Phase / Gate Processing
The project workflow displayed in the Phase/Gate Process tab illustrates the 5 phases with follow-up gate reviews after each phase.
Before the project enters the initial phase Specification, an approval may be required. This approval only can be performed by users having the role 'Projects [Approval]' assigned and is mandatory if the project budget is not defined or higher than the Budget Threshold of the related Project Template (if defined).
As the project enters a new phase, the system will automatically create the required Project Task records to request & track the required deliverables from the defined stakeholders. Once the last task of a phase is set to complete, the project will transition to the next status (the gate review) automatically. If needed, the project owner (and additional owners) can transition the project from a phase to the next gate review immediately by using the given workflow transitions 'Submit to Gate Review'. In this case, the system will not wait for all tasks complete.
As the project reaches a gate review status (G1, G2, G3, …)., the users listed in field 'Remaining Approvers' will be notified by mail and asked to approve the project outcomes. These users also will find the project in their 'My Outstanding Work' list. If the outcomes meet expectation, they can perform the Approve workflow action. Once the last remaining approver performs this Approve action, the project will transition to the next phase automatically. When this happens, the project will then create all the tasks required for the next phase automatically, based on the information stored in the given Phase’s Task Planning tab.
If 'Update Schedule' is checked in the details page of the project, at this time the project schedule will be updated to start the next phase on the next working day – this may shift the schedule unexpectedly.
The project's progress can be easily seen in the Progress field of the project. Green gate labels indicate completed gates, red ones indicate pending gate reviews and orange ones indicate that the phase before the given gate is not complete yet. The following project for example is in status G3 and the review is currently pending:
