Create and manage Projects in Odoo: A step-by-step guide
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Project management
Odoo Project allows a user to create and manage a project with a team, with innovative and modern tools to better
Group members can communicate with each other, discuss and share ideas and documents. With this application, you’ll be able to manage your project efficiently by planning projects with forecasts for more accurate deadlines and increased profitability based on similar projects and assign tasks with
In this tutorial, we give you the basics on how to create and manage a project, configure and plan your projects in a way that allows you to overview your projects according to your preferences and needs.
Creating a Project
The Project application was developed to be handled in Kanban view, due to its ability to display a lot of information in the same place in an
This article explains all the steps you should take with this view mode in mind. If for some reason you’re not comfortable with Kanban, adjust the view mode on the upper right corner, under the search bar.
However, some features described below won’t be visible (
To create a project, be it internal or for customers, in the Project application click on Create, set up privacy settings and name it. If the project is for a customer, specify it in the Customer field under Privacy/Visibility options.
There are three privacy settings:
Customer Project: visible in portal if the customer is a follower.
All Employees: employees see all tasks or issues.
Private Project: followers can only see the followed tasks or issues
Once this is done, click save.
Stages and tasks
Now that the project is created, you can add tasks by clicking on the #Tasks button on the dashboard. This action will open a new window where columns can be added for each stage of the project and be named accordingly.
To add or assign a task to a team member, open the project and hit Create. Name it, assign it to someone and select a deadline if needed.
After this, you’ll be able to manage all tasks created, follow up with them in default Kanban view - the stages are divided with tasks visible in their respective stage and
The tasks are automatically sorted upward, according to importance or priority.
Click on the task’s star icon on the bottom left to tag as high priority. For other tasks, Odoo sorts them by deadlines.
Overdue tasks will appear with the date in red. Tasks with deadlines are added to your calendar view with different
Drag and drop tasks in Calendar view to change deadlines.
Stages can be:
Organised how you want to suit your business needs
Rearranged by dragging and dropping them where they’re needed - fold and unfold them (select Settings and then click Fold)
Personalised - hover the mouse on a stage name, click on the gear icon, then on Edit and a pop-up window will open.
Customise the
Tasks status: Keep the team informed of the status of your task, let them know if it’s finished, blocked or if you’re still working on it. This can be seen as a visual indicator or directly on the task.
To switch between status, click on the status ball and select another option. You can edit these statuses to mean whatever you wish, as explained above.
Add
Communication
Followers
Projects have followers (both employees and customers) who can be added to tasks. They have access to the whole task - the description and chatter - but won’t be able to edit or change anything.
Followers are notified of any changes made to the tasks by email or can view them in the Chatter. They only contribute by replying. This feature is helpful to get opinions, advice or contributions outside the project’s team, something that many find invaluable.
Collaboration
Odoo Project facilitates teamwork, a small group of people can work on the same task at the same time with task delegation or the Chatter, saving time and energy.
Anyone can create a task by email. All there is to it is to configure an email address linked to the project and when an email is sent to that address, Odoo creates a task in the first stage of the project. The recipients (To, Cc, Bcc) are appointed as followers.
In Odoo Online, the email gateway is already configured with an automatic email address for every project.
The email is under the project name in the dashboard and it has the name of the project by default.
Project managers can change it - select the Project, click Settings and on the Email tab to edit.
The Chatter is a communication tool for the history of the task. Here you are allowed to see when the task was created or moved stages, for example, all changes are recorded by the system automatically. Interactions between you and a colleague or customer are also recorded.
In the Chatter log a note to interact with followers (internal or external) and email followers of a particular task by choosing to add a message to notify them.
Collaboration in real time with several users is facilitated by an Etherpad collaborative note. Each user has its own
To do this, in Project Settings go to Pads and pick the "Collaborative rich text on task description" option.
Documents
Manage documents (plans, images and other) related to tasks.
To add them, in the task you want, click on the Attachment tab on the top or through the Chatter by sending a message with the document attached to it.
If someone sends an email with a file attached, Odoo will automatically save it to the task.
Time management
Timesheets
There are modules that need to be installed for additional features for other Odoo apps. The Odoo Timesheet tracks time in projects, whether it’s for data billing, invoicing or estimations of future projects.
Once installed, Odoo creates an analytic account under the same name as the project. Record a timesheet on a project by clicking on Settings of a project and then Timesheets. Select Create and a line with today’s date and time will appear with the name of the Analytical Account, and you can add and choose a task to track.
In Odoo Timesheet, your line will be recorded together with the other timesheets.
You can record a timesheet within a task well. Go to the task and hit Edit, there look for the Timesheet tab and click on add an item. A line with the name of the project selected in the Analytical Account will show.
When the project is completed, search the name of the Analytical Account of the project and you’ll know how much time was spent on it.
Plan and track assignments
Just like with timesheets, first, you need to install the Project Management module.
To manage time estimation timesheets on tasks must be enabled. On the Project app select Configuration, followed by Settings.
Under Time Work Estimation tick “manage time estimation on tasks” and apply. Now you’ll have a progress bar (based on initially planned time) in your tasks that are updated everytime a user adds working time to their timesheet.
The time spent on every task can be easily seen with list view, where there’s a column with the progression of each task.
Forecasts
This option will grant you the Gantt chart and Gantt view, which is highly visual, perfect for projects of substantial size and collaboration. To activate this option, take the same initial steps as above, tick the Forecasts option and apply.
Forecast needs to be activated in a specific project (it’s not needed
If added to an existing project, the task won’t be displayed even with deadlines, or not scheduled because they are not related to forecasts.
Now that is active, to create a forecast you need to list all the tasks with the estimated time they should take to help with work coordination.
In the tasks page select Create a Forecast, on the top left corner, most of the information is already filled, just add the dates and time the task should take.
The Gantt chart has two different points of views, one by users and another by projects.
The view by users is useful for human resources allocation, displaying a chart with the people assigned to a project. Here you can easily see who is assigned to where and for how long, who can take on new tasks and who is overwhelmed with assignments.
There are three levels on the left side, one with the users involved, the projects they’re assigned to and the last one with the tasks they’re on. On the calendar, the tasks are represented by a
The first level has a green or red rectangle which shows the sum of all the tasks from the third level.
A red rectangle means the user is assigned to tasks that take more than 100% of their time, if it’s green it means it takes less than 100% of their time.
This feature helps with workload planning and how users
When creating a forecast you decide how much time a user spends on it, with 100% meaning they should work full-time on it.
You can also avoid double booking an employee - if the user is at 70% on a task, you can only book them for the remaining 30% for that period of time.
If a user is over 100% of their time on tasks, the project manager simply has to change the users, the time dedicated or the dates for the completion of a task.
On the other hand, the view by projects helps you to have a better understanding of the relationship between tasks.
Coordinate tasks accordingly, without overlapping or start a new one without completing another.
The Gantt chart is displayed with the projects on the first level of the hierarchy, on the left side and below, the users assigned and lastly the tasks they’re on.
Unlike the view by users, here the
In both views, you can extend or shorten a rectangle to modify the length of a task, create forecasts in the chart, change existing ones and its dates and times by sliding them back and forth.
This article is a tutorial on how to correctly set up and make use of the Project app and manage projects with other Odoo applications.
As you can see, there's no need to jump between apps to do something, everything is inside Projects, all you need to do is some initial configuration.
We hope this has given you some insight on Odoo project management and encourages people to use it in the future.
