How to Manage Projects with Horilla HRMS

Managing projects effectively is a key challenge for growing businesses. With distributed teams and multiple stakeholders, keeping everyone aligned and updated becomes essential. The Horilla Open Source HRMS application solves this challenge elegantly through its powerful and user-friendly Project App. Designed to streamline project oversight, assignment, tracking, and reporting, this module is ideal for HR and operations teams that need visibility into ongoing initiatives.

In this blog, we’ll explore how Horilla’s Project App works, how projects are structured, how employees can interact with assigned projects, & how organizations can manage data using filters, grouping, imports, & exports.

Project Creation and Structure

Creating a new project in Horilla’s Project App is designed to be fast, intuitive, and comprehensive. The Project Creation Form captures all essential details to ensure clarity, accountability, and smooth project execution from day one.

Here’s a breakdown of the key form fields:

• Title: A clear, descriptive name for the project. This helps in easy identification and quick filtering across the dashboard.
  
  
• Project Managers: One or more employees can be assigned to lead the project. This ensures shared responsibility and oversight across departments or teams.
  
  
• Project Members: Easily add team members involved in the execution. A searchable dropdown makes member assignment quick and scalable, even with a large employee list.
  
  
• Status: Choose from predefined project stages like New, In Progress, Completed, On Hold, Cancelled, or Expired. This provides instant visibility into the project’s lifecycle.
  
  
• Start Date & End Date: Define the timeline using user-friendly calendar pickers. Built-in validation ensures logical date sequences.
  
  
• Document Upload: Attach key project documents such as requirements, briefs, or planning sheets in various formats, keeping everything in one place.
  
  
• Description: A rich-text area where you can outline objectives, scope, deliverables, or special notes, formatted with lists, headings, and bold text for better readability.

This streamlined structure ensures every project begins with well-defined parameters, team roles, and goals, eliminating confusion and enabling better tracking throughout its lifecycle.

Interactive Views: Card and List Layouts

To accommodate different user preferences, the Project App supports two types of views:

• Card View: An intuitive and visual layout where each project appears as a card displaying its name, status, and dates. It’s great for a high-level overview.
  
  
• List View: A detailed tabular format showing all attributes like managers, members, and attached files. This view is best for bulk management and exporting.

These dynamic views ensure that employees and managers can interact with the data in a way that suits their workflow best.

Employee Access and Role-Based View

Only employees assigned as Project Managers or Project Members will see the projects in their dashboards. This role-based visibility ensures a clutter-free interface and secure data handling. When a manager logs in, they can view all projects they lead. Likewise, members can access relevant information, documents, and timelines of the projects they’re part of.

Smart Filtering and Grouping

To further enhance usability, Horilla allows:

• Filtering: Projects can be filtered based on the Is Active flag and Status. For example, a user can quickly view only “In Progress” or “Completed” projects using the filter buttons.

• Group By: Projects can be grouped by Status, Manager, or Start Date—helping users spot workload distribution and project pipeline bottlenecks.

These filtering and grouping features help HR teams, project leads, and employees focus on the most relevant data with minimal effort.

Import & Export Functionality

In large organizations, handling bulk data is inevitable. Horilla’s Project App supports:

• Importing Projects: Use predefined templates to upload multiple projects at once, saving time during onboarding or migration from other tools.
  
  
• Exporting Data: Easily export project records for reporting, audits, or backups in the commonly used Excel format.

This makes the module not only powerful but also extremely scalable.

Practical Use Cases

1. HR Department: Can assign training, hiring drives, or performance review projects to specific managers and employees.
   
   
2. IT Teams: Can track internal system upgrades or software deployment timelines.
   
   
3. Marketing Teams: Can plan and monitor campaigns, events, and product launches.
   
   
4. Admin Teams: Can schedule office renovations, relocations, and procurement projects with timelines and assigned members.

Conclusion

The Project App in Horilla Open Source HRMS combines clarity, flexibility, and simplicity. With its intuitive design, robust data model, and thoughtful features like card/list view toggles, smart filters, group-by tools, and import/export support, it becomes a powerful tool for managing business operations seamlessly.

Whether you’re leading a team, working on a task, or overseeing HR operations, Horilla ensures that every project stays visible, accountable, and on track.