Projects

A project is delivery work for one client that is too big for a ticket, such as a migration, a new office, or an onboarding. It has phases, tasks, and milestones, a budget, and a billing mode that decides how the work is paid for. The client can follow it on a private status page and sign for milestones when they are finished. This page shows how to create a project, run it, bill it, and keep the client informed.

Before you begin

• You are on the MSP plan.

• Project permissions:

  Permission	Allows
  project:read	Reading projects, tasks, milestones, documents, templates, and schedules
  project:write	Creating and editing projects (including their billing and budget), phases, tasks, milestones, notes, documents, and ticket links, completing a milestone, and sending a status email
  project:time	Logging, editing, and deleting time on project tasks
  project:calendar	Viewing the dispatch calendar and managing appointments and time off on it
  project:manage	Templates, recurring schedules, project settings, change orders, cost rates, the status link and acceptance links, and completing, canceling, or deleting a project

  The Project manager role holds all five, plus ticket access and psa:read. Invoicing stays behind psa:invoice. See Roles and permissions.

Where projects are

• At the practice level, Projects lists every client’s projects. Its pages are My work, Dispatch, Templates, and Settings. The Projects entry carries the number of decisions waiting: change orders not yet approved and milestones a client declined.
• In a client’s workspace, Projects lists that client’s projects.

The lists open on the Active view. At the practice level, At risk, Mine, On hold, Closed, and Everything are the other built-in views. In a client’s workspace, they are At risk, Closed, and Everything.

Create a project

1. Select Projects, then New project.
2. In Client, choose the company the work is for. A project lives in that client’s records and cannot be moved later. Inside a client’s workspace the client is already chosen.
3. Enter a Name. It appears on the client’s status page and on invoice lines.
4. In Template, choose a template to stamp out the phases, tasks, and milestones, or Start empty.
5. In Billing, choose how the work is paid for. See How a project bills.
6. In Starts on, choose the date the template’s tasks and milestones are dated from. The plan computes the end date.
7. Choose the Manager, who gets the weekly digest and the alerts.
8. Select Create project.

Projects are also created when a client accepts a quote for a product that names a project template, and by recurring schedules. See Sales pipeline and quotes and Run recurring projects.

Run a project

A project’s page has these tabs:

Tab	What it is for
Overview	Status, health and its reason, and progress.
Tasks	The task list, by phase.
Board	Tasks as cards by status.
Gantt	Tasks and dependencies on a timeline.
Milestones	What the client is told is finished.
Budget	Hours and money against the budget.
Change orders	Work the client asked for after the plan was agreed.
Documents	Files attached to the project.
Activity	What changed and who changed it.
Settings	Details, billing, budget, phases, the client contact, and the status page.

A project’s status is Draft, Active, On hold, Completed, or Canceled. Health is checked for active and on-hold projects. Status emails go only to active ones. Its Actions menu offers Send status email now, Status link, Put on hold or Resume, Complete project, and Cancel project. Completing and canceling need project:manage and cannot be undone. A project with logged time can never be deleted.

Health is Green, Amber, or Red. It is computed hourly, and the reason is shown beside it. A project on hold reports amber.

Tasks

A task has a status (To do, In progress, Blocked, Done, or Canceled), a priority (Normal, High, Urgent, or Critical), an assignee, dates, and an estimate. On a task you can add a checklist, make it depend on other tasks finishing first, link tickets, add notes, and log time. The task’s Actions menu offers Raise a ticket from this task, Schedule an appointment, and Delete this task. A task with time logged cannot be deleted. Logging time is described in Time tracking and dispatch.

Ask the client to accept a milestone

A milestone is a point the client is told is finished. On a fixed-price project, a milestone with an Amount bills its share of the price when it completes.

1. On Milestones, select New milestone, or Edit on an existing one.
2. Enter the Name and the Deliverables the client reads on the acceptance page and the certificate. Choose a Phase and a Due date, and on a fixed-price project the Amount.
3. Select The client signs for this one to ask the client to accept it.
4. Leave Show it on the client status page selected unless it is internal, and select Save.
5. When the work is done, select Complete, then Send the request.

The project’s client contact is emailed a private link. The link is good for one signature and expires 30 days after it is created. On that page, the client either accepts the milestone with a typed signature, or selects This is not done and says what is missing.

Milestone status	Meaning
Pending	Not finished yet.
Waiting for the client	The acceptance request has been sent.
Accepted by the client	The client signed for it.
Declined by the client	The client said it is not done. Ask again sends the same link again.
Completed	Finished without a client signature.
Canceled	Dropped. Its acceptance link is revoked and nothing bills for it.

