I understand conceptually the difference between Projects and Opportunities, but I'm curious if there's any real advantage in using the former. If I prefer to consolidate all my project records (past, present, and prospective) in one place, is there any reason I shouldn't use Opportunities to track past projects?

To put it another way: does a Project object have any capabilities that an Opportunity does not? Clearly the reverse is true (e.g. one can attach invoices to Opportunities).

I'm not understanding how best to use Projects and Opportunities, especially given the (bug?) that prevents them from being linked to each other. I would imagine that an Opportunity becomes one or more Projects, but without linking, there is no clear way to get from one to the other. Any tips?

Cooper

See the Create->New Project From Opportunity menu item; does that help?

quote:

Originally posted by Andy Warwick:
Cooper

See the Create->New Project From Opportunity menu item; does that help?

Hey, stop hijacking my thread! (Or at least, answer my original question before hijacking it.)

Sorry Michael

To ’kinda‘ answer your initial question, if you want to use Opportunities to track past projects, you go right ahead… it is, after all, your database.

Personally, I use Opportunities to track incoming queries that may or may not turn into billable work. Once a potential client has committed to buy a service off me (i.e. I have their deposit), I’ll convert the Opportunity into a project and track it there from that point on.

That way I can distinguish between things that raised real money (Projects) and things that cost me time, but with no pay-off (Opportunities).

A recent example was an Opportunity to quote for work on a FileMaker database, so I linked a bunch of potential freelancers and subcontractors to the Opportunity while I specced the thing, and got quotes in for elements outside my own skill set; once the Opportunity was given a green light, I transferred the details of the selected freelancer to the Project and carried on from there. That way, freelancers who didn’t get the gig didn’t clutter the links from the Project.

Make sense?

Oh, sure. I understand the conceptual difference between Projects and Opportunities. I was just wondering if there's any technical distinction between the two.

For example, Opportunities can have estimates attached to them (I use these as invoices), but Projects cannot. Is there any feature that Projects have that Opportunities don't?

To be honest I’m not sure; I’ll have to investigate…