Settings, such as Bug or Change Request. Each new type has its own statuses. See task types and custom task statuses.
Project members
Add the people who work on a project as project members. You can add them in the Add Project popup, or later in the project's settings. Members can be people in your team or contacts at your customer. On each person's contact record, you can use Add to new projects and Add to existing projects. Then you don't have to add the person to each project one at a time.
To open a project, a member needs at least the Project Collaborator role. You give roles with Assign Roles on the person's contact record. A member with only the Timesheet/Expense User role can log time on the project but can't open it. This is the usual reason why a new member can't see a project.
Project settings
Open a project's settings from the ⋮ menu next to the project name. These people can open them:
- Administrators and Finance Managers, on every project.
- Portfolio Managers, on every project they're a member of.
- A Project Manager, on projects where Can Manage this Project's Settings is ticked for them. This option is on the Members tab, under Project Roles.
Nobody else sees Project Settings in the menu.
The settings are grouped into tabs:
- General: name, code, customer, owner, status, dates, category, default task type, tags and notes.
- Billing & Budget: the billing method, the budget and budget alerts.
- Timesheet Rules: whether time needs approval, and whether each entry needs a task or a note.
- Categories: the timesheet and expense categories used on the project.
- Members: who is on the project, with their permissions and rates.
The Archive Project button at the bottom of the settings archives the project. The project settings guide explains each option.
Project Management Settings
Before you create many projects, an Administrator should set the defaults for the whole account. They're in Settings › Project Management Settings, and only Administrators can open this page. Set these first:
- Default Billing Method and Default Budget Method: every new project starts with these methods. You then only change the projects that are different.
- Project Categories: use them to group and filter the All Projects page, for example by department.
- Project Tags: the tags you label projects with.
You also set up project statuses, task types and priorities on this page.
Next steps
- Getting started with timesheets: track time against your project.
- Getting started with invoices: bill your customer for the work.
- Task management: everything about tasks.
- Project management reports: report on progress, profitability and time.