For a quick overview, check the Projects video guide.
Projects help you organize your tasks, team, and important milestones together in one place.
Projects can be created by the Account Owner, Billing guests, Admins, and Project Managers.
Add a project
There are a few different ways to add a project:
Click the + button in the top-right of Float and then Add project.
Click the project button in the top-left of Float when in the Project plan view.
Use the keyboard shortcut Shift+P.
From the allocation menu when scheduling.
When adding a new project, you can choose to create a new blank project (draft, tentative, or confirmed) or use one of the existing project templates.
💡 Here's a tip: You can select to Always start from a confirmed project.
Project name and color
To create a new project, start with the name and the color.
📝Note: Leaving the project name field blank will result in a project called *New Project.
Project info
The Info section contains general information about the project.
Project Owner
You can set the project owner in the Owner field. The person who creates a project is automatically set as its owner, but they can reassign the ownership to anyone with access rights set.
Project Status
In the Status field, you can set your project to be a draft, tentative, or confirmed.
The Draft status allows teams to test various configurations, such as changing the project's team members, dates, or phases, without making those visible on the live Schedule. This is particularly useful for exploring different scenarios before accepting or confirming a project. Draft projects' visibility is limited.
Allocations, phases, and milestones of draft projects are displayed on the Project plan page only. They show as dashed outlines.
Draft projects are not visible to Project Managers unless they are the Project Owners or All Project Managers have edit rights is enabled.
The Tentative status is best for work that is yet to be confirmed. Tentative projects are visible to all team members with access to view projects.
Allocations from the tentative projects are displayed as color outlines on the Schedule to clarify that they haven't been confirmed yet.
Similarly, phases and milestones from tentative projects are displayed as color outlines on the Project plan view.Allocations, phases, and milestones belonging to projects with Confirmed status are displayed on both Schedule and Project plan pages as colored tiles.
You can sort your projects by Status on the Projects page and distinguish them based on the status icon.
Project status changes
Changing the project status from Draft to Tentative will make all planned allocations, phases, and milestones visible on the Schedule.
Changing the project status from Draft to Confirmed will:
Make all planned allocations, phases and milestones visible on the Schedule
Notify everyone on the project team
Allow the project team to log time against the project (for Pro and Enterprise teams).
Changing the project status from Confirmed to Tentative will:
Change all planned allocations, phases, and milestones to Tentative on the Schedule
Prevent new time entries from being logged against the project (for Pro and Enterprise teams).
Changing the project status from Confirmed or Tentative to Draft will:
Change all planned allocations, phases, and milestones to Draft on the Project plan
Hide this project from the Schedule
Prevent any time entries from being logged against the project (for Pro and Enterprise teams).
Billable / non-billable project setting
You can set the project as billable or non-billable. To have billable and non-billable phases and tasks within a project, set the project to billable and manage individual phases and tasks in the Phases and Tasks sections.
Client
Clients can be added via the project menu or in the Clients tab within your Team settings. This is also where the Account Owner and the Admins can manage them.
Project Tags
To add a new project tag, type its name or select an existing tag from the drop-down. You can sort/filter any Float page by the project tag.
Project dates
This is where you can set the dates and duration of the project.
Project Notes
You can add any additional information to your project here. The character limit for project notes is 1500.
💡Here's a tip: To mention a person, type "@" followed by their name on any project note. Depending on their personal notification settings, they will receive a notification via email, Slack, or mobile push.
All Project Managers have edit rights
Check this box to allow any Project Manager to edit the project. If this box is unchecked, Project Managers will only be able to edit the project if they have been added to the project team in the Team section. Admins and the Account Owner will always have access to edit the project.
Project budget
The Budget section allows you to set the project's budget type. There are seven total project budget options to choose from. Non-billable tasks do not utilize your project budget.
Project team
The Team section displays every team member on the project team and across all phases (if available).
If team members are only members of a specific project phase and not on the project level, they will have a phase indicator.
If a team member used to work on a project but has been archived, the Archived indicator will be displayed next to their name. All their historical data remains intact and can still be viewed in the reports. Removing an archived person from a project will permanently delete all of their scheduled and logged tasks for that project.
