What to do first
Add a project, then add its milestones. Until a project has milestones, nothing sold against it can be reported as on schedule or late, and the module says so rather than guessing.
The summary
Four counts across the top:
- On schedule.
- Sales exposed, meaning revenue standing behind a late milestone.
- Budget committed.
- Revenue committed.
Both money figures are computed rather than typed. Committed revenue is the contract value of the client accounts pointing at the project. Spend is the sum of the project's spend lines.
A project
Its milestones in order, the one it is currently on, what it has cost so far, and the accounts whose money depends on it.
Milestones
A milestone is a date, a name and a state. It also carries the work underneath it: how many tasks are done out of how many, and how many of those are overdue.
That last count is the useful one. A milestone due in three weeks can already be holding work that was due last Tuesday, and its own date cannot say so. When a milestone is marked finished over tasks that are still open, the screen says that out loud rather than leaving you to notice.
Tasks
Work on a project is tasks, each naming the milestone it belongs to and the person it is assigned to. Tasks appear in that person's My Work and in the Meetings and tasks panel.
Work nobody has been given raises a delivery row in My Work, because unassigned work on a live project is the failure that is easiest to miss.
Spend
Spend lines are what the project has cost. They roll into the budget committed figure and into Finance, and they are the reason a project can be on schedule and still be a problem.
Closing a project out
Closing is a dialog rather than a button, because a promise becoming a measurement is the moment where the two can differ. A project that said it was worth forty accounts may have produced thirty eight.
Every contribution is listed with its promise already filled in. Accept it in one click where the project delivered what it said, or change the number and give a reason where it did not. Writing the promise when the delivery was different would put a forecast inside a number people report on.
Cancelling a project releases nothing and says so. A cancellation that quietly paid out its value would put work nobody did into somebody's KPI.
How it connects
- Clients and accounts is where the committed revenue comes from.
- Inventory lines are delivered by a project, or create one per sale.
- Procurement requests can name the project they are for.
- Overdue milestones and unassigned work raise delivery rows in My Work.
- Spend and committed revenue feed Finance and Insights.
- Contributions released at close out feed Goals and KPIs.
Common questions
Why does my project show no revenue? Because no client account points at it yet. Revenue arrives when a sale is closed against the project, not when somebody types a value.
Can a milestone be completed early? Yes. If it still has open tasks, the screen will say so on the row.
Who can close a project? Its owner, and above.