Mavenlink Processes

Learn about the GitLab Professional Services operations processes and workflows.

Mavenlink is our current PSA, follow the link below to view process steps and guidelines.

All other processes that relate to professional services operations can be found on the this page.

To log into Mavenlink, you will need to access GitLab’s Okta account.

  • Confirm access has been given to Mavenlink and Okta

  • Click on Mavenlink inside Okta

mavenlinkokta

  • Verify email
  • Enter password
  • click “Sign On with Okta”

verification1

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verification3

verification4

You should now be in Mavenlink, Enjoy!

With Guest Access, members can view information about a project without joining. Mavenlink members would have the same access as their permission set without being a project participant. However, they cannot comment, make changes, or interact with a project in any way. This is useful for managers or administrators who want to view project information and check progress without being seen. Although similar, here are some differences between members with View Only project access and those with Guest Access:

  • Members with View Only access appear as allocatable project resources. With Guest Access, members can view project information without appearing as an option to be scheduled or allocated on a project.
  • Since they are not official project participants, guest viewers won’t appear on the project as either the Provider or Client.
  • Guests are not tied to Account-level permissions; therefore, if a member has Collaborator account permissions and is assigned Guest Access at the Project Financials level, this member will have Project Financials view-only access.
  • Instead of using the API or manually assigning View Only access to one team member at a time, Access Groups allows you to assign Guest Access in bulk. Note: Members cannot be invited to a project as a guest viewer, they must be assigned Guest Access using Access Groups.
  • A yellow notification banner at the top-right of the project indicates you are Viewing as Guest.

To view projects as Read only/ Guest:

  • Members can find projects for which they have Guest Access by going to the Project List tab in Projects and selecting Guest Projects from the Show drop-down menu. Note that team members cannot have Guest Access on projects for which they’re participating.

Read Only

Read Only 2

  • From the Dashboard, click on Edit Profile

User Profile

  • Update the profile information along with a photo and hit save

Account Configuration

  • When you first enter Mavenlink, these are the items to review and update
  • Update your profile
  • Configure your email settings and notification preference
  • Set your preferred default login screen

Daily Activities

  • On a daily basis, you will do the following:
  • Review Project Task Tracker
  • Post messages, updates and files for project communication
  • Track time
  • Create,Log and submit expenses (Navan)

Weekly

  • To ensure everything is up to date, review and/or update these items on a weekly basis.
  • Review and submit your timesheet

Project Close

  • These are the items to complete prior to close out your Project
  • Ensure all your tasks are marked complete
  • Confirm all time has been tracked in your timesheet
  • Confirm all expenses have been logged and submitted

Account Configuration

  • When you first enter Mavenlink, these are the items to review and update:
  • Update your profile
  • Configure your email settings and notification preference
  • Configure your default Project List view
  • Configure your default Global Task Tracker view
  • Set your preferred default login screen

Project Assignment

  • When project is assigned, review the SOW along with the project details in Mavenlink to be sure there is an understanding of the project technical and financial details
  • SOW
  • Task Tracker
  • Budget
  • Custom Fields
  • Billing & Revenue Rules
  • Master Planning- Project Schedule
  • Project Status
  • Work through project set up:
    • Project Definition
    • Project Kick Off Deck
    • Project Folder
    • Project Internal Agenda
    • Slack Channels

Weekly- completed by EOD each Thursday

  • To ensure everything is up to date, review and/or update these items on a weekly basis:
  • Review and approve time sheets each Monday morning, approvals should be done by noon each Monday
  • Review project status and be sure it is up to date
    • Prospect- PC is setting up Mavenlink project/ Project is at a Stage 5- start reviewing staffing plan
    • In Set Up- PC is setting up Mavenlink project/ Reviewing Staffing/ Welcome to PS Email
    • Okay to Start- Project setup complete/ PM Planning the project
    • Active- PM/ PSE Actively working the project
    • Closed- Project work is complete, waiting for billing and revenue to be complete
    • Completed- Billing and Revenue is complete
    • On Hold- Project is delayed
    • Backlog- No work is planned
    • Cancelled- Project Created but will not be worked for various reasons
  • Project Schedules- Master Planning, submitting updates
  • Project Health Status
  • Reviewing Forecast
  • Project touch base call (if applies)
    • Could be internal call and/or customer call depending on project
  • Project Definition/ Issue Tracking/Customer Updates