Acceptance on a milestone shows who signed and when, and offers Download the certificate of completion, Copy the link, and Replace the link. Anyone who holds the link can sign, so treat it like a password. To complete a milestone without the client’s signature, select Complete without them. This needs project:manage and is recorded in the audit log.

Record a change order

A change order records work the client asked for after the plan was agreed.

1. On Change orders, select New change order.
2. Enter a Title, a Description, and optionally a Phase.
3. In Hours and Amount, enter what it adds to the budget. Negative values take hours or money off. On a fixed-price project, approving it also changes the Fixed price by the amount.
4. To bill it, select Bill this when it is approved. Approving it then puts a line on the project’s open draft invoice. Only a change order with a positive amount can be billed. A negative amount bills nothing. Issue a credit note for it on the invoice instead.
5. Save it.
6. Select Approve, enter who at the client agreed to it in Approved by, and confirm.

There is no separate submit step. The name you enter is the recorded sign-off. Void needs a Reason. On an approved change order, it takes the hours and money back off the budget. A change order whose money is already on an invoice cannot be voided. Issue a credit note instead. Change orders need project:manage.

How a project bills

The project’s billing mode decides before the agreement’s rules do. A phase can bill differently from its project, and the phase wins.

Billing mode	How time on it bills
Time and materials	Through the client agreement’s rules, like ticket time, at the rule’s rate or the agreement’s default hourly rate.
Fixed price	The time is recorded but not billed. Milestones with an amount bill shares of the Fixed price.
Prepaid	Drawn from the project’s prepaid block. Hours past it bill at the agreement’s default hourly rate.
Internal	Not billed.

Set the mode, the Agreement, the Prepaid block, and the Fixed price under Settings > Billing on the project. Milestone and change-order lines go on one draft invoice per project at a time, in Client billing > Invoices. See Invoice clients.

The Budget tab shows Hours logged, Billable value, Invoiced, and Margin, with hours by phase. On the project’s Settings, enter an Hours budget in minutes, an Amount budget, and the Warn at and Critical at percentages. On time and materials, the amount budget is compared against the billable value. On fixed price, it is compared against cost.

Keep the client informed

On the project’s Settings, under The client:

1. Enter the Contact name and Contact email. Status emails and acceptance requests go to this address. A project made from a quote takes the contact from the quote. Otherwise, you enter it yourself.
2. In Status email, choose Weekly, Every two weeks, Monthly, or Do not send, and choose the day it is Sent on.

Share the status page

The status page is a private, read-only page the client opens without an account. It shows the project’s stages, milestones, the tasks you chose to publish, and updates. It never shows cost, budget, hours, technician names, or internal notes. Tasks and notes are hidden from it by default.

Under The client status page, select Open the status page to create it, then Copy the link to send it. Replace the link stops the old address working. Close the page makes the address answer as not found. Managing the status link needs project:manage.

Reuse plans with templates

Select Projects > Templates to manage the plans projects are stamped out of. Outpost seeds a few starter templates, which you can edit like any other. Editing a version that projects were already made from writes a new version, so projects already made keep their own copy. Retire stops a template being offered, and Delete removes one. Templates need project:manage.

Run recurring projects

Under Recurring projects on Templates, a schedule makes a project from a template on a cadence, such as a quarterly review for one client. Each schedule has a Name, a Template, a Client, a Project name pattern such as Quarterly review {quarter} {year}, a Cadence, a Time zone, a Project manager, and how it Bills as. Turn Running off to pause a schedule.

Set the project defaults

Projects > Settings holds the practice-wide project settings, and needs project:manage:

Card	Settings
Budget thresholds	Warn at and Critical at, as percentages of a budget, Scope creep at as a percentage of a task’s estimate, and Call a task at risk, in days before it is due. Crossing one raises an alert in the client’s workspace.
What goes out	Send the Monday digest to each project manager, the hour it is Sent at, Status email, by default, and Remind a technician a number of minutes before an appointment.
Technicians	Each technician’s weekly Capacity and Cost per hour. Cost rates are visible only to people with project:manage or psa:read.

Verify

• The new project is listed under Projects with its client, and its Tasks tab shows the template’s tasks.
• After Send the request on a milestone, it shows Waiting for the client.

Next steps

• Time tracking and dispatch
• Invoice clients
• MSP reports