Projects

A project groups related tasks together, gives them a shared state and health, and controls who can see the work inside it.

#Before you start

Creating a project needs the Projects › Create permission in an organization that uses permission groups, and an organization role that allows it — see Access, in plain words. The New project button only appears if both allow it. With Projects › View (own) the list shows only the projects you created or own. Archiving, deleting or restoring a project you manage, changing who can see it, and seeing or setting cost rates may also need a special permission — see Special permissions.

#The projects list

Open Projects & Tasks > Projects. The list only shows projects you're allowed to see.

The list is sorted by Project name and shows 25 rows at a time. A Filter by state dropdown narrows it to Current projects (the default — Draft, Active or On hold, and not archived), All projects, Archived, or any single state.

When your organization has business units, the list starts with the business unit chosen in the header (a unit includes its sub-units) and names it next to the state filter, for example "Projects — Acme Pharma (incl. sub-units)". Select the funnel icon to choose another unit, your main business only, or All business units, then Filter.

Empty state: "No projects yet. Create one to start organizing work."

#Create a project

1. Open Projects & Tasks > Projects.
2. Select New project.
3. Enter a Name.
4. Optionally enter a Code — a short reference such as APOLLO, using only letters, digits, underscores and hyphens. Help text: "Optional short reference. Must be unique in your organization."
5. Optionally enter a Description.
6. Optionally set a Start date and a Target date. The target date can't be before the start date.
7. Choose Who can see this project — Personal, Selected people, or Everyone in this organization (see visibility). Each option shows its own explanation inline.
8. If you chose Selected people, pick the people, departments and project teams to share the project with, and choose a role for each — Manager, Editor, Commenter or Viewer.
9. Optionally choose Start from a template: Blank project (the default), or one of the offered templates, which shows the sections it will create. Choosing a template clears any workflow you had selected.
10. If you didn't choose a template, choose a Workflow. The one marked "(default)" is preselected.
11. Choose a State (defaults to Active) and a Priority (defaults to Normal).
12. If your organization has business units, choose the project's Business unit. It starts with the unit chosen in the header; choose "{your organization} (main business)" for a project outside every unit.
13. Select Create project (Cancel returns you to the projects list without saving).

Name is required — leaving it blank is rejected with "The name field is required." If you choose Selected people without picking anyone, saving is rejected with "Choose at least one person, department or team to share this project with."

Saving takes you to the project's profile page with the toast "Project created."

#The project profile

Opening a project from the list shows its profile — a single overview page, no tab strip.

• Header — the project's name and reference, with badges for its state, health, visibility, and a badge showing where your access to it comes from (hover it for "Your role: {your role}"). When your organization has business units, a line under the badges names the project's business unit and, in brackets, the legal entity it sits under — for example "Business unit: Pharma Kandy (Acme Pharma)".
• Header buttons — New task (opens the task drawer pre-set to this project, if you can create tasks here), Edit (if you can update the project), Archive or Restore (see below).
• Stat cards — Completion (percentage of tasks you can see that are complete, with a progress bar and "{completed} of {total} tasks you can see"), Overdue (open tasks past their due date, shown in red if there are any), Dates (start and target date, and the project's timezone or "Organization timezone"), Owner (the owner's name and member count), Time (logged versus estimated hours, "Logged vs. estimated").
• Recent tasks — up to 10 of the project's most recently updated tasks. Empty message: "No tasks in this project yet."
• About — the project's description, if one was entered.
• Work by status — a count of tasks in each status category: Backlog, Not started, Active, Waiting, Blocked, Completed, Cancelled.
• Members — everyone with access to the project: name, where their access comes from, and their role badge.
• Sections — the project's sections, as a badge list, if any exist.

All the counts on this page — completion, overdue, time, recent tasks and status breakdown — only ever include tasks you're allowed to see. A project you can see may still contain tasks you can't, and those never appear in its numbers.

#Edit a project

1. Open the project and select Edit.
2. Change the Name, Code, Description, Start date or Target date as needed.
3. If you have permission to manage the project's visibility, change Who can see this project, including who it's shared with for Selected people. If you don't have that permission, the whole visibility control is shown but locked, with the note: "Only the project owner, or a manager with permission, can change who can see this."
4. Change the State, Health (help text: "Your judgement about whether this will land, not a calculated figure.") or Priority as needed.
5. If your organization has business units, change the Business unit as needed. A project can move to any active unit, including one under another legal entity.
6. Select Save changes (Cancel returns to the project without saving).

If someone else has changed the project since your edit form loaded, saving is refused so you don't overwrite their change — reload the page and try again.

Saving returns you to the project's profile with the toast "Project updated."

#Archive and restore a project

1. Open the project.
2. Select Archive. Confirm "Archive {name}?" / "It disappears from active views. Tasks, comments, links and history are all kept, and you can restore it at any time." with the Archive button.

An archived project drops out of the "Current projects" filter on the list (it's still reachable through All projects or Archived). To bring it back, open it and select Restore — this applies immediately, with no confirmation step.

#Project state, health and visibility

State — Draft, Active, On hold, Completed, Cancelled, Archived. The list's "Current projects" filter means Draft, Active or On hold, and not archived.

Health — On track, At risk, Off track, Unknown. This is always a manual judgement you set on the Edit page — OCTO Ops never calculates it for you.

Visibility — Personal, Selected people, or Everyone in this organization, as explained in Who can see a project or task. Only Selected people lets you choose specific people, departments or project teams.

#Business units

When your organization has business units, every project belongs to one, or to your main business. Tasks, sections and time entries have no business unit of their own: they belong to their project's. A project keeps your organization's number (for example PRJ-12) whatever its unit, so project numbers carry no legal-entity prefix and a project can move between legal entities.

The projects list and the overview's Recent projects follow the business unit chosen in the header. My Work, All Tasks, the Board, the Calendar and the Timeline are not filtered by business unit. On My Work, All Tasks and the Calendar, each task also shows its project's business unit as a small badge beside the project; tasks with no project show none. The Board is a single project, so it shows the unit only in the project's own header and profile.

Saving is refused with "Choose an active business unit." when the unit you chose is no longer active (a project keeps an inactive unit it already has), and with "Business units are not set up for this organization." when your organization has none. A business unit used by a project can't be deleted; deactivate it instead.

#The team on a project

A project's team comes from who it's shared with under Who can see this project — there's no separate "add member" screen. Each person you share it with (directly, through a department, or through a project team) holds one of these roles:

A department or project team grant follows current membership — add or remove someone from the department or team, and their access to the project changes with it; nothing is copied at the time you shared the project.

#Current limitations

• The project profile is a single page — the tabs a full project workspace might have for files, activity, risks and issues, budget, or status updates don't exist here.
• There's no screen to delete a project. Archiving (with Restore to bring it back) is the only way to retire one.
• There's no screen to transfer a project's ownership to someone else.
• You can start a project from an existing template, but there's no screen to create or manage templates.