Plan and run the bigger pieces of IT work - an office move, a laptop refresh, a mail migration - on top of the tasks you already have, and see at a glance whether each one is on track.

New in 3.2.0. For how it is built, see the Projects developer guide.

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🗂️ Portfolio	Every project as a card in its own colour and icon, with a ring that shows how much is done and whether it is on track. Views for the questions people ask - what is live, what do I lead, what needs attention.
📋 A plan	Phases, stages or sprints, each a lane of tasks with its own dates, status and progress. Add tasks in place, drag them between lanes.
📅 Timeline	The plan as a Gantt chart - stages as bands, tasks as bars, milestones as diamonds, a line for today. Drag to reschedule. (3.3.0)
💎 Milestones	The dates a project promises - move day, go-live, sign-off. A missed one turns the project amber and tells its manager. (3.3.0)
✅ Real tasks	Project work is ordinary tasks. They show on the Tasks board for the people doing them, with a project chip on the card.
🚦 Health worked out for you	On track, At risk or Off track, from overdue work and the target date - or set by hand with a line saying why.
🔀 Your way of working	Simple, Staged (PRINCE2-style) or Agile - and you can change your mind halfway through without losing anything.
👥 People, Scope and RACI	Who is on the project and in what role, the deliverables prioritised Must / Should / Could / Won't on a board, and a RACI matrix of who does what.
⚠️ RAID log	Risks, assumptions, issues, (3.3.0) dependencies, decisions and lessons, with a 5 x 5 risk heat map.
🚧 Gates	A business case, tolerances that turn a project into an exception when it drifts too far, and a go / stop decision at the end of each stage.
🧰 Tailoring	Each method switches on its own set of tools; switch any of them on or off for one project. (3.3.0) The Toolbox on the Overview offers the tools a project is not using yet, with the ones it looks like it needs first.
🔗 Connections	Link a project to the equipment, changes, tickets, contracts, configuration items, knowledge articles and (3.3.0) problems it touches.
🕓 History	Every change to a project, who made it and when.
🏗️ Contractors (3.3.0)	Give a task to an outside firm - a supplier from Contracts, and a person there - while somebody here owns it and chases them. See Contractors.
💬 Ask AI (3.3.0)	A project assistant in a slide-in panel: it coaches a blank project into a proposed set-up, keeps a running one on track, proposes changes you apply with one click, and remembers your conversation. See Ask AI.

New to running projects? (3.3.0) How it fits together is a page of its own - open it from the top of Projects → Help, from an empty portfolio, or from the Toolbox on a project. It is an interactive map of the 24 parts of a project - goal, business case, scope, stages, tasks, RAID, gates, budget, benefits and the rest - in six groups (why, what, when, who, keeping control, telling people). Choose any part to see what it is, where you find it, which tool switches it on, and what it feeds and is fed by. Walk through a project follows an office move from its goal to its benefits in twelve steps (Back / Next, or the arrow keys), and Show what a project starts with fades the parts that Simple, Staged or Agile leave off at first - the ones the Toolbox adds later. On a phone the map drops its lines - the Feeds and Fed by lists still say how a part connects - and during the walk the step's text sits above the map.

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Projects is a module like any other. An analyst whose module access is unrestricted sees it in the waffle menu straight away; one with a restricted list needs Projects ticked in Module Access.

Inside the module, Projects → Settings → General decides who may do what (see Settings and permissions). Out of the box:

Action	Who
See a project	Anyone who can open Projects, in the companies they can see - unless it is members-only
Create a project	Anyone who can open Projects
Change a project - its details, plan, tasks, tools and connections	Its team: the project manager, the person who created it and its members. Plus anyone with Manage Projects
Delete a project	The project manager, the person who created it, or anyone with Manage Projects - always, whatever the settings say

Administrators can always do everything. When you may not change a project you can still read all of it; the buttons that would change it are hidden, and the server refuses the change anyway.

For HR, security or anything confidential, a project's form has Who can see it:

• Everyone with Projects - as above. The default.
• Members only - just its project manager, whoever created it, its members (an analyst, or anybody in a team that is a member - see People and roles) and people with Manage Projects (administrators always).

Only the project's team or somebody with Manage Projects can change it - even when Who may change a project is set to anyone, an outsider cannot shut the door. The change is in the project's history. Projects → Settings → General → Who can see a new project sets what new projects start as.

To everybody else, a members-only project does not exist - it is not found, never shown as hidden:

Where	What happens
Portfolio, project page, Charts, Export	Left out; opening its link says not found
Global search, recent items	Left out
People (a person's or a company's projects), Documents on it, links from other records	Left out
Watchtower, Warbot, the AI tools over MCP, the REST API	Left out (for an API key: as the key's analyst)
Report Packs	Only when the person the pack is built for may see it
The shared Calendar	Its target date, stage ends and milestones are never drawn - the Calendar is for everyone
Capacity	Its tasks still count - people's load is real - but the project is named only to those who may see it; to others it is A members-only project

What it does not hide: the project's tasks are Tasks records - somebody assigned a task sees it in Tasks whether or not they are a member. And somebody you ask to approve a proposal or sign off a gate must be a member (or manage Projects) to open the project - add them first.

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Projects opens on the Portfolio: one card per project. Each card shows:

• the project's colour band, icon, reference (PRJ-0042) and status;
• its name and goal;
• the ring - the arc is the share of its tasks that are done, the colour is its health;
• Now: the phase in progress, if there is one;
• who leads it, the target date ("Due in 12 days", "3 days late", "Finished ...") and, on an install with more than one company, the company;
• how many tasks are done, how many are overdue, and a progress bar.

The views on the left filter the cards. The number beside each is how many projects it holds.

View	Shows
Live projects	Proposed, Active and On hold
Led by me	Live projects where you are the project manager
Need attention	Live projects whose health is At risk or Off track
Proposed / On hold	Just that status
Finished	Closed and Cancelled
Everything	All of them

The view you last picked is remembered in your browser. Search narrows whichever view is open, by name, goal, summary, reference, project manager or company.

Across the top: Live projects, Need attention, Due in 30 days (live projects whose target date falls in the next 30 days) and Overdue tasks (the overdue tasks across all live projects).

• Live projects by health - one bar, split into on track, at risk and off track, with the count of each beside its colour. Hover a part for its count.
• Sort orders the cards by Target date (the default), Priority, Health or Name. Projects → Settings → General sets the starting order for everybody; a person's own choice is remembered in their browser.
• Cards | Roadmap - the roadmap is one bar per project across the calendar, from its start (or the day it was created) to its target finish, darker for the share of the work done, with its next milestone as a diamond, its priority and its health in words beside its name, and a line for today. Click a bar to open the project. The view and search on the left apply to it too.

Charts (beside Cards and Roadmap) draws the projects in the current view and search together:

Chart	Shows
Progress by project	Tasks done against not done, with the percentage
Budget against actual	Planned and spent per project, most overspent first, 12% over or forecast 8% over noted. Projects in different currencies get a chart each - amounts are never added across currencies
Risks across projects	Every open risk with a probability and impact, as one heat map. Choose a square to list its risks, each linked to its project
Milestones across projects	Every milestone, one row per project, reached / missed / coming up - in words as well as shape

Every chart has a Table view.

Export (right of the layout buttons) downloads the projects you are looking at - the current view, after the search, in the order you chose - as an Excel workbook or a CSV file. One row per project: code, name, company (when there is more than one), status, priority, health, progress, project manager, current stage, start, target and finish dates, tasks done / total / overdue, the next milestone, missed milestones, escalated RAID entries, and the budget, spent and forecast in the project's own currency (with a Currency column - nothing is converted or added up).

Only projects you can see are written, whatever the link says, and a view with no projects in it exports no projects - never everything. Every Excel cell is text, so codes and dates arrive exactly as shown; a CSV cell that would start a formula (=, +, -, @) gets a ' in front.

Every project has a priority: Low, Medium (the default), High or Critical - set in Edit, sortable on the portfolio, shown as a chip on the card and the banner when it is not Medium, and changed in the history. The four words are yours to choose: Projects → Settings → General → Priority words (left as they are, they follow each person's language).

Press New (it is hidden if only people who manage Projects may create them and you do not). The New project dialog asks for:

Field	Notes
Name	Required
What does done look like?	The goal, in one sentence. It is the line everyone comes back to, so it sits under the name on the card and the banner
How you run it	Simple, Staged or Agile (below). It starts on the default from Projects → Settings → General
Project manager	You, unless you pick someone else
Company	Only on an install with more than one company, and only when creating. It starts on your active company
Start / Target finish	Optional. The finish cannot be before the start
Priority (3.3.0)	Medium unless you pick another - see Priority
Who can see it (3.3.0)	Everyone with Projects, or members only - see Members-only projects. It starts on Projects → Settings → General → Who can see a new project
Summary	What this is and why it matters
Make it yours	A colour and an icon for the card. The banner at the top of the dialog shows the result as you choose

Press Create and the new project opens on its Plan tab, with a box ready to type the first task into. A new project starts as Proposed with its health worked out automatically.

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The banner carries the project's colour, icon, reference, status, how it is run ("Staged project"), its company (when there is more than one), name and goal. Below that: who leads it, its dates and how far it is from the target. On the right is the health ring, with Worked out from the plan or Set by hand under the health.

Edit opens the same dialog as New, with more fields: Status, Actual finish, Health and, when health is set by hand, Why?, and a Tools section (below). Setting a project to Closed fills in today as the actual finish if nobody has set one. Delete is covered below. Edit and Delete only show for people allowed to use them.

The page's tabs are Overview, Plan, (3.3.0) Timeline, then one tab for each tool the project uses (People, Scope, RACI, RAID, Gates, Budget, Change control, Benefits), then Documents (3.3.0), Reports, Connections and History. With every tool on there are more tabs than fit, so (3.3.0) the tab bar scrolls sideways rather than wrapping onto a second line. The tab you are on is kept in the address (#plan, #raid), so a link can open a project straight onto it.

