# Projects, activities and project leads

> Who creates projects and activities, what a project lead can do, and how to keep a project to its own people

Who sets projects up, who runs them, and who can log time to them.

## How projects work

A project holds **activities** (named buckets such as "Code review", plus the **General time**
bucket every project has) and **people**, each a **Member** or a **Lead**. Admins manage every
project; a lead manages the projects they lead.

## The Projects page

**Time tracking → Projects** (it used to sit under **Settings**; old links redirect) shows each
person a different list:

- **Admins** see every project, with search, **Lead**, **Issue source** and **Status** filters,
  each project's activity count, and a **Project rules** link to the workspace settings.
- **Managers** see the same list, opening on **Led by you**.
- **Everyone else** sees **Your projects**: the projects they are on, the ones they lead first.

Each row opens the project's own page, so you can open it in a new tab, bookmark it or paste its
link to a colleague (older links to a project still open it). The row's menu
goes straight to its **People** or **Activities**.

**New project** appears for whoever the workspace lets create projects. It asks for a name, and
optionally a code, a colour and a project to copy activities from (**Copy activities from a
project…**). Creating it opens the new project on **Activities**. If the copy fails, the project
is still created: use **Copy from project…** there to try again.

## A project's page

A project's page has the tabs **Details**, **Activities**, **People** and, for some people,
**Time**:

- **Details** is where the project is edited, in place. Whoever may edit it changes the fields and
  then picks **Save changes** (or **Discard**). Leaving the page or the tab with unsaved changes
  asks first. Everyone else sees the same details as text.
- **Activities** and **People** are described below.
- **Time** shows the project's hours by activity or person over the last 4 or 13 weeks, with
  **Export CSV**. Admins, managers and the project's leads see it; a manager who does not lead the
  project sees only the people they manage.

**Make default**, **Archive project** and **Reactivate project** are in the **...** menu beside the
project's name, shown only to the people who may use them. The way back to the list is the
**Projects** link above the name.

## What a lead can do

On a project they lead, a lead can:

- edit its name, code, colour and description on **Details**, and archive or reactivate it;
- add, rename, archive and reactivate activities, or **Copy from project…** another project's;
- add people as **Member** or **Lead**, change their role, and remove them;
- choose **Who can log time** and link teams (below);
- see everyone's hours on the project on its **Time** tab.

Only an admin makes a project the workspace default, sets its issue tracker or default time
category, or sets an activity's category; a lead sees those on **Details** as text. Admins name a project's first lead; a manager who
creates a project leads it. Once a project has an active lead, only an admin can remove or demote
the last one.

## Workspace rules

**Settings → Time tracking → Projects and activities** (admin only) holds two settings, each
applied as soon as it is picked:

- **Who can create projects**: **Admins**, or **Admins and managers** (the default). Managers
  means people with the Manager role.
- **Who can add activities**: **Admins and project leads** (the default), **Admins, leads and
  project members**, or **Anyone who can log to the project**.

Whoever may add activities can also do it from the time picker (**Create activity**); anyone
else is told who leads the project, or to ask a workspace admin.

## Members-only projects

On the **People** tab, **Who can log time** is **Everyone** (the default) or **Only its people and
teams**. A members-only project takes new time only from its members and leads and from everyone in
a team linked under **Teams**. Below the Manager role nobody else sees it; managers and admins see
it but cannot log new time there unless they are on it. Someone taken off it keeps their entries
and can still lower or clear them. The workspace default project always stays open to everyone.

## Worked example

Northlake keeps the default rules. Marta, an admin, makes Tomasz a lead of "Platform v2". Tomasz
copies the activities of "Maintenance & support" into it, adds "Code review", and adds Aleksandra
as a member. Platform v2 is now the first project in Aleksandra's time picker. When she picks it
and types "Release notes", the picker tells her that Tomasz leads the project and can add
activities.

> [!AGENT]
> Make Aleksandra a lead of Platform v2 and add a "Release notes" activity to it.

## Related

- [Log your first week of time](/docs/time/quickstart/)
- [Connect Jira, GitHub, Linear or Asana](/docs/time/issue-trackers/)
- [Group and export time as reports](/docs/time/reports/)