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Achievo guided tour
This tour of will help you setup a new Achievo system and will introduce you to the parts of the system where data must be entered before other users can start using Achievo.
The tour works best if you follow along using a new Achievo installation. The tour also assumes you are using the Steelblue theme and have Achievo configured to English language.
The first thing to do after setting up Achievo is to create an initial security profile and employee username. The default 'administrator' username should only be used for installing and updating Achievo, and to create an initial administration user account. All other work should be done logged in as a regular user.
If you look in the 'Employees' menu, you'll find an option called 'Security Profiles'. When you click it, the right part of the screen changes to the profile management screen. A profile is a set of privileges that you can assign to users.
The profile screen is divided into two parts. The top part can be used to create a new profile. The bottom part displays existing profiles and lets you search them (you'll soon notice this structure is used in most of Achievo's features).
On first use, no profiles will yet be available. A useful first profile is one with all access rights. Enter something along the lines of 'Managers' as name for the first profile, and click the 'Save' button. You'll be taken to a second screen that allows you to specify in details what managers may do in Achievo. It's too early to explain all the options in detail, so for the sake of brevity, and because we want to walk through all features, let's assume Managers may do anything they like. By clicking the 'Select all' link, you enable all checkboxes at once. Near the bottom of the screen, you can click the 'Save and close' button to save the profile and go back to the profile main window.
Ok, so we now have a security profile. Later on, you'll want to create some more such as 'Projectleaders', 'Controllers', 'Programmers', etc, but one profile is enough for the Tour.
It's now time to create a user account. The option 'Employees' in the menu on the left takes you to the employee admin screen. The 'Employee Add' link opens a screen to enter the employee data. Required fields are identified with a star:
- Under the 'General' tab: User-id and Last name,
- Under the 'Account' tab: Profiles and Password.
For a profile, select the 'Managers' profile you just created (you will notice more than one profile can be selected, which gives the user the combined privileges of the selected profiles). Some parts of Achievo can send mail to users, so entering a valid email address is a good thing to do.
After saving the basic user information, you will be presented with a screen of optional additional user information. It is not obligatory, but it can be useful to add a contract for the user. A contract defines on which days the user works, and for how many hours a week. There are several features in Achievo that make use of this information, for example to calculate overtime.
Save the user information by clicking 'Save and close', then logout from Achievo and log back in using the new User-id and password you just created.
Now that you are logged in with a regular user account, have a look at the Setup menu on the left. Among the sub-menus, you should see:
- Activities define different types of work for which you want to track the time spent.
- Phase templates define the activities in typically-used project phases (we'll get to this later on).
- Project templates define the phases in typical projects (we'll handle this together with the phase templates later on).
- Roles define the type of work performed by a project member on a particular project.
- Organization contracts define the different types of contracts you may have with customers (e.g., a hosting contract).
- Scheduler categories define the types of events in the scheduler.
Let's review what they mean. We'll get to the other ones later, or you can explore them on your own.
Activities
One of Achievo's main features is time registration. Time registration is used to employees to assign the hours they worked to specific activities as part of a project. If you want to keep the level of detail to a minimum, you can chose to have only one activity (e.g. 'General'). However, it may be more useful to get a little more detail by creating activities such as 'Admin' (project and non-project administrative overhead), 'Design' (figuring out how), 'Development' (executing design), and 'Test' (verifying execution). If you also want to also track non-project time, you could create additional activities for 'Vacation' (accrued vacation time), 'Holiday' (statutory holidays), and 'Illness' (unable to report to work due to illness).
Creating overly specific activities should be avoided, using detailed project-specific tasks adds complexity which can cause problems in practice. Achievo's project management system provides enough structure to manage projects at a high level, without getting in the way. Specific one-off tasks can be managed with ToDo's.
For each activity, you can enable the 'Specification required' option. If this option is enabled, users must specify in a remark what they accomplished (or other details) when registering time towards an activity. For example, if someone is registering time towards the 'Testing' activity, it could be useful to say what was tested (and if the test passed or not). The 'Admin' activity is another case where it could be useful to have more detail. On the other hand, enabling 'Specification required' will require users to enter a remark even when there is no benefit.