From the top:

• A red Tolerance exceeded banner when the project has gone past one of its tolerances (Gates).
• Four tiles: Progress, Open tasks, Overdue, and Days to target (or Days late once the target has passed).
• Amber lines for what needs somebody, each only when it applies: a jump in linked tickets; 1 milestone(s) missed when a milestone date has passed without it being reached; (3.3.0) a dependency or decision past its date; benefit reviews due; change requests waiting for a decision; and every escalated RAID entry, named, with what is needed and who escalated it. See all opens the tab behind each.
• The Proposal panel (3.3.0) on a project that was proposed or has an estimated cost or benefit - who proposed it, the figures, and Approve / Reject while it waits, or the decision once it is made.
• The Toolbox (3.3.0) - the tools the project is not using yet. See The Toolbox.
• The Briefing from the AI project manager, when one is set up.
• Progress over time (3.3.0) - a burn-up: the blue line is the work done, the orange line the scope (every task in the plan so far - when it climbs, work has been added), with the target finish marked. Choose a phase, stage or sprint to see just that one (its end becomes the marker), or switch Tasks to Hours to count estimated hours instead. Hover for the figures on any day, or press Table for all of them. Each task counts from the day it was created and the day it was finished, by day for a short project and by week for a long one. Projects → Settings → General → Progress over time counts sets whether it opens on tasks or hours.
  • (3.3.0) Burn-up | Burndown - burndown is what is left to do, with a dashed ideal line from where the work stood on the first day to nothing at the target (or the stage's end). Above the line is behind. It remembers your choice in this browser.
• Task status (3.3.0) - a bar for the whole project and one per stage, split by your task statuses (To Do, In Progress, Blocked, Done... - whatever Tasks → Settings has), each status always in the same colour, with how many are overdue and how many are waiting on another task at the end.
• Progress by stage (3.3.0) - done against not done, per stage, with the percentage.
• Flow over time (3.3.0) - the cumulative flow diagram: how many tasks sat in each status, day by day. A band that keeps widening is work piling up in that status. Statuses are recorded once a day from 3.3.0 (whenever the project is opened, and by the hourly scheduled job); before that only when tasks were created and finished is known, so those days are two grey bands - Open and Finished (before statuses were recorded) - with a marker where real history starts.
• Milestones - missed ones first, then the next four still to come, then the last two reached, each with Done to mark it reached. + Milestone adds one.
• Asset targets, when the project has any - see Asset targets.
• About - the goal, the summary and, when health is set by hand, the reason given.
• Happening now - each phase in progress with its own progress bar.
• Coming up - the next six open tasks by due date. Each opens on the Tasks board.
• Recent activity - the last six changes, with See all for the History tab.
• Connected to - one chip per kind of linked record, with a count. A chip opens the Connections tab.

Everything that has changed and who changed it: the project being created, renamed or re-planned, status and health changes, a change of method or of its tools, phases added, removed, started and finished, records linked or unlinked, people added, taken off or given a new role, deliverables added, removed or reprioritised, RAID entries logged, closed, reopened or deleted, changes to the business case and tolerances, gate decisions, and milestones added, moved, reached, reopened or removed.

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The Plan tab shows each phase (or stage, or sprint) as a lane. A lane shows its name, goal, dates, status (Planned, In progress or Done), "3 of 8 done", and a progress bar. Tasks that are not in a phase yet sit in the last lane, Not in a phase yet.

1. Press + Add a phase (or stage, or sprint). Give it a name and, if you like, a goal, dates and a status.
2. Under a lane, press + Add a task. Type what needs doing, pick Who and Due if you like, and press Add. The box stays open so you can add several in a row; Esc closes it.
3. Press Start on a phase when work begins and Finish when it is done.

From then on the ring, the counts and the health keep themselves up to date.

• Drag a task onto another lane to move it (on a computer). On a phone, press the arrows button on the task's row and pick the lane from the list.
• Click a task to open it on the Tasks board, where it is edited like any other task.
• The × at the end of a task row takes it out of the project. The task itself is kept.
• The pencil on a lane edits it; its dialog also has Delete. Deleting a phase never deletes its tasks - they move to Not in a phase yet.

Finishing a phase, reaching a milestone or closing a project is marked with a short burst of colour and a message. If your computer asks for reduced motion, you get the message only.

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New in 3.3.0. A milestone is a date the project promises - Move day, Go-live, Board signs off. It is not work: the work is tasks, and a milestone is what they are racing towards.

• Add one with + Milestone on the Plan tab, the Timeline or the Overview. Give it a name and a date, and choose Belongs to: a phase, stage or sprint, or The whole project.
• Where it shows: in its lane's head on the Plan (whole-project ones on a strip above the lanes), as a diamond on the Timeline, in the Overview's Milestones panel, on the project's portfolio card (the next one still to come), and on the shared Calendar until it is reached.
• Reaching it: press Done on the Overview, or open it and tick Reached - today, or the day it really happened (never a future date). The diamond turns green; reached after its date it says Reached 2 day(s) late. Untick it to reopen it.
• Missing it: a milestone whose date passes without being reached is missed. Its diamond turns red, the project's worked-out health becomes at least At risk (How health is worked out), and the project manager's bell rings (Alerts).
• Moving it - change the date in its dialog, or drag the diamond on the Timeline - re-arms its reminders.
• Deleting a phase keeps its milestones; they become the whole project's.
• Templates keep milestones as days from the start, so a project built from one gets them in the right phases. Office move, Laptop refresh and Mail migration now come with theirs.

Done, missed or due is worked out each time the project is shown, from the dates - never stored - so it is always right.

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New in 3.3.0. Two halves: how long the work should take, and whether the people doing it have room.

Give a task an estimate - hours, halves and quarters are fine - in the box at the end of its row on the Plan tab (type it and press Enter or Tab; Tab moves on to the next task's box), or in the Estimate (hours) field of the task window on the Tasks board. Then:

• the row shows the time logged on the task and its subtasks beside the estimate, in red once it is over;
• each lane's head says 54h est. - 10h logged;
• the Overview's Progress tile adds 36h estimated - 2h logged for the whole project;
• the AI briefing knows both.

Templates keep each task's estimate, so a project started from one comes pre-estimated.

Capacity, at the top of Projects, answers who has room, and who is over-committed, in the weeks ahead? - the question a task board cannot.

Column	What it shows
Person	Everyone with open work on a live project you can see, and everyone on a project team (so somebody free shows as free). ?3 = three of their tasks have no estimate
This week, w/c ...	Their load: the project work they have left that week plus their service-desk shifts (the striped part, from the rota in Tickets), against the hours a person works in a week. Green has room, amber is stretched (85% by default), red is over 100%
Projects	How many live projects they have open work on - amber at three or more
Open tickets	Tickets they own that are not closed, in the companies you can see - context, not hours, because a ticket has no size
No due date	Estimated work with no due date, so it is in no week

How a week's load is worked out: each open task's estimate, less the time already logged on it, is spread evenly over the working days (Monday to Friday) from its start - or today, if that is later - to its due date. A task already overdue puts all its remaining hours in this week. Hovering a cell shows the split: Project 7.3h + desk 8h of 37.5h - 41%.

Open a row to see the tasks behind it: what is left of each estimate, the due date, and the hours falling in each week. Choose 4, 8 or 12 weeks at the top (your browser remembers). The tiles count who is over-committed and stretched this week, who is on several projects, and the tasks with no estimate.

Things to know:

• Tasks with no estimate are not added in - unknown work is a risk, not zero - so the page counts them instead. Estimate the work for the numbers to mean anything.
• Work assigned to a team but nobody in it yet is not in anybody's load; a line under the table says how much there is.
• (3.3.0) Work given to a contractor is not in anybody's load either - the hours are the firm's. A Contractors table under the people lists each firm's open tasks, hours left and how many are late.
• Desk shifts and open tickets show only to people who can open Tickets.
• Projects → Settings → Health → Capacity sets the hours in a week (37.5), when a week turns amber (85%) and how many projects is several (3).

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New in 3.3.0. The Timeline tab draws the whole plan against the calendar:

On the chart	What it is
A coloured band	a phase, stage or sprint, from its start to its end date - faded once it is done
A grey (or coloured) bar	a task, from its start date to its due date, in its status colour; faded when done, outlined in red when overdue. A task with only a due date is one day long
A diamond	a milestone - violet still to come, green reached, red missed. Whole-project milestones sit on their own row at the top, with their names
A red line	today
A dashed line	the project's target finish

Days, Weeks and Months zoom (it remembers your choice in this browser); Today scrolls back to now. The names on the left stay put while the chart scrolls sideways, and the dates along the top stay put while it scrolls down.

Rescheduling with a mouse: drag a bar or a band to move it, drag either end to change only its start or its end, drag a diamond to move a milestone. The change is saved when you let go and goes through the same rules as editing it by hand, so the Tasks board, the Calendar, the bell and the health all follow. A task with only a due date stays that way when it is moved; stretching it gives it a start date. Click something (without dragging) to open it: a task opens on the Tasks board, a band opens its phase's dialog, a diamond opens the milestone.

Things to know:

• Only people who may change the project can drag; everyone else can click.
• Tasks with no dates are not drawn; a line under the chart says how many there are.
• Only top-level tasks are drawn, as on the Plan. Subtasks belong to their task.

The link button at the end of a task's name opens what it waits for: a task cannot start until another finishes (finish-to-start), optionally with a gap of some days. Choose the task, the gap, Add; × removes one. The dialog also lists the tasks waiting for this one. A loop - A waits for B, which waits for A - is refused, naming it. Both tasks must be in the project.

On the chart:

• An arrow runs from the end of the task waited for to the start of the one that waits.
• A red, dashed arrow - and a red link button - is a clash: the task is set to start before the one it waits for (plus the gap) is due to finish. The plan cannot be true as written.
• Critical path (beside Today) outlines the tasks with no slack - the chain where any slip moves the finish - and fades the rest. It is worked out from the dated tasks and their dependencies on every view.

On the Plan, a task shows Waiting on 1 while something it waits for is unfinished (hover for which), and Clash when its dates cannot work. The Task status chart counts the waiting ones.

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A template is a project that arrives already planned. When you press + New project, the dialog opens with Start from: Blank, then a card for each template showing how many stages and tasks it brings and how long it runs.

Five come built in:

Template	Way of running	What it plans
Office move	Staged	Survey and plan, build the network, the move weekend, settling in - 16 tasks over 12 weeks, with scope, risks and tolerances. 3.3.0: 7 dependencies (the move waits for the Wi-Fi), a go-live gate on the move weekend (facilities sign-off, the move plan, a fallback), and two benefits (every desk working on day one; fewer network problems)
Laptop refresh	Staged	Choose and order, pilot, roll out in waves, retire the old - 15 tasks over 16 weeks, plus an asset target counting old laptops retired. 3.3.0: 11 dependencies (each wave waits for the one before), a pilot gate (pilot users happy, image fixed) and two benefits (fewer laptop faults; faster start-up)
Mail migration to the cloud	Staged	Prepare, pilot batch, migrate, cut over - 13 tasks over 10 weeks. 3.3.0: 10 dependencies, a go-live gate on the cut-over (mail flow signed off, rollback plan, the MX change approved, the old server backed up) and a benefit (fewer mail outages)
Windows 11 rollout	Simple	Check readiness, upgrade, finish - 8 tasks over 13 weeks, plus an asset target counting machines on Windows 11. 3.3.0: 5 dependencies
Service desk improvement	Agile	Four two-week sprints of improvements - 7 tasks. 3.3.0: two benefits (faster first response; fewer repeat tickets), reviewed monthly

Pick one and the form fills in its way of running, colour, icon and goal. Change anything you like - what you type wins over the template. Then press Create.

