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Project Management: how to use guide | ExecCortex
How to use
Project Management
Checked against the product on 27 August 2026
Project Management
Project Management is where work gets planned, assigned and tracked. A project holds boards, boards hold cards, and everything else on the App reports on those cards from a different angle: what is due, who is overloaded, what an objective is costing, whether a bid turned into real work.
Every page in this App has a How to use button in its header. It opens a panel that explains that screen in detail. If an answer is not below, that button is the next place to look.
Where everything lives
The menu is one group called Projects plus two shortcuts:
Menu
Where it goes
What it is
Projects and Kanban
Projects
The list of projects, and the way into any board
Projects and Kanban > Projects
Projects
The same list
Projects and Kanban > My Tasks
My Tasks
Everything assigned to you, across every project
Projects and Kanban > Resource Capacity
Resource Capacity
Who is free and who is overloaded
Projects and Kanban > Templates
Templates
Reusable project blueprints
Projects and Kanban > Goals
Goals
The objectives tree, with key results
AI Assistant
AI Assistant
Ask questions about your portfolio
Pursuits
Pursuits
Bids and tenders, before they become projects
Reports and Analytics
Reports
Delivery reporting
Activity and Follow ups
Activities
Shared with the CRM App
Contracts and Documents
Documents
Shared with the Documents area
The last two are shared screens. They are the same pages the other Apps use, not copies, so a follow up raised in the CRM is the same follow up here.
Creating a project
Press New project. A name is the only thing required. Description, colour, dates and privacy are all optional and all changeable later.
After Create and continue the drawer stays open on a second step where you can attach materials, link a contact or company, and invite people. Skip for now is a real answer: the project already exists by that point.
The key
Every project gets a short key built from its name. "Website Redesign Phase" becomes WRP. Keys are unique across the whole workspace, and deleted projects keep theirs, so reusing a name gives you WRP2 rather than an error. The key is stamped on every card in the project.
What a new project starts with
It is never an empty screen. A new project arrives with a Main board holding four lists (Backlog, To Do, In Progress, Done) and a few starter cards, so there is something to drag on day one.
The three ways in
New project, as above.
Convert Pursuit to Project, from the caret beside New project. A won bid becomes a project carrying its name, description, colour, the customer records it was about and its brief dates. The bid's files never move: the project reads them through the link, so winning a bid never destroys its history. A bid can only be converted once.
Use template, from the Templates page.
Who owns it
Whoever creates a project is automatically its owner, and a project always keeps at least one owner. The last owner cannot be removed or demoted.
The four project statuses
Status
What it means
Active
Running work. Every new project starts here, and Restore puts an archived one back to it
On hold
Paused deliberately. Nothing is hidden and nothing is locked. It is a signal to other people, not a restriction
Completed
Finished. A completed project stops showing its due date in red, because delivered work cannot be late
Archived
Put away without being removed. It stays on the list behind the Archived chip, still opens, still keeps its boards and members, and can be restored
Status is a label you set. It never changes who can see a project or what they may do in it.
Archive is not delete. Archived projects still count toward your plan's project limit. Deleted ones do not.
Finding a project
The chips across the top of the list are the status filter. Two things about their counts that surprise people:
The counts describe every project you can see, not the page you are on. Picking one chip does not zero the others, so you can always see what is stacking up in the buckets you are not looking at.
The counts do follow search and Owner. Search one client's name and the chips tell you how that client's work splits across active, on hold and completed.
Search matches a project's name, key or description.
Inside a project
The project page is one project's entire workspace. It opens on the Board.
The tabs
Tab
What it holds
Board
Where the work lives. Five views over the same cards
Overview
Six tiles (total cards, done, open, overdue, members, boards), a completion ring, and a breakdown by status and priority. Below that: Materials, Related records, and Team
Brief
The charter: objective, in scope, out of scope, success criteria, stakeholders, dates and budget
Files
A folder library over the project's attachments, with upload, drag between folders, rename, move, bulk select, preview and search
Financials
Budget against burn, true profitability, and Bill time. Owner and admin only
Sprints
Time boxed iterations with a burndown
Backlog
Every card not yet in a sprint
Milestones
Dated targets that cards are assigned to
Epics
Groups of related cards under one larger initiative
Activity
Every event on the project's boards and cards, newest first, grouped by day
Settings
General, Workflow, Statuses, Card fields, Members, Notifications, Automations, and a Danger zone. Owner and admin only
Sprints, Backlog, Milestones, Epics, Timeline and Workload all span every board in the project. This is the single most common misunderstanding: a project is not one board. A card can be nowhere on the board in front of you and still be in the sprint you are running.
