There’s nothing quite like the magic of starting a new project. You’re mapping out the future. The possibilities are endless.
Inevitably, though, every project is confronted by cold, hard numbers: deadlines, budgets, contracts, costs. Often these numbers raise questions about the health of your business that can’t be ignored. How long is a project taking to complete? Will it be done on time? Are you making a profit?
That’s where Harvest comes in. Harvest helps your team track time and then turn that data into insightful reports that shine a light on your projects.
You can track time right from your Trello cards using the Harvest Power-Up. Here’s how:
Setting Up The Harvest Power-Up
Set up the Harvest Power-Up by hitting the Show Menu button on a Trello board if the sidebar menu is not already open. Select Power-Ups, scroll down until you see the orange Harvest logo, hit Enable, and you’re good to go!
If you’re not a Harvest customer you’ll have to create a Harvest account. Don’t worry, there’s a thirty-day free trial, so you can see how well your team likes it before you commit.
Using The Harvest Power-Up
Once the Power-Up’s enabled, then the real magic begins.
Your team can now track time to specific projects and tasks directly from Trello cards. This makes it so easy there’s no excuse for not tracking time.
Not only can you track time, but you can see at a glance how much time has been tracked to each individual card and the board as a whole.
If you click Attach Time Report on a card you can get even more detailed information about the work that has gone into that card. It will pull in data from Harvest so you can see who’s worked on that card and for how long.
Unlocking The Power Of Time Tracking
Easy time tracking is great, but how does it get you closer to answering those big questions about the state of your projects and the health of your business? That’s where the Harvest web app comes in.
The time you track from your Trello cards gets pulled into Harvest as time entries, which include links back to the Trello card where the time was tracked. This makes it easy for project managers to see exactly where the team is spending their time.
All this data then gets pulled into reports that answer those big questions about your business.
Harvest lets you see exactly how much time has been tracked to a particular project and it breaks that time into billable and non-billable hours. You can even drill down into how much time has been spent on each individual task and how much time each individual person has worked. If there are any bottlenecks, you can see exactly what the problem is.
You can also set a budget and see how much of it has been eaten up by work (or by how much you’ve gone over). Harvest will even keep track of your costs and how much money you need to invoice your clients for. When it’s time to send an invoice, you can do it right from Harvest.
All this information makes Trello an even more effective project management tool because you can see the hard numbers behind every card and every board. If you want to improve the efficiency of your projects or figure out what type of projects are most profitable for you to take on, Harvest is an indispensable addition to Trello.
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