Project Settings

The Configuration chapter outlines how to adjust settings and options in BigTime. As you browse through your project dashboards, you may want to tweak some of the field or menu settings. While you can read through the Configuration chapter to figure out how to make most of these changes, there are a few specific sections you may find useful.

1. Updating Cost Center Data. Think of BigTime's cost center fields as custom fields that are attached to each of your projects. You can use all three of them or you may choose not to. For a complete review of cost centers and how to configure them, take a look at BigTime's Cost Center options.

   BigTime lets you setup several cost center types within the system. Cost centers are like specialized custom fields, and they can be setup to fit your firm's specific needs. Every project and every staff member can be linked to a combination of cost centers.

   The advantage to using cost centers (over standard custom fields) is simple: every report and virtually every "view" screen in the system can be sorted/grouped by cost center. So, if your firm has 3 different offices, you should setup a cost center type called "office" with values of "Chicago, New York and LA" Then, every project list report can be sorted and grouped by "office" (so the LA projects group together, the Chicago projects group together, and the New Your projects group together).

   You can setup your cost center TYPES (e.g. - what they're called) in the Tools...System Settings...Vocabulary screen. The actual cost center values (e.g. - the pick lists) are setup in the Tools...System Settings...Cost Centers screen.

2. Updating Drop Down Lists. The project and client type, team roles, client contact types, budget item types and other fields in the dashboard are all drop down lists that can be edited in the Field Values screen.
3. Production/Billing Status Codes. For most of our customers, the production/billing status codes that ship with the system are adequate. If you'd like to edit those values (add new ones, mark some as active/inactive, etc.), then take a look at the Configuration section on Status Codes. that section of the Configuration chapter.
4. Adjusting Menu Items. The Tools...System Settings...General page can be used to turn on/off some of the screens on the project dashboard.
5. Adjusting Security Settings. You can also control which users are allowed to see specific menus or sub-menus by tweaking your system security settings. You can allow some users to "view" project data, and permit others to view and "edit" that data. Adjusting which user have rights to the various parts of the project dashboard is covered in the Security Settings section of the Configuration chapter.
6. Custom Fields. Finally, if you'd like to track data that can't be placed into any of the standard BigTime fields, you can add your own custom fields to the system. You may want to track project "location," a client-specific purchase order number, etc. All of these values can be added to the General...Custom Fields page of your dashboard, and the Custom Fields configuration topic will show you how.