Project management
The project management tools in Project Operations help you to run projects. The scheduling tools help project managers and teams stay productive. Some of the tasks that the tools help with include:
- Plan projects by using a work schedule and estimates.
- Estimate and track project costs and revenue.
- Use project estimates during the sales process.
- Forecast resource requirements for projects that are in the pipeline.
- Deliver projects successfully by tracking progress and cost consumption.
Project stages
Project stages are designed to reflect the state of the project as it progresses. Customizations can be used to automatically update the stages with business process flows, Microsoft Power Automate, or plug-in extensions.
The following stages are defined in the default business process flow:
New – When you create a project, the project stage is set to New. If the project was created from a template, it might have schedule, estimate, and team data. Otherwise, it is an outline of the project, and the remaining components must be entered.
Quote – When you associate a project with a quote, or when you create a project from a quote, the project stage is set to Quote and the estimated start and end dates are updated. While the project is in the Quote stage, the Sales tab on the Project entity page shows details of the quote.
Plan – When you win a quote that is associated with a project, and the project is moved to the Contract phase, the project stage is updated to Plan. While the project is in the Plan stage, the Project entity page shows details of the contract.
Deliver – When the project plan is completed, and you are ready to start the project, the project manager should update the project stage to Deliver to show that the project has started.
Complete – When the work for the project is completed, the project manager can update the stage to Complete. By updating the project stage to Complete, the project manager indicates that the work is 100 percent completed but that the project is being kept open so that any pending time or expense entries can be recorded.
Close – When all transactions are recorded for the project, the project manager can update the stage to Close. At that point, no transactions can be recorded, and the project is set to read-only.
Note
The default business process flow in Project Operations does not perform automatic state transitions.
Navigate the user interface
The Project page is separated into several tabs. Each tab represents a different level of detail within the project.
Summary – Provides a description of the project and aggregates the planned and actual project performance.
Tasks – Provides the details about the work breakdown structure represented by a grid view, board view, and a timeline view, or also known as a Gantt chart.
Team – Provides details about the project participants. The assigned effort of each team member is also summarized in this view.
Resource Assignments – Provides a time-phased view of the effort for each resource on a project.
Resource Reconciliation – Provides a time-phased view of the differences between the assignments of each named resource and their bookings.
Estimates – Provides a time-phased view of the cost and sales estimates of a project.
Tracking – Provides a view that shows the progress of tasks in the work breakdown structure for effort, cost, and sales.
Sales – Provides deep links to quotes and contracts that are associated with the project.
Expense Estimates – Provides a grid that defines project expenses based on organizational expense categories.
Learn more about project management in the Get started with project management in Dynamics 365 Project Operations module.