🕰️ Est. Time: 15 minutes
🎯 Goal: Understand how to move Jobs of all stages into Streamtime in as little time as possible
🔑 Requirements: An understanding of how to build projects, key templates created in your Streamtime account, and access to the main Job building features
What are the benefits of moving my existing jobs into Streamtime?
Migrating Jobs from your old tool to Streamtime allows you to gain key insights for reporting, as well as allowing you to make Streamtime your single source of truth. Additionally, it allows your team to familiarise themselves with the product from day one, by logging time against existing projects - helping them to feel more confident day to day when you start to build out new projects.
This guide has been created to help you move across your jobs with as little stress as possible, with easy steps for each kind of Job to help you get set up for success!
This article is built using the key areas of our Migrating Jobs webinar, which you can find here.
The sections are time stamped making it easy to refer to, and each section also has step by step instructions, to ensure you have everything you need to move your Jobs into Streamtime successfully.
Key set up - what to do first
Ahead of moving your Jobs across to Streamtime, there are a few key elements we would suggest you set up to make the process hassle-free.
Creating key Items and Expenses
📹 Time Stamp: 2:26 - 5:00
Begin the process by setting up the Master Item and Expense you will be using when you create your Jobs - this will reduce admin time and help you to keep everything clear as you go through the process.
Create a Master Item
Create a Master Item
Start by heading to your Master Items - you should already be familiar with this area of the platform, but if you're not, you can head here to get acquainted.
1. Click create > Item
2. Set your Item name as 'Total Approved Budget at YYYYMMDD' (you can use whatever your preferred date setting is)
3. Set your pricing method to Fixed Price, and add a Description - we suggest: 'URL: <insert link to Previously Approved Quote from XYZ Tool>' for this
4. Save your Master Item
Create a Master Expense
Create a Master Expense
Next, head to the Expenses section - again, this should be familiar at this point - but if it's not, you can learn more here.
1. Click create > Expense
2. Set your Expense Name - we suggest using 'Time Spent to Date as at YYYYMMDD' for this (you can use whatever your preferred date setting is)
3. Set your Supplier to be your company - i.e., for Streamtime, this would be set as Streamtime - this helps if, for example, this is accidentally sent to your external accounting package - as your team will know that this is an internal expense.
4. Add your description - we suggest using the following format for this:
Total Time Spent to Date = XXhrs
Cost Rate = approx. $XX/hr
Total Cost = $XX,XXX
Sell Rate = approx. $XX/hr
Total Sell = $XX,XXX
URL: <insert link to Time Data Report from XYZ Tool>
5. Save your Master Expense
Creating Template Jobs
Template Jobs will also support these workflows, by allowing you to duplicate key templates for your projects, and minimising the admin time needed.
You can learn more on Template Jobs and how to create those here.
Once you have completed these key steps, you're ready to move on and start thinking about adding your projects into Streamtime!
Reporting - what do you need?
Before you start the process, have a think about what you need from your Jobs.
Do you need to report on hours logged across the project within Streamtime, including past and future time, or is it enough to have an overview of the cost and sell of previous time with the time Logged held elsewhere, and then to report going forwards on the hours logged across your Jobs?
Whatever you decide will influence how you handle adding Jobs into Streamtime, so have a chat with the team, and when you have a plan, move on to the next section.
Different types of Jobs and how to handle them
During this resource, we will cover three types of Jobs and support you in adding them into Streamtime:
Recently signed Jobs - Jobs you have just had approved, with little to no time logged in your previous tool
Mid project or earlier - Jobs you have logged some time against, but still have a lot of remaining hours to work through as a team
Almost completed Jobs - Jobs with a lot of hours logged in your previous tool, where you only have a few remaining hours left to work through across the team
Each Job type has its own section, so feel free to jump to whatever is most relevant to your current Job type, or read through each to learn about adding all your existing projects.
Adding your recently signed Jobs
Recently signed Jobs are our freshest Jobs - for these projects, you've probably only logged a few hours across the team. In this case, we're essentially going to build out our Job as if it were a new opportunity.
Start by choosing your workflow below, and then follow the steps.
Workflow One - Time as Expenses (where it's not important to track previously logged hours in Streamtime)
Workflow One - Time as Expenses (where it's not important to track previously logged hours in Streamtime)
📹 Time Stamp: 5:00 - 14:30
Duplicate the relevant Job Template & start to plan your Job
Used Fixed Price Items for your completed deliverables
Build out your In Play or upcoming Items
We suggest planning these Items either by Person (for items where the previous tool calculated your sell rate using your team member sell rate) or using Fixed Price Items by Role Rate (where the item sell price is fixed, but you would see the difference between the Fixed Price set, and the rate of your team member sell rate).