Roles
Later on you will be creating projects. For each project, you can define a project team. A team consists of employees and/or contact persons from other organizations. To keep track of which team member has which function, you must indicate a role for each member. In the Roles menu item in the setup menu, you can configure what roles you will be using. For employees, useful roles are 'Developer', 'Tester', 'Project leader', etc. For external contact persons, you might add roles like 'Customer', 'Financial controller', 'Supplier', etc. You define one set of roles, and select from the roles for both employees and external contacts.
This way, you can not only track projects done completely by your own staff, but also projects that are done in cooperation with external companies.
Schedule categories
When creating appointments, you can specify a category. The Schedule categories menu is where you configure which categories are available. Useful categories might be 'External meeting', 'Holiday', 'Private appointment', 'Internal meeting', etc. If you do not want to categorize appointments, create one general category for all appointments (e.g. 'General' or 'Default').
For each category, you can select a foreground and background color. This is the color that will be used to display the appointment in the scheduler. If you don't have too many categories, users will get used to the color schemes and recognize appointments without having to look at the details.
After you've set up the initial things, like activities, etc, it is time to enter some business data.
In the organization menu, you can add your business relations. The menu is called 'Organizations' instead of 'Customers', because probably you not only have customers, but also suppliers, project partners, etc. You can enter all of them in the organization menu.
To add an organization, enter its name in the appropriate box and click the 'Save' button. You will then be presented with a second screen, where you can enter details for the organization.
You can also add contact persons to the organization. Add all persons of the organization you'll be doing business with. These might include, for example, the general manager, their account manager, a project leader, sales people, etc. Also, if you're entering a partner with whom you will do a project together, add the people that will work on the project.
For the tour, enter an organization or two, each with a contact person or two.
After you added some organizations, go back to the main menu and enter the project menu.
The project administration screen will be opened by default and you'll be able to enter your first project - enter a project code and name. The project code can be a kind of short identifier for using in searches and to quickly recognize in reports, but could also be a code assigned by your accountant. There's also a 'Template' field but we'll get to that later, for now you can leave the default setting.
After you enter the code and name, click the save button. A second screen will appear, allowing you to enter all project details. There is so much information that can be entered about a project, it has been split into several tabs. I'll walk you through all the tabs, one by one.
General
On this tab, you can find some general project information. The following fields are available:
- Projectcode - short version of the project name (i.e. a project nickname) that is useful for searches and quick look-up.
- Name - the name of the project.
- Category - for reporting purposes, projects can be assigned to a category that you define.
- Coordinator - the person in your organization who is responsible for managing the project internally.
- Customer - the organization designated as the customer for the project (in general terms, the customer is the organization that consumes the output of the project).
- Master Project - if projects are related, you may want to associate them with a master project for easy recognition.
- Contract - if a project is related to a contract, the contract can be identified.
- Description - an optional multi-line description of the project
- Quotation number - if a project is related to a quotation, the quotation can be identified.
- Status - the project status. Active projects are projects currently in use. Non-active projects are projects no longer in use. Archived projects are hidden completely in the system. It's like a delete, but you can keep the project in case you need it in the future.
- Contactpersons - the external persons that are part of the project team. You can add the person at the customer site who serves as your contactperson, and you can also add contactpersons from suppliers, partners, etc. For each contact person you add, you can select a role you created earlier.
Finance
- Fixed price - an optional fixed price for the project used by Add-on modules (such as Billing).
Planning
The Planning tab contains information related to the planning of the project:
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Team members - here you add all employees who are part of the project. For each employee you add, you can select one of the roles you created earlier. The 'Timeregistration allowed by' selector allows you to limit time registration to the project to only team members if desired.
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Always visible in time registration - as a convenience, you can make the project always visible when employees register their time (so they do not have to search for it).
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Startdate and enddate - the starting date and estimated ending date for the project.
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Deliverables - you can identify specific deliverables from the project with their scheduled delivery dates. This can be useful for identifying any specific contracted deliverables here. You can also set a reminder to be sent to team members before the deliverable is due.
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Phase - here you add the phases that make up the project. Usually, you'll want to create phases like 'Preparation phase', 'Design phase', 'Development phase', 'Test phase', 'Support phase', etc. But this, of course, is up to you, and depends on the project and type of business you are in. Even if you don't want to use phases, you will need to create at least one phase (e.g. 'Default') in order for employees to register time to the project.