Project Close

  • These are the items to complete prior to closing out a Project:
  • Ensure all your tasks are marked complete
  • Confirm all time has been tracked in your timesheet
  • Confirm all expenses have been logged and submitted

Regional Holidays and Family and Friends Days

Regional holidays and Family and Friends days are included in Mavenlink on each members calendar, followed by the time off process. Since the days are included in the calendar there is no need to submit the time in the Mavenlink PTO feature or the users time sheet. When logging into the time sheet, the required work week is shown on the time sheet entry.

TimeOff

GitLab’s company policy to submit time off is through Workday, and followed by this handbook process. In the Professional Services group, we also require time off to be submitted to Mavenlink:

Benefits of having time off in Mavenlink

  • Time is includes on our Master Planning scheduling calendar
  • This allows the PC and project managers to plan customer project around time off
  • Ensures there is no conflicting customer project schedules

Process:

  • When time-off is submitted to Workday, time-off is required to be submitted in Mavenlink as well.
  • Review the Master Planning to be sure a project is not already scheduled during the desired time off
  • If project time is scheduled, review with the Project Coordinator if the project time could be moved or come to a mutual agreement for the requested time off

Time off would be submitted from the Dashboard, by clicking on the profile picture:

  • GO to “Your Dashboard”
  • Click on “Your Profile Picture”
  • Right hand profile will pop up, there is a section for Upcoming Time Off
  • Click on the plus sign to add time off

Time off cancellation

  • GO to “Your Dashboard”
  • Click on “Your Profile Picture”
  • Right hand profile will pop up, there is a section for Upcoming Time Off
  • Click on the plus sign select the date and update the hours to “0”

PTOFeature2

Mavenlink Time Tracking- Time Sheets

tmesheets

timesheetoptions

Overview

With Mavenlink’s time approval functionality, members with Project Lead account permissions (or higher) can access the Time Approvals page where they can view and manage time for all projects in which they have Financials permissions (or higher).

The Time Approvals page allows you to view Submitted, Unsubmitted, and Rejected time entries from tabs with the corresponding names. Depending on the state of the submission, you can view the timesheet, private message a user who submitted time, and either approve or reject the time entry. You can also directly message those who still need to submit time, reminding them to do so.

If you have Report Viewer account permissions (or higher)—or have been designated as a Time Approver for an individual member or project—you’ll see the Your Approvals check box. You can select this checkbox to only see the time that you’re responsible for approving; otherwise, deselect it to review and take action on all submissions.

Members that do not have account permission of Report Viewer (or higher) will only be able to approve time in the project’s Activity Feed.

Time Sheet Approvers

Project Type Time Sheet Approver Backup
Consulting Projects Project Manager Project Coordinator / Operations Analyst
Project Manager Hours Arthur Foltz (EMEA PM’s), Dani Arman (NA PM’s) Project Coordinator / Operations Analyst
Non Creditable Projects Arthur Foltz (EMEA PM’s), Dani Arman (NA PM’s), Glen Miller (PSE’s), Kevin Vogt (TA’s), Sean Sandoval (Trainers) Project Coordinator / Operations Analyst
Training Projects Training Coordinator Operations Analyst

Weekly Time Sheet Timelines

Time Sheet Submission Time Sheet Approvals
Each Friday, EOD Each Monday by 1 PM EST

Billing Period Time Sheet Timelines

Time Sheet Submission Time Sheet Approvals
Wednesday by 5 PM Thursday by 1 PM ET

Project Notes

  • Notes are required for all Non Creditable time entries
  • If the notes section is blank, reject the time sheet asking for project notes

There are 3 ways to approve timesheets via Mavenlink:

  • Mavenlink email
  • Mavenlink Time Sheet Approvals
  • Mavenlink project activity feed

Method 1- Mavenlink email

  • Automated Mavenlink time sheet approval email received when time sheet is submitted

emailapproval

  • Click on the view the timesheet link to review the timesheet.
  • Click the Approve button to approve the timesheet or the Reject button to reject the timesheet. Enter notes if you are rejecting the timesheet.