The five board views
View
The question it answers
Kanban
Where does every card stand right now. Drag and drop, with multi select for bulk move, assign, label or delete
List
The same question when you would rather read than drag. The same cards as a dense list grouped by column
Calendar
What is due when. A month grid. Drag a card onto another day to reschedule it
Timeline
How does the work overlap. A Gantt chart of start to due bars, with a today marker and connectors for cards that block others. Drag a bar to shift both dates, or an edge to resize one
Workload
Who is overloaded. One row per person with open and overdue counts and effort bars scaled to the busiest person. Expand a row to reassign in place
All five share the board's filter bar. Filter the board, switch to Timeline, and the filter comes with you.
Columns and WIP limits
Add a column at the right hand end of the board and give it a colour. A column can carry a WIP limit, and its badge turns amber the moment the limit is reached. A column sitting at 4 of 4 is full, and the next card trying to enter it is refused. Limits can also be set in Settings under Workflow.
Cards
Use the plus on a column header, or press c to add a card to the column you are pointing at. Click any card to open its drawer.
The drawer holds the whole record: description, assignees, labels, priority, start and due dates, estimate and story points, checklists, subtasks, dependencies, comments, attachments, logged time, related records, activity and AI. It is also where a card joins a milestone, an epic or a sprint.
There is only one card view in the whole App. Kanban, List, Calendar, Timeline, Workload, Sprints and Backlog all open the same drawer, so nothing is hiding on a screen you have not found.
Deep links
An open card is ?card= in the address bar, so the page you are already looking at reopens that exact card on that exact board when you paste the link to someone.
Notification and email links land on the project with the card open. If the card was deleted, or lives in a project you cannot open, you get the same message either way. That is deliberate.
The tab, the board view, your filters, the grouping and the open card all live in the address bar, so a refresh brings back exactly the screen you were on.
Working a big board
The board never loads all of itself at once. The first 15 cards of each of the first 6 columns arrive up front, the rest of a column arrives as you scroll, and columns off to the right are not loaded until you reach them. That is what keeps a board with thousands of cards opening as fast as an empty one.
Because of that:
Every count comes from the server, never from what happens to be on screen. With a filter on, a column badge reads "3 of 128": how many match, then how many are really in the column. A WIP limit is always about that second number.
Filters go to the server too, which is why there is no "load more so search can see everything" button anywhere on the page.
Other controls:
Saved views keep the current filters, grouping and view type under a name. Keep one to yourself or share it with the project.
Swimlanes split the board into rows by assignee, priority, epic, sprint or label. Your choice is personal to you and this browser. Owners and admins get Save as board default, which publishes the grouping to everyone.
Focus mode hides the header so the board owns the whole page. Press f, or Esc, to come back.
Shortcuts:c adds a card, / jumps to search, f is focus mode, Esc clears the selection, shift click selects a range, ctrl or cmd click toggles one.
The header
The coloured tile is the project key, beside the status badge and a completion bar. The bar is done cards over total cards for the whole project, every board included.
Invite (the avatar stack) opens the members drawer. Add a teammate or an email address and set their project role: Owner, Admin, Member or Viewer. Invitations still waiting are listed there too.
Labels manages this project's label set.
AI Summary opens an assistant for this project, a rolled up summary and standup digest, a delivery risk read, and a sprint plan suggesting which backlog cards to pull in. Owners and admins also get smart assign and auto schedule. Both only propose. Nothing is written until a human accepts a row, one row at a time.
Report drafts a progress email from the project's current state, prefills recipients from its related records, lets you edit every word, and sends it.
