Best practices for tracking time for work that doesn't have an actual WF project fired up yet.

I would suggest an issue, possibly with a form attached with info about the upcoming project. That issue can then be attached to the project or turned in to a task on the project.

We do the annual projects (buckets), one for each account code or GL code that we need to charge back to. Within each bucket we have a few different tasks depending on what is important to the owners of those GL codes. For some we have tasks for each category in their line of business, for our creative team we have tasks for meetings, site optimization, strategy and operations, traffic, etc. For others, we have no tasks, just the project as a bucket.

We do the same as Heather - evergreen projects that collect ad hoc requests or capture support time for items like meetings, consultation, website support. We open a separate project for a business line area if it is a large deliverable with a defined timeline, such as an event or publication.

We approach it one of two ways:

We have an 'ongoing' project that has a bucket of time for each type of work 'Project Management Time Tracking', "Design Time Tracking'.

We set these as fixed dates so it spans an entire year (and doesn't fall of anyone's timesheets). We mark the project as complete so it doesn't clutter up their task view, but only shows on the timesheets. Lastly, we have a project type that we set it at so we can identify all of these time tracking projects. It allows us to look at time spent across initiates etc without having to continuously exclude these ad hoc projects. We use this method for 'I'm providing support in some fashion to something that isnt' a project but more than just general overhead'.

The other method we use is we have someone submit a request. Ideally, this is in the even that they know something is coming but it's not ready for a full project. The request will sit as a stand alone object and they can track time to that request as needed. If/when this is ready to become a project with an identified schedule we convert the request to the project. This allows us to still keep the time tracked to the converted project without having to figure out how to move time or add it to an initiative. We use this method for 'not yet projects but still doing work for them'.