For each phase, you can specify estimated duration and which activities are available for registering time to. This way, you can control whether people can register time to a design activity in the Development, or to a development activity in the Design phase. To aid in the planning process, you can also budget for certain people to provide an estimated number of hours in each phase.
- Phase dependencies - if you have 2 phases or more, you can indicate dependencies. For example, the development phase may not start until the design phase has been completed, etc.
Todo's
Here you can add reminders for things a team member will have to do. In the current version of Achievo, Todo's are meant to be used for simple reminders of things people need to do, such as "mail this or that to the customer", or "don't forget to review the design spec". Achievo will send reminders for Todo's that are due, and you can keep track of their status. Todo's are not meant for the detailed project tasks derived from a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
Notes
The notes tab can be used to write stuff down for reference by the project team, like the familiar yellow post-it notes.
Once you have created a project with at least one phase, with one or more activities, you are ready to register time.
Everything you need to register time has been set up. Now it is time to tour one of Achievo's core features.
If you haven't done so already, go back to the main menu, and select 'Time Registration'. The registration screen will open up on the right.
The time registration screen is divided in 2 parts: the top area is for adding new entries, while the bottom area displays entries already entered. By default, it shows all entries of today. This is called the dayview.
The time entry screen contains several fields:
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Date - select the date for which you want to register time. Usually, you want to register time for the day already selected. If you want to register time for a different day, you can select a different one, but it is more convenient to navigate to the day you wish with the day or week view. If you need to register time for multiple days at once, you can use the 'Select range' link, which adds an end-date to the screen. When using multiple days, you can indicate on which days the time should be registered. This is useful when you want to register a four week holiday, but not on Saturdays and Sundays. For 99% of the time entries however, you'll just want to use the current date.
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Project/phase - select the project and the phase on which you worked. The dropdown contains the 10 most recently used projects/phases, and is initially empty. You can use the 'Search in all projects & phases' link to select a project that is not in the dropdown. You can only register time on active phases of active projects. If a project has only one phase, the phase is selected automatically.
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Activity - select which activity you worked on. All activities of the selected phase are displayed in the dropdown.
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Remark - specify in detail what you worked on. For some activities, a remark may be optional. For others it may be required, depending on the setting of 'Specification required' which you set earlier for each activity.
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Time - select how long you worked on the activity.
The level of detail in which you want to register time is up to you, but will need communicating to your team members to be consistent. For some companies, it might be OK if users register 8 hours on one single activity on a day, with no remark detailing the work done. For others, a more detailed approach is desired. More information is better than less, but in general the amount of detail should support the purpose the purpose for the information. If time reports are sent to clients with their weekly invoice, there should be as much information as possible so the invoice is clearly justified. If time is being reported towards an internal product development projectd, then remarks describing what happened in a morning or afternoon is more appropriate.
What you register, and what you don't register, is up to you, too. However, we think it works best when users register all hours according to their contract. This means that if they have a 40 hour contract, they should register 40 hours a week. The reminder scripts provided with Achievo can nag users until they have registered enough hours to fulfill their contract.
For non-project time, such as breaks, researching or just catching up on news, it can be useful to have one project, called for example 'Admin', 'General' or 'Non-Project', with activities such as 'Admin', 'Maintenance and Support', 'Holiday', 'Illness', etc. If people use this project to register their non-project time, you will be able to review how much effort is put towards projects compared to other activities.
The day view near the bottom of the time registration screen shows all time registered on the selected day, and shows the total amount of time registered on that date.
The Day View includes navigation links to navigate to adjacent days, and a date picker to jump to a specific date. For convenience, there is also a link to the scheduler. This is useful for situations like 'What did I do yesterday? Oh yeah, I went to a meeting'.
In the Day View, there's a link to the Week View. If you click it, the bottom half of the screen will switch to a full week of time entries. It does not have the level of detail of the day view, but it shows per day per project how many hours are registered.
The Week View also gives an indication of the number of hours you registered in the week. The columns representing the days of the week have a clickable title, which takes you to the day view of the selected day.
Depending on the configuration of Achievo, the week view may also have a 'lock' link. This can be used to indicate that you have completed registering time for the selected week. Once a week is locked, you can no longer change it. This can be useful if a financial department needs to process the registered time entries. Depending on configuration and user privileges, users can unlock the week themselves, or else only managers can unlock locked weeks.
