Setting Up a New Project Application

How to create a Project application and configure its settings, security roles, and user access in the Admin UI.

Project applications are Work Management (TDNext) applications that allow your team to create and manage projects, build project plans, track tasks, and report at the project level. Your organization can create multiple Project applications based on your needs — for example, separate applications for IT, HR, and Facilities — each with its own configurations, workflows, and user access. This lets you control exactly who can see and work on projects within each application, with users able to hold different permission levels across applications.

In this article:

• Creating a New Project Application
• Configuring a Project Application
  • Required Settings
  • Additional Settings
• Defining Application-Level Security Roles
• Assigning Users to Security Roles

 

Creating a New Project Application

Only Global Administrators can create new Project applications in TDAdmin.

To create a new application:

1. In TDAdmin, click Applications in the left navigation.
2. Click the +New button.
3. In the New Application window, fill in the fields:
   1. Name — The Project application name appears in various reports and in the Work Management application menu. It should be short, meaningful, and distinguishable from other applications.
   2. Description
   3. Type — Select Projects.
   4. Icon — Appears on the Work Management Applications tile.
   5. Portfolio Planning Name — Enter a name for the companion application used to manage project requests. Enter a description and select an icon.
4. Click Save.

To access the settings for the new application, click its name in the Applications list.

Configuring a Project Application

Required Settings

Project types must be configured before new projects can be created in the application.

Project Type Categories

Project Type Categories group Project Types and help distinguish different areas of the organization (for example: New Hires, Administration, Training, General Facilities). They can also be used for reporting. Only Global Administrators can create and modify Type Categories, as they are shared across all Ticketing and Project applications.

See Creating and Managing Project Types for details.

Project Types

Project Types classify the nature of a project or project request (for example: Software, Hardware, Upgrade). They are required for all projects and project requests, serve as a basis for routing and reviewing requests, and can be used for reporting. Project Types can be configured by both Global Administrators and Project application admins.

All project requests must go through a workflow evaluation before being converted to active projects. Project Types can be used to assign the review of a request to a specific user or to trigger a particular workflow — for example, complex, high-budget projects might follow an advanced governance process, while lower-complexity requests might have just one or two evaluation steps.

See Creating and Managing Project Types and Working with Project Types for details.

Additional Settings

The following settings are optional but recommended for a fully configured Project application. Unless noted, these settings are available to both Global Administrators and Project application admins.

Priorities

Priority describes the importance of a project task relative to other tasks and indicates the order in which it should be addressed. Priority is a shared setting that applies to all Ticketing and Project applications. Only Global Administrators can manage Priority settings.

See Managing Impact, Urgency, and Priority for details.

Classifications

Classification is an optional field on projects and project requests that helps organizations understand work in broad categories.

See Project Management Reference Example for usage context.

Project Attributes

Project Attributes create custom fields on project and project request forms. A project attribute not associated with a specific Project Type will appear globally on all projects and requests in the application. These attributes can also be used for reporting.

See Creating Project Attributes for details.

Custom Attributes

In addition to Project Attributes, custom attributes can be configured for other project-related items:

• Issue Attributes
• Risk Attributes
• Protected Attribute Access Log (Global Administrators only)
• Protected Attribute Configuration Log (Global Administrators only)

Notification Templates

Notification templates control the email content and layout for actions that trigger notifications, broken down by action type. If a custom template is not configured for a specific action, the default template is used instead.

See Getting Started with Notification Templates for details.

Portfolio and Program Weighting

Project weight is determined by a globally configured weighting field. This setting applies to all Portfolio Planning applications in your organization and can only be configured by Global Administrators. Portfolio Planning applications display the overall percent complete for all included projects, calculated using the configured weighting method.

See Understanding Portfolio and Program Weighting for details.

Project/Request Sections

Project and Project Request Sections represent the different parts of a project or project request. Administrators can control the names of sections and toggle which ones are active from the Project application admin interface. These settings apply to all projects and project requests within the application.

See Editing Project/Request Sections for details.

Project Request Automation Rules

Automation rules assign a project request to a workflow and/or notify people when a new request is submitted, based on conditions you define. Rules are evaluated when a project request is submitted.

See Portfolio Planning Automation Rules for details.

Project Request Forms

Project request forms structure the intake of new project proposals and gather the data needed before a proposal can be evaluated. Forms can be created for the Client Portal (for end users submitting project requests) and for Work Management (for technicians and other permissioned users).

See Getting Started with Project Request Forms for details.

Project Templates

A project template is a starting point for new projects that pre-populates common project information. Whenever a project or project request is created, users can choose to apply a template. By default, new templates are set to private; making a template global allows any user in your organization to apply it when creating new projects.

See Using Project Templates for details.

Project Update Templates

Project update templates ensure consistent comment formatting when updating a project in Work Management. Before creating a project update template, you must first create a project update template category.

See Working with Project Update Templates for details.

