Projects and tasks

Projects show what your team spends its time on: for which client, on which task, and how that compares with the budget. Projects and tasks are part of the Pro and Premium plans. Open Projects in the menu of the dashboard.

Time reaches a project in three ways: with the timer in the dashboard or in the desktop app, by assigning time that Focus already tracked, and by adding time by hand. All three are described in timer and timesheet.

Who can do what

Role	Projects	Tasks and project team	Time
Owner, admin	Create, edit, archive and delete every project; see every project	On every project	Own time, and time of everyone
Project manager (any role)	See their projects	On the projects they manage	Own time
Team admin	See the projects they can track time on, and read-only the projects the people they manage track time on	—	Own time, and time of the people they manage
Manager	Same as team admin, read-only	—	Own time
Employee	See the projects they can track time on	—	Own time

Hourly rates, cost amounts and invoices are visible only to owners and admins (rates and costs). Everyone else sees hours, never amounts.

Create a project

Owners and admins create projects with New project on the projects page. A project has:

• Name (unique among the projects that are not archived) and, if you like, a short Code such as WEB, and a Colour.
• Client: optional; a project without a client is internal work (clients and invoices).
• Status: active, on hold or completed. Time can be tracked only on an active project.
• Billable: whether the project’s time is billable by default. A task or a single time entry can override it.
• Currency: TRY, USD or EUR. Project rates, the budget amount and the project’s invoices use it.
• Budget: none, a number of hours, or an amount in the project’s currency. The projects list shows how much of it is used.
• Start and end dates, and a description.

Who can track time on a project

Each project has a Who can track time setting with two choices:

• Everyone in the organization (the default): every person can pick the project in the timer and assign time to it.
• Only project members: only the people in the project team can. Everyone else does not see the project in the timer, and an attempt to track time on it fails with project_not_trackable.

Owners and admins see every project either way, and when they add time for someone, the rule is applied to that person.

Project team and project manager

The Team tab of a project lists its members. Each has the role Member or Manager.

• Only owners and admins make someone a project manager or take the role away.
• A project manager adds and removes members, and creates, edits and archives the tasks of that project. The project’s own settings (name, client, currency, billable, access, budget, status) stay with owners and admins.
• The project manager role is per project and does not change the person’s role in the organization.

Tasks

The Tasks tab splits a project into pieces of work. A task has a name (unique within the project), a status (open, in progress or done), an optional assignee, an estimate in hours and minutes, a due date and its own billable setting (empty means “as the project”).

• The assignee must be able to track time on the project.
• The list shows the time spent on each task next to its estimate.
• A task that is done or archived can no longer be picked in the timer; time already tracked on it stays.
• Time without a task counts for the project as “No task”.

Archive and delete

Archiving hides a project or a task from the timer and from new time entries, and keeps its time, reports and invoices. Restoring brings it back. The name of an archived project or task can be used again.

A project, task or client that has time or invoices cannot be deleted (project_in_use, task_in_use); archive it instead. Deleting is meant for something created by mistake.

The project report

The Report tab of a project and the Projects report under Reports show the tracked hours per project, task, person, client or day, split into billable and non-billable time, with the budget use. Owners and admins also see the cost and billable amounts (rates and costs).

Error messages

Code	What it means
project_not_found	The project does not exist, was deleted, or you cannot see it
project_name_taken	Another project that is not archived has this name
project_code_taken	Another project that is not archived has this code
project_in_use	The project has time or invoices and cannot be deleted; archive it instead
project_not_active	The project is archived, on hold or completed, so no time can be tracked on it
project_not_trackable	The project is only for its team members, and you (or the person you add time for) are not in the team
project_currency_locked	The project has rates, or time that is on an invoice, so its currency cannot change
task_not_found	The task does not exist, was deleted, or you cannot see its project
task_name_taken	Another task of this project that is not archived has this name
task_in_use	The task has time and cannot be deleted; archive it instead
task_not_in_project	The task belongs to another project; pick a task of the chosen project
task_not_open	The task is done or archived, so the timer cannot start on it