Setting up a project
What this page is — The guided set-up: six questions that turn a bare project into one that is ready to plan — how the work is measured, whether it carries a value, who is on it, what its task types and categories are, and what its phases look like. What it is for — Getting a project to the point where someone can plan on it, without hunting through five settings pages. The problem it solves — Everything the set-up writes can be set by hand, in Project settings, Task configuration, the Roadmap and Planning → Define. New projects rarely get all of it, so they start with someone else's vocabulary: story points on a site job, "Sprint 4" for a room, no categories and an empty roadmap.
Route: /org/projects/setup (a new project) · /org/projects/<project id>/setup (one that exists) · Permissions: Manage planning (and Create project for the guided-new flow)
Module: Planning (part of Orbit Ops) · Entry points: Project Management → New project with Ops set-up · the Set up this project banner on the Planning and Tasks pages of a project still using the platform defaults
The set-up belongs to Orbit Ops. The button and the banners appear only when your organisation has Orbit Ops; without it, projects are created the usual way and none of this is offered.
A project created before your organisation took Orbit Ops is still on the platform defaults. The first time someone who can manage planning opens its Tasks or Planning page, the banner offers Set up this project — the same six questions, applied to the project you already have. Not now hides it on the Tasks page for that project in this browser.
1. What a starting point is
A starting point (a preset) is a ready-made answer to how does this kind of work run: its task types, statuses and priorities, its categories, how it is measured and priced, what it calls a sprint and a phase, and a skeleton of phases and stages. The platform ships Interior decoration; your organisation may have its own.
Picking one fills in every step that follows. Nothing is fixed: change any of it before you finish.
Interior decoration
| What it sets | Value |
|---|---|
| Measured in | Days (a day is your organisation's working day unless the project says otherwise) |
| Money | A value per task — fixed price, a day rate × days, or quantity × unit rate |
| Words | Sprint → Stage, Phase → Room, Backlog → Wishlist, Planned hire → Planned crew, Contractor |
| Task types | Design · Procurement · Site work · Snag |
| Statuses | To do · In progress · Client review · Done |
| Priorities | Low · Normal · Urgent |
| Categories | Living · Kitchen · Bedrooms · Bathrooms · Lighting · Furniture |
| Shape | Design → Civil → Electrical → Carpentry → Painting → Installation → Handover, with stages inside the first three (about 17 weeks) |
| Trades | Carpentry · Electrical · Plumbing · Painting · Flooring · Furnishing |
2. The six steps
| Step | What it asks | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| Kind of work | The starting point, and — for a new project — its name, code and dates | The project row |
| How you measure | Days, hours or story points; hours in a working day; what you call a sprint, a phase, the backlog and a contractor | Planning settings |
| Money | Whether each task carries a value, the currency, a default day rate and how you will bill | Planning settings → Money |
| Team | The people to put on the project | Project access |
| Work types | Task types, statuses, priorities and categories — chips you type into | Task configuration and the project's categories |
| Phases & stages | The skeleton, with a length per box and the dates worked out as you type | The Roadmap |
The last screen is a review: every answer with an Edit link back to its step. Nothing is written until you press Finish.
Leaving and coming back. A half-finished set-up is kept in your browser. Reopen the wizard and it says Picked up where you left off, with Start again if you would rather.
3. What Finish actually writes
- The project itself, when the wizard created it.
- One apply call: task types, statuses and priorities (replaced on a project with no tasks; added to on one that has tasks — see below), categories (added — an existing name, in any case, is left alone), the planning settings (merged over what the project has, then checked by Planning's own rules) and the phases and stages.
- The team, one person at a time.
Then it opens the project's Plan tab.
Phases and stages. They are created through the ordinary milestone machinery, so hierarchy rules, warnings and webhooks behave exactly as for a phase you make by hand. A box of N days ends on its last day, and the next phase starts the day after. A title the project already has is skipped, so running the set-up twice does not double the roadmap.
A project that already has tasks keeps its types, statuses and priorities. Its tasks are using them, so the Work types step starts from the project's own lists and locks every entry (🔒): you can add a status or a type, not remove one. Picking a starting point then only adds its categories. Your existing statuses keep their meaning too — a Done stays done, whatever its place in the list.
If anything tries to set a list that would leave tasks without their status, type or priority, the set-up is refused and names what would be lost — Statuses still used by tasks would be removed: Backlog.
Permissions. The wizard needs Manage planning. Each part also belongs to another permission — task types, statuses, priorities, categories and milestones each have their own. A part you lack is skipped and named on the finish toast rather than failing the whole set-up, so someone who may plan but not edit task types still gets everything else.
4. Worked example
A studio takes on Anand's flat. Project Management → New project with Ops set-up → Interior decoration → name Anand's flat, starts 1 October. Step 2 is already Days with Room and Stage; the studio works 8-hour days, so nothing to change. Step 3 is already a value per task; they set the currency to INR and a default day rate of ₹4,000. Step 4 puts three designers on it. Step 5 keeps the types but adds a Balcony category. Step 6 shortens Carpentry from 28 to 21 days — every date after it moves up as they type — and drops Procurement. Finish: the project opens on the Plan tab with 6 rooms, 4 stages and the wishlist ready. They then add the carpentry contractor in Define.
5. Don't confuse this with…
- Planning settings — the same settings, one page, for a project already running. The wizard writes them; this is where you change them later.
- Define — sizes, skills, hours per week, planned hires, contractors and rates. The wizard deliberately does not do contractors: they come from the project's own vendors, which a brand-new project does not have yet.
- Task Configuration — the same types, statuses and priorities, edited one at a time.
6. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No New project with Ops set-up button | Your organisation does not have Orbit Ops, or you lack Create project or Manage planning | Ask your administrator |
| No Timelines/Milestones tab in Project settings | It is an Orbit Ops setting: it needs Orbit Ops and Manage Project Milestones and Roadmaps | Ask your administrator |
| "This project already has tasks" | The set-up replaces task types and statuses | Confirm to apply anyway, or set up a new project |
| The finish toast says parts were skipped | You lack the permission behind those parts (task types, statuses, priorities, categories or milestones) | Ask for the permission, then run the set-up again — the parts already written are left alone |
| The roadmap has each phase twice | A set-up was applied to a project whose phases had different titles | Delete the extra phases on the Roadmap; identical titles are skipped |
| The banner keeps coming back | It shows while the project is still on the platform defaults | Finish the set-up, or save Planning settings once by hand |