From DotProjectWiki

The Company record is the central component of dotProject. In some cases, the term “Company” can be misleading as it is possible to use the company record to reflect internal departments, associate organisations, companies, community groups or any other “entity” under which you would like to group Projects, Users, Contacts and other dotProject Elements.

Once a company record has been established, it can have as many users, projects, contacts etc. associated with it as required. A contact, however, does not need to be associated with any company (it can just be an item on its own), whereas Projects and Users must be associated with a Company. You also need to keep in mind that whilst one Company can have many elements associated with it, each individual user and project can only belong to one company at a time.

You should also keep in mind that companies are mandatory - without them projects / users and all other elements of dotProject cannot be grouped.

Contents 1 Which Came First ... the User or the Company 2 The Companies Module 2.1 Company Type Tabs 2.2 Sortable Columns 2.3 Selecting a Company / Viewing Details 3 Detailed Company Display 4 Company Management 4.1 Creating a Company 4.2 Editing / Deleting a Company 5 Departments 5.1 Create a Department 5.2 Editing / Deleting a Department 6 To be Completed for this Page 7 Return to User Manual 8 Footnotes

1 Which Came First ... the User or the Company

When you go to add a user in dotProject, you will require a company entry for the user to be be recorded against. Company is a mandatory field.

When you create a company you need a company owner. This field is mandatory as well but it defaults to the name of the current user logged in. If this is a brand new installation then there is a strong chance this is the site administrator.

So which comes first, the company or the user? Others will undoubtedly have ways that they achieve this, but we:

• Login as the default standard admin login, create the company that "owns" the dotProject installation as a first step
• Then create a standard Project Manager login and give that login Administration rights.
• Login as that Project Manager, create the necessary company and users associated with those companies from there.

You do not need to have a special Project Manager login, but we prefer to keep the admin user of dotProject totally separate from any operational usage.

If we need a company that is owned by a user that has not yet generated we leave the company owned by the original creator until such time as the user's are generated and given roles, then change the ownership of the company as required.

2 The Companies Module

The Companies^[1] Module is used to manage all company records.

You'll also notice in the top right hand side of the module header The User Interface#Module Headers there is a box labelled Owner Filter - this filter is automatically set to the person who is logged in. It means that the only company records shown are those that belong to this user. ^[2]

There is also a search function included here which will search within the module for any string that you enter. To clear the search results, clear the search box and search again for nothing.

2.1 Company Type Tabs

When you access the Companies Module, you'll notice, that as per standard dotProject layout, this screen is divided into tabs - based on Company Type. Companies are then sorted into those tabs to make listing them easy / quick. You can modify the terminology used in these tabs if required - please refer to Configuration#Company Type

2.2 Sortable Columns

The company listing is broken down into specific columns of information which are very self-explanatory so we won't go into detail here. You can click on those column headings to change the sort from ASCENDING to DESCENDING (toggles between the two orders).^[3]

2.3 Selecting a Company / Viewing Details

To display the details of any company in your listing, click on the company name and dotProject will take you straight to the detailed company display.

3 Detailed Company Display

The detailed company displays shows all the information recorded for a particular company record.

The display is broken into two sections down the screen - the header showing the Details and Description of the company and then the Tabs listed at the bottom of the screen.

Active Projects	Lists all of the projects associated with this particular company.
Archived Projects	Lists all of the archived (active flag turned off) projects that belong to this particular company.
Departments	Lists all of the departments that have been generated for this company.
Users	Lists all of the users who are associated with this Company.
Contacts	Lists all of the Contacts associated with this Company.
Files	Lists all of the files that have been associated with the Company.

As with all displays, wherever practical there are links directly to the listed elements, for example, if you click on any of the project names in either of the Project Tabs then the Project Detail Screen will be displayed showing that project.

4 Company Management

4.1 Creating a Company

A company record can be created from:

• - new item - > Company^[4]
• Companies Module > new company button on the top right

All of the fields on the Company Creation screen are self-explanatory with the exception of the URL – this is used to record a relevant web address for the company you are generating. It may be their home website address, an internal link to your ERP/CRM system or similar reference point.

You will also notice that the Company Owner field is automatically set to the person who is creating the entry. You can change that to any other dotProject user if you wish.

4.2 Editing / Deleting a Company

You can edit the details of any existing company record by choosing the Company and Displaying the Company Details. There is an option in the breadcrumbs on the right hand side of the Company Detail screen: edit this company. Select that option and you will be taken straight into the edit screen.

If you wish to delete the company record you have displayed, go into edit and on the right hand side of the screen there will be a delete option.^[5]

5 Departments

Departments are a sub-set of a company. You can use them to further breakdown groupings of users etc. Historically departments were separate from the companies module - and had a "menu option" of their own. That menu option is still in 2.1.1 and will remain as is in the 2.1 branch because of this historical requirement. Please do not enable the tab as it doesn't provide any functionality anymore.

5.1 Create a Department

Departments are sub-sets of Companies which can be used to further group projects, users etc. The only catch with the use of departments is that as of dotProject 2.0.2 there is no way that you can control access to elements down to departmental level as you can with Companies. You will also notice that the ability to filter at the departmental level is minimal at present, as is reporting / and general targeting of information at the department level. No changes in this area are planned until 3.x is well underway. If, however, you want to create a department against a company you can use the new department link on the Department tab in the Company Detail display. This will then allow you to create a department.

You can actually group departments under departments as per the Parent link on this screen if you want to.

5.2 Editing / Deleting a Department

As with all other dotProject options, to edit a department, find the department name under the relevant company, click on the name to take you to the main departmental screen and you will have a breadcrumb option to : edit this department

Deleting is done via edit department screen with the same proviso as for companies – if you have any elements attached to a department you will not be able to delete it.

6 To be Completed for this Page

Sort out links
Glossary links

7 Return to User Manual

...back to User Manual - Companies, Departments and Contacts

8 Footnotes

1. ? Don't want to use the term "Company" - see FAQ#Don't Use Term "Companies" - want to use "Partners"
2. ? Keep an eye on your filter settings throughout dotProject. It is the most common cause for people thinking that data within their system has gone “missing”. The filter on companies for example, automatically sets to show only those companies that belong to the logged in user. There could be lots of other entries that you will not see until you change your filter setting.
3. ? Sort order are not retained for when you next login.
4. ? The User Interface#New Item Box
5. ? You can only delete a company if there are no other dotProject elements associated with it. This includes Active or Archived Projects, users, contacts, departments and so on. If there are any associated elements then the delete company option may not even be displayed.