• Dates. A template keeps its dates as days from the start, so every phase and task is planned from the Start date you give - today if you leave it empty. The Target finish follows from the template unless you set one.
• Tasks are ordinary tasks with nobody assigned and nothing ticked off, so nobody gets a flood of notifications.
• Asset targets that need a status or location by name - "Retired", say - are only added if that name exists on your install. One that cannot be matched is left out rather than guessed.
• The project's History says which template it was started from.

Open a project that went well and press Template at the foot of its banner. Give the template a name and, if you like, a line saying what kind of project it suits, then choose what to keep:

• the stages and tasks (dates become days from the project's start), with (3.3.0) the tasks' dependencies, the milestones, and each stage's gate checklist and whether it is a go-live gate - a sign-off keeps its title but nobody is named, a change or document item waits for one to be chosen;
• the scope - deliverables and their MoSCoW priorities;
• risks and assumptions (issues, decisions and lessons were about that project, so they stay behind);
• (3.3.0) the benefits - what should improve, how it is measured, which way is better, the target and the review interval. Never the baseline (that is measured on the new project) or the owner; a benefit's first review is its target date;
• the tolerances - days late allowed, the highest risk score allowed and (3.3.0) overspend allowed (before 3.3.0 a template quietly dropped the overspend tolerance);
• the asset targets.

People, the company, links and progress are never kept, so one template works for any company on the install. Saving a template needs the Templates permission (see below); anyone who may create projects can start from one.

Changing a template. Start a project from it, change the project however you like, then press Template and choose Replace one of your templates. Pick the template, adjust its name or description if you want, and press Save - you are asked to confirm. Its plan is replaced with the project's; it keeps whether it is offered, and projects already started from it are not changed. A built-in template cannot be overwritten: start from it, change the project, save it as your own, and untick Offered on the built-in. Settings → Templates changes only a template's name, description and whether it is offered.

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How you run a project decides what its time boxes are called and how they behave. Underneath, every project is built the same way, which is what makes it safe to change your mind.

	Time boxes are called	In progress at once	Tools switched on
Simple	Phases	Any number. For most projects, most of the time	People
Staged	Stages	One. Each stage is finished before the next starts, in a PRINCE2-style staged approach - for projects that report to a board	People, Scope, RACI, RAID, Gates, Budget, Change control, Benefits
Agile	Sprints	One. For work that changes as you learn	People, Scope, RAID

With Staged or Agile, starting a second stage while one is still in progress is refused: "Build the network" is still active. Close it before starting another.

Change How you run it in Edit. Nothing is lost:

• Finished time boxes keep the name they were run under - a finished stage stays a stage.
• Open time boxes (planned or in progress) take the new method's name straight away.
• If the new method allows only one time box in progress, the earliest stays in progress and the others go back to Planned.
• The project's tools go back to the new method's own set (tailor them again afterwards if you like). Nothing in a tool that is now off is deleted.
• The change is written to the project's history.

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A project can use eight tools, each on a tab of its own: People, Scope, RACI, RAID, Gates, Budget and (3.3.0) Change control and Benefits. How it is run decides which are on to begin with (the table above), but every project can be tailored: Edit it and tick or untick the tools under Tools. The section shows when editing, not when creating - a new project starts with its method's set.

• Switching a tool off hides its tab. Nothing in it is deleted, and switching it back on brings everything back.
• Changing How you run it in the same dialog puts the tools back to the new method's set.
• Switching Gates off also stops the project's tolerances from raising exceptions.
• The change is written to the history as changed the tools.

A Simple project starts with just People, so somebody new to running projects never meets a RACI matrix or earned value on day one. The rest are waiting in the Toolbox on the project's Overview: one card for each tool the project is not using yet, saying what it is for and when you would want it.

When the project itself suggests a tool, its card is marked Suggested, moves to the front and gives the reason instead:

Tool	Suggested when
People	Two or more people have tasks on it, but nobody is listed on the People tab
Scope	It has 12 or more tasks
RACI	Four or more people are on it
RAID	A task is overdue - a RAID log tracks the issues and risks behind it
Gates	It has three or more stages
Budget	It runs for 90 days or more
Change control	Its target date has already moved
Benefits	It has a business case

• Add switches the tool on, exactly as ticking it under Tools in Edit does - so it can be switched off again there. Adding RACI also adds People and Scope, because the matrix is built from them.
• Hide hides the Toolbox for that project, in your browser. Edit still has every tool.
• It shows only to people who may change the project, and not on a closed or cancelled project, or one already using all eight tools.
• Projects → Settings → General → Toolbox on the Overview switches it off for everybody (it is on by default). Tools are then set in each project's Edit only.

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The People tab lists who is on the project. Add someone puts one of these on it, with a role:

Kind	For
Analyst	Anyone with a FreeITSM analyst account
Team	A whole team. Every analyst in it counts as part of the project's team for permissions
Person	Somebody from People with no analyst account - a business sponsor or a key user. Search by name, email or job title. On an install with more than one company they must belong to the project's company
Contractor (3.3.0)	A supplier from Contracts, or one person there - see Contractors. Only offered to people with Contracts

Nobody can be added twice. The project manager leads the project whether or not they are listed here.

Roles come from Projects → Settings → Roles. A fresh install starts with the PRINCE2-style roles, described in FreeITSM's own words, plus two everyday ones:

Role	What it means
Executive	Owns the business case and makes the final call at each gate
Senior User	Speaks for the people who will use what the project delivers
Senior Supplier	Speaks for the people building or supplying it
Project Manager	Runs the project day to day
Team Manager	Leads a team delivering part of the work
Project Assurance	Checks independently that the project is being run properly
Project Support	Helps with plans, records and admin
Team member	Does the work
Stakeholder	Needs to be kept informed

The people on a project are the columns of its RACI matrix. Taking someone off removes their RACI letters too; tasks assigned to them are not changed.

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Every member card has Place (or Stakeholder once placed). Set:

Field	Meaning
Power 1-5	How much they can affect the project - very low to very high
Interest 1-5	How much the project affects them
Where they stand	Champion, supporter, neutral, sceptic or blocker - always shown in words
How they are kept informed	The communications plan for them: Monthly highlight report, a chat before each gate

Under the cards, Who needs to know? draws the classic power / interest grid - 3 and up counts as high:

	Low interest	High interest
High power	Keep satisfied	Manage closely
Low power	Monitor	Keep informed

with each person's name and stance in their quadrant, and the Communications plan under it: everyone placed, most important (power x interest) first, with their quadrant, stance and how they are kept informed - Not planned yet when nobody has said. Members not placed are left off the map.

Stakeholders are members: add the board, the sponsor and the people affected (a person from People, a whole team) on this tab, and place them. Placing someone is in the History. Anyone who may change the project can place people; everyone who can see it sees the map.

The Scope tab is a board of what the project delivers - its deliverables and requirements - in five columns:

Column	Means
Must	The project fails without it
Should	Important, but there is a way round it
Could	Nice to have if there is time
Won't (this time)	Agreed to leave out - for now
Not prioritised	Not sorted yet

The count above the board reads, for example, 3 must, 2 should, 1 could.

• Type into the box at the foot of a column and press + to add a deliverable straight into it.
• Drag a card to another column to change its priority, or within a column to reorder it. A change of priority is written to the history.
• Click a card to open it. As well as its title and priority, a deliverable has a Status (Proposed, Agreed, In progress, Accepted or Dropped), the phase it belongs to (or Any), a Description, and Done when... - how you will know it has been delivered.
• Delete in that dialog removes the deliverable and its row in the RACI matrix.

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The RACI tab is a grid: the project's people across the top, its deliverables down the side. Each cell holds one letter, or nothing.

Letter
R	Responsible	Does the work
A	Accountable	Owns it - one per row
C	Consulted	Asked before
I	Informed	Told after

• Click a cell to cycle it: empty → R → A → C → I → empty.
• One A per deliverable. Setting A for a second person makes the previous one R, because they are still doing the work - you are told when that happens.
• A row with nobody accountable or nobody responsible is allowed while you draft, and says so under the deliverable's name.
• Dropped deliverables are left out of the grid.
• The tab needs both people and deliverables. Until it has them it says which tab to add them on.

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The RAID tab is one log for six kinds of entry: Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies (3.3.0), Decisions and Lessons. + Add opens an entry with:

Field	On
Title, Detail	Every entry
Owner (an analyst), Review by (a date), Status (Open / Closed)	Every entry
Probability and Impact, 1 to 5	Risks
Response - Avoid, Reduce, Transfer, Accept or Share - and How it will be handled	Risks
Impact	Issues
Linked ticket	Issues. Only a ticket you can open, in the project's company
Needed by (the date field)	Dependencies (3.3.0)
Decide by (the date field), then Decided by, Decided on and Why	Decisions (3.3.0)

A risk's score is probability × impact, from 1 to 25. The list puts open entries first and the highest-scoring risks at the top.

• The buttons along the top filter by kind and show how many of each are open. Show closed adds closed entries back to the list.
• Logging, closing, reopening and deleting an entry are written to the history. A deleted entry leaves a line there saying it existed.

A dependency is something the project needs from outside it - the landlord finishing the fit-out, a supplier delivering, another team's work. Its date is Needed by; close it when it arrives.

A decision is logged before it is made, with a Decide by date, and closed when it is made. Closing it asks for Decided by (any name - the sponsor, the board, a person with no FreeITSM account; the project's people are suggested), Decided on (today if left empty; never a future date) and Why. Choose Decisions along the top for the decision log: each decision with who made it, when, why, and how many of its follow-up actions are done.

A dependency or a decision still open after its date turns the project At risk (How health is worked out), and the Overview says 1 dependency or decision past its date. The row's date shows in red.

When an entry needs somebody above the project manager - the sponsor to ring the landlord, the board to approve more money - open it and Escalate it with a line saying what is needed. It is stamped with who and when, and:

• the Overview lists it under N escalated, with the note, until it is dealt with;
• the RAID tab marks the row Escalated, and the portfolio card says 1 escalated;
• the project manager's bell rings (unless they escalated it themselves), and the A project RAID entry is escalated workflow trigger fires - so a workflow can email the sponsor.

De-escalate clears it; so does closing the entry. Escalating again replaces the note and tells people again.