Learn more on Item Pricing here.
If planning by Person, set your item to Priced by Person Rate.
If planning as Fixed Price by Role Rate, set your Item to Fixed Price, and then switch this over to Role Rate pricing. The instructions on this are here. When using this pricing method, the indicator will also show you whether you're higher or lower than your team member sell rate, which is really helpful for understanding profitability.
Plan out your teams hours
This ensures the scope of your project is in line with your previous tool. You might not have worked out hours in your previous tool, but doing it this way sets you up to start building out Jobs in this way going forwards.
Create a Quote
Take the following steps:
1. Enter your Quote Number from your previous tool
2. Set the Issue Date (backdated to your original Issue Date)
3. Add a Label for ‘Migrated from XYZ Tool’
4. Link to existing Quote
5. Approve your Quote
Mark your Completed Items as Complete & set the Planned $$ for these to 0
Once you have created your Quote, you can now mark any already completed Items as Completed within the status, and set the Planned $$ to 0. This is going to help balance things out when we create our Expense.
Create your Master Expense
This Expense will now hold your time within the Job - so that you can easily keep track of the cost and sell of your previous time on the project.
Take the following steps when creating your Expense:
1. Set your Issue Date to the Time Spent Date (i.e. if you are tracking time in Streamtime from the 11th of February, your Expense date would be the 10th of February)
2. Add your Total Cost & Total Sell (this is the cost and sell of your time to date)
3. Summarise your Blended Rate and Time Data in the description
4. Link to Time Entry Data as needed (i.e. if you have a google sheet with your previous tools data, you can link that here)
5. Mark your expense as Approved
Workflow Two - Time Logged in Streamtime (where you would like to log previous time in Streamtime so that you can report on past time and future time in the system)
Workflow Two - Time Logged in Streamtime (where you would like to log previous time in Streamtime so that you can report on past time and future time in the system)
If you're looking to track time within Streamtime for reporting purposes, the below video covers this. You can also find the step by step instructions beneath this.
Duplicate the relevant Job Template & start to plan your Job
Build out your Completed Items
Build out your In Play or upcoming Items
We suggest planning these Items either by Person (for items where the previous tool calculated your sell rate using your team member sell rate) or using Fixed Price Items by Role Rate (where the item sell price is fixed, but you would see the difference between the Fixed Price set, and the rate of your team member sell rate).
Learn more on Item Pricing here.
Plan out your teams hours
This ensures the scope of your project is in line with your previous tool. You might not have worked out hours in your previous tool, but doing it this way sets you up to start building out Jobs in this way going forwards.
Plan out your Timeline
Create a Quote
Take the following steps:
1. Enter your Quote Number from your Previous Tool
2. Set the Issue Date (backdated to your original Issue Date)
3. Add a Label for ‘Migrated from XYZ Tool’
4. Link to existing Quote
5. Approve your Quote
Track your teams time for Completed Items
Head into the Schedule, and track your teams time in bulk for your project
Mark completed Items as Complete
Adding your Jobs that are mid project or earlier
These are your jobs that are straddling both systems. Maybe you've already raised your Draft Invoices, and they've been sent to your Accounting Package already.
Again, you have two choices here - you can either keep your relevant data for any Complete Items on file from your previous tool, or you can recreate this within Streamtime.
Workflow One - Time as Expenses (where it's not important to track previously logged hours in Streamtime)
Workflow One - Time as Expenses (where it's not important to track previously logged hours in Streamtime)
📹 Time Stamp: 14:35 - 21:10
Duplicate the relevant Job Template & start to plan your Job
Add Total Approved Budget Master Item
This is your total budget for all items within the previous system that have been completed.
Additionally, add your total planned sell of the completed items, and link to your existing Quote URL as needed.
Create a Quote using only your Total Approved Budget Master Item
Take the following steps:
1. Enter your Quote Number from your Previous Tool
2. Set the Issue Date (backdated to your original Issue Date)
3. Add a Label for ‘Migrated from XYZ Tool’
4. Link to existing Quote
5. Approve your Quote
Mark your Approved Budget Item as Nonbillable
Delete or Move your Completed Items
Decide what you would like to do with your completed items - do you want to keep them in the job for reference, or are you happy to delete these?
If keeping them, either mark them as completed and keep them where they are in the job, or mark them as completed and add them into a separate phase.
If deleting them, simply delete each item from the Job.Build out your In Play or upcoming Items
We suggest planning these Items either by Person (for items where the previous tool calculated your sell rate using your team member sell rate) or using Fixed Price Items by Role Rate (where the item sell price is fixed, but you would see the difference between the Fixed Price set, and the rate of your team member sell rate).
