Project Milestones
Milestones are single point-in-time events in a project plan with zero duration and effort. Billable milestones can be associated with a contract line for billing and revenue recognition purposes.
Here are some points about milestones:
- They can represent a contractual obligation with a client.
- They can be used in project plans for scheduling purposes.
- They can have associated deliverables.
- They can be used in project plans for invoicing and revenue recognition.
- They can't incur costs directly.
- They have statuses which track the completion progress.
- They can require a review and approval before completion.
Project managers use milestones to track events such as completion of project stages, major project deliverables, key decision points, and approvals. Milestones are used to monitor progress and determine if a project is on schedule.
User Responsibilities
The following table lists the user responsibilities for milestones:
User |
Responsibilities |
---|---|
Project Manager |
|
Team member |
Marks a milestone as completed. |
Statuses
The following are the various statuses for milestones.
-
Not Started
-
In Progress
-
Complete: nonbillable milestones that are finished
-
Submitted for Completion Approval
This status is for billable milestones when a user updates the percent complete to 100 or selects a contextual action to mark the milestone complete. The milestone follows the Milestone Completion Approval workflow (MilestoneApprovalHumanTask) for approval. The workflow is followed whether or not the billable milestone is associated with a contract line. The default approver is the primary project manager. If the primary project manager submits the milestone for completion approval, the milestone is automatically changed to the Complete status. If you don't require manual approvals for billable milestones, configure an auto-approval rule in the workflow.
Actions on Milestones
The following table lists the various actions, users who can perform the actions, and the location where you perform the actions.
Action |
User Role |
Location |
---|---|---|
Create Milestone |
Project Manager |
Manage Project Plan page |
Create Financial Milestone | Project Manager | Manage Project Plan page |
Assign finish date to a milestone |
Project Manager Note:
The task creator can assign a finish date to a milestone task. However, a team member can't edit the start date or finish date for milestones. If the task creator enters a finish date for a milestone task, the start date is automatically updated with the same date. |
Manage Project Plan page |
Mark a billable or nonbillable milestone as complete |
Project Manager |
|
Mark a nonbillable milestone as complete |
Team Member (Team members can't update billable milestones.) |
|
Filter milestones by statuses |
Project Manager |
Project Milestones page |