Projects & Timesheets

Plan projects, assign tasks, track time, and generate reports — with optional AI assistance for project planning and a visual board for day-to-day work.

Project Dashboard

Go to Project Management → Dashboard for an overview of active projects, task status, and team workload.

Creating Projects

Go to Organization Settings → Project Managers and use Add Project Manager. Pick the employee, the departments they can manage, and optionally the shifts (for example Morning). Leave shifts empty to cover all shifts in those departments.
Configure Department Managers under Organization Settings (employee + department). Someone listed in both places is treated as Both.
Go to Project Management → Projects and choose Add Project. Settings Project Managers and Department Managers can create projects for their own team without needing the manage-projects permission. Org admins and users with manage-projects can also create projects.
Assign Managers (multi-select from Settings — badges show Project Manager, Department Manager, or Both) and Members from those managers’ teams. When a Settings manager creates a project, they are added as a manager automatically and the member list is limited to their team (departments and shifts). You no longer pick separate Project Manager and Department Manager fields on the project form.
Define stages (for example, Planning, In Progress, Review, Done) under Stages.
Add tasks and assign them to team members with due dates.

You can also start from a Project Template to reuse a predefined structure.

Who sees which projects: Org admins see all projects. Settings managers (even if they also have manage-projects or manage-tasks permissions) only see projects they created, are assigned on as manager or member, or have a task assignment on — not the whole organization.

Editing Projects

From the Projects list or a project’s view page, choose Edit to open the project edit page. There you can update details, people, status, dates, and manage multiple file attachments (add or remove). Saving returns you to the project view. The project header shows Managers (with PM / DM / Both badges) and Members. Scope still differs by Settings type: project managers cover their configured departments and shifts; department managers cover their department; people marked Both get a My team / All toggle on Tasks, Reports, and Timesheets (Team = department scope, All = project-manager departments and shifts). Assigned project managers can edit the project team; org admins with manage-projects permission can always edit.

Active and Completed tabs

The Projects list is split into Active and Completed tabs. Active shows every project that is not marked Complete; Completed shows only finished projects. When you add or edit a project, you can choose any status — including Complete — from the full status list. Search and filters (status, dates, favorites, and more) are available on both tabs and remembered separately for each tab, so switching tabs does not wipe the other tab’s filters. Use the Rows control to change how many projects appear per page.

Project Board

The Project Board is a Kanban-style view where you drag tasks between stages. It is the fastest way to see what is in progress and what needs attention.

Tasks

Under Project Management → Tasks, browse all tasks across projects in a compact list. Use the Rows control at the bottom of the list to show 10, 25, 50, or 100 tasks per page. Project managers and department managers see a scope hint (for example, “Showing your Development team”) and extra quick filters: In progress (timer running), Overdue, Pending approval, and My team. People configured as Both (and users with org-wide plus team roles) also get a My team / All toggle on Tasks. Everyone can use Open (not finished), My open (open tasks assigned to you), Due 7d, and Done. The employee filter on Tasks is limited to people on your managed projects or department team. Click a task title to open its view page (details, custom fields, comments, follow-ups, activity, timer, attachments, and time entries). Use Edit to open the full task edit page — stage, dates, priority, labels (including creating a new label), people, recurrence, custom fields, and multiple file attachments. Create new tasks with Add Task on the task list or from a project view — both open a dedicated create page (not a popup), including multiple file attachments and creating a new label when a project is selected. Editing an existing task always uses the edit page. Project members on a project can create tasks on that project (they must pick a task manager and are added as a member). They cannot edit, delete, or duplicate tasks, but they can change the stage of tasks where they are assigned as a member or task manager (from the task list or board). The Project Manager and assigned Department Managers can create, edit, delete, and duplicate tasks within their scope. Assigned task managers can also edit the task and assign members from the project team (including managers who need to do the work themselves). Typical flow: a project manager creates a task and assigns a manager → that manager edits the task and adds team members. Members and task managers work on tasks assigned to them and can start/stop timers on those tasks. Task lists, the board, project view, task detail, and Your Tasks on the dashboard show who created each task and when. When you save a task without a start or due date, a warning toast appears and the task is still saved. Each task supports:

Assignees, stage members, due dates, and estimated vs logged hours
Comments, follow-ups (view for members; add for task/project/department managers), activity history, and multiple file attachments
Built-in timer and time entries (visible when you can access timesheets)
Custom fields via column templates

Admins, project managers, and department managers can use Bulk follow-up on the Tasks list to pick a project, optionally filter by stage, select multiple tasks, and apply the same follow-up note to each selected task. Stakeholders on those tasks are notified the same way as a single follow-up.

Recurring tasks

When creating or editing a task, turn on Repeat this task automatically. Set the first repeat date, how often it repeats (for example every 1 week), and optionally when to stop.

Skip if assignee is unavailable — no task on holidays, approved leave, or shift-off days; the schedule moves to the next date.
Assign a different member each time — uses the task members you picked above, in order (Member A → Member B → Member A …). Add at least two members first. Use the arrows to change order if needed.