Method 2- Mavenlink Time Sheet Approvals

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Method 3- Mavenlink project activity feed

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When SFDC Opportunities reach a stage 5 status, there is a push to Mavenlink which creates the project.

There are steps to follow to update the Mavenlink project:

Responsible Role: PC

Prospect Projects
  1. Review project opportunity and documentation.
    • PS Project- SOW
    • Training Project- Order Form or SOW if custom training purchased
  2. Update the project status to Prospect.
  3. Add the PS Operations Manager to the Mavenlink project.
  4. Reassign the Mavenlink project lead to the assigned Project Coordinator.
  5. Ensure that no dates are entered in the Task Tracker to prevent the project from being added to the forecast.
Closed, Won Projects

Once the PS Opportunity is closed/ won, a notification is sent from SFDC.

  1. Review project opportunity and documentation

    • PS Project- SOW
    • Training Project- Order Form or SOW if custom training purchased

  2. Update the project status to In Set Up

  3. Review project settings:

    • Delete out the Start and End Date
    • Update project color
    • Update the project budget to match the budget of the opportunity, SOW or Order Form
    • Uncheck the include expenses box
    • Target Margin should be 40%
    • Update Rate Card
    • Update task billing mode
    • Update task default
    • Review Organization to be sure it is set to GitLab

  4. Update the Custom Fields

    • Engagement Manager
    • Add GitLab Project Link
    • Security Requirements
    • Project Components
    • Billing Type
    • Billing Terms
    • Passice Acceptance Language
    • Revenue Release

  5. Review task tracker

    • For Customer SOW, remove the task and ask the EM to push over the tasks to the Mavenlink project
    • Once tasks are pushed over to the Mavenlink project, review task hours and milestone budget to be sure they are correct
    • For SKUd offerings, review the task to be sure they match the SOW or Order form
      • Also update the task details
        • PS Category
        • PS Type
        • PS Services

  6. Be sure there are no start or due dates set in the task tracker

  7. Add Unnamed resources in the Master Planning until resources have been selected

  8. Add note in the activity section to include the following:

    • SOW
    • Order Form
    • Link to Google drive

  9. Review the contact section of the PS Opportunity and confirm with sales

  10. Send the Welcome to PS Email to customer

Project Health Reports are found on the Mavenlink project on the right hand fly out panel

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Click On new Health Report to create a new report

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Fill out each section and save

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Only one Health Report can be added each day

Mavenlink Status
Estimate- Gray Projects that are tracking Internal time for GitLab PS & GitLab Partners
Prospect- Gray PC is setting up Mavenlink project/ Project is at a Stage 5- start reviewing staffing plan
In Set Up- Gray PC is setting up Mavenlink project/ Reviewing Staffing/ Welcome to PS Email
Okay to Start- Light Green Project setup complete/ PM Planning the project
Active- Dark Green PM/ PSE Actively working the project
Closed- Blue Project work is complete, waiting for billing and revenue to be complete
Completed- Blue Billing and Revenue is complete
On Hold- Gray Project is delayed
Backlog- Gray No work is planned
Cancelled- Blue Project Created but will not be worked for various reasons
Mavenlink Project Colors
Blue Training Only Project
Yellow Consulting Only Project
Orange Consulting & Training Project
Lime Internal Project
Last modified October 9, 2024: ND: Updated Time Sheet Approvers & Time Sheet Timelines in the Handbook (56feba27)
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