Progress reports
Route: /org/tasks/progress · Permission: Progress reports menu / View / Generate with AI / Manage
Module: Progress Reports (under Task Management) · Entry points: sidebar Progress Reports · Roadmap milestone card → Progress report · Task Analytics → Progress Reports · cockpit Project Pulse · header + → Progress Report
What this is. A page that computes the facts of a period, writes a narrative for a chosen audience, renders a branded PDF, and can send it on a schedule. What it is for. The Friday status mail, the monthly client update, the Monday exec summary — without assembling them by hand. The problem it solves. Progress lives in forty tasks and three milestones; stakeholders want one page with a headline, the risks and what happens next.
1. What a progress report is
A report has two halves:
- Facts — computed from the project, free of charge: totals and percent complete, velocity against the previous period, planned versus done, effort logged versus estimated, overdue, upcoming, new (scope creep), blocked and stale tasks, milestone health, status and priority distribution, top contributors and activity highlights.
- Narrative — written by AI from those facts for an executive, team or client audience: headline, health, summary, achievements, ranked risks, decisions needed, next-period plan and milestone notes. The writer never invents a number; every figure comes from the facts.
Both are rendered into an A4 PDF with the organisation logo and charts, kept in History, and can be emailed now or by a schedule.
| Progress reports | Report Builder | Task analytics | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Question | "How are we doing this week, and what next?" | The pivots you compose | A fixed set of charts |
| Output | Narrative + PDF + email | Table / chart / CSV | Dashboard |
| Scheduled delivery | Yes | No | No |
| Uses AI credits | Narrative and quick check only | No | No |
2. How a report is produced
3. Producing a report — step by step
Step 1 · Scope, period, audience
- Scope — the whole project, or one milestone (phases, sprints and milestones are grouped).
- Period — This week, Last week, This month, Last month, or a custom range.
- Audience — Executive (short, decisions first), Team (task keys, blockers), Client (no people names, no internal blockers).
- Tone — optional.
Step 2 · Preview facts (free)
Preview facts fills the facts strip: KPI tiles, velocity and effort panels, status and priority bars, the overdue / upcoming / new / stale lists, milestones and contributors. No credits are used; use it as a live status board.
Step 3 · Generate the narrative
Generate narrative (Generate with AI) writes the report and stores it. The card shows the headline with a health chip, the summary, achievements, the ranked risks table (impact, likelihood, evidence, mitigation), asks and decisions, the next-period plan and milestone notes, with the facts collapsible underneath.
Under the card: Download PDF, Email now… (members and external addresses, with the PDF attached and a View online link), Save as schedule… (pre-fills a schedule with the same scope, period type and audience) and Generate another report.
Quick check
Ask a one-line question — Are we on track for Beta? — and get a short answer with health, top risks, top wins and suggested actions. Cheaper than a full report; not stored.
Step 4 · History
Every report, generated by a person or a schedule, is listed with period, scope, audience, health, credits and who generated it. Open, download the PDF, email or delete (Manage).
Step 5 · Schedules
New schedule (Manage): name, cadence (daily, weekly with a day, monthly with a day of month), hour and timezone, audience and tone, recipients (project members plus external emails), delivery (in-app notification, email, attach PDF) and Active. The list shows the next run, the last run's status and any error; each row can be paused, resumed, run now, edited or deleted.
A scheduled report covers the previous period (yesterday, last Monday–Sunday, last month) and is produced at most once per period. If the organisation is out of credits the run is skipped once and the schedule's owner is told; the schedule continues next period.
4. Field reference
| Field | Control | Required | Validation / source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scope | Select | Yes | Whole project or a milestone of the selected project |
| Period | Preset or date range | Yes | Custom: start ≤ end |
| Audience | Select | Yes | exec · team · client |
| Tone | Select | No | Free choice |
| Question (Quick check) | Text | Yes | Non-empty |
| Recipients (email now / schedule) | Member picker + email chips | Yes for email | At least one member or address |
| Cadence | Select | Yes | daily · weekly · monthly |
| Day of week / month | Select | With weekly / monthly | 0–6 / 1–28 |
| Hour | Select | Yes | 0–23 in the schedule's timezone |
| Timezone | Searchable select | Yes | IANA zones |
| Delivery | Toggles | — | In-app, email, attach PDF |
5. The admin contract
- Permissions: Progress reports menu (sidebar), View (facts, history, PDF, cockpit tile), Generate with AI (narrative and quick check — spends credits), Manage (email now, schedules, delete).
- Credits: about 600 per narrative (ceiling 2,400); about 150 per quick check. Facts are free.
- Scheduled delivery depends on the platform job Task Progress Report Dispatch, which an operator enables per environment; PDFs need the platform's PDF renderer.
- Utilities (Super Admin → AI Utilities, category Orbit Ops): Progress report writer, Quick status check.
6. Downstream
- The cockpit Project Pulse tile shows the latest headline and health per project.
- The Assistant answers how is project X doing, runs a quick check, and — after you confirm — generates a report.
- Milestone health inside the facts uses the Risk radar snapshot when one exists.
7. Don't confuse this with…
- Report Builder — pivots and CSV, no narrative, no schedule.
- Task analytics — a dashboard, not a document.
- Timesheets — hours for billing, not progress against a plan.
8. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Generate narrative is missing | You lack Generate with AI | Ask for the permission |
| A credits message replaces Generate | Not enough credits | Top up; Preview facts still works |
| PDF download says the renderer is unavailable | The platform's PDF engine is not installed on that environment | Ask your administrator; the report text is still in History |
| Schedule shows skipped: credits | The organisation ran out of credits at dispatch time | Top up; the next period runs normally |
| Schedule never runs | The dispatch job is disabled on that environment | Ask your administrator |
| Percent complete looks wrong | Tasks in a done status without a completion date are still counted as done; tasks deleted during the period count as removed scope | Review the status configuration |