Project phases help you plan and track your projects more efficiently by breaking them into smaller, manageable parts. You can search by project phase, track project budgets by phase, and even move all of a project phase's allocations simultaneously if a deadline shifts.
Create a project phase
There are a few different ways to create a project phase:
From the Projects page, hover over the project and click the + icon to add a phase.
From the project side panel, open the Phases section and click Add a phase.
From the Project plan view, click the menu next to the project name and select Add a phase.
From the Project plan view, drag across multiple days at the top of the project plan.
From there, you can name the phase, set the start/end date, select a phase-specific color, and add any additional information.
Assign tasks, allocations, and milestones to a project phase
You can add Tasks at the project level and at the phase level. To add tasks to a phase, click on the phase in the Project plan view, or click on the tasks section for the phase in the Project side panel. In the phase side panel you can add tasks that are unique to that phase. Project tasks remain at the project level and do not appear in phase task lists.
When allocating time on the Schedule, you can select a phase on the allocation menu.
If the task list is locked, you must select the task when allocating time.
When adding a milestone to the Project Plan view, you can select which project phase it belongs to.
If your team uses time tracking, team members can select a phase when logging time.
Project phases on the Project plan view
The Project plan view of your team's schedule provides a high-level overview of all your project phases, allocations, and milestones. Each phase is displayed next to the project name and alongside your project milestones.
Your team and their assigned allocations are located just below. Each project can be expanded or collapsed individually to show/hide your team.
💡 Here's a tip: To change the phase timeline and move all allocations for that phase, drag the entire phase bar forward or backward along the Project plan.
Project budgets by phase
In addition to the default project budget options, two phase-specific budgets are available.
Hours by phase
Set an hours budget for each project phase you create.
Fee by phase
Set a fee for each project phase you create.
💡 Here's a tip: You can set up a repeating monthly retainer for a project by creating a new phase for each month (i.e., this month, next month, etc.) and then using the Hours by phase or Fee by phase budget options.
Reports
Phases and their budget are displayed on both the chart view and the table view of a single project report.
Individual phase tasks are nested below each phase in the table.
Additional info
By default, each phase contains the same team as the original project. You can change the team and their hourly rates for a particular phase directly on the Team tab of each phase without impacting other phases in the project.
Task names and milestones are unique to each phase and do not transfer when creating a new phase. The original project only shows tasks and milestones assigned to No phase.
Copying the task list from the project to phases is not currently supported.
Adding an allocation or milestone to the Schedule outside of a phase's start/end date will automatically adjust the start/end date accordingly. Deleting the first/last allocation assigned to a phase will automatically change the start/end date but never inside the original set dates.
Dragging the phase's start/end from the Project plan view will update the start/end dates of the phase.
You cannot drag or edit the phase start date to be after the first allocation, nor the phase end date to be before the last allocation. To edit the phase dates, you’ll first need to move the allocations on the schedule to fall within the date range you’d like to assign to the phase.