Projects are records for managing your work outside of sales, such as installations, onboarding, maintenance, event planning, and even internal processes, like hiring or website management. Projects help you manage tasks, and include Pipelines or Milestones to organize your work.
While you can create projects manually, they can also be created automatically at the end of a sales process when someone converts an opportunity.
Using linking, you can display related connections with contacts like customers, advisers, and contractors. You can link emails to track communications, and files to keep contracts or specifications at hand.
The most important function of projects is to organize tasks. This can be done in two ways, with Milestones or Pipelines.
Pipelines are a standardized series of steps set up by your Insightly administrator. They're useful for businesses who have a standard processes for most projects.
Milestones are a flexible way to set target dates and can also be used to group tasks. They're created as you go, so they're great for businesses whose projects vary.
Projects with Pipelines
For businesses that repeatedly follow the same series of steps for similar jobs, Pipelines will help you organize your project's tasks and keep things moving forward.
- Used to create and apply a process of sequential stages.
- May only be set up and modified by your Insightly administrator.
- Can be combined with activity sets for automatic task and event creation.
- Tasks can be related to each project stage.
When a Pipeline is included in a project, the current stage is visible and can be changed from the project view. Combined with activity sets, moving to a new stage can even create tasks and events automatically.
Projects with Milestones
For projects that have multiple teams working on different priorities, a linear Pipeline might not be the best fit. Milestones offer another way of grouping tasks.
- Allow you to set dates for each Milestone.
- Future Milestones can be automatically shifted when a Milestone date is edited.
- May be created by anyone working on the project.
- Tasks can be associated with each Milestone.
- Require manual entry for Milestones and tasks.
Milestones, their due dates, and any associated tasks will be displayed in the Milestones subtab. If your project has a Pipeline applied, the Milestones subtab will not appear.
If you'd like more information on projects, learn how to create one or watch our video.