Timesheets

Employees log time under Project Management → Timesheets. The page is split into simple tabs: Entries, Pending, Completions, My requests, and Justified time. Use the search box next to the tabs to filter the current tab by employee, project, task, note, or submitter (depending on the tab).

Entries — approved / logged time with light filters (project, task, dates). Department and employee filters appear only for managers who can view team timesheets — members with view-only access see their own entries.
Pending — manager approve/reject queue for time requests (when you have requests waiting). Project managers see requests on their projects; department managers can approve or reject time for members of their department team on projects they manage, even when a project manager was selected as the named approver.
Completions — manager queue for tasks submitted for completion approval (oldest first, with wait time)
My requests — status of time you submitted
Justified time — compares complete task hours to check-in/out hours for Daily, Weekly, and Monthly

Each tab supports a Rows selector for how many items appear per page (entries, pending queue, completions, and your requests share the same setting).

Open Request time (or Add entry if you manage timesheets).
Choose the project, task, and approving manager when needed.
Enter start and end time (duration shows as hours:minutes:seconds), or type a duration, then submit.

You can also start a timer directly from a task to track time automatically — the running clock shows next to Stop while the timer is active. If you created the task yourself as a project member (not a project manager and without task-manage permission), you must select a project manager when starting the timer. When you stop that timer, the time is sent for approval (email + in-app notification) instead of being logged immediately. On tasks someone else assigned to you, the timer works as before — stop logs the time right away. The selected manager reviews pending requests on the Pending tab under Timesheets: approve adds the time to the timesheet; reject requires a reason that the employee sees on My requests. Creating a task does not need approval — only the spent time on member-created tasks does. Managers with pending time or completion requests also see a count badge on Project Management / Timesheets in the sidebar, plus a reminder toast about every two hours (remembered across page navigations; the previous reminder is replaced so they do not stack) until the queue is cleared. On the Justified time tab, employees see only their own progress; project managers see members on projects they manage; with All selected, admins see every active employee. If you manage a team and also have org-wide timesheet permissions, a My team / All toggle (same as Reports) appears so you can switch between team-scoped data and the full organization.

Task completion approval

A task cannot move to the completed (end) stage until it has logged time. Pending time requests do not count — only approved timesheet hours do. If a task still has pending time requests on the Timesheets Pending tab, managers cannot approve or complete the task until those requests are approved or rejected.

When a team member moves a task to Completed (from the task list, board, project view, or task edit), the task is submitted for manager approval instead of finishing immediately. The card or row shows Waiting for manager with how long it has been waiting.
Project managers, task managers, and department managers (and admins) review the queue under Project Management → Timesheets → Completions. Oldest submissions appear first; managers can still act on any row they are responsible for.
Click Start test to create a linked Test: task and automatically start your timer. Testing time is logged on that test task, not the original.
Click Stop test when finished. Approve or Reject then become available for the original task. The approval step shows your logged testing duration (read-only).
On approve, the original task moves to Completed and the test task is completed automatically. Work time plus testing time must be greater than zero.
Reject asks for a reason, keeps the original task in its current stage, and auto-completes the test task while keeping the logged testing time. The member sees that reason on the task (list, board, and task page) and can move the task to Completed again to resubmit.
If you are already a project manager or have task-manage permission, completing a task opens the same review step (testing hours + confirm) immediately instead of queuing for someone else.

Shift-start open tasks email

When an employee’s scheduled shift starts, NaviHR can email them a digest of their open tasks (tasks where they are a task member and the stage is not a completed/end stage). Each item includes the task name, current stage, and project name. If they have no open member tasks, no email is sent. Admins can enable or edit this under mail triggers as shift_start_open_tasks.

AI Workspace

The AI Workspace helps with project planning — breaking down work, suggesting tasks, and answering questions about your projects using AI.

Reports

Generate project and time reports under Project Management → Reports. Use Overview for totals and project progress, Tasks for the task breakdown, People for employee hours and overdue work, and Time for the timesheet ledger. Filters (dates, project, task status, employee, missing rates) apply to every tab. Use Reset to clear them. Export the current filters to Excel or PDF for client billing or internal analysis.

Who sees what: Members see only their own data. Project managers see projects and people on projects they manage. Department managers default to My team — their department’s employees and projects they manage as a department manager. Settings managers stay team-scoped even when they also have manage-projects permissions — only Spatie admin (and non–Settings-manager users with org-wide permissions) see the full organization. If you are a department manager and also have org-wide project or timesheet permissions without being limited as a Settings manager, a My team / All toggle appears on Reports and Timesheets so you can switch between team-scoped data and the full organization. Admins and users with manage project timesheets see everything with All as the default. Each tab supports paginated lists with a Rows selector (10–100 per page). Hourly rates and cost in Timesheets and Reports are visible only to users with the admin role.

Dashboard Integration

Open tasks assigned to you appear on the main Dashboard under Your Tasks (completed tasks are hidden). Click a task to open its dedicated page, or use View All to go to the full task list.