Project Management

Projects define how work is organized, billed, and controlled within Colabmacs.
Every booking, usage session, and charge occurs within a project context, making projects the primary unit for financial control, access enforcement, and reporting.

Projects are owned by teams and can be configured with budgets, expiration dates, and project-scoped roles that allow fine‑grained delegation without granting global permissions.

Overview

Projects are used to:

• Group work under a shared purpose or funding source
• Track usage and charges
• Enforce financial and time‑based limits
• Delegate responsibility using project user roles

Users may belong to multiple projects, but can only work in one active project at a time.

Tips

If your facility does not require multiple projects, you can create a single default project and use it universally.

Key Concepts

What a Project Represents

A project encapsulates:

• Resource bookings
• Usage sessions and usage records
• Generated charges
• Budget limits
• Expiration rules
• Project‑scoped permissions

Every usage record and charge is always associated with exactly one project.

Project Ownership

• Projects are owned by Teams
• Each team has a single Team Owner, who is financially responsible
• Project access is granted by team membership
• Project‑level responsibilities are delegated using project user roles

Project Types and Billing

Project Types

Project Types categorize projects and determine how billing is applied.

Visibility

Project types that have the visibility of Public will be visible for users to select when creating new projects from the frontend.

Each Project Type:

• Is associated with a Rate Group
• May require administrative approval
• Determines how usage is priced

Default examples include:

• Academic
• Industrial

Managing Project Types

Navigate to Resources → Project Types.

Each project type defines:

• Name and slug
• Approval requirement
• Associated rate group

Tips

Project Types allow you to apply different pricing models without reconfiguring resources.

Projects Dashboard

Navigate to Resources → Projects.

The projects dashboard provides:

• Visibility into active and pending projects
• Search and filtering tools
• Bulk management actions

Project States

State	Meaning
Active	Project is usable
Pending	Awaiting approval
Suspended	Automatically restricted
Inactive	Manually disabled

Budgets and Expiration Dates

Projects can be configured with financial and time‑based limits.

Project Budget

• Charges accumulate against the project budget
• Budgets are evaluated automatically
• Budgets can be updated at any time

Project Expiration Date

• After the expiration date, the project becomes suspended
• New bookings and usage are blocked
• Historical data remains visible

Automatic Project Suspension

Colabmacs runs scheduled background checks to enforce limits.

When suspended:

• ❌ New bookings are blocked
• ❌ Usage sessions cannot start
• ✅ Historical data remains visible

A project will automatically reactivate once limits are adjusted.

Project User Roles

Colabmacs supports project‑scoped roles, allowing permissions to be granted per project without affecting global access.

How Project Roles Work

• Roles are assigned to a project‑user relationship
• Only roles marked as public are selectable
• Permissions granted by the role are scoped to that project only
• System roles remain global and are not affected

Info

Although multiple roles are supported internally, the UI exposes a single role per project user to keep management simple.

Where Roles Are Managed

Project roles can be updated from either location:

• Projects → Project → Users
• Users → User → Projects

These controls appear alongside project‑user budgets and expiration dates.

Common Project Permissions

Permission	Effect
view projects	View project details
manage events	Create, update, and manage project events
manage usage sessions	Start and stop usage sessions
manage usage records	Edit usage records
manage charges	View and manage project charges
manage project users	Add, remove, and update members

Recommended Project Manager Role

A typical Project Manager role includes:

• manage usage records
• manage usage sessions
• manage charges
• manage events
• manage projects
• manage project users

This allows the project manager to:

• Start and stop sessions
• Manage bookings
• View usage and charges
• Maintain project membership and settings

Project Details View

The project detail page includes:

Charges Table

• Searchable and filterable
• Shows all charges associated with the project

Active Usage Sessions

• Displays currently running sessions
• Users with permission may end sessions in real time

Usage History

• Complete usage record visibility
• Preserved even when projects are suspended

Project Bookings & Session Control

Users with the appropriate project‑scoped permissions may:

• Start usage sessions from bookings created by other project members
• Manage project workflow centrally

Warning

The user starting a session must still pass all activation rules.
We strongly recommend aligning activation rules with booking‑time training requirements.

Automatic Project Suspension

Colabmacs runs daily automated checks to enforce project limits.

A project will be automatically suspended if:

• The project exceeds its configured budget
• The project passes its expiration date

Reactivation

A suspended project will be automatically reactivated on the next system check if:

• The expiration date is extended
• The budget is increased

No manual reactivation is required.

Project User Limits

Projects may also enforce limits at the individual user level.

A project user can be automatically made inactive if:

• They exceed an individual project budget
• Their project access expires

Inactive project users:

• Remain members of the team
• Retain historical usage and charges
• Cannot create new bookings under that project

Booking-Time Budget Enforcement

Colabmacs supports a booking rule that evaluates cost before a reservation is confirmed.

When enabled:

• The system estimates the charge for a booking at creation time
• If the booking would cause:
  • The project budget or
  • The project user budget
    to be exceeded, the booking is blocked

Tips

This prevents over-budget bookings before they occur, rather than correcting them after usage.

Best Practices

• Review and simplify project roles regularly
• Prefer project‑scoped roles over global roles
• Align booking and activation rules
• Monitor active sessions and charges
• Extend budgets and expiration dates proactively

Related Topics

• Teams
• Access Rules
• Usage Records
• Billing