Any saved entry can have follow-up actions: what was agreed after a decision, the mitigation for a risk, the fix for an issue. Type what needs doing, pick who and when if you like, and press Add. Each action is an ordinary task on the project - on the Tasks board, with the usual emails - so the entry shows 1 of 2 actions done as the work is done. The cross unlinks an action; the task itself is kept. Deleting the entry unlinks its actions too.

Two buttons save retyping. Both appear on an entry that has been saved, once per entry, and only if you may change the project.

• Knowledge (on a lesson) turns it into a draft Knowledge article: the title becomes the article's title, the detail its text, with a line linking back to the project. It belongs to the project's company and is internal. It is linked on the project's Connections tab, and the lesson's row shows Knowledge article (draft) until somebody publishes it in Knowledge. Needs access to Knowledge.
• Raise (on an issue, under Linked ticket) raises a new ticket from it, instead of linking one that already exists. The title becomes the subject; the detail, the impact and the project it came from become the description. You are the requester (so your account needs an email address), it is assigned to the issue's owner - or to you if it has none - and it belongs to the project's company. The issue and the project both link to it, so the ticket shows the project too. Needs access to Tickets.

Anything you typed into the dialog is saved first, so nothing is lost when you press either button.

Every open risk with both a probability and an impact is counted on a 5 × 5 grid, probability up the side and impact along the bottom. Squares are shaded by score: green below 8, amber from 8 to 14, red from 15. Click a square to list just those risks; click it again, or Show all, to clear it.

The words on the two scales come from Projects → Settings → RAID. Out of the box:

Step	Probability	Impact
1	Rare	Negligible
2	Unlikely	Minor
3	Possible	Moderate
4	Likely	Major
5	Almost certain	Severe

Export, at the end of the filters, downloads the whole log - every type, open and closed, whatever the filters show - as an Excel workbook or a CSV file: type, title, detail, status, owner, probability, impact, score, response and plan, review date, raised / closed / escalated dates, who decided and why, the linked ticket, and the follow-up actions (each marked done or not). It is there for anybody who can see the project.

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The Gates tab holds the controls a staged project answers to - in the PRINCE2 style, described in FreeITSM's own words. It is on for Staged projects and can be switched on for any other.

Why the project is worth doing - the benefits, the costs and the risks. It is free text, saved with Save, and meant to be reviewed at every gate.

How far the project may drift before it needs a decision. Leave one blank to switch it off.

Tolerance	Exceeded when
Days late allowed (0 to 365)	The target finish, or the end date of the stage in progress, is more than this many days in the past while work is still open
Highest risk score allowed (1 to 25)	An open risk in the RAID log scores more than this

A project outside one of its tolerances is an exception. While that lasts:

• its worked-out health is Off track;
• a Tolerance exceeded banner on the Overview and Gates tabs names each breach - for example 12 days past the target finish - 7 allowed - and says the project needs a decision: re-plan, change the tolerances, or stop;
• its card on the portfolio carries an Exception chip.

Exceptions are worked out every time the project is shown and never stored, so they clear themselves once the project is back inside its tolerances. They apply only to a live project (not Closed or Cancelled) with the Gates tool on. A health set by hand stays as it was set; the banner and chip still show.

Each stage is listed with its status and its decision. Press Decide on a stage that is in progress or done (a planned stage has no button yet), review the business case, the plan and the RAID log, and choose:

Decision	What happens
Go	The stage is closed and the next planned stage starts. You get a burst of colour and a message naming the stage that has started
Go with conditions	The same as Go. The conditions must be written in Notes and conditions
Stop	Recorded, nothing else. No stage changes: what happens next is for the people running the project to decide

The decision, who made it and when stay on the stage, and the decision is written to the history. A Go recorded on a stage that is already done only records the decision - it does not start another stage. A decision can be changed by deciding again.

Under each stage on the Gates tab is its checklist - what must be true before a go. + Item adds one of four kinds:

Kind	Done when	Who
Check	It is ticked	Anybody who may change the project
Document	One of the project's documents is chosen for it - Backout plan: Rollback plan v2. It opens again if that document is taken off the project	Anybody who may change the project
Sign-off	The named person signs it (Sign; Withdraw takes it back). Naming somebody else clears it	Only that person - they are told on the bell (your sign-off is needed), and need not be on the project's team
Change	The chosen linked change is approved in Changes - it cannot be ticked by hand	Changes

Several sign-offs on one gate is how a gate needs several approvers. Checklist: 3 of 6 done sits under the stage; click an item's name to change it, × to remove it.

Go-live gates. The drop-down beside the count turns a gate into a Go-live gate, which adds a starter checklist - user acceptance testing signed off (by the project manager, to change), a backout plan document, the change approved, support handover agreed - except any the gate already has by name. Keep them, change them or add to them.

At the decision, the gate dialog lists what is still open. By default a go (or go with conditions) is refused until everything is done - 2 checklist item(s) still open: ...; a stop is always allowed. Projects → Settings → General → An open gate checklist item can make it a warning instead: the go goes through and Still open at the gate: ... is written into the gate's notes, so the record says so.

Before a decision, the gate checks the changes linked on the Connections tab. Any that are still open and not approved - pending approval, or a draft nobody has submitted - are listed in the gate dialog with their status and planned start, each linked to the change:

2 linked change(s) not approved yet

• CHG-0037 Migrate Primary DNS to New Subnet - Pending Approval - starts 16.09.2026 22:00
• CHG-0043 Replace UPS Batteries - Server Room - Pending Approval - starts 20.09.2026 09:00

The stage in progress also carries a chip, 2 change(s) not approved, on the Gates tab. It is a warning, not a block: the board may know a change is a formality, and the decision stays theirs. A change counts as approved once it has been approved in Changes; completed, failed and cancelled changes are not listed. You see the list only if you can open Changes. The project.stage_closed workflow event carries unapproved_changes, so a workflow can tell somebody when a stage closed with changes still outstanding.

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Projects → Settings (in the module's menu) has seven tabs. Each needs its own permission, ticked on a role in System → Roles; Manage Projects covers all seven, and also lets its holder change or delete any project. Somebody with none of them sees Nothing to configure here.

Tab	What it sets
General	How projects are started, who may create and change them, what goes on the Calendar, how disruption is announced and, (3.3.0), priorities, the portfolio's order, change control, the Toolbox, reminders, who can see a new project, gate checklists, benefits and approval of proposals. Every option and its default is below
Health	When a live project turns amber or red: amber when the target is this close (default 14 days) and less than this much is done (default 75%); red when this much of the open work is overdue (default 25%); amber when this many linked tickets were raised in the last 7 days (default 5, 0 switches it off). (3.3.0) What a missed milestone does, and what a late dependency or decision does: nothing, amber (default) or red. Capacity: hours a person works in a week (37.5), stretched from (85%), several projects from (3), working days (Monday to Friday), and whether service-desk shifts count (yes)
Roles	The roles offered on the People tab. Add, edit, drag to reorder. Untick Offered on projects to stop offering a role that is in use; deleting a role leaves its holders on their projects with no role
RAID	The five words for the probability scale and for the impact scale, one box per step, lowest first. A word may contain a comma. Left as they are, the defaults show in each person's own language
Budget	The currency for new projects, whether a project may choose its own, how logged time is costed (hours / one rate / each analyst's rate), and the hourly rates - the default and each analyst's - each from a date. (3.3.0) The overspend tolerance measures what has been spent (default) or the forecast, and Estimates in the forecast - whether hours still estimated on open tasks count, priced at today's rate (yes). Its own permission: analysts' rates are close to pay
AI	The AI provider, model and API key the AI project manager uses, with a Test button. Its own permission: the key spends your organisation's money. Nothing is sent to a provider until somebody presses Brief me or Draft, asks the Ask AI assistant something, or a project has a report schedule
Templates	Every template. Untick Offered to stop offering a built-in one; the pencil on one of your own renames it, switches it off or deletes it. Deleting a template never changes the projects started from it. The same permission lets someone save a project as a template

In the order the page shows them. (3.3.0) marks the ones new in 3.3.0.

Option	Choices	Default
Default way of running a project	Simple, Staged or Agile	Simple
Who may create projects	Anyone who can open Projects, or only people who manage Projects	Anyone who can open Projects
Who may change a project	Its team and people who manage Projects, or anyone who can open Projects	Its team
On the Calendar	Target end dates, stage ends and milestones; target end dates only; or nothing - see On the Calendar	All three
Announce disruption on Service Status	As planned maintenance, straight away as an incident, or not at all - see Announcing disruption	As planned maintenance
Priority words (3.3.0)	The four priorities, lowest first	Low, Medium, High, Critical, in each person's language
Portfolio order (3.3.0)	Target date, priority, health or name	Target date
Progress over time counts (3.3.0)	Tasks or estimated hours - what the burn-up opens on	Tasks
Take a baseline by itself (3.3.0)	When a project goes active and when each stage starts; when it goes active; or never - see Change control	Active and each stage
Who decides change requests (3.3.0)	The project manager (or Manage Projects); anyone on the project's team; or only people with Manage Projects	The project manager
Decide your own requests (3.3.0)	Whether whoever raised a change request may also decide it	Yes
Toolbox on the Overview (3.3.0)	Whether projects show the Toolbox	Yes
AI assistant's memory (3.3.0)	Whose Ask AI conversation a project keeps: each person their own, or one the whole project team shares	Each person their own
Email contractors (3.3.0)	Whether the person at a contractor is emailed when given a task, two days before it is due and once it is missed	Off - track only
Overdue task digest (3.3.0)	Weekly on Monday, daily, or never - see Reminders	Weekly
Nudge after (days) (3.3.0)	Days a proposal, change request, gate sign-off or report draft may wait before the people who decide it are reminded, and again every as many days. 0 = no reminders	3
Who can see a new project (3.3.0)	Everyone with Projects, or members only - see Members-only projects	Everyone with Projects
An open gate checklist item (3.3.0)	Stops the go until it is done, or allows the go and notes what was still open - see The gate's checklist	Stops the go
Review benefits every (3.3.0)	Months between reviews of a new benefit; 0 = reviewed once	3 months
Benefit review reminders go to (3.3.0)	Its owner and the project manager, or its owner only	Both
New projects that need approval (3.3.0)	Those proposed on a form, every new project, or none - see Intake and approval	Those proposed on a form
Who approves proposals (3.3.0)	People who manage Projects, or a named person (The named person below)	People who manage Projects
The named person (3.3.0)	Who proposals go to when Who approves proposals is a named person	Nobody chosen
Approving a proposal (3.3.0)	It stays Proposed for its project manager to start, or it starts straight away	Stays Proposed
Approving a change (3.3.0)	Also moves the target finish and adds the cost to the budget, or takes a new baseline only	Also moves the plan

A project's team is its project manager, the person who created it, and its members - analysts listed on its People tab, and every analyst in a team listed there. People added from People are not analysts, so they never count.

