Modules

Projects are designed to manage activities involving a group of people (a project team) working together, with a clearly defined objective that is based on a specification (requirements).

The individual records that are supported within the project management are described in a separate chapter Project records.

Project manager

The project manager is the person responsible for the project (set in the administration window when the project is created, the manager can be changed later).

The project manager administers the team – defining what roles and qualifications the project needs and who is in them. No one but the project manager can change the project team.

Project team

The project team consists of people who are participating in the project. Each of them is always in a project role.

If there's a defined methodology (a standard that the project follows), the project roles are defined by the methodology. The methodology also defines what qualifications the person in the project role must have.

(A project role is not an organization role. For example, a user may be a project manager – they do not need to have this role within the organization. Or someone may have the role of an auditor in a project, even if they do not work as an auditor within the organization). We discuss this more in the linked article.

Project team in the project settings

When a new project is created, a new group for the project team is also created. (The group is among the groups and roles in the system administration). This group is automatically synchronized with the project team that is managed on the project dashboard. If the manager adds another person to the project team, they are automatically added to this group and vice versa.

If you assign a custom group to a project before saving it, the mechanism described above will not be active. This makes sense if the projects are done regularly by the same group of people; then it doesn't make sense to create a new group for each project.

Reminder: The project group determines the access rights to objects in the project. Therefore, the people who are actively working on the project need to be in this group. However, if you need for example a consultation from someone, who is not actively working in the project, you can give them a project task and they can complete it even if they are not members of the project.

Therefore:

If you already have a defined group that will carry out the project, add it to the project.
If the project will have its own team, leave the field blank and the project group will be created automatically.

Frequently asked questions about the project team

Is it possible to change the group of people working on a project?

The project administration behavior with respect to user groups can be changed during project lifetime. However, the project group is no longer automatically created. You can create it manually (custom group button), but you need to include the actual people from the project team in the group. Others will be added automatically.

On the contrary, if you assign another group to the project (e.g. development department), the system will not change the group according to the project team.

We need to have project data accessible by someone who is not in the project

A project manager can manually add users to a group that is administered automatically by the system, in the same way as any other group. Automatic synchronization does not prevent the administration of the project group.

Do we need to keep project groups of people in the system after the project is finished?

No, the group is continuously changing and always corresponds to whoever is working with the project. It is logical that towards the end there is hardly anyone. (The last one to close the door is usually the project manager.) The moment the project is finished, it is correct to remove the group that was created for the project.

The group is not removed automatically – it is not unusual for a project to be paused or even terminated, but reactivation is expected.

The project administration as well as business areas have an active user group and a reader group. Readers tend to be people who have the right to access information from the project after the project has ended, auditors, and usually the former project manager. These people should be within the project setup in the project readers group, i.e. people with access for viewing. In this way, the know-how from the project will remain accessible and at the same time protected.

Remember: Projects tend to contain a lot of information that is subject to confidentiality. Therefore, you should not grant the right to inspect the project to a general group like all project managers. You would probably violate the protections. If your company works, for example, according to ISO 27000 or ISO 21434, you must give the same attention to the group of readers as you do to the group of active users.

Where to learn more:

More general information about project management software support.
Objects that belong to project management are described here.
The project schedule is described here.