Learn more on Item Pricing here.
Create your Master Expense
This Expense will now hold your time within the Job - so that you can easily keep track of the cost and sell of your previous time on the project.
Take the following steps:
1. Set your Issue Date to the Time Spent Date (i.e. if you are tracking time in Streamtime from the 11th of February, your Expense date would be the 10th of February)
2. Add your Total Cost & Total Sell (this is the cost and sell of your time to date)
3. Summarise your Blended Rate and Time Data in the description
4. Link to Time Entry Data as needed (i.e. if you have a google sheet with your previous tools data, you can link that here)
5. Mark your expense as approved
Workflow Two - Time Logged in Streamtime (where you would like to log previous time in Streamtime so that you can report on past time and future time in the system)
Workflow Two - Time Logged in Streamtime (where you would like to log previous time in Streamtime so that you can report on past time and future time in the system)
If you're looking to track time within Streamtime for reporting purposes, the below video covers this. You can also find the step by step instructions beneath this.
Duplicate the relevant Job Template & start to plan your Job
Build out your Completed Items
Build out your In Play or upcoming Items
We suggest planning these Items either by Person (for items where the previous tool calculated your sell rate using your team member sell rate) or using Fixed Price Items by Role Rate (where the item sell price is fixed, but you would see the difference between the Fixed Price set, and the rate of your team member sell rate).
Learn more on Item Pricing here.
Plan out your teams hours
This ensures the scope of your project is in line with your previous tool. You might not have worked out hours in your previous tool, but doing it this way sets you up to start building out Jobs in this way going forwards.
Plan out your Timeline
Create a Quote
Take the following steps:
1. Enter your Quote Number from your Previous Tool
2. Set the Issue Date (backdated to your original Issue Date)
3. Add a Label for ‘Migrated from XYZ Tool’
4. Link to existing Quote
5. Approve your Quote
Track your teams time for Completed Items
Head into the Schedule, and track your teams time in bulk for your project
Mark completed Items as Complete
Adding your Jobs that are almost completed
These are the Jobs where we have a little bit of remaining Budget – and the real purpose of this Job is to ensure Team Members are able to quickly and easily log Time to these Jobs in the same way they would any other Job – from the To Do Screen, and to avoid them having to log Time in two different places.
This allows you to have a clean cut off from your previous tool, by logging time within Streamtime from a set date, and either adding previous time as an Expense with the time data kept elsewhere, or backdating your time in Streamtime and starting to log new time going forwards.
Workflow One - Time as Expenses (where it's not important to track previously logged hours in Streamtime)
Workflow One - Time as Expenses (where it's not important to track previously logged hours in Streamtime)
📹 Time Stamp: 21:15 - 27:00
Create a new Job
This Job will hold all of your data from across multiple jobs that are almost completed. This way, your team can track the remaining few hours in a really simple way.
Create Item within the Job
This Item will be used to hold all previous data from your previous tool for a single Job.
We suggest using Fixed Price tracked by Role for these Items. When it comes to formatting your Item, we suggest using the following format for this:
Item Name = [JOB000] Job Name – Company Name
Planned Sell = Remaining Budget
Description includes:
Total Budget = Budget on the previous Job
Used to Date = Sell Rate used to Date
Remaining as at (date) = Remaining Sell to be LoggedDuplicate for your additional Jobs
You will do this for each Job within your previous tool.
Assign your full team to all items within the Job
Delete team members from your Items as needed
Workflow Two - Time Logged in Streamtime (where you would like to log previous time in Streamtime so that you can report on past time and future time in the system)
Workflow Two - Time Logged in Streamtime (where you would like to log previous time in Streamtime so that you can report on past time and future time in the system)
If you're looking to track time within Streamtime for reporting purposes, the below video covers this. You can also find the step by step instructions beneath this.
Duplicate the relevant Job Template & start to plan your Job
Build out your Completed Items
Plan out your teams hours
This ensures the scope of your project is in line with your previous tool. You might not have worked out hours in your previous tool, but doing it this way sets you up to start building out Jobs in this way going forwards.
Plan out your Timeline
Create a Quote
Take the following steps:
1. Enter your Quote Number from your Previous Tool
2. Set the Issue Date (backdated to your original Issue Date)
3. Add a Label for ‘Migrated from XYZ Tool’
4. Link to existing Quote
5. Approve your Quote
Track your teams time for all Items
Head into the Schedule, and track your teams time in bulk for your project
Mark Job as Complete