Project administration

Note

This page is still a working document, discuss anything that appears like it should be improved.

Unfortunately (fortunately, since it means our work has value?), we need to track where our time goes in order to justify the benefits of what we do. There are two main uses of the data:

  1. General reporting: being able to say how our time is distributed among departments and projects. This doesn’t have to be perfectly accurate (and since we have so many small projects, it would be a big waste of time to try to be perfect) - but it should be roughly proportional to actual time spent. This is tracked in Gitlab.

  2. Financial reporting and project payments. This needs to be accurate, but only for the few projects which have special funding. The master data is in financial systems, but Gitlab can sometimes be used to make this reporting a bit easier.

Typical project flow

  • Someone will contact us somehow. We try to get them to the garage or a some talk as soon as possible.

  • Initial discussion. If it seems this should be a tracked project, then make the issue

  • Be aware that it takes some time to get up to speed with a project. This should be considered when making the initial estimate, during the first consultation. When recording time spent, include the time it takes to get up to speed and learn whatever else is needed for the project.

Finance time tracking

For projects with their own funding (external or internal funding), you should get instructions about how to record it. For many projects, this is marking them to Halli. All other projects (funded by the department’s/school’s basic funding) is marked in Halli to the standard RSE salaries project (ask for it).

Types of projects

Special projects

Examples: EU-funded projects

Special projects are their own distinct entity and are not mixed with other work of our team. They receive dedicated days for their work, and are not given attention on other days. Because these get exclusive days, the master data of these projects is in Halli, and because Halli can be used for records later, they are not recorded in Gitlab. (Note: “special” does not mean better, it’s usually more productive to be available for researchers whenever they need us).

Special projects get one Gitlab issue to track the overall contact, but it isn’t updated on a day-to-day basis.

Daily procedures: At the end of every day, record the working time in Halli. As much as possible, these project days should not be mixed with other work, but internal team meetings, etc. are allowed if necessary. In Halli, record each day’s worktime (scaled to the standard 7.25h/day) in proportion to the time spent on the special project (allocated to that project)/internal work (allocated to RSE-salaries).

Normal funded projects

For projects providing their own funding, but aren’t special, GitLab is used to track the time we spend on them. The main purpose of Gitlab is to record the department distribution of all of our basic funding, for which Halli can’t hold all the needed information. Other funded projects which can be intermixed with our normal work can fit into this category.

Daily procedures: A Gitlab issue is created for every project and used for each day’s work, with funding source Funding::Project. Time is recorded in Gitlab and may be mixed with other projects however the customer sees appropriate. Halli is marked to the respective project and at least is correct by-month.

Internal charging projects

“Internal changing” projects are funded, but are paid in one sum for a certain amount of work, and there is no place to mark hours into Halli. These are mostly certain types of basic funding. Gitlab is used to track time spent on these projects.

Daily procedures: Like above for Gitlab. Halli is marked to the standard RSE-salaries project. Funding::Project

Basic funding projects

These projects are paid by our basic funding, provided by our sponsoring units. This also includes all of our internal work, meetings, development, and teaching.

Daily procedures: Same as above. Gitlab funding marked as Funding::Unit

Gitlab day-to-day procedure

See the rse-timetracking repository for info on how to use Gitlab. But the actual data is in rse-projects, a separate private repository.