Software Project Overview: One Word for the State, What Is Stuck and What Waits for the Client

To know what is going on in a project, you usually open the tasks, the report, the inbox and the list of errors, and put the picture together in your head. Here it is all on one page: one word for the state of the project with its reasons, what needs doing now, what waits for the client, and how the last year's hours stand against the orders.

One word for the state of the project

At the top of the page there is one word: OK, needs attention or at risk. The worst signal decides, not a sum of points, so it is always clear why. Next to the word, the two main reasons appear as a sentence, and all the reasons as tags.

What colours the word

At risk: a task more than 30 days overdue, a gap of more than 15 percent in last month's purchase order match, or more than three times as many new errors as last week. Needs attention: any overdue task, any gap in the match, more than one and a half times the errors, or a client email left unanswered for more than 14 days. If none of these apply, the project is OK. The limits are the same for every project.

The month in numbers

A row of tiles: the month's hours against the same share of last month, open tasks with how many are urgent and how many wait for the client, new errors in the last seven days against the seven before, purchase orders, and what waits for the client.

What to do now

A list of what got stuck in the project: a proposal with no answer or about to expire, our email with no reply and a client email we did not answer, a task that is not moving or is overdue, an open question in a specification request, an explicit date from an email that has passed, and a month submitted but not accepted. Next to it, when there are any: hours not linked to a task, tasks closed without hours, and hours without a department. The limits are written under the list, and an empty list says it is empty.

What waits for the client

A separate column for everything where the ball is with the client: specifications they are reviewing, proposals sent or viewed but not decided, the oldest submitted month waiting for acceptance, and tasks marked as waiting for the client.

Hours against orders

A chart of the last twelve months: a bar of hours for each month, with the current month in grey because it is not over yet. The orders line is converted to hours at that month's rate, and one click switches the chart to shekels: the report against the orders before VAT. Clicking a bar opens that month's report.

What happened lately

The last twenty actions in the project, filtered by type: hours, tasks, specifications, errors and mail.

All projects, and an email in the morning

On the provider's main dashboard the same "what is stuck" list covers all projects at once, with hours and money and a forecast for the end of the month below it. The list is recalculated every night, and those who opted in get it by email in the morning. Amounts in the email are shown only to those with the money right, and people on the client's side do not get it.

Frequently asked questions