🕰️ Est. Time: 10 minutes
🎯 Goal: Understand how Items can be used across Streamtime, as well as some tips & tricks
🔑 Requirements: An understanding of how Items work and access to edit Jobs
How can Master Items streamline my workflows?
Now that you have set up Master Items within Streamtime, you’re ready to streamline your workflows and see the benefits of your hard work - reducing admin time when building jobs, ensuring consistency in naming conventions - and even supporting your reporting workflows.
If you haven't gotten around to adding master items into your account just yet, not to worry - this article also covers tips, tricks, and one off items - but if you're looking to add your master items first, head here to get set up.
How do I add a Master Item into my Job?
Adding a Master Item into your job easy. To do so, follow the steps below:
Click New item in the Job Plan Section
Click in the Item name field to bring up the drop down menu with all your master items
Select your master item
Your master item will now be added to your job with its pricing method automatically applied. You can now assign time and the team to the item as normal.
Additionally, if you’re looking to add a Master Item to an already existing phase, follow the below steps:
Click the ➕ button to the left hand side of your already existing phase
Click Add Item
Search for your Master Item, or scroll to find the Item you’re looking for
Plan your item as normal
How can I handle one off Items?
We recognise that some of your items will be specific to a particular Job - and in that case, you probably won’t want to add them as a Master Item. Blank Items were designed for this purpose - allowing you to create an item that doesn’t exist within your Master Items list in a few clicks.
To add these to your job, follow either of the below workflows:
Adding a Blank Item to an already existing Phase
Click the ➕ button to the left hand side of your already existing phase
Click add blank item
Choose how you want to price your item (more on this here)
Name your item
Plan your item hours, rates and team as normal
Adding an Item to the last Phase/as the first Item within the Job
Click New Item in your Job plan
Name your item
Choose how you want to price your item
Plan your item hours, rates and team as normal
If you’re looking to create a new Master Item, head to the article here to find the steps to do so.
How do Items appear in the Job?
Within the job, your items will appear in the same format across the board. Below is an overview of each section of your Item, from left to right.
Expand your Item
Clicking this button will expand your item, allowing you to see the key details around the team members or roles assigned to the itemItem Name
This is where you will enter your item name, or search for your master item within the jobItem Dates
This is the timeline attached to your item - it will impact your teams resourcing in the schedule and availability module, and support your job scheduling. You can learn more about the availability feature here.Hours Logged / Hours Planned
This gives you an overview of any time your team has logged, compared against the time that is planned for the item within the job. You can learn more about creating a job here.Hourly Item Rate
This contains your hourly rate for the item, which is the cost to your client per hour for your teams time. Please bare in mind that this field will be empty if your item is priced by person, or if your item is fixed price and you’re tracking this against your team members usual sell rates. You can learn more on the different methods of tracking fixed price items here.Item Pricing Method
This contains your method of item pricing. You can learn more here.Non Billable Items
Any non billable items within the job will have a visual indicator within the item, as shown above.Logged Sell / Planned Sell
This shows the logged sell of your item, compared against the planned sell of your item - helping you keep track of how your job is going as you move through the project.
What are Item Statuses, and how are they helpful?
Understanding item statuses is a key aspect of the platform, that can help you gain key insights on profitability and support your workflows when things change, or a job is still in the pipeline.
You can learn more on item statuses and what they mean here.
To understand scheduling for paused items, check out the article here.
Duplicating, Deleting and Re-Ordering Items
There are a few things you can do with your items within your Streamtime job - you can see each workflow below.
Duplicating an Item
To duplicate an item within the job, follow the steps below.
Head to the right hand side of your item within the job
Click the three dot menu
Select ‘duplicate’
Deleting an Item
To delete an item within the job, follow the steps below.
Head to the right hand side of your item within the job
Click the three dot menu
Select ‘delete’
Confirm your decision
ℹ️ Please be aware that any deletions are permanent within Streamtime - once it’s deleted from your side, it’s also deleted from ours. Make sure you’re 100% sure you’re wanting to delete an item before you commit to this.
Reordering Items within the Job
There are two methods to reorder your item within the job. Both workflows are below.
Workflow One:
Head to the left hand side of the item within your job
When the hand icon appears, left click and drag your item
Once you’re happy with the positioning of this item, release your click
Workflow Two:
Select the reorder icon in the job
Within the list view, find the item you’re looking to reorder
Left click and drag your item
Once you’re happy with the positioning of the item, release your click
A note on Fixed Price Items
If you’re pricing your item as fixed price within the job, there are two options you can choose from.
Fixed Price - same rate for all logged hours
Streamtime will automatically calculate a blended rate for your team member hours within the job, based on the hours planned vs the fixed price of your item.
Fixed Price - tracked by team member sell rate
If you’d like to track your hours by the rates of the team members assigned to this, you can switch to tracking per team member within the job item.
You can learn more about fixed price item options by heading here.
What happens if I have multiple currencies in Streamtime?
If you have rate cards added to Streamtime in additional currencies, Streamtime will automatically automatically convert the rate of your items within the job using the same preferences set up when creating the rate card applied to the job.
To find out more about this, head here.
Seeing an overview of your item dates and job activity
You can view additional details on your items within the Dates and Activity panels in Streamtime.
To view your Dates overview
Head to the Dates section of your job page
Click the hamburger menu
Deselect all checkboxes other than items
To view your Job Activity
To view details on your jobs including who created items, amended dates, and made status updates against them, head to the Activity section, and deselect Posts and Comments. This will then show you a streamlined activity log for your job.
Supporting Articles