Deleting is never "anyone": it is always the project manager, the creator, or someone who manages Projects.

The rule about changing a project covers everything on it: its details, stages, tasks added on the Plan, putting a task in or taking it out from the Tasks board, connections, people, scope, RACI, RAID, the business case, tolerances and gate decisions.

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An asset target sits on a project's Overview and counts something in Assets - "12 of 44 Latitude 5430s retired", "8 of 442 machines on Windows 11". The count is worked out every time the page opens, so the moment somebody changes an asset the project moves; nobody has to remember to tick anything.

Each target card shows the count, the percentage, the rule in words, a progress bar, a line of its progress (one point a day from the day the target was set up - it says The line fills in day by day until there are two), what it covers, its date and N still to do.

Setting one up - + Add on the Asset targets panel (or Measure progress straight from Assets when there are none):

1. Name it.
2. Which assets - Matching: a Type and/or a field (Model, Manufacturer, Operating system or Name) that contains some text. Or Linked to this project: the assets on the Connections tab.
3. Counts as done when - one field and one comparison:

Field	Comparisons
Status, Location	is, is not
Operating system, Model, Manufacturer	contains, does not contain, is
Feature release, TPM version	is at least, is
BitLocker	is, is not

4. A Target date - or leave it empty to use the project's target end date.

As you type, the dialog shows N assets match - N done now, so a rule that matches nothing is obvious before you save it.

Examples: Model contains 5430, done when Status is Retired. Operating system contains Windows, done when Operating system contains Windows 11. Operating system contains Windows 11, done when BitLocker is On.

N still to do opens the list of assets left (and Done), each a link to the asset. It shows the first 200.

Rules

• A target only ever counts assets in the project's own company.
• Setting up or changing a target, and seeing which assets are behind it, needs access to Assets as well as being allowed to change the project. Anyone who can open the project sees the counts.
• Changing a target's rule starts its line again - yesterday's points measured something else. Deleting a target never touches the assets.
• An asset with no status, location or operating system recorded is not done for a rule that asks for one.

Health: a live target past its date and not finished is red and turns the project Off track. One that is more than 25 points behind a straight line from the day it was set up to its date is amber, and turns an otherwise On track project At risk.

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A jump in linked tickets (3.2.0). When the tickets linked to a project and raised in the last 7 days reach the Health setting (5 by default), its worked-out health is at least amber - never red on that alone. It is how a go-live that is quietly generating calls shows up: the Overview says 6 tickets linked to this project were raised in the last 7 days, and the Connections tab lists them. Link the tickets as they come in (from the ticket's own Projects strip, or the Connections tab).

Unless somebody sets it by hand, a live project's health is worked out from its tasks and its target date every time it is shown. Nothing is stored, so it can never go stale after somebody ticks off a task on the Tasks board.

The rules, checked in this order. The figures are the defaults; they can be changed in Projects → Settings → Health.

Health	When
🔴 Off track	The target finish has passed and work is still open, or a quarter or more of the open tasks are overdue, or the project has gone past one of its tolerances, or an asset target is past its date and not finished
🟠 At risk	At least one open task is overdue, or a milestone was missed, or a dependency or decision is past its date (each of those two can be set to red, or to nothing, in Projects → Settings → Health), or the target finish is 14 days away or less and less than three quarters of the tasks are done, or an asset target is well behind
🟢 On track	None of the above

• A task is overdue when it is not in a closed status and its due date is before today.
• Only top-level tasks count. Subtasks belong to their task.
• A project with no tasks is On track.
• Closed and Cancelled projects have no health; the ring says Finished.
• Proposed and On hold projects do have a health, so a proposal with overdue work shows up under Need attention.

Progress is the share of the project's top-level tasks that are in a closed status.

To set health yourself, Edit the project, choose On track, At risk or Off track, and say why in Why?. The reason shows on the Overview. Choose Work it out for me to hand it back.

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A task added to a project is a normal task. It appears on the Tasks board, can be assigned, scheduled, timed, commented on and given subtasks and checklists, and sends the usual assignment email, notification bell and workflow events. One list of work per person, not two.

On the Tasks board:

• a card that belongs to a project shows a chip with the project's name in the project's colour (hover it for the phase);
• the sidebar gains a Project filter - All projects, Not in a project, or one project. It lists the projects the tasks on the board belong to, and is hidden when none do;
• the task window has a Project field for top-level tasks. Pick a live project to add the task to it, or Not in a project to take it out; Open goes to the project's plan, and Part of names its phase. Choosing a project here puts the task in Not in a phase yet - file it into a phase on the Plan tab.

Only top-level tasks belong to a project; a subtask goes with its task. (3.3.0) The REST API now keeps to the same rule and refuses to put a subtask in a project on its own.

Analysts who cannot open Projects still see the project's name on the card and in the task window, as plain text.

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Most projects lean on an outside firm for something - the cabling, the removals, the install. A task can be given to a contractor: a supplier from Contracts, and if you like one person there.

Giving a task to a contractor. Open the task on the Tasks board. Under the assignee are Contractor (the suppliers) and Contact there (that supplier's people - no email beside anyone who has none). Change the contractor and the contact is cleared, because a contact belongs to one supplier; pick No contractor to take the task back.

The Assignee does not change: it is the person here who owns the task and chases the firm. A contractor task normally has both - Laura owns Cabling installed and tested, Nexus IT does it.

Who	Can
Anyone who can see the task	See which firm (and person) it is with
Somebody with Contracts as well	Choose or change the contractor - suppliers live in Contracts

Where contractor work shows:

• on the Plan, a grey chip with the firm's name beside the due date; on the Timeline, in the bar's tooltip;
• on the Tasks board, a line on the card, and a Contractor filter in the left panel - one firm, With a contractor, or Not with a contractor (shown once any task has one);
• on Capacity, not in anybody's load - the hours are the firm's, not yours. A Contractors table under the people lists each firm's open tasks, hours left and how many are late;
• in the weekly overdue digest, the AI briefing and reports, and Ask AI, which say which late work is with a contractor - and Ask AI can suggest giving a task to one, and putting the firm on the team. Giving a firm tasks does not by itself add it to the People tab;
• on the supplier's page in People (and the contact's), under Tasks with them, open first, with the project and who here chases each one.

A firm on the team. On the People tab, Add someone → Contractor puts a supplier - or one person there - on the project with a role, so they can have RACI letters and a place on the stakeholder map. The tab only appears for people with Contracts.

Emailing the contractor is off to begin with: contractor work is tracked here and you chase it yourself. Projects → Settings → General → Email contractors turns it on. The contact is then emailed:

When	What
A task is given to them	New task: the task, the project, the firm, the dates, the description, and who to reply to here (the assignee)
Two days before it is due	Due soon: the same, once per due date
The day after it is missed	Overdue: once - move the due date and both reminders come round again

Emails go from your outgoing mailbox, only to a contact with an email address, and only for tasks not yet done. Each is in System → Email → Send log as Task for a contractor. The contact is a supplier contact, not a FreeITSM user: they cannot sign in, so they reply to the person named.

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Every project has a Documents tab: plans, designs, sign-off letters, backout plans - an uploaded file or a link to where it already lives (SharePoint, a share), the same panel as on assets, changes and contracts (see Attached Documents). Anybody who can see the project can see its documents; attaching follows the Documents rules. A gate checklist's document items point at these.

The Connections tab links a project to the records it touches, from the rest of FreeITSM:

Kind	For
Equipment	The laptops, servers and kit the project works on
Changes	Changes the project raises, with their status
Tickets	Tickets about the project - including the ones it caused
Contracts	Supplier contracts the project relies on
Configuration items	The services and systems in the CMDB it touches
Knowledge	Runbooks, plans and write-ups
Problems (3.3.0)	Problems the project exists to fix - or that it caused - with their status

Type in the box under a kind (Search to link...) and pick a result to link it; the list leaves out anything already linked. The × on a row unlinks it. Both are written to the project's history. Unlinking never changes the record itself.

The rules:

• You see a kind only if you can open its module. Somebody without Contracts sees no Contracts box at all.
• You see a link only if you can open the record at the other end. A link you cannot see both ends of is left out, not shown as hidden - and you cannot remove it.
• On an install with more than one company, equipment, changes, tickets, problems and configuration items must belong to the project's own company. Contracts and knowledge articles are not company records, so they are judged by their own permissions.
• Deleted tickets are never offered or shown.
• After upgrading, run System → Database Verification. Until then a kind that is new in the upgrade (Problems, in 3.3.0) is left out; (3.3.0) the other kinds keep working - before 3.3.0 one missing kind hid every link.

A link shows at both ends. The linked record lists the projects it is part of - each in its colour, with its code, status, owner, health and progress - and can be added to a project from there:

Where	What you see
A configuration item in the CMDB	A Projects card, with Add to a project...
A contract	A Projects block among the related sections
An asset	A Projects tab in the asset's details
A change	A Projects panel under the CAB review
A problem (3.3.0)	A Projects section above the notes
A knowledge article	Its projects under the article when reading it (only if there are any); linked in the editor
A ticket	Project pills in the Links strip, and Project in the Link to... menu
A person in People	Projects they are part of - every project they are a member of, with their role and their RACI duties under it: "Accountable for Phones working on day one, Every desk patched and 1 more" (hover for the full list)
A company in People	Projects - that company's projects

The picker there offers only live projects you are allowed to change, in the record's own company. The same rules apply as on the Connections tab: without Projects access none of this is shown.

If the tab says to run Database Verification, an administrator needs to run System → Database Verification once after upgrading.

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Project dates appear on the shared Calendar, where the rest of the team already plans their week:

Entry	When it appears
Project due: Move to the Bradford office (PRJ-0002)	on the project's target end date, while the project is proposed or active
Stage ends: Build the network - Move to the Bradford office	on each stage's end date until the stage closes (it says Phase or Sprint when the project runs that way)
Milestone: Move day - Move to the Bradford office	on each milestone's date until it is reached (3.3.0)

They are all-day entries in a category called Projects (coral to begin with). Rename or recolour the category on the Calendar and the entries keep using it.

The Calendar follows the plan by itself. Change a date, rename the project or a stage, or switch method, and the entries move with it. When a gate closes a stage, its entry goes. When the project is put on hold, closed or cancelled, all of its entries go, and they come back if it restarts. A stage or project with no date has no entry.

