In this lesson we will cover:
– What are project hierarchies?
– How does the project hierarchy affect ticket functionality?
What are Project hierarchies?
Project hierarchies are used to determine if a project ticket is classed as a 'Project' or a 'Project task'. Projects are used to organise project tasks, with many project tasks belonging to a single project.
The project hierarchy of a project ticket is set against the ticket type. To change/check the project hierarchy of a ticket head to configuration > tickets > ticket types > select a ticket type that has 'use' project. Any ticket types that have the 'use' of projects will have an additional option to set a project hierarchy.
Fig 1. Ticket type with 'Use' projects
To change the project hierarchy simply use the dropdown in the 'Project Hierarchy' field.
How does the project hierarchy affect ticket functionality?
How child tickets appear
When a child ticket is created under a project ticket, the tickets will appear under different tabs of the project based on their project hierarchy.
Hierarchy 'Projects' – Appear under the projects tab
Hierarchy 'Project Tasks' – Appear under the project tasks tab
Fig 2. Project tasks tab
Fig 3. Projects tab
This allows you to create sub-projects under an existing project and have these sub-projects stored separately to the tasks for the current project.
Billing
The project hierarchy is primarily used to determine how the project is invoiced. Tickets with 'Project' hierarchy have higher billing precedence, meaning that other (project task) tickets will be included in their billable time, but project tasks cannot include billable time for project tickets.
Tickets with the 'Project' hierarchy will appear under the 'project' section of ready for invoicing. When invoices are created for these tickets the invoice will include all the billable time against the project ticket and the project tasks under this project ticket.
Whereas if you create an invoice for a single ticket that has hierarchy 'Project Task' the invoice will only include billable time against the chosen ticket.
This is important to consider when setting up project tickets. If you are creating a 'Project' ticket under an existing 'Project' ticket, the 'sub-project' will be billed as part of the main (grandparent) project. When creating the invoice only the grandparent project ticket will appear in 'Ready for invoicing – Project'. When you create an invoice from the grandparent ticket all the labour on all the projects and project tasks under this ticket will be billed on the same invoice.
If you would like the 'sub-project' to be invoiced separately you will need to filter the results in the 'projects' area of ready for invoicing by the project ticket ID, then select all the labour (child ticket) entries and create an invoice.