Edit opens the project form. Template captures the boards, columns and labels as a reusable blueprint.
Automations
Inside Settings. These are the project's when this then that rules. They fire on nine card events (created, moved, status changed, assigned, completed, due today, due date passed, label added, comment added), can be narrowed with conditions, and run actions such as notify, assign, set priority or status, add or remove a label, comment, move column, set a due date, add a watcher or set an estimate.
Each rule can be dry run against a real card before you switch it on, and keeps a log of what it did.
My Tasks
Every other list in the App is one board at a time. This one is the opposite: it collects the work assigned to you from every project you can see, so a morning starts with one page rather than a tour of boards.
The five chips
Chip
What it counts
Overdue
Due before today and still open. A task you finished late is not overdue: closing it takes it out
Due today
Due today, in your workspace's timezone rather than the server's, so nothing turns red early in the evening
Next 7 days
The seven days after today. It deliberately excludes today so it never double counts
Later
Dated, but more than a week out
No due date
Undated work. It sorts to the bottom of a due date view, but it is never hidden
The five add up to your open tasks exactly: every open task is in one bucket, and no task is in two. The counts always describe your whole list, not the page you are looking at, and they do not shrink when you pick one.
What counts as yours
A task appears here if you are its assignee or one of its multiple assignees. Both count.
Open tasks is the default. Switch to Completed or Open plus completed to see finished work. This is a to do list first, so done work is opt in.
Archived cards are hidden until you press Archived.
You only see tasks in projects you can open. A task assigned to you inside a private project you are not a member of does not appear here, not its title and not in the counts. Ask to be added to the project and it shows up.
Tasks whose project was deleted never appear.
There is no New task button here on purpose, because a task belongs to a board column and this page spans every board. Create tasks on the board, and they will be waiting here the moment they are assigned to you.
Goals
Goals is the workspace's objectives tree. An objective is the ambition, for example "Grow revenue 30 percent", and it sits above projects rather than inside one, because the work that delivers it rarely lives on a single board.
Objectives, sub goals and key results
Two different things, and the difference matters:
A sub goal is a full objective in its own right, hung under a parent. It nests as deep as you like.
A key result is not a goal at all. It is a measurement attached to one: a name, a start, a target and a current value. The value can be a number, a percent, an amount, or plain done and not done.
Goals carry the ambition. Key results carry the numbers.
The six statuses
Status
Meaning
Draft
Being shaped, not yet committed to. Everything starts here
On track
Live, and expected to land as planned
At risk
Still live, but something needs attention for it to land
Off track
It will not land without a change of plan
Achieved
Closed, and hit
Missed
Closed, and not hit. Kept rather than deleted, because a missed objective is the most useful thing to read next quarter
Status is declared, never calculated. A goal at 100 percent stays On track until somebody says Achieved.
How progress is worked out
This is the part support gets asked about most:
Each goal is either automatic or manual. A manual goal is exactly the percentage its owner typed. Its key results and sub goals are still tracked and shown, but they do not touch the number. Those rows are badged Manual.
An automatic goal with key results is the average of those key results. While it has even one, its sub goals are ignored completely. A goal is measured by its key results or by its children, never by both.
An automatic goal with no key results is the average of its sub goals, each worked out by these same rules.
Every average is unweighted. A sub goal with twelve key results counts exactly as much as one with a single done or not done.
A key result's percentage is how far current has travelled from start toward target, clamped between 0 and 100. Done and not done reads 100 or 0.
Targets may go down. "Cut churn from 100 to 20" sitting at 60 reads 50 percent, and moving the wrong way reads 0 rather than a negative number.
Linked projects and cards contribute nothing to the percentage, however many you attach. Key results say how far the objective has come. Links say who is doing something about it.
A goal with neither key results nor sub goals sits at 0 percent. That reads "nothing to measure yet", not "no progress".
Progress is worked out fresh every time the page loads, so correcting a key result fixes every ring above it immediately.
The trap: the instant a parent objective gets a key result of its own, its sub goals stop counting toward its percentage, and a tree that was rolling up nicely starts reporting one lonely number. Keep measurements on the leaves.
