Numbering & unique id’s

Projects can be identified with four different ways:

• Database ID Operating assigns each project a technical database ID. This appears in API responses and URLs. You typically don't need to manage this directly.

• Project Number A simple, auto-incremented number for easy reference. Enable at Settings → Projects. Cannot be modified after creation.

• Unique Identifier Your own project code from an ERP or internal system. Enable at Settings → Projects. You can set this manually in the UI or via API.

  • Example: SAP-100-567

  • Use this when: You want to display your internal reference in Operating's UI and match projects across systems.

• External ID (via External Projects) When integrating with external systems (Harvest, HubSpot, CSV import, API), Operating creates an External Project link with an externalId. This is the ID from the external system.

  • A project can have multiple external IDs (one per connected system)

  • External IDs must be unique within each external system

  • Set via integrations or the API's externalProjects array

  • Example: Harvest project ID "98765", HubSpot deal ID "deal_abc123"

  • Use this when: Syncing data between Operating and external systems. The externalId lets you match records during imports and API calls.

Project identifiers and IDs - table

Example of identifiers in the Project Details view

• Client name: Omega Industries

• Project name: Icelandic GTM

• Project number: 7

• Unique id: not set

Click the id field to set the unique id to be anything you like, e.g. SAP-100-567.

Cheat sheet for project identifiers

Project owner

Each project has one person at a time responsible for keeping that project – or opportunity – alive and well.

• Early in the sales process, the salesperson is the project owner

  • If you’re using a CRM for opportunities/deals, the salesperson does a lot over there. The relevant information is synced with Operating.

• Later, whoever is responsible for the team setup – make it clear for everyone if this work is handed over

• Once the project is in progress, the owner is typically the project manager, as they are most likely to answer questions like “is the schedule still realistic” or “when does Alice have availability”.

Filtering per owner is super useful – in this case, for Kanchana:

Secondary Project owner

Sometimes your project has a secondary project owner. This can be the account manager, or perhaps a staffing manager, or resourcing manager in charge of staffing the project with the right consultants. You can enable secondary project owners under:

• Settings → Projects

You can name this field how so it reflects your use case. Below is how it’s set up in our demo organization.

Project group

One project can have multiple project groups associated with it. Using project groups is completely optional.

The bigger the company, the more sense it makes to run reports per business unit, competency team, etc.

Project Group suggests Groups from the MattiCo Five organization structure.

Project tags

Categorizing projects and clients with Tags is useful when groups, roles and skills don’t carry the right information about the nature of the work done in the project.

Read more about using Tags here.

See the “implementation” and “health” tags above the description field.

Estimated start date

Our goal is to make scheduling upcoming work as effortless as possible. That’s why the estimated start date is a separate field."

A high-energy salesperson may not take the time to fill out every field in Operating, but at a minimum, they should indicate when the work is estimated to start.

This field can be used to indicate the project start date in different views, and will help you sort your projects based on urgency. You might want to look at the projects first, which are about to start soon.

Team setup (positions)

Each position in the project can be assigned to a Role, Person, or both. Each position can have required skills.

By inputting this information, Operating can suggest people for projects. That’s one of the key ways our software helps you become more efficient in staffing while also enabling better decision-making.

All of these are optional. If you just want to name the Person, go ahead and do it. Operating will use their Role to determine what they are doing in the project.

Project Phases

You can add phases to projects to structure work visually on the timeline. Read more here!

Rate cards

Read more here.

Status

Read more here.

Archive Projects

Read more here.

Clients

The Add project form lets you add new clients if you don’t find the one in the list of existing clients.

Managing clients and client tags and references to companies in CRM, time tracking system, and other external systems can be done in Directory > Clients.

What to do, when…

• The sales deal was won, but the team and scheduling is still up in the air?

  • Keep the project Tentative until you’ve decided who’s doing the work

• Some team members get decided later, when the project is underway?

  • Use Roles for the positions, and remember to keep an eye on the positions to fill -view in the Horizon to catch those unnamed “to do”’s.

• There’s a cross-selling opportunity related to an ongoing project?

  1. If it fits into the ongoing project neatly, just add it as tentative allocations

  2. If you want to treat it as a separate piece of work altogether, create a new project (manually or via your CRM)

     1. Plan everything in the new project

     2. If you win it, and would prefer to look at all of the efforts in one package, you can always merge the two projects into one

• The project ends and you don’t want to see it in the Timeline and Horizon any more?

  • Choose Archive in project details.

  • Archived confirmed work is visible in all reports, archived tentative work is treated as work that never happened. Nothing is lost forever, you can always unarchive if the work re-emerges after all.