Projects → Settings → General → On the Calendar chooses what goes on: target end dates, stage ends and milestones (the default), only target end dates, or nothing. Saving the setting redraws the Calendar straight away.

Things to know:

• The entries are written by Projects. A change made to one on the Calendar is replaced the next time any project changes. Change the date on the project instead.
• The wording is in English, as the warranty, renewal and domain entries are. The category name is the part you can change.
• Calendar entries have no company, so on an install with more than one company everyone who can open the Calendar sees every project's dates.
• After a demo data import, the entries are redrawn the next time any project is saved.

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A project's manager (the person in Project manager) is told in the notification bell when:

What happens	Bell entry	On by default
Its health changes - green, amber or red, worked out or set by hand	Move to the Bradford office: amber to red	✅
It goes beyond a time or risk tolerance	Move to the Bradford office: a risk scores 16 (allowed 12)	✅
A stage, phase or sprint ends in 7 days, and again the day before	Move to the Bradford office: Move day ends tomorrow	✅
A stage closes, by its gate or by hand	Move to the Bradford office: Survey and design closed	❌
A milestone is 7 days away, and again the day before	Move to the Bradford office: Move day is tomorrow	✅
A milestone's date passes without it being reached (said once, within 14 days of the date)	Move to the Bradford office: Move day was missed	✅
A milestone is marked reached	Move to the Bradford office: Move day reached	❌
Somebody else escalates a RAID entry (3.3.0)	Move to the Bradford office: issue escalated - No access to the comms room	✅
Somebody else raises a change request (3.3.0)	Move to the Bradford office: CR-3 raised - Move day a week later	✅
Somebody else approves or rejects one (3.3.0)	Move to the Bradford office: CR-3 approved - Move day a week later	✅
A project is proposed and you approve proposals (3.3.0)	Replace the meeting room screens: proposed, waiting for approval	✅
A project you proposed is approved or rejected (3.3.0)	Replace the meeting room screens: proposal approved	✅
You are named to sign something off at a stage gate (3.3.0)	Laptop refresh: your sign-off is needed - Service desk lead happy (Pilot)	✅
A benefit you own, or of a project you manage, is due for review (3.3.0) - after closure too	Replace the printers: review the benefit - Fewer printer tickets	✅
Your active project has overdue tasks - the digest (3.3.0)	Move to the Bradford office: 4 tasks are overdue	✅
A scheduled report is drafted for you to check (3.3.0)	Laptop refresh: a report is drafted for you to check - Highlight report - 12 Oct 2026	✅
Something you decide has waited days - a nudge (3.3.0)	Move to the Bradford office: still waiting on change request - CR-3: Move day a week later (3 days)	✅

Each is said once, when it happens. A project that stays red does not ring every hour; a breach that clears and comes back is new news, so it rings again. Moving a stage's end date re-arms its warnings. Nobody is told about a change they made themselves, so a project manager who sets their own project to red hears nothing, while the sponsor who does it for them is heard.

Clicking an entry opens the project. Each person can switch these off, or switch on the bell for a stage closing, in Preferences → Notifications. A project with no project manager has nobody to tell; a workflow can still act on it.

A task in a project is an ordinary task, so being given one already rings the normal A task is assigned to me bell.

Two reminders, both set in Projects → Settings → General:

• Overdue task digest - each active project's manager gets one bell for the project's overdue tasks: Weekly, on Monday (the default - the first check of the week, so Monday morning when the scheduled job runs), Daily, or Never. Nothing overdue, nothing sent. The ten oldest are in the Workflow fields; the full list is on the Plan.
• Nudge after (days) - when something has waited this many days (default 3) for a decision, the people who decide it are reminded, and again every as many days until it is decided. 0 = no nudges.

Waiting	Nudges	From
A proposal waiting for approval	Its approvers (Manage Projects, or the person named in the intake settings)	When it was proposed
A change request not yet approved or rejected	Whoever may decide it (the Who decides change requests setting)	When it was raised
A gate sign-off not yet given	The person named	When they were named
A report still a draft	The project manager	When it was drafted

Only things that have waited 45 days or less are nudged, so the day this arrives does not ring for months-old leftovers. Like every project bell, a reminder for the same project folds into the one bell entry, which shows the newest; each person can switch either off in Preferences → Notifications.

The same moments are triggers in Workflows, so they can reach people outside FreeITSM:

Trigger	Extra fields beside the project's
A project's health changes	from, to (green / amber / red), manual (1 when set by hand)
A project goes beyond a time or risk tolerance	kind (time, stage_time or risk), late_days, score, allowed
A project stage, phase or sprint closes	stage.*, gate_decision (empty when closed by hand), next_stage
A project stage ends soon (time-based)	stage.*, days_remaining, window_days (7 or 1)
A project milestone is coming up (time-based)	milestone.* (id, name, due_date, done_date, stage_id, state), days_remaining, window_days (7 or 1)
A project milestone is missed (time-based)	milestone.*, days_late
A project milestone is reached	milestone.*, late_days (0 = on time)
A project RAID entry is escalated	raid.id, raid.type, raid.title, raid.due_date, raid.owner_analyst_id, note (what is needed)
A change request is raised on a project (3.3.0)	change_request.id, .reference (CR-3), .title, .status (proposed), .impact_days (+ later), .impact_cost (+ more), .impact_scope, .raised_by_id
A change request on a project is approved or rejected (3.3.0)	the same, with .status approved or rejected, .decided_by_id, .decision_notes
A project is proposed and waits for approval (3.3.0)	proposal.status, .estimated_cost, .estimated_benefit, .business_case, .proposed_by_name, .proposed_by_email, .proposed_by_analyst_id, .submission_id
Somebody is named to sign off at a project stage gate (3.3.0)	item.id, item.title, item.analyst_id, stage.id, stage.name
A project benefit is due for review (3.3.0, time-based, closed projects too)	benefit.id, .title, .measure, .unit, .review_date, .baseline_value, .target_value, .owner_analyst_id
A project proposal is approved or rejected (3.3.0)	the same, with .status approved or rejected, .notes, .decided_by_id
A project has overdue tasks - the digest (3.3.0, time-based)	count, period (weekly / daily), tasks (the oldest ten: id, title, due_date, assignee_name, days_late)
A scheduled project report is drafted (3.3.0, time-based)	report.id, .kind, .title, .ai_drafted (1 = the AI wrote it), .schedule
Something on a project has waited days for a decision (3.3.0, time-based)	kind (proposal, change_request, signoff, report), item.id, item.title, waiting_days, since
A project is created / updated / deleted	changed on update - the fields that changed

Every one carries the project: project.id, project.code (PRJ-0042), project.name, project.status, project.health, project.methodology, project.owner_analyst_id, project.owner_name, project.company_id, project.target_end_date.

Ideas: post to a Teams or Slack channel when to equals red; raise a ticket for the PMO when a tolerance is breached; email the sponsor when a stage closes with go with conditions.

Health and tolerances are worked out from the plan, never stored, so a task going overdue overnight changes a project without anybody saving anything. Something has to look:

• Saving anything on the project - its details, a stage, a gate, a risk, a tolerance or an asset target - looks at that project straight away.
• The scheduled workflow job, cron/workflow_scheduled.php, looks at every live project. Hourly is plenty; see Time-Based Triggers.
• Opening the portfolio looks at most every 15 minutes, for an install with no scheduled jobs.

The first look at a project only records how it is, so upgrading does not ring every project manager's bell at once.

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On an install with more than one company, a project belongs to one company - the one it was created in, or the one picked in the Company field when creating it. It cannot be moved afterwards.

• You only see projects for the companies you can see. The All companies view shows them together.
• A task added on the Plan tab belongs to the project's company.
• A task from another company cannot be put in a project.
• Opening a project from another company by its address shows This project does not exist, or it belongs to a company you cannot see.

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The portfolio's search and views live behind a Filter button at the bottom of the screen, which also shows the view you are on. On a project's page, Back, Edit, Template (an icon, for those who may save templates) and Delete sit in a bar at the bottom, the tabs swipe sideways, and each task row has a button to move it to another lane. The Timeline scrolls sideways inside its own box with a narrower name column, and so does the Capacity table, with the person column held in place; on a phone nothing is dragged - tap a bar, band or diamond to open it and change its dates there. See Mobile: Projects.

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• Global search and the command palette (Ctrl+K / ⌘K) find a project by its name, its goal or its reference - PRJ-0042, prj42 or just 42. They search your active company.
• The Recent trail remembers the projects you open.

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Only the project manager, the person who created the project and people who manage Projects see Delete. It asks first, and says how many tasks are affected. The project, its phases, its history, its people, scope, RACI matrix, RAID log and tolerances are deleted, and its connections are removed - and so are its budget lines and its own hourly rate, its reports and, (3.3.0), its milestones, gate checklists, baselines, change requests, benefits and their measurements, and its status history. Its tasks are kept on the Tasks board and no longer belong to a project; so are tasks made as RAID follow-up actions. Disruption it announced stays on Service Status.

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The Tasks and Projects card on System → Demo Data adds projects alongside the Tasks demo. They are part of the Tasks demo rather than a module of their own because both put rows in the same tasks table.

(3.3.0) The demo is much larger: nine projects, covering every way of running one and every status, so every tab and chart has something to look at:

Project	How it is run	Status	What it shows
Move to the Bradford office	Staged	Active	The full set: a team with roles and a stakeholder map, scope, RACI, a RAID log with decisions and dependencies, gates with checklists, a budget, change control with baselines and change requests, benefits and reports
Windows 11 laptop refresh	Agile	Active	Sprints, and an asset target counting laptops on Windows 11
Mail migration to the cloud	Staged	Active	A project in trouble - the plan has moved by two weeks
Backup platform replacement	Staged	Closed	A closure report, and benefits still measured after it closed
Service desk improvement	Agile	Active	Sprints of improvements
Firewall replacement	Simple	Proposed	A proposal waiting for approval, with its estimated cost and benefit
Restructure - HR system access changes	Simple	Active	A members-only project
Phone system replacement	Staged	On hold	A paused project
Intranet refresh	Simple	Cancelled	A stopped project

Between them they have 72 tasks of their own, with estimates, dependencies and 40 days of status history, so the burn-up, burndown and flow charts have a shape from the start.

• Import Assets, Changes, Tickets, Contracts, Knowledge and CMDB first and the projects are linked to their demo records too, on the Connections tab. Without them the projects still arrive, just without those links.
• Importing again replaces the demo projects. Every project table marks its demo rows, so your own projects are never touched.

