Purpose
This article explains how Reporting Projects in Damstra Forms allow users to report activities from multiple projects within a single form using shared WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) items. This is especially useful for timesheet reporting and cross-project activity tracking.

What is a Reporting Project?
A Reporting Project enables users to select WBS items from other projects when completing forms. This functionality is ideal for users who work across multiple projects and need to log time or activities in one central location.

For example, a user working on both the “Promenade” and “Edu” projects can record time spent on Surfacing and Advanced Training in a single timesheet form within the “Timesheets” Reporting Project.

How WBS items work in Reporting Projects

• WBS items define activities within a project.
• Normally, WBS items are only available within their own project.
• Reporting Projects inherit WBS items from all other projects, allowing users to select both the project and the activity from dropdown lists.

Example

• Edu Project: Induction, Training
• Promenade Project: Levelling, Compacting, Surfacing
• Timesheets Project (Reporting Project): Inherits all WBS items above

A user can record:

Availability and requirements

• Released: 15 December 2017
• Minimum mobile app versions:
  • Android: 1.8.0
  • iOS: 5.15.0
  • Windows 10: 1.12.6

If your server version predates this release, contact APE Mobile Support to enable the functionality.

Create a Reporting Project

1. Go to Admin Menu > Project.
2. Click Create New Project.
3. Select the Reporting Project option.

⚠️ You cannot convert an existing project into a Reporting Project. If the option is unavailable, contact APE Mobile Support.

How WBS items appear in Reporting Projects

• Number format: ProjectNumber.WBSnumber
• Name: Matches the original WBS item name
• User experience:
  • Users select a project first, then choose a WBS item.
  • On mobile apps, users must subscribe to a project to access its WBS items.
  • Users can subscribe on the fly by clicking the cloud icon next to the project name.

Templates and WBS controls

• Every form template includes a WBS system field.
• Template admins can add Custom WBS controls by creating a List field and setting its type to WBS Item.

Use formulas with WBS data
You can extract WBS attributes using formulas:

• name
• number
• number_name
• path

How WBS updates affect forms

• Dropdown list updates: Reporting Projects automatically reflect changes to WBS items.
• Mobile apps: Updates appear after the next sync. Unsubscribed users won’t see changes.
• System WBS fields: Automatically update in forms and registers. PDFs must be regenerated to reflect changes.
• Custom WBS fields: Do not update automatically. They retain the original selection snapshot.

Projects that inherit WBS Items from other projects, which allows reporting of activities across multiple projects, e.g. for timesheets.

Reporting Projects use WBS in a special way to allow reporting of activities from different projects within a single form.

A common scenario is users working on different projects who need to complete timesheets about the time they spent on activities in those projects. A Reporting Project is a good general place to have such a form, outside of the particular projects.

The types of Activities in projects can be stored as WBS items and thus be available for users to select through dropdown custom WBS lists. WBS items are usually available only within the project to which they belong, except that Reporting projects get their WBS items from all other projects. That is their special behaviour. When a user is filling-out a form in a Reporting Project then WBS dropdown lists allow them to choose a project and a WBS item from within it.

Example

Project “Edu” has WBS items for activities: Induction and Training of different types.

Project “Promenade” has WBS items for activities: Levelling, Compacting, and Surfacing.

Project “Timesheets” is a Reporting project, and thus receives its WBS items from other projects:

A user might work on project “Promenade” and later attend some training. To show where they spent their time, they could go into a timesheet form in the “Timesheets” project and record:

Activity                                                       Start time       End time       Time (hours)
“Promenade” => Surfacing (2160.3)              8am               12pm                4
“Edu” => Training => Advanced (2000.2.3)   1pm              4:30pm            3.5

Availability

Reporting Project functionality was released on 15th/December/2017. If your APE Mobile server is older than that then the functionality might not yet be switched on. That is to prevent it from being used with old versions of the mobile apps that don’t recognise the functionality. You can ask APE Mobile Support to switch it on.

Minimum Mobile App Versions

The minimum versions requirements for the mobile apps are:

Operating System      Minimum Version of App
Android                        1.8.0
iOS                               5.15.0
Windows 10                 1.12.6 

Creating a Reporting Project

To make a reporting project, click Admin Menu --> Project menu item -->  create a new project and select the option “Reporting Project”.

If you don’t see the option then ask APE Mobile support to turn that functionality on for your site, as per the “Availability” section above.

Note: Existing projects cannot be converted into reporting projects.

Reporting Projects’ WBS Items

Reporting Projects’ WBS Item Numbers appear as ProjectNumber.WBSnumber.
Their Name is the same as the name in the regular project.

Users’ perspective

When a user is filling out a form in a reporting project and they click or press on a WBS dropdown list, they first choose a project and then a WBS item from inside it. The form displays the full path, showing the full hierarchy (in cases where there are multiple levels of WBS).

If they are using a mobile app, rather than the web app, then it only knows the WBS items from projects that the user has subscribed to (and thus downloaded). However, if the user wishes to select items from a project that they haven’t subscribed to then they can subscribe to it ‘on the fly’ (without leaving the form) by clicking the cloud symbol next to the project name.

Templates

WBS dropdown control types

A WBS system field is present in every form template.

A template administrator can add additional WBS controls by adding a List type field and then setting the type to WBS Item. They are called “Custom WBS”  controls.

Formulas and WBS data

Formulas can be used to extract different components of the selected WBS item by referencing an attribute of the WBS field: name, number, number_name, and path.

WBS item updating

Dropdown list items

If WBS items are changed in projects then Reporting Projects automatically alter the selection of WBS Items that are offered to users.

Changes reach mobile app users when they next synchronise with the server. If a mobile app user unsubscribes from a project though then they won’t see its WBS item changes.

Changes to existing WBS Data

WBS Item changes affect the data in previously-completed forms differently depending on whether the data is in the WBS system field or a custom WBS field, as follows:

WBS system field

WBS system fields’ data gets automatically updated (just like the dropdown list choices). That shows when the form’s details are viewed, and when it is being edited, and also in registers (like the form register) where is affects filtering. The data change won’t appear in an existing form’s PDF though until it is regenerated.

Custom WBS field

Custom WBS fields’ data does not get automatically changed. It holds a snapshot of what the WBS Item number and name were at the time that the user selected it.