Projects

New Project

You can start a new project in Oberon from any page by clicking the " + " symbol located at the top of the application, as seen below.

Additionally, from the Projects tab, there is a dedicated button at the top of the Chessboard page for creating a new project.

AI-Assisted Project Creation from Documents

Oberon now features an AI agent that can read statements of work (SOW) and automatically build the project structure, roles, and skills requirements. The AI can also identify financial cost elements and rate requirements, saving significant time in project setup.

Project Details

The first page of the New Project process is to set the parameters of the project. Fill in the basic information about your project:

• Project title: Give your project a unique name
• Description: Add context so people assigned to the project understand its purpose
• Tags: Create tags to make searching for projects or reporting simpler as your project database grows
• Date range: Set the project start and end dates
• Contract type: Select either "Time and Material" or "Fixed budget"
• Defined budget: For fixed budget projects, enter the total budget amount

Project Structure

If your project has multiple phases, you can add them to better structure your project and allocations. This helps organize resources across different project stages.

Creating Project Allocations

Oberon provides two ways to create project allocations:

AI-Assisted Allocation Creation

In addition to the SOW AI assistant, Oberon also provides an AI assistant for creating project allocations. This assistant can read natural language queries and automatically generate the required allocations with appropriate skills.

To use the AI assistant: 1. Navigate to the "Create allocations" section 2. Type a natural language query describing your needs (e.g., "I need 3 expert spring developers and 1 senior UX designer") 3. The AI will automatically generate the required allocations with appropriate skills 4. Fill in additional details like FTE percentage and billing rates

Manual Allocation Creation

You can also create allocations manually by clicking the "Add allocation manually" button and specifying: - Role title - Required skills - Seniority level - Time commitment (FTE percentage) - Project phases - External billing rate

Setting Skills Requirements

For each allocation, define the specific skills required: 1. Search for and select relevant skills from the skills library 2. Set minimum proficiency levels for each skill 3. Add as many skills as needed to find the right match

Matching and Assigning Resources

Once you've defined your allocations and their skill requirements, Oberon will help you find the best matches from your available resources. The system categorizes candidates as:

• Fully available: Resources with complete availability during the project timeframe
• Partly available: Resources with partial availability or scheduling conflicts
• Not available: Resources who are fully committed to other projects

For each candidate, you can see: - Skill match indicators (green checkmarks for matching skills) - Cost information - Availability details - Special highlights like "Best skilled" or "Best economics"

Select the most appropriate candidate for each role and click "Save changes" to complete your project setup.

Next, we want to establish the type of project this is - fixed budget or time and material. In the case of a fixed budget project, the total project revenue is set ahead of time and you can see if you are on or off on your target for assigned work in the allocation process. In the case of time and material projects, the revenue target is simply a summary of the allocated project resource costs.

The next step is to assign managerial roles to the project. The most important role is the Project Manager, as this will allow the project to be managed by this person. Other roles can be assigned if needed, including the client manager.