Rates per person
You can set a different hourly rate for each team member or the same rate for everyone active on the project team. When adding a new person to the project, the personal rate will apply by default, but you can choose to set a different project rate. Adjusting your team’s hourly rates for a specific project will not impact their rates on other projects.
Assign a team member
This is where you can add people to a project individually. To assign people to a project team in bulk, check out the bulk actions menu on the People page.
📝Note: Currently, there are no limits on the number of team members on a project team—you can have an unlimited number of team members for each project.
Project phases
The Phases section allows you to add project phases and set their color and duration. If your project budget is calculated per phase, you can also add the budget details here.
📝Note: By default, phases color is the same as the project color, but it can be adjusted whenever needed.
To set additional phase details, click on a phase to open it in the side panel. This is where you can indicate the phase status, budget, team, tasks, milestones, and other details at a granular level, similar to setting project details.
📝Note: While you can set the tentative phases within a confirmed project, creating confirmed phases in a tentative project is not supported.
After a project with multiple phases is created, you can easily navigate between them using the up and down arrows in the top right corner of the page.
Project tasks
Adding tasks
The Tasks section houses all of your project tasks. It does not include phase-specific tasks, which are listed under their corresponding phases.
Tasks are useful to help group allocations on the reports. You can add new tasks to this list before assigning them to your team or when allocating time on the Schedule. Any task assigned to a team member on the Schedule is automatically added to this list on the project menu.
💡 Here's a tip: Already scheduled tasks have a green dot displayed next to them.
📝Note: Currently, there are no limits on the number of tasks allowed on a project—you can have an unlimited number of tasks in each project.
Setting tasks as non-billable
You can choose to set individual tasks within a billable project to non-billable.
Non-billable tasks on a billable project are not included in the project budget and allocations scheduled for these tasks do not utilize the project budget. Non-billable allocations on a billable project can be tracked in Reports to monitor internal spend.
Merging tasks together
You can select two or more tasks and merge them.
Deleting tasks
To remove a task, select the task name and click Delete.
If you try to remove a task that has been scheduled or in use, Float will ask for confirmation to delete it. Click on the bin icon to confirm the action. This will permanently delete all instances of that task from Float (including all scheduled and logged time for that task). This action is irreversible. If this is not your intention, consider reassigning the allocations from that task before deleting it or using the merge option instead.
📝Note: Bulk deletion of tasks with associated allocations is currently not available. Each task needs to be removed individually.
Locking the task list
Locking the task list by selecting Only Project Managers can add to this list will ensure your team only schedules and logs tasks from the approved list. We’ve made it easier to keep your task list tidy by locking the list by default for the new projects, but it can be unlocked whenever needed.
📝Note: Locking the project task list also applies to all the project's phases.
If Only Project Managers can add to this list is enabled, Project Managers who are just the contributors to the project (and not the Project Owners) can add new tasks in the project settings. When allocating time on the Schedule, they will need to select one of the existing tasks.
Project milestones
The Milestones section allows you to add new milestones or manage the existing ones. Milestones are great for tracking important events within a project's lifecycle. Milestones can be set as a date or a date range.
Project utility actions
To access the project's action menu, click on the three vertical dots icon at the top right corner of the project side panel.
The options include:
View using filter
This option applies the project to the filter, making it easy to check the project's details on the Schedule, Project plan, or Report.
View project report
This option applies the project to the filter and opens a Single Project Report.
Duplicate
This option creates a copy of the existing project. Specific project details can be adjusted as needed.
Create template from project
This option allows you to quickly create a project template. You can amend any of the project's and phases' details as needed.
Archive
This option allows you to archive a project if you are no longer working on it or would like to delete it permanently.
Additional notes
Merging projects is not currently supported. If the allocations in one or more projects are duplicated, you can archive the duplicated projects. If you want to keep the allocations from both projects, you'd first need to reassign them to one of the projects manually.
Adding custom fields to the project menu is currently not supported. We recommend using the Project Tags or the Notes field to store any extra information.