Categories

Categories define the types of work your team tracks time against. AbleTime uses a two-level system: global categories are organization-wide templates managed under Settings > Categories, and project categories are instances of those templates assigned to individual projects, visible on each project’s view page.

Global Categories

Select Settings > Categories from the sidebar to open the global category list. These categories serve as the master definitions that projects draw from.

Global categories allow similar work across multiple projects to be compared and analyzed.

The list displays all global categories in a paginated grid. Each row shows:

Name — the category name. Click it to open the edit modal.
Description — a short description of the category, if one has been entered.
Status — a colored chip showing Active, Suspended, or Archived.
Tags — outlined chips for each tag assigned to the category.
Billable — if the category is billable, the hourly rate is shown in currency format. Otherwise the column is empty.
Locked — a lock appears if the category is locked. Locked categories prevent project-level overrides of certain fields.

Each row has a three-dot menu with an Edit option.

Filtering

A filter row appears above the grid with the following fields:

Name — text search.
Description — text search.
Status — dropdown: Active, Suspended, or Archived (Archived only appears when Show Archived is enabled).
Tags — text search.
Billable — dropdown: True or False.
Locked — dropdown: True or False.

Click the X button at the end of the filter row to clear all active filters. The gear in the app bar provides a Show Archived toggle to include archived categories in the list.

Creating and Editing a Global Category

Click the + button below the list (labeled Add Category) to create a new category, or click a category name or Edit from the three-dot menu to open an existing one. The edit modal contains:

Category Name — required.
Category State — Active, Suspended, or Archived.
Locked — True or False. When a category is locked, some of its fields cannot be overridden at the project category level.
Description — a free-text description.
Billable — True or False. When True, the Rate field becomes editable.
Rate — the hourly rate. Disabled when the category is not billable.
Capacity Type — select a capacity type or leave as None. This field only appears if your organization has capacity tracking enabled.
Cost — the internal cost per hour.
Tags — an autocomplete field for adding tags. Selected tags appear as chips.

Click SAVE to save changes, or Cancel to close without saving. A DELETE button appears for existing categories that have no time entries recorded against them. Deleting opens a confirmation dialog.

Project Categories

Each project has its own set of categories. These appear in the collapsible Project Categories section on the project view page. Project categories are created by assigning a global category to the project and optionally overriding specific fields.

The list displays the project’s categories in a paginated grid. Each row shows:

Name — a colored square representing the category color, the category name, and a Default chip if this is the project’s default category. Click the name or color swatch to open the edit modal.
Status — a colored chip showing Active, Suspended, or Archived.
Tags — outlined chips for each tag.
Billable — if billable, the hourly rate is shown in currency format.

Each row has a three-dot menu with Reports and Edit options. A filter bar above the grid lets you search by Name and filter by Status, Tags, and Billable. The gear in the app bar provides a Show Archived toggle.

Creating and Editing a Project Category

Click the + button below the list (labeled Add Category) to assign a new category to the project, or click a category name or Edit from the three-dot menu to edit an existing one.

When creating a new project category, an autocomplete field appears at the top prompting you to Select a category to continue... The dropdown lists all global categories that are not already assigned to this project. Selecting a category populates the form with that category’s defaults. The remaining fields are disabled until a category is selected.

When editing an existing project category, the category name is displayed as a heading and cannot be changed.

The form contains:

Category Color — click the color swatch to open a color picker. This overrides the project’s default color for this category.
Category State — Active, Suspended, or Archived.
Billable — True or False. If the global category is locked, this field cannot be changed.
Rate — the hourly rate for this project category. Disabled when not billable or when the global category is locked.
Capacity Type — select a capacity type (see Capacity Types), or choose Inherit from Category to use the global category’s setting. This field only appears if your organization has capacity tracking enabled.
Cost — the internal cost per hour.
Tags — an autocomplete field for adding tags.

Click SAVE to save, or Cancel to close. A DELETE button appears for existing project categories that have no time entries. A Set as Default toggle appears when the project is the organization’s default and this category is not already the default.

You cannot set a suspended or archived category as the default.

How Global and Project Categories Relate

Global categories are the master definitions. When you assign a global category to a project, a project category is created that inherits the global category’s name. You can then override the color, billable status, rate, cost, state, capacity type, and tags at the project level without affecting the global definition or other projects using the same category.

When a global category is locked, project categories using it cannot override the billable status or rate. The category name is always inherited and cannot be changed at the project level.