Check ins
A check in is the status update. You pick the status, a confidence from 0 to 100, and a note. Posting it mirrors that status onto the goal and freezes the current percentage into the history, so a past check in keeps saying where the goal stood that week even after the numbers move on.
Confidence is deliberately separate from progress. You can be 80 percent done and 20 percent sure.
Linked work
Open a goal and use Linked work to attach the projects and cards pushing it forward. Linking is traceability, not arithmetic. Unlinking removes only the connection, never the project or card.
You can only link a project you can already see. A private project you are not a member of will not appear in the picker and cannot be linked by hand. Two people can therefore see different linked work on the same objective, and the link count on a row can be higher than the number of items shown inside it.
Other behaviour
Deleting a goal keeps its sub goals. They survive as top level objectives. What goes with the goal is its own key results, links and check in history.
Period is free text you choose, for example "Q3 2026" or "Launch". The dropdown lists only the periods actually in use. Type it consistently and it groups.
Filtering happens in your browser, so it is instant. A goal whose parent is filtered away is shown as a top level row rather than being dropped.
Templates
Real templates come from real projects. Open a project you like, press Template in its header, and its boards, columns, labels and folder tree are frozen into a blueprint. You must be an owner or admin of that project.
New template on this page creates the entry itself: name, description, type and visibility. It starts with no boards and no labels, and there is no structure editor here, so a blank template stays empty until you replace it with one captured from a project. Use it as a placeholder, not a shortcut.
Type (Project or Board) is chosen at creation and cannot be changed afterwards. Anything saved from an existing project is always a Project template.
Visibility: leave it Private and it is yours alone. Tick Share with the workspace and everyone can spin up projects from it, while you stay the only person who can change or delete it. That is why the page splits Your templates from Shared with you.
Use template builds the project and drops you into it. It does not ask for a name: the new project is named after the template, and its key is generated from that name. Two projects from the same template arrive with the same name, so rename it if that matters. You become the new project's owner and, at first, its only member.
Resource Capacity
Who is free, who is overloaded, and by how much, over a window you pick. Read the banners at the top first: they call out the problems before you go looking for them. Then scan the ramp, set someone's availability up, and rebalance.
The page explains how each number is worked out in its own How to use panel, including what has to be true before a number can be trusted.
Pursuits
Pursuits are bids and tenders: the work you do before there is a project.
Start the pursuit, put the documents in, write the brief, link who it is for from your customer records, and move it through the stages. When you win it, convert it into a project.
The bid's files never move when you win. The project reads them through the link, so the bid keeps its own history and its own folder tree. Inside the project, the pursuit's folders appear above the project's own, read only.
Import from pursuit on a project's Brief tab brings the bid's charter across as a copy. The pursuit keeps its own, and the two do not stay in sync afterwards.
A pursuit can only be converted once.
AI Assistant
Ask questions about your work in plain language. Pick the scope before you type, because it decides what the assistant can see:
Portfolio, My Work, People, Delivery, Time and Money, Goals, Pursuits.
Ask one thing at a time. You choose which AI answers. Anything it suggests, you apply yourself. It does not write changes into your projects on its own.
Who can do what
Project permissions come from your role on that project, which is not the same as your role in the workspace.
Area
Who
Financials tab
Owner and admin of the project only
Settings tab
Owner and admin of the project only
Writing the Brief
Owner and admin. Anyone who can open the project can read it
Board configuration (columns, WIP limits, publishing a swimlane default)
Owner and admin
Smart assign and auto schedule
Owner and admin, because accepting a row assigns real work or moves a real deadline
Everything else on the project page
Anyone who can open the project
Being an admin of the workspace does not open a project's Settings. Your membership of that project is what is checked.
A link pointing straight at the Financials tab from someone without access lands on the Board instead of showing an error. That is deliberate.
Two exceptions worth knowing:
Sprints and Backlog buttons follow the workspace level projects permission rather than your role on the project, so the two can disagree.
Bill time needs more than project access: the Invoicing App has to be enabled for the workspace and you need an invoicing permission. Being allowed to see a project's money is not the same as being allowed to raise an invoice.
