How to use Project Phases

How to enter your own custom list of project phases for the Project Phases Add-On in Project Insight

Transcript:

Today, we are going to be talking about project phases and Project Insight. This will include what they are, how to install the Project Phases add-on, and how to create and use project phases within the context of Project Insight.

Project phases are a way to track where a project is based on tasks completed. For example, if Task A is completed, then we advance to the next phase. To install the Project Phases add-on, navigate to Add-ons and then go to Get More Add-ons. Search for "Project Phases," click on it, and then click Install. Once installed, to access the Project Phases screen, click on Configure. From now on, you can access Project Phases by clicking the three bars at the top of your screen, selecting Add-ons, and then scrolling down from Installed Add-ons to Project Phases and clicking Configure.

As you can see, I already have some phases defined based on the software development life cycle. Let's create a new phase since we're missing the maintenance phase. To do this, first, enter the name of the phase. Then, choose a color; for this phase, we will be using purple. After that, you can choose whether this is a default phase. Selecting the default checkbox means that when sorting through project phases, this is the default project phase that appears in the list. Since this is maintenance, which generally comes at the end of a project, we do not want to mark this as the default.

The active checkbox defines whether this phase is active. This means that when editing the phases of a project, you will see this phase and its options. Make sure to keep the phase active unless you do not want to use it currently but want to keep it for later use. Once you've entered the information, click Save, and your new project phase will be created. Click OK to go back to the last screen you were on, and under Status, you can see the phase that you're in; for us, that's Planning.

To implement a project phase, you will want to go to your project of choice. Click on Views, go to Task List, and click on the task of your choice; for us, that will be Deployment. Click on the Edit button, then select Edit Task, and go to Advanced. You will see Project Phase at Completion; this defines the phase the project will be in after this task is completed. Since this is Deployment, we can select Maintenance, because once the software is deployed, all that is left to do is maintain it. We will click Save.

Another way to set the project phase of completion using the task list is to click on Views, go back to Task List, right-click any of the column names, and click Insert. Search for "Project," and you will see Project Phase of Completion. Click that, then click Insert, and just like that, it’s easy to change the project phase of completion from here.

For example, it looks like we have an issue where both Planning and Design lead to Development. To change that, we can click on Planning, click this little arrow, and then change Planning's project phase of completion to Design. Click Save on the task, and that's all you need to know to implement Project Phases in Project Insight.