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The Budget tab - on for Staged projects, and switched on for any other under Tools - shows what the project was meant to cost against what it has cost:

Figure	What it is
Planned	The planned amounts of all its budget lines
Actual	Each line's actual, plus labour
Forecast (3.3.0)	What the project is now expected to cost in the end - red, with £2,350 over the plan, when it is more than planned. See the forecast
Remaining	Planned minus actual - red when it is below zero
Used	Actual as a share of planned, with a bar that turns amber at 90% and red past 100%

Spend over time (3.3.0) adds the money up day by day: the orange step line is what was planned to be spent by each date, the blue one what has been spent, and a dashed blue line runs from today to the target finish at the forecast. Dotted lines mark the budget, the latest baseline's budget when it differs, and the overspend tolerance. Hover for the figures on any date, or press Table. A line with no planned date counts from the project's start (the chart says how many); one with no date spent counts from the day it was last saved; labour counts on the day it was logged.

Where the money goes (3.3.0) charts planned against actual for each category - labour included once it is priced - as pairs of bars with the amounts at their ends. Hover a bar, or press Table for the figures.

Add a line for each thing you expect to spend on - 40 replacement laptops, Removals and cabling - with a category (hardware, software, services, labour, travel, other), what was planned and what has been spent. A line can also:

• name a contract linked on the Connections tab. Leave its actual empty and the contract's value is used - shown as contract value.
• carry a cost centre of the project's company (System → Cost Centres). A line keeps one that is later switched off.
• (3.3.0) say when: Planned for (when the money is expected to go out) and Spent on (when it went - never in the future). Both show under the line's name.
• (3.3.0) carry a Forecast - what it is now expected to cost in the end. Leave it empty and it is the larger of planned and actual (marked *): money already spent is not a saving until the line is finished.

The table shows Planned, Actual, Forecast and Variance - planned less forecast, so below zero means the line is expected to cost more than planned. On a phone the category and the variance are left out.

Click a line to change or delete it. Every change goes into the project's history.

The time logged on the project's tasks. Projects → Settings → Budget decides how it is costed:

Setting	Labour shows
Not at all - show hours (default)	The hours, never money
At one hourly rate	Priced at the project's own rate if it has one, otherwise the default rate
At each analyst's hourly rate	Priced at each analyst's rate, or the default where they have none

Every rate applies from a date. Time logged on a day is priced at the rate in force that day, so raising a rate today does not re-price last month. A project's own rate is set on its Budget tab, with its history listed; the default and analysts' rates are set on the Budget settings tab, which needs its own permission - analysts' rates are close to pay, and a project shows only totals, never one person's rate. Switching the setting rewrites nothing: time is stored as time and costed when it is shown.

Forecast = every line's forecast + labour, where labour is the time logged plus the hours still to come - each open task's estimate less the time logged on it, priced at the rate in force today (the Labour panel shows 45 h still to come on open tasks' estimates - £2,250, and how many open tasks have no estimate).

A labour line with no actual is treated as the plan for labour: the forecast takes the larger of those lines and the labour (logged + still to come), never both. Budget £8,000 of engineers' time as a labour line, and the forecast only goes above £8,000 once the time says so.

Projects → Settings → Budget:

Setting	Choices (default first)
The overspend tolerance measures	What has been spent · the forecast - which warns as soon as the project is expected to overspend
Estimates in the forecast	Yes · No - only the time already logged

In hours mode labour has no money value, so it adds nothing to the forecast.

On the Budget tab, once the project has a planned budget and tasks:

Line	What it is
Planned value (orange)	The budget as it was planned to be spent - the budget lines' Planned for dates, added up
Earned value (aqua)	The budget times the share of the work done by that day - by estimated hours when tasks have estimates, otherwise by number of tasks. It stops today
Actual cost (blue)	What has been spent, added up - the same as Spend over time

The tiles give today's CPI (earned value ÷ actual cost: below 1, the work done has cost more than it should have), SPI (earned value ÷ planned value: below 1, behind plan), the earned value against the budget, and the estimate at completion (budget ÷ CPI) with how far over or under that is. The AI project manager is told the same figures.

• Each project keeps the currency it was created with. Changing Currency for new projects later affects new projects only; nothing existing is relabelled.
• Amounts in different currencies are never added together. A contract in another currency is shown on its line, marked, and not counted.
• If Each project may choose its own currency is on, the Currency button changes a project's currency. It is a relabel - every amount stays the same number - and the page says so before you confirm. Use it to correct a mistake, not to convert.
• The default and analyst rates are in the install's currency. On a project in another currency, time they would price is shown as unpriced hours until the project has its own rate in its currency - it is never silently converted.

On the Gates tab, Overspend allowed (%) - next to the time and risk tolerances, and shown when the Budget tool is on - sets how far actual spend may go over the planned budget. Going further makes the project an exception: it turns Off track, the banner says Spend is 22% over budget - more than the 10% allowed, and its project manager's bell rings. (3.3.0) With The overspend tolerance measures set to the forecast, it is the forecast that is compared, and the bell says forecast 22% over budget.

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Did the project pay off? What a project is meant to improve, measured from where it started - and reviewed after it closes, which is when most benefits arrive. On for Staged projects; switch it on for others under Tools.

Benefits → Add:

Box	For example
What improves?	Fewer printer tickets
How it is measured, Unit	Printer tickets raised each month (Tickets report), tickets
Which way is better	Lower is better
Baseline, Target, Target by	42, 10, by 6 February
Owner	The project manager or an analyst on the project's team
Next review, Review every (months)	Left empty: the setting's interval from today (3 months)

Each benefit shows baseline → now → target, how far it has come (72% of the way to the target), its owner and next review, and a state worked out from the measurements:

State	When
Not measured yet	No measurement recorded
In progress	Measured, not at the target yet
Achieved	The latest measurement reaches the target, the right way
Target date missed	The target date has passed without reaching it
No longer reviewed	Stop reviewing this benefit is ticked

Record adds a measurement - a value and the date (never in the future) - with a note. The latest is now; History lists them all, and a wrong one can be deleted.

Recording a measurement on or near the review date (up to 14 days early) counts as the review: the next review moves on by the benefit's interval, or - with an interval of 0 - there is no next one.

When a review date arrives, the bell tells the benefit's owner and the project manager - Replace the printers: review the benefit - Fewer printer tickets - once per review date, whether the project is still running or closed. A cancelled project is not reviewed. The Overview shows 1 benefit review(s) due and the portfolio card a chip, on finished projects too.

The AI project manager is told every benefit, and the Reports tab's new Closure report covers what was delivered against the plan, the benefits achieved and still to come, lessons and handover.

Projects → Settings → General: Review benefits every (months, default 3; 0 = once) and Benefit review reminders go to (its owner and the project manager · its owner only, or the project manager when it has none).

From "can we have..." to an approved project, with the case for it written down.

Any form can propose a project. In Forms, open the form → What happens next → Add under When submitted (or When approved, for a form that needs signing off first) → Create a project proposal. Every box is optional:

Box	Left empty
Project name	The form's name and who sent it - Mobile Phone Request - Sam Jones
Summary	Their answers, one per line
Why it is needed, Estimated cost, Expected benefit, Wanted by	Not set
How it is run, Priority	Projects → Settings's default, Medium
Project manager	Nobody yet - decided when it is approved

Each box can use the answers - {{submission.fields.Estimated budget}}. A cost typed as £12,500 is read as 12500. The project belongs to the requester's company, and records who asked and on which form. The same action is in Workflows, so any rule can propose a project.

A proposal has a Proposal panel at the top of its Overview: who proposed it (and on which form), the estimated cost, the expected benefit and why it is needed (its business case) - Edit changes them. The portfolio has a Waiting for approval view, and the card a chip.

Until it is approved a proposal can stay Proposed or be cancelled - nothing else; This proposal is waiting for approval. It can start once it is approved.

• Approve - with notes if you like. It stays Proposed for its project manager to start (or starts straight away - a setting), and the project manager can then start it as usual.
• Reject - a reason is required. It is cancelled; nothing in it is deleted.

The approvers hear about a new proposal on the bell; whoever proposed it (an analyst) hears the decision. Somebody who asked on a form has no bell - a workflow on A project proposal is approved or rejected can email them ({{proposal.proposed_by_email}}).

Projects → Settings → General:

Setting	Choices (default first)
New projects that need approval	Those proposed on a form · every new project (New included) · none
Who approves proposals	People who manage Projects · a named person (The named person) - people who manage Projects can always decide as well, so a named approver who leaves never strands a proposal
Approving a proposal	It stays Proposed for its project manager to start · it starts straight away (with change control on, that takes its first baseline)

Turning approval on never affects projects that already exist.

What was agreed, how far the plan has drifted since, and who agreed to move it. On for Staged projects; switch it on for others under Tools.

A baseline is the plan as it was agreed: the start and target finish, the planned budget, the number of tasks and their estimated hours, the Must items, and in detail every stage, milestone and budget line. Baselines are numbered 1, 2, 3 and never edited - a new one is taken instead.

The Change control tab compares the latest with the plan as it is now:

Measure	Baseline	Now	Change
Target finish	18 Nov	5 Dec	+17 days
Planned budget	£24,500	£29,450	+£4,950 (+20%)
Tasks, estimated hours, Must items			+/- the difference

Under it, What moved lists each change by name: Milestone Network live: 6 Nov to 12 Nov (+6 days), Budget line New desks: £18,000 to £19,750, Must item added: ..., a stage that now ends later, a line or milestone added or removed. Later dates are in amber. Compare with picks an older baseline to measure against instead.

A baseline is taken:

• by hand - Baseline, with an optional label (Signed off by the board);
• by itself when the project goes active, and again when each stage starts - by its gate or by hand (Projects → Settings → General can make that only when it goes active, or never);
• when a change request is approved (below).

A change request asks to move the agreed plan before it moves. Raise one with what the change is, the details, why it is needed, and what it does to the plan:

Impact	Means
Time	Days, + later, - sooner
Cost	In the project's currency, + more, - a saving
Scope	Words - 12 more desks; the meeting rooms drop to Could

It shows as Waiting - on the tab, as an amber line on the Overview, and as a chip on the portfolio card - until somebody allowed to decides it:

• Approve says first what it will do (Approving will: move the target finish from 5 Dec to 12 Dec; add £3,200 to the budget; take baseline 4). By default it moves the target finish by the days, adds the cost as a budget line named after the request (CR-1: Add the second-floor meeting rooms, category Other), and takes a new baseline - the changed plan is now the agreed one. The request then says what was done.
• Reject records the decision, with notes if you like, and changes nothing.
• Edit and Withdraw - for whoever raised it, or the project's team, while it waits.

Requests are never deleted: approved, rejected and withdrawn ones stay, so the tab is the record of why the plan moved. Raising, editing, approving, rejecting and withdrawing each go into the history.

