Products

Products are the deliverables a project is meant to produce, such as a report, a document, a software release or a signed contract. Each product has a status, an owner and a finish date, and can be linked to a task or milestone in the schedule. The product panel holds the acceptance criteria, the final product, templates and best practices.

Products are on the project’s Products tab, provided the Products module is switched on for your organization (main menu: System settings, Products tab, the Enable / Disable switch; switching it off does not delete data, it only hides the tab) and ticked in the project (project menu, Functionalities; see Project functionalities). The table has the Name, Owner, Schedule and Execution day columns, and you sort it by clicking a header. The filter narrows the list by a word in the Filter by name box and by the Owner.

The tab is visible to users with a project permission for products (View or Admin) and to product owners. The Add button is available with the Admin permission (see Project permissions).

Adding a product

1. Open the Products tab in the project.
2. Click Add. The Add product window opens.
3. Enter the name (required, up to 256 characters) and click Add.

The product appears in the list and its panel opens on the right. A new product has the Pending status. You fill in the other fields in the panel (see Product panel).

You can also add a product from the panel of a task or milestone: in the Products section, click Add another product. Such a product is linked to that schedule item right away.

Product panel

Click a product name in the list to open its panel on the right. Close it with the x button in the top right corner. The panel contains:

• the name at the top,
• the Status field: Pending, In progress or Completed. You set the status by hand; it does not change together with the schedule,
• the Owner field — chosen from the project team, and it can be cleared,
• the Schedule field — the link to a schedule item (see Linking a product to the schedule),
• the Finish date field: for an unlinked product you pick it in the calendar (a working day); for a linked product it is read-only and equals the end day of the schedule item,
• the Description, method and criteria of acceptance field with text formatting,
• three attachment sections: Final product, Templates and Best practices. Add a file from your computer or choose one from project files (see Adding an existing file).

Every change is saved automatically, after you press Enter or leave the field. The name is required. To delete a product, choose Delete in the panel menu and confirm; deletion cannot be undone. The option is available with the Admin permission for products.

Users with the Admin permission for products can change every field. A product owner without that permission can change only the groups of fields that the project makes available to item owners (see Item owners). Everyone else sees the panel read-only.

Note: choosing an owner from outside the project team adds that person to the project with participant permissions and sends them a notification. The previous owner leaves the project team if they have no other ties to the project (tasks, products, risks, roles).

Linking a product to the schedule

A product can relate to one task, milestone or summary task of the schedule.

1. Open the product panel (click the name in the list).
2. Click the Schedule field. The list of schedule items opens.
3. Choose an item and click Confirm.

The item name appears in the Schedule field; click it to open the panel of that item. After linking, the product Finish date takes the end day of the item (the date of a milestone) and keeps following it: when you change the date in the schedule, the product Execution day changes too. If you link the product to another item, the date moves to the new item. When a product is no longer linked, it keeps the last date and you can change it by hand.

You can also see products on the schedule side:

• the Products column of the schedule list shows a box icon with circles: grey stands for pending products, blue for in progress and green for completed. The number in a circle is the number of products with that status,
• the panel of a task or milestone has a Products section that lists the linked products and the Add another product button.