There is also a configuration setting to allow users to lock a week when they have registered fewer hours than specified in their contract. This is controlled by the value of $config_timereg_incompleteweeklock (in config.inc.php). When set to true, users may lock a week regardless of the hours registered. When set to false, they can only lock the week when the number of registered hours matches their contract.
Now you know everything you need for using the basic features ion Achievo.
These are a set of features to help make project management easier.
Once you've created several projects, you'll notice similarities between them.
Probably, most of them consist of the same phases, and also probably, most of those phases always have the same set of activities.
Or perhaps you have large and small projects. Each with their own characteristic sets of phases and activities.
When you have to create a lot of projects that all look alike, this becomes a very tedious job.
In the Setup menu, you can create Project and Phase templates.
Let's deal with the phases first.
If you have recurring phases, like a 'Design phase' that always looks the same (same set of activities), you can create a phase template for the phase.
In the Setup menu, there's an entry named 'Phase templates', where you can add templates for phases. If you add several template phases, you'll have a nice list to choose from when adding phases to a project.
The fields you can enter for the template are similar to that of a real phase, so I won't explain them in detail here.
Keep in mind that a template is used only when creating a new phase. A copy of the template is made, and after that, the new phase has it's own life. You can change the phase as much as you like, and this will not influence the template. Likewise, if you change the template, for exmaple by adding a new activity, this will only affect phases created after the change. All existing phases that were once created from the template are unaffected.
A project templates is one step further than a phase template. If not only phases look alike, but also entire projects seem to have the same phase structure, it is useful to create project templates.
Once you have a good set of project templates, creating new projects becomes extremely easy. You'll also find that working in a structured way, by structuring all your projects in the same way, will organize the way people work.
Like phase templates, project templates are only used when creating a new project. After creation, they both have their own life, and changes in the template will not affect existing projects and vice versa.
Registering time is only useful if you can retrieve the information from the system. There are several reporting possibilities in Achievo, some of which I will show you here.
The most practical way to retrieve registered time entries is through the 'Time Survey' in the 'Reports' menu.
It is divided into two parts. The top part of the screen contains a selection area, which allows you to specify exactly what entries you want to view. You can view per project, per activity, per phase, per employee, per supervisor, per date. Also, you can customize the output of the report.
If you need to print the entries, you can choose a 'printer friendly' version of the report.
The bottom part of the screen shows the entries matching your selection. For your own entries, you can edit or delete the entries from here as well. The report also has a row with totals. This makes it useful to quickly see how many hours are spent on a project, on a certain activity and/or by a certain user.
The other report in the 'Reports' menu is the Employee Week Report. This is a useful report that gives a quick overview of how many hours the employees are reporting each week. You can see if the hours are locked or not, and you can view details per day, or just the summary.
Also, it gives an indication of overtime, by comparing the number of hours worked with the number of hours in the contract for that week.
(Note: if people compensate overtime by registering less time in a different week, this report will not notice that, so be careful when using this report for calculating paychecks).
Like the Hour Survey, the top part of the screen can be used to select which data you want to view.
In the Employee menu, there's an item called 'Employee Statistics', which displays simple but useful statistics for an employee. You can see, for a certain time frame, how the time of that employee was distributed over the projects he worked on, and how it was distributed over the activities he did.
It can be a useful guide when determining a person's efficiency.
In the Projects menu, there's an entry called 'Project Statistics'.
When you open it, it shows the top 10 projects in a certain time frame. You can select a specific timeframe and/or you can choose to see the complete list.
In the list, each project can be clicked. When clicked, detailed statistics for the project are shown in several charts. There's a line diagram which displays the amount of time registrations over time, and there are three pie charts displaying the distribution of registered time over phases, employees and activities. (Note that some of these charts may not work if there is no, or only one, registered time entry.)
Also in the 'Projects' menu, is an item called 'Project Planning'. It contains a graphical Gantt chart, representing your project. It takes into account the phases of the project, the dependencies between the phases and the estimated phase lengths.
The bars inside the Gantt chart depict registered time (time registered towards the project by employees) versus planned time.
You are now familar with all the basic features in Achievo, as well as a few more advanced features. However, Achievo has a lot more to offer. Have fun exploring Achievo futher on your own, and please post to the Achievo forum if you have questions or comments.