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Application Settings

CHAOTICA's application settings are managed through the Settings page, accessible to users with the manage_site_settings permission. Changes take effect immediately — no restart is required.

Settings are stored in the database using django-constance and can also be modified via the Django admin interface under Constance > Config.


Work Settings

These control core working-time calculations used across scheduling, scoping, and leave.

Setting Default Description
DEFAULT_HOURS_IN_DAY 7.5 Standard working hours per day. Used to convert between days and hours when displaying scoped/scheduled time. Clients can override this at the client level — this value is the fallback.
DEFAULT_WORKING_DAYS [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] JSON array of working days (Sunday = 0, Monday = 1, ..., Saturday = 6). Defaults to Monday–Friday. Used for leave calculations and team utilisation stats when an organisation hasn't defined custom business hours.

Leave

Setting Default Description
LEAVE_DAYS_NOTICE 14 Minimum number of days' notice required for annual leave requests. Requests submitted with less notice are flagged as requested_late.
LEAVE_HISTORY_MONTHS 3 How many months of past leave to show on the manage leave page.
LEAVE_ENFORCE_LIMIT False When enabled, the leave request form will reject requests that would exceed the user's remaining leave balance. When disabled, over-balance requests are allowed (but may still be flagged).

Phase Deadlines

These settings control the automatic calculation of key phase dates based on the last scheduled delivery/reporting timeslot.

Setting Default Description
DAYS_TO_TQA 0 Business days after the last delivery slot that a phase is due for Technical QA.
DAYS_TO_PQA 5 Business days after the last delivery slot that a phase is due for Pre-sales QA.
DAYS_TO_DELIVERY 7 Business days after the last delivery slot that a phase is due for final delivery.

Note

These dates are recalculated automatically when timeslots are added or removed. They appear on the phase detail page under the Dates tab.


Late Notification Intervals

Controls the throttling of repeat notifications when a phase is overdue for a workflow step. These prevent notification spam while keeping stakeholders informed.

Setting Default Description
PRECHECK_LATE_HOURS 24 Hours between repeat "prechecks overdue" notifications.
TQA_LATE_HOURS 24 Hours between repeat "late to TQA" notifications.
PQA_LATE_HOURS 24 Hours between repeat "late to PQA" notifications.
DELIVERY_LATE_HOURS 24 Hours between repeat "late to delivery" notifications.

Example

With the default of 24 hours, if a phase is overdue for TQA, the first notification fires immediately. The next will not fire until 24 hours later, even if the background task runs more frequently.


Job/Phase IDs

Setting Default Description
JOB_ID_START 2500 Starting number for auto-generated job IDs. Only applies when the first job is created — subsequent jobs increment from the highest existing ID.
PROJECT_ID_START 9000 Starting number for auto-generated project IDs. Same behaviour as JOB_ID_START.

Schedule Thresholds

Controls the colour coding of the scheduled-vs-scoped progress indicators shown on the job page phase table and the schedule page phase status panel.

Setting Default Colour Description
SCHEDULE_THRESHOLD_SUCCESS 90 Green Minimum percentage of scoped time that must be scheduled to show as "fully scheduled".
SCHEDULE_THRESHOLD_INFO 50 Blue Minimum percentage to show as "partially scheduled".
Over 100% Red Hard-coded. Shown when scheduled time exceeds scoped time.
Above 0% but below info threshold Yellow Hard-coded. Indicates minimal scheduling.
0% Grey Hard-coded. Nothing scheduled.

Note

The percentage is calculated as (total scheduled hours / total scoped hours) × 100. Hovering over the indicator shows a tooltip with the full breakdown in days and hours.


Reminders

Setting Default Description
SKILLS_REVIEW_DAYS 31 Days since last skills update before the user sees a prompt to review their skills. Shown as an info banner on page load.
PROFILE_REVIEW_DAYS 182 Days since last profile update before the user sees a prompt to review their profile.

Authentication

Setting Default Description
ADFS_ENABLED False Enables Azure AD / ADFS single sign-on. When enabled, a "Sign in with Microsoft" button appears on the login page. Requires a valid ADFS configuration in Django settings.
ADFS_AUTO_LOGIN False When enabled (and ADFS_ENABLED is also true), unauthenticated users are automatically redirected to ADFS login instead of seeing the login form.
LOCAL_LOGIN_ENABLED True Allows username/password authentication. When disabled, the email/password form is hidden and POST requests to the login endpoint are blocked.
EMAIL_ENABLED False Master toggle for all outbound email. When disabled, the notification system skips email dispatch entirely. Notifications are still created in-app.

