Project stages

Introduction

You set up your project stages in the system administration -> Projects -> Project stages.

Description

Project stages match ”Stages” in the PRINCE2 project model. This means the different stages the project goes through from start to end. Project stages may e.g. be used to project sorting and search.

At the top of the page, you select, if you would like to use project stages or not. Thereafter, you can create new project stages by clicking the New project stage button. Here you enter Name and Sorting. If you enter a wrong Sorting, the system will automatically select the next available number. If you have e.g. entered 10-30 in the first three stages, and you enter 35 in the next, the system automatically corrects it to 40.

The order of the stages is controlled by the Sorting field. The project stage with the lowest value is listed first. The project stage with the highest value is listed at the bottom.

If you would like to edit a project stage, you click the name or the little pencil to the right.

If you click the Reset button, all information about project stages is deleted from all projects. The action also deleted all information about previous project stages. You should only use this functionality, if you would like to start over, or if the project stages have not been set up correctly.

Special remarks

A typical project flow could be:

• 1. Idea -> 2. Business case -> 3. Development -> 4. Implementation -> 5. Completed.

These five stages are set up in TimeLog Project as project stages.  The order of the flow is controlled by the field Sorting.  The planning stage with the smallest value in the sort is shown first.  The planning stage with the largest value in the sort is shown last. 

If the company has many small projects/tasks, the project stages can be used to manage how the individual projects/tasks are in production flow.  A flow for a company could be: 

• 1. Offer phase -> 2. Approved by the customer -> 3. In production -> 4. Delivered to the customer -> 5. Invoiced. 

Typically, the transition from one project stage to the next includes an approval process or launching of another business process. 

Adding new project stages to a business' flow will only allocate these stages to new projects.  The reason for this is that if the company changes the project model, it will only be effective going forward.  Previously established projects will continue on the project model on which they were created.