Projects are similar

Most project plans are similar. You may have elaboration phase, a  planning / prototyping phase, actual execution of the project and then project completion / handover phase. You would also want that your projects follow a  defined process of execution. You would want to follow the same design brief, same categories and structure of the project plan. You may also have 3-4 variations on the process based on the project type.

How do you enforce structure across all projects?

Creating same kind of structure for every new project is a waste of time. So how do you cut it short? Well, use templates!

activeCollab allows you to create new projects from a template project. You choose a project group as “template group” and all projects under it can then be used as a template while creating a new project. Creating a new  project like this copies milestones, tickets and checklists. activeCollab will even reschedule your milestones based on start date of the new project.

We created a video tutorial to explain every step in using project templates. I believe you may even find nuggets of other useful strategies as you view this tutorial! We crafted it with a lot of love.

Share your mojo

How do you use project templates? Do you have particular project templates you use? Why not share them with everyone by posting a comment here?

activeCollab’s Time reports show Last Week’s time entries by default. But that’s not very useful.

How do you see the time entries you made for today?

Seeing today’s time entries helps you review your work and also add any hourlog entries you missed. Here’s how you can create a new time report to see your own time entries for today and make it the default report.

1. Log on to activeCollab. Click on the Time clock link in top menu.
   

   Time Report icon in top menu

2. Click on “New Report” button in top right.
   

   Click on New Report Button

3. Fill in the form to create a new time report. Give a name that’s easy to remember – call it “Today” or “My Work Today”.
4. Enter “Custom” as the “Report Group”.
5. Select “Today” in “For Day” and “Person Accessing This Report” in “Assigned To”.
   

   Creating a new Time Report

6. Click “Submit” to save this report.
7. Your report is now saved and will show your time entries for today.
   

   Report Created

Making It Default Report

Our new report is now active, but not the default report. activeCollab does not allow making a report default from its web interface. We will need to go to the backend database for this. If you do not have access to the database, you will need to ask your system administrator to do this. Here are the steps.

1. Log in to your database administration tool – e.g. phpMyAdmin
2. Locate the acx_time_reports table. Browse the current records. It will show a result similar to following. (Note: you may need to replace “acx” with your table prefix if you are not using the default)
   

   Entries from acx_time_reports table

3. Notice the “Last Week” report has 1 for the is_default field. We need to set that to 0 and our new “Today” report to 1. This can be done using the following queries or using the edit option in phpMyAdmin.
   

   Update Time Reports table to set default report

4. That’s all. Our new report is the default report now. Every time you click on the Time clock in the top menu, you will see your time entries for the day!

Want more?

You can try out different options on the new reports screen. Creating custom time reports is a very powerful (yet almost hidden) feature of activeCollab. Try creating a new report for the time logs of people who report to you.

Options for day while creating new time report

activeCollab’s Time Tracking module allows tracking billable and non-billable hours. This way you can keep track of the time your team spends. These hours are also used to create invoices. Reports and Planning module use these hour logs for reporting and analysis.

Share your mojo

Have you created some super cool reports? Others will find them useful. Why not post a comment and share them with others?

If you’ve been looking for the simplest and best answer to “How to upgrade my activeCollab setup?”, this is the answer!

activeCollab is a superb web based collaboration and project management system. Each new version packs useful features and bug fixes. But sometimes upgrades can be challenging. We will see how to avoid common problems in this video.

This video demonstrates downloading the latest activeCollab version, unzipping it, downloading your custom modules and themes from the server to your local computer, renaming local folders and uploading new files to the server. Then we rename the old folders – activecollab and public/assets for backup and make our newly uploaded folders live. Next step is clearing the cache and running the upgrade script.

These steps are documented on activeCollab site: the usual upgrade method and the minimal downtime upgrade method. This video uses the minimal downtime method.

This method will work with any recent activeCollab version, and future versions too!

BTW, we use this method when we upgrade and manage activeCollab for our acGarage Pro customers. But we also maintain custom hacks that we support. acGarage Pro is designed to simplify upgrades and system administration with activeCollab.

I hope this tutorial was helpful. We’ll look forward to your feedback. And if you want to sign up for acGarage, here’s the link.