Registration & Invites

Setting Default Description
REGISTRATION_ENABLED True Allows new users to self-register. When disabled, the "Create an account" link is hidden from the login page.
INVITE_ENABLED True Allows existing users to send invitations. When disabled, invitation requests return a 403 error.
USER_INVITE_EXPIRY 7 Days until an invitation link expires. After this period, the invite token becomes invalid.

Site Notice

Setting Default Description
MAINTENANCE_MODE False Redirects all non-superusers to a maintenance page. Superusers can still access the full site. Can also be toggled via the management command python manage.py maintenance_mode on|off.
SITE_NOTICE_ENABLED False Shows a sitewide alert banner at the top of every page.
SITE_NOTICE_MSG (empty) The message text displayed in the banner.
SITE_NOTICE_COLOUR primary Bootstrap alert colour class. Options: primary, secondary, info, success, danger, warning.

Theme

Seasonal and fun settings. None of these affect functionality.

Setting Default Description
SNOW_ENABLED False Adds an animated snow effect with a toggle in the top navigation bar.
CHRISTMAS_LIGHTS_ENABLED False Displays decorative Christmas lights across the top of the page.
CHRISTMAS_TREE_ENABLED False Replaces the standard page loading spinner with an animated Christmas tree.
KONAMI_ENABLED True Enables the Konami code easter egg (↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A).

Schedule Colours

Hex colour values used in the calendar/schedule views for different timeslot types. All accept standard hex colour codes (e.g. #FF5722).

Setting Default Used For
SCHEDULE_COLOR_AVAILABLE #8BC34A Available/free time
SCHEDULE_COLOR_UNAVAILABLE #F44336 Unavailable/blocked time
SCHEDULE_COLOR_INTERNAL #FFC107 Internal/overhead timeslots
SCHEDULE_COLOR_PROJECT #9C27B0 Project-level timeslots
SCHEDULE_COLOR_PHASE #A3E1FF Unconfirmed phase timeslots
SCHEDULE_COLOR_PHASE_CONFIRMED #239DFF Confirmed phase timeslots
SCHEDULE_COLOR_PHASE_AWAY #FFBCA9 Unconfirmed phase (working away)
SCHEDULE_COLOR_PHASE_CONFIRMED_AWAY #FF5722 Confirmed phase (working away)
SCHEDULE_COLOR_COMMENT #cbd0dd Comment/note entries

Notification Recipients

Additional email addresses (comma-separated) to receive workflow notifications for each pool. These are sent alongside the normal role-based notifications.

Setting Default Description
NOTIFICATION_POOL_SCOPING_EMAIL_RCPTS (empty) Extra recipients when a job enters the scoping pool.
NOTIFICATION_POOL_SCHEDULING_EMAIL_RCPTS (empty) Extra recipients when a job/phase enters the scheduling pool.
NOTIFICATION_POOL_TQA_EMAIL_RCPTS (empty) Extra recipients for TQA pool notifications.
NOTIFICATION_POOL_PQA_EMAIL_RCPTS (empty) Extra recipients for PQA pool notifications.

Note

These are useful for sending notifications to shared mailboxes or distribution lists that aren't tied to individual user accounts.


Resource Manager Integration

Settings for synchronising data with Smartsheet Resource Management (formerly 10,000ft).

Setting Default Description
RM_SYNC_ENABLED False Master toggle for all RM synchronisation. When disabled, sync tasks and API views are blocked.
RM_SYNC_API_SITE https://api.rm.smartsheet.com Base URL for the RM API.
RM_SYNC_API_TOKEN (empty) Developer API token for authenticating with the RM API.
RM_SYNC_STALE_TIMEOUT 60 Minutes before a running sync task is considered stale/stuck.
RM_WARNING_MSG This project is managed via CHAOTICA. Warning text appended to project descriptions in RM to indicate that changes may be overwritten.

URLs displayed in the help menu in the top navigation bar.

Setting Default Description
SUPPORT_DOC_URL https://docs.chaotica.app/en/latest/ Link to documentation.
SUPPORT_MAILBOX https://github.com/brainthee/CHAOTICA/issues Link to request support.
SUPPORT_ISSUES https://github.com/brainthee/CHAOTICA/issues Link to report issues/bugs.