In this video, you learn when you need external ongoing projects and how to create them in Leadtime. External ongoing projects are designed for customer relationships characterized by regular, smaller requests – typically support contracts or framework contracts with a fixed hourly rate.
These projects are fundamentally different from large single projects with a clear beginning, detailed quote, and deadline. With ongoing projects, it's mainly about billing by working time: work is documented through time tracking and billed based on tracked hours.
You learn step by step how to create an external ongoing project: open the organization, Projects tab, Add Project – then icon, name, Type (Ongoing), External, Category (e.g. Support), Status (Implementation), and very importantly Value Group A, because external projects bring direct value creation. Plus description, responsible person, and team assignment.
At the end, you're encouraged to go through all your customers and create an external ongoing project for each customer with regular requests. For customers with a fixed monthly budget, there's also a retainer model covered in a later video.
In the last video we created the internal projects. With that you've built the foundation for tracking all internal activities.
Now comes the external side: The work you do for your customers. In this video you'll learn when you need external ongoing projects and how to create them.
External ongoing projects are for customer relationships characterized by ongoing requests.
A few typical examples:
You have a support contract with a customer. The customer regularly sends smaller requests that you then process.
Or you work with a framework contract at a fixed hourly rate. The customer submits topics informally that you handle on call.
These are tasks that don't need big meetings, detailed quotes or fixed deadlines. Typically topics that can be done in one to two hours or at most one day.
This type of project is fundamentally different from large single projects. Those have a clear beginning, a detailed quote, a deadline and a final invoice. Such projects are very complex, so we'll cover them thoroughly in a later video.
With ongoing projects it's mainly about one thing: Billing by working time. The work that happens here is documented using time tracking and then billed based on the tracked hours.
A quick note: For customers who regularly pay a fixed budget, there's also a powerful retainer model. We'll look at that in a later video.
I'm opening an organization now. For example ACME Inc., one of our customers.
I click on the Projects tab. Here I see all projects linked to this organization.
Now I click Add Project.
The dialog opens. I'll go through the fields.
Icon and name: I choose a headset symbol and call the project ACME Support.
Type: Ongoing. This is an ongoing project with no fixed end.
Internal or External: External. It's work for a customer.
Category: I choose Support. That describes the type of work.
Status: Implementation. The project is active and running.
Value Group: A. This is very important. External projects bring direct value creation. This is where revenue is made.
Short description: Ongoing support for ACME Inc.
For default responsible I set the person who's mainly responsible for this project.
On the right I can select task types and activities. For support the default values usually work well.
For members I add the relevant employees or teams.
I save. The project appears in the list with an abbreviation. In this case ACME-1.
Now it's your turn.
Go through your customers. Which customers do you work for regularly? Who has a support contract? Who keeps sending smaller requests?
For each of these customers you now create an external ongoing project.
It's quick: Open organization, Projects tab, Add Project, fill in fields, save.
When you've done that, you've created the basic structure for working with your customers.
You've now created external ongoing projects for your customers.
You know when you need them and how they differ from single projects.
In the next video we'll look at the ticket system. You'll learn how to create tasks, manage them and structure your work.
See you there!