Settings

In the Project application admin interface, select Settings in the left navigation to configure the following:

• Convert requests to active projects by default — Controls the default value of the active/inactive checkbox when a project request is converted to a project.
• Project Manager reminder email — When enabled, all primary project managers on active projects receive a weekly or monthly reminder email. The plain-text email content can be customized here.
• Automated escalation — Configure automatic health status changes based on how long a project's health has gone without being updated:
  • Move projects from Green health to Yellow health after a specified number of working days without an update.
  • Move projects from Green or Yellow health to Red health after a specified number of working days without an update.
  • When either threshold is reached, the primary and alternate project managers are notified, and a message is posted in the project feed. These escalations do not affect closed, canceled, on-hold, or otherwise inactive projects, or projects with no health value set.

Statuses

In the Project application admin interface, select Statuses in the left navigation to configure issue, task, project, and risk statuses. Status names can be customized and additional statuses can be added to meet your organization's needs.

To create a new status:

1. Click Statuses in the left navigation, then select Issue Statuses, Task Statuses, Project Statuses, or Risk Statuses.
2. Click the +New button.
3. Enter the Name.
4. Select the Status Class.
5. Set the Order — determines the sequence in which status options appear in the dropdown. If no order is specified, options are listed alphabetically.
6. Set Active — determines whether the status is available to assign.
7. Click Save.

The available status classes and defaults are:

• Issue Statuses — Classes: New, In Process, Completed, Canceled, On Hold.
• Task Statuses — Classes: New, In Process, Completed, On Hold.
• Project Statuses — Classes: New, In Process, Completed, Canceled, On Hold. Default statuses include: New, In Process, Completed - Did Not Meet Expectations, Completed - Met Expectations, Completed - Exceeded Expectations, Canceled, On Hold.
• Risk Statuses — Classes: New, In Process, Completed, On Hold. Default statuses include: Identified, Assessed, Controlled, Realized, Closed, Postponed. See the last section of Working with the Risk Register and Project Risks for details.

Time & Expenses

• Expense Types (Global Administrators only) — Expense Types categorize spending and are used in resource planning and management. Once created, Expense Types can be added to Project Types. Expenses can be added to projects in Work Management and are also available in the Time & Expenses application and Analysis reports. See Getting Started with Expense Types for details.
• Funding Sources — Funding Sources allow you to track how an expense will be funded. They can be added to Expense Forecasts and Expense records. A single funding source can serve multiple budgets or programs. See Expense Funding Sources for details.

Users & Roles

• Functional Roles (Global Administrators only) — Functional Roles define skill sets that can be applied to users. A user may have multiple functional roles but only one primary functional role, which drives resource allocation reporting in Work Management. Functional Roles are a global setting that applies across all applications. See Getting Started with TeamDynamix Functional Roles for details.
• Resource Pools (Global Administrators only) — Resource Pools group users of a similar type to efficiently fulfill staffing requests, typically classified by functional area or by the team responsible for assigning resources to projects. Each pool is assigned a manager who controls its membership and approves staffing requests. Users can belong to only one resource pool. Resource Pools are a global setting that applies across all applications. See Getting Started with Resource Pools and Working with Project Resources for details.

Workflows

• Document Workflows — Define workflows for document approval, review, and sign-off. Document workflows allow files to be reviewed, modified, and updated according to your organization's processes before project resources rely on them. See Document Workflows for details.
• Project Request Workflows — Used to stage submitted project requests through a series of review, evaluation, and approval or rejection steps. Submitted requests can be automatically assigned to a workflow via an automation rule or manually assigned by opening the request in Work Management. Workflow steps are created and defined in the Workflows section of the Project application admin interface. See Getting Started with Project Request Workflows for details.
• Project Request Workflow Template — The workflow template provides the foundation for all project request workflows. It should include all possible steps a request may go through; when individual workflows are set up, they draw from these template steps. All steps in the template are available for use in any project request workflow and can be activated or deactivated as needed. See Project Request Workflow Template for details.

Defining Application-Level Security Roles

Global Administrators and application admins for the specific Project application can manage application-level security roles in the Project application admin interface. Define security roles for project managers and project resources.

See the Project Application Permissions article for details on available permissions.

To define a new application-level security role:

1. Open the Project application admin page:
   • Project Application Admins: In Work Management, click View Applications, select the Project application, click the gear icon in the top-right corner, then select Admin.
   • Global Admins: In TDAdmin, go to Applications, then select the Project application.
2. In the left navigation, click Users & Roles > Security Roles.
3. Click the +New button to create a new security role or modify the Default Security Role.
4. Give the security role a Name that follows your organization's standard and is easily identifiable.
5. Select the License Type appropriate for the role.
6. Select individual Permissions for the role, or click Select Defaults.
7. Click Save.

See also: Card Wall and Backlog Manager Security Role Permissions.

Assigning Users to Security Roles

Only Global Administrators can add users to application-level security roles.

To assign users to a security role:

1. In TDAdmin, go to Applications > [Project Application] > Users & Roles > Users.
2. Click the Add button.
3. Use Search to find each user, check the box next to their name, then click Insert Checked.
4. Select the Security Role.
5. To make a user a Project application admin, check Add as Application Administrator(s).
6. Click Save.

If you granted yourself access to a new application, sign out and sign back in to update your security permissions and see the application in Work Management.

See Getting Started with Security Roles for details.