Using Project Plans to Monitor A Project’s Timeline

Project Plans make it easy for you to build Project schedules in Loopio, so all of your important Project information is in one centralized place. Project Plans provide your Project team with greater visibility into timelines and allow you to monitor your Project progress, all without having to leave the Loopio Platform.

In this article:

• What is a Project Plan?
• As a Project Admin, How Do I Create Project Plans
   
  • Creating a Project Plan Template
  • Applying a Project Plan Template
  • Manually Creating a Project Plan
• Project Milestone Statuses
  
  
  • Changing Your Project Milestone’s Status

What is a Project Plan?

A Project Plan is a list of Milestones that establish key dates for your Project, are owned by specific users, and enable automatic reminder emails before the Milestone due dates to remind Owners of upcoming deadlines.

All participants in a Project are able to see a high-level overview of the Project Milestones and their respective deadlines from the Project’s Status Bar at the top of the page.

Project Milestones represent key events and their internal deadlines that need to be completed in order to ensure a Project is on track.

Project Plans can be viewed in full in the Timeline tab (Keyboard Shortcut: 3) of the Project Sidebar. Milestones can be edited including Status, emailreminders, Milestone Owners, and Due Date by clicking the Milestone's name. Clicking the  icon will toggle between showing all dates and only dates that contain Milestones.

As a Project Admin, How Do I Create Project Plans

As a Project Admin, you can create and edit Project Plan Templates, add new Project Milestones to a Project, and edit the status of each Milestone as you progress through your Project.

There are two ways to create a Project Plan to your Project: Project Plan Templates, or manually creating a Project Plan.

Project Plan Templates

Creating a Project Plan Template

Project Plan Templates are reusable Project Plans that can be used across multiple Projects. Project Plan Templates can be configured on the Admin > Project Plan Templates.

When adding a Project Plan, you can select a Project Plan Template to pre-populate the Project’s Milestones and schedule. This is useful if your organization uses a repeatable process on many Projects.

1. From the top bar, click Admin
   
2. Select “Project Plan Templates”
   
3. Click + Create Template
   
4. Enter your Template Name
   
5. Create your first Project Milestone, entering the Name, Description, and relative Due Date of the Milestone
   
6. Click + Add Milestone to create additional Milestones
   
   
7. Click Save 

Applying a Project Plan Template

Once a Template has been created, your Templates will be accessible in the Timeline tab of a Project's Sidebar by clicking the  button.

If you have not yet created any Project Plan Templates, clicking the  button will prompt you to manually create a new Project Milestone.

Manually Creating a Project Plan

For Projects that require a specific timeline, you can manually create a Project Plan. 

1. Within your Project, Head to the Template tab of the Project Sidebar
   
2. If you have not yet created any Project Plan Templates, clicking the  button will prompt you to manually create a new Project Milestone (If you currently have a Project Template configured, click Create New Milestone)
   
   
3. Enter your Milestone’s Name, Description, Select a Status and decide on a Due Date
4. Optional: Assign Milestone Owner(s) 
    

   Note: A Milestone Owner is a User (or set of Users) that will be in charge of completing the task associated with that Milestone. Milestone Owners must have Loopio-wide Projects, Level 3 (Full Access) permissions or Project-specific Project Admin permissions in order to edit Milestones, including changing the status.

5. Optional: Configure email reminders to be sent to your Milestone Owner(s) in advance of the Milestone’s due date
   

Project Milestone Statuses

As you progress through your Project’s Milestones, you can adjust the status of each Milestone to provide a visual of the work done to date. 

Project Milestones have three available statuses, each with a corresponding color reflected in the Project Plan and on the Project Status bar:

• Not Started (White)
• In Progress (Orange)
• Complete (Green)
  
   

  Note: By default, all Milestones start as “Not Started”.

Changing Your Project Milestone’s Status

As a Project Admin, you can change the status of your Project Milestones from the Timeline tab.

1. Click the Milestone in the Timeline tab
   
   
2. Adjust the Milestone Status Dropdown field
   
   
3. Click Save