Goals are separate again: creating, editing and deleting goals, adding sub goals and key results, linking work and posting check ins all need the goals management permission. With view access alone, the whole page is readable and every one of those buttons is simply absent.
Billing and limits
Project Management is a paid App. Its price and what is included are shown on the Plan page, under Your subscription.
Your plan caps how many projects and how many goals a workspace may hold.
At the project cap, creating one answers "You've reached the project limit for your plan."
At the goal cap, creating one is refused with a message saying so.
Archived projects still count toward the project limit. Deleted ones do not. To free a slot, delete a project you no longer need, or raise the limit from the Plan page.
Attachments and files uploaded to projects count toward your workspace's storage allowance, which is shared across every App and shown on the Plan page.
Notifications and email
Project notifications are set per project, in that project's Settings under Notifications: card assigned, due soon, and mentions.
Two things worth telling users who ask why an email did not arrive instantly:
You get one email covering many events, not one email per event. Ten cards falling due does not send ten emails.
Notifications are not emailed immediately. There is a deliberate delay, and if you read the notification in the App first, the email is never sent at all. That is working as intended, not a fault.
Anything genuinely urgent, such as an overdue card, is grouped and sent on a faster schedule than the rest.
Frequently asked questions
Why can I not see the Projects menu at all? The App is not enabled for your workspace. Enable it from the Plan page, or ask your workspace admin to.
A card is in the sprint but I cannot find it on the board. The project has more than one board, and the card is on a different one. Sprints, Backlog, Milestones, Epics, Timeline and Workload span every board in the project.
Why is the Settings tab missing when I am a workspace admin? Settings follows your role on that project, not your role in the workspace. Ask a project owner to make you an owner or admin of it.
The column will not accept another card. It has a WIP limit and it is full. The badge turns amber when it hits the limit. An owner or admin can change or remove the limit in Settings under Workflow.
Why does the column badge say "3 of 128"? Three cards match your current filter, and there are 128 cards in the column. The WIP limit is always about the second number.
A task assigned to me is not in My Tasks. It is in a private project you are not a member of, or its project was deleted. Ask to be added to the project.
My goal shows 0 percent even though the work is done. It has no key results and no sub goals, so there is nothing to measure. Add a key result. Alternatively the goal is set to Manual, in which case the number is whatever its owner typed.
My parent goal's percentage stopped following its sub goals. Somebody added a key result directly to the parent. A goal is measured by its key results or by its children, never both. Remove the parent's key result to go back to rolling up.
Progress is right but the status still says On track. Status is declared, not calculated. Change it in the edit form, or post a check in so it is recorded who said it and why.
My colleague sees different linked work on the same goal. Links pointing at projects you cannot see are hidden from you. Both views are correct for the person looking.
I archived a project but I am still at my plan limit. Archived projects still count. Delete it, or raise the limit from the Plan page.
Can I get my project back after deleting it? There is no recycle bin screen for deleted projects. Archive is the reversible option. Delete is not.
Two projects from my template have the same name. Use template names the project after the template and does not ask. Rename it from the project header.
My blank template does nothing when I use it. A template created with New template has no boards or labels, and there is no structure editor. Capture a real project with the Template button in its header instead.
Bill time is greyed out or missing. It needs the Invoicing App enabled for the workspace, and an invoicing permission, on top of your project access.
Some logged time is showing as unpriced. Time with no rate that can be worked out is never billed at zero. It waits for a person to type a rate.
Did winning the bid move my files into the project? No. The project reads them through the link. They still live in the pursuit, which is why they appear read only there.
Can I convert the same pursuit twice? No. A bid can only be converted once.
Did the AI change my project? No. Smart assign, auto schedule and the sprint planner only propose. Nothing is written until a person accepts a row.
Why did I get one email about ten cards? That is deliberate. One email covers many events, so a busy day does not become an inbox full of separate messages.
Why did the email arrive hours after the notification? Emails are deliberately delayed, and cancelled entirely if you read the notification in the App first.
Something here not matching what you see on screen? The screen is right and the guide is what needs correcting. Tell us and we will fix it.