Projects → Settings → General:

Setting	Choices (default first)
Take a baseline by itself	When a project goes active and when each stage starts · when a project goes active · never - only by hand
Who decides change requests	The project manager, or anyone who manages Projects · anyone on the project's team · only people who manage Projects
Decide your own requests	Yes · No - a second pair of eyes every time
Approving a change	Also moves the target finish and adds the cost to the budget · takes a new baseline only - the plan is changed by hand

A project already active when change control arrived has no baseline until it takes one: press Baseline, or it takes one by itself when its next stage starts.

"Move day: phones down Saturday" - told to everyone before it happens.

For people who can open Service Status, the Connections tab has a Service Status panel. Press Announce and give it a title, when it starts and ends, what people should know and the services affected (Maintenance unless you pick another impact). If a stage is in progress, its end date is offered as the start.

By default it becomes planned maintenance: it shows as Upcoming on Service Status at once, becomes an incident on those services at its start, and is resolved at its end. The panel lists everything the project has announced with its state (Upcoming, In progress, Finished, Withdrawn); the cross withdraws one that has not started. Announcing and withdrawing both go into the project's history.

Projects → Settings → General → Announce disruption on Service Status decides what Announce does:

Setting	What Announce does
As planned maintenance (default)	Upcoming until the start, then an incident until the end
Straight away, as an incident	An incident on the services now - no start date is asked for
Not at all	No Announce button; what was announced before is still listed

Deleting a project leaves what it announced on Service Status: it is real work on real services.

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On a project, Ask AI at the top right slides in the project assistant - the same panel as Knowledge's Ask AI. It needs an AI provider set up in Projects → Settings → AI (the same one the briefings and reports use).

What it sees. The project, fresh every time you ask - its goal, dates, stages, tasks, milestones, RAID, budget, benefits, gates, dependencies and the people - exactly as you could see it: nothing from a module or a record you cannot open. It can look up more detail (the task list with dates, the RAID log, the milestones) as it needs it, and says under its answer what it checked.

It meets you where the project is. It works out how far the project is set up (goal, dates, stages, tasks, people, scope, risks, milestones):

The project	The assistant
Little more than a name	Coaches: asks what it is about, what done looks like, roughly when it should finish, how big it is and who is involved - a few questions at a time - then proposes a set-up in one go: the goal, a summary, dates, the way of running it (Simple, Staged or Agile, and why), stages with dates, starter tasks, milestones and two or three likely risks
Partly set up	Says what is in place and helps fill the most useful gap first
Running	Keeps you on top of it: overdue and soon-due tasks, high risks, missed or close milestones, change requests and approvals waiting, open gate checklist items, the budget - with concrete fixes it can propose (new dates, an owner, a risk for an issue)
Finished	Helps with the closure report, lessons and the benefits still to be measured

Buttons under the conversation suggest a first question to suit the project (Help me set this project up, What needs my attention?, Sort out overdue tasks...).

It suggests; you decide. The assistant never changes anything by itself. Suggested changes come as a card under its answer - one box per change, all ticked:

Suggested changes (8) ☑ Set the project's goal: All 40 staff working from Bradford by 31 March; way of running: staged; ... ☑ Add the stage "Survey and plan" (2026-10-09 to 2026-11-08) ☑ Add the task "Survey the new floor with the landlord" (stage: Survey and plan, due 2026-10-19) ☑ Log a risk: "The landlord finishes the fit-out late" (12)

Untick what you do not want and press Apply, or Dismiss the lot. Apply makes each change exactly as if you had made it on the screens - with your permissions and the same checks, and it shows in the project's History as yours. Each line then says Applied, Dismissed or Not applied with the reason. It can propose: the project's goal, summary, business case, dates, way of running and priority; stages; tasks (with a stage, dates, an estimate, an assignee and (3.3.0) a contractor); new dates for a task; giving a task to a contractor, or taking it back; milestones; RAID entries; scope items; dependencies; budget lines; benefits; team members with a role - analysts or (3.3.0) a contractor firm and a person there; and switching tools on. Somebody who may not change the project gets advice, never a card.

It remembers. Your conversation on a project is kept in the database. The last dozen messages go back to the AI word for word each time, and older ones are folded into a short memory (what you told it about the project, what was decided, what is still open) - so a long conversation does not start from cold. Open the panel after more than 8 hours away and it starts with what has changed since. Restart at the top of the panel forgets the conversation and its memory (the project is not changed).

Projects → Settings → General	Default	What it does
AI assistant's memory	Each person their own	Each person has a private conversation per project. One per project, shared: the whole team shares one conversation (each message names who wrote it), and only the project's team can restart it

What it can and cannot do is the same as for the briefing below: project text reaches the AI as data, never as instructions; it is told never to invent facts and to ask instead; it writes in the language you use FreeITSM in.

Optional, and off until an AI provider is set up in Projects → Settings → AI (Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI or OpenRouter - the same choice as the other AI features, with your own key).

The briefing. A project's Overview has a Briefing panel under the tiles. Press Brief me and the AI reads the project - its goal, dates, health and any tolerance it has gone beyond, the stages and gate decisions, overdue tasks and those due in the next three weeks, open risks and issues, the budget and the last week's changes - and, (3.3.0), the priority, the reason given for a health set by hand, the milestones, estimates against time logged, a proposal's approval, decisions made, change requests and drift from the baseline, earned value, the benefits, which tasks are waiting on others, where the dates clash and the critical path, gate checklist items still open, and the stakeholder map. Money is given in the project's own currency. It then writes four to seven short points on what needs attention, most urgent first. The latest briefing stays on the page for everyone who opens the project, with who asked for it and when. Refresh asks again, but not more than once every 10 minutes: each briefing is a call to the provider, and the project rarely changes faster than that.

The Reports tab holds a project's reports. Pick a kind and a period (the last 7, 14 or 28 days):

Kind	For	What it covers
Highlight	The board	Where the project stands, what was done and is next, the risks and issues that matter, decisions needed, and the budget
Exception	The board, when a tolerance is or will be exceeded	The situation, the cause (only what the data shows), the consequences if nothing changes, two or three options and a recommendation
Checkpoint	The team	Done, in progress, next, and blockers with who owns them
Closure (3.3.0)	The board, at the end	What was delivered against the scope, finish and budget against the baseline and forecast, every benefit - achieved and still to come, and who owns it - lessons, and handover

Press Draft for the AI to write it, or Write to start your own. Either way it is a draft: open it, change anything (Edit and Preview switch between the text and how it reads), Save. Text uses ## for a heading, - for a bullet and **bold**.

Approve makes it final. It is for the project manager, the person who created the project, or someone who manages Projects - an approved report is what the board reads under the project's name, so it cannot be edited afterwards, and only those same people can delete it. Anyone who may change the project can draft, write, edit and delete drafts. Each report shows AI draft if the AI wrote it, and AI draft, edited once a person has changed it. Copy puts the title and text on the clipboard for an email or a document.

What the AI can and cannot do:

• It only sees what the person asking can see. Somebody without Tickets gets nothing about tickets; the same for Changes, Knowledge and Service Status.
• It is told to state only what is in the project, and to say where something is not known rather than guess. It can still be wrong - read a draft before approving it.
• It writes in the language you use FreeITSM in.
• Text typed into the project (a risk title, a summary) is passed to it as data, never as instructions.
• It never changes the project. It drafts text; people decide.

Under the kinds, Draft a report by itself - Never (the default), Every week, Every two weeks or Every month - and which Kind (highlight, checkpoint or exception). Anyone who may change the project can set it.

While the project is active, a draft is made at the start of each period (the first check of the week or month - Monday morning when the scheduled job runs), covering the last 7, 14 or 31 days:

• with an AI provider set up, the AI drafts it, exactly as Draft would;
• without one, the draft holds the facts to write it from - the same facts the AI would have been given - for you to replace with the report.

Either way it is written as if the project manager had pressed Draft, so it only includes what they could see (no tickets for a project manager without Tickets, for example).

It is never approved by itself. The project manager gets a bell - Laptop refresh: a report is drafted for you to check - and the draft waits like any other; an untouched draft is nudged after a few days. The list shows the schedule as its author.

An approved report has Send (for the same people who may approve it). Tick who it goes to - the project manager and the project's members with an email address, including everyone in a member team - and/or type other addresses (commas between them), add an optional note to go above it, and Send. At most 50 at once.

It goes from the system mailbox, the same one the portal uses, as an email with the project, the report's title and its text (headings, bullets and bold kept), and Approved ..., sent by ... at the foot. Every send is in System → Email send log as Project report; an address that failed is named on the screen. The report's line shows sent to 4 with when, and the History records it.

Drafting, writing, approving, scheduling, sending and deleting a report each go into the project's History.

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Report Packs have a Projects area in their toolbox: a project summary, project health, a status table, the milestones in the period (done, missed or due) and the top open risks - so the monthly board pack covers the projects. See Report Packs.

Watchtower has a Projects card: the live projects off track, named and linked; how many are at risk or beyond a tolerance; and the stages ending in the next 7 days. On Mine it shows the projects you manage, on My team those your teams' analysts manage. It can be hidden in Watchtower → Settings like any card. See Watchtower.

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Twenty-seven cards light up as the module is used. (3.3.0) Twelve are new: Milestones on the Timeline, A decision log, Who has room? (Capacity), Change control with baselines, Spend over time and a forecast, Propose a project on a form, Did the project pay off? (Benefits), A checklist before go-live, Dependencies and the critical path, Earned value, Grow a project with the Toolbox and Ask the AI project assistant (lit by the first conversation); and a project linked to a problem now counts for Projects joined to everything else. The fifteen from 3.2.0: Run a project, A plan in phases, Who does what (RACI), Scope prioritised Must, Should, Could, Won't, A RAID log with a risk heat map, Stage gates and tolerances, Project progress counted from Assets, Projects joined to everything else, Projects started from a template, Project dates on the Calendar, A workflow that acts on a project, Projects in a report pack, Disruption announced from a project, A project budget, planned against actual and An AI project manager (lit by the first approved report).

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The REST API covers projects, stages, gates, scope, RAID and budget, and an AI assistant can read projects through the MCP server. In the War Room, Warbot answers project questions too (3.3.0) - which projects are off track?, is any project doing something big this week? - and /projects, /project <name> and /dates [days] work even when no AI provider can be reached. Warbot offers them only to people who can open Projects, answers about the projects they can see, and leaves money out, because everyone in the channel reads the reply. Both are set up in System → API. Reports and briefings are not in either yet.

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• Projects - Developer Guide
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• Module Access Control · Roles and Permissions
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