Milestones represent key achievements or deadlines in your plan. The name describes the event, for example "Customer Invoiced" or "Beta testing completed". Milestones have an owner, the person responsible for meeting the milestone, and a target date, which represents the target date for reaching the milestone. Milestones can also show a lead time, indicating how long you expect the milestone to take, or when work on it needs to start. Clicking on a milestone allows you to change status - represented by green, yellow, orange or red. When a milestone is achieved, it can be marked complete, shown as blue. Clicking and dragging a milestone enables you to change its date and move it between workstreams. You can drag the start, middle or end of a milestone that has a duration.
Milestones can be broken down into smaller steps. These actions represent specific tasks or commitments that need to be completed in order to meet the milestone. Actions are assigned to a person in the plan, either by themselves, or by someone else. They can be marked as "unstarted", "in progress" or "complete." - click on a Milestone, then click to add an action.
Workstreams are a powerful way to group milestones together. In a plan with many milestones spreading them across workstreams keep things easy to understand. You can also add a description for the Workstream, and assign an owner to it. Workstreams can represent areas of work, a specific objective, sub-teams or anything else that you find helpful. Workstreams provide a way to delegate responsibility for areas of a project, especially where team members only have 'view' access to the plan.
Milestones within a workstream can be "locked" together. Clicking the chain link icon, by the workstream name, links all of the milestones within that stream. When a milestone is moved back or brought forward, all of the uncompleted milestones after it are moved back or forward as well. Milestones can be dragged from one workstream to another, simply by clicking and moving them up or down, and clicking the chain link click switches the workstream back to normal. This combination of features makes it very easy to replan large sections of work.
Milestones and Workstream owners can simply be names. To add a new name to a plan, click on the icon with the group of people and a "+" - you can select from names you have used already, or a a new name. If you wish, you can invite those people to Milestone Planner, if they aren't already onboard. When they use Milestone Planner too, it becomes an even more powerful. Clicking on the name by a Milestone or Workstream lets you assign an owner, from the list of people involved in the project. By default you own any milestones, workstreams or plan that you create. If you see the word "Invite" on a persons profile picture, in means that they are not yet a Milestone Planner user. Click on them and enter their email address and we will send them an invite. You can customise the invite message if you like.
Plans are an effective way to record your intentions, but plans do change. That's where the Activity Stream comes in. It shows any changes on the lefthand side of the screen, in a micro-blog style feed, with the most recent changes appearing at the top. You can scroll down to see older changes, or click on a milestone, user image, workstream name or plan name to look at just the activity related to that item. Selecting a milestone allows you to add actions and notes to it. The Activity Stream means that everyone can see what is happening, even when a plan is changing rapidly. It is also available as an RSS feed, which you can follow via any RSS reader. If your web browser supports RSS, you will see an RSS icon in your browser's top bar.
There are a number of ways to view your plans. The main view is the Timeline, which shows milestones arranged along a timeline, and grouped into workstreams. The dashboard provides a quick overview of recently completed and upcoming milestones and actions, what is due (or overdue) today. The milestones view gives an agenda style "list" view of milestones, in date order. You can view by person, plan or status. In the dashboard and milestones you can click on any Milestone or Action that you control to edit or update it. Finally, the plans view gives an overview of the progress, status and teams across every plan. From this page you can create reports, PDF snapshots, and add descriptions to workstreams. Plans can also be accessed from the drop down box at the top left of the screen.
From the Plans page you can copy or export plans. If you've finished working through a plan, making tweaks and discoveries along the way, you now have a great template for your next project! You can use any existing plan as a template for a new one. Simply go to the plans page, click "New" and select your plan from the 'Use a Plan as a Template' list. You will be given the option to give your new plan a name and start date. You can also choose the starting status for your milestones and if they have an owner. You are now all set to embark on another successful plan! If you want to keep a copy on your own machine, clicking on export will download a CSV file of all the milestones within a project.
Milestone Planner's mobile-friendly web interface allows you to check milestones and project status on the go. Milestone Planner Mobile works on most smart phones that have a javascript enabled web browser. It has been tested on Blackberry (Webkit browser), iPhone (iOS), Android, Nokia (Symbian S60 phones) and a number of other major manufacturers handsets. Milestone Planner has been ranked in the top 5 new mobile applications in the Vodafone Mobile Clicks awards.
At any point Milestone Planner can email you a snapshot of a plan, so that you can create professional presentations and documents with it. Milestone Planner also acts as your project manager, generating reports to show recent activity on a plan, showing planned and actual progress and upcoming milestones. These can be downloaded in PDF format to distribute to your management team. All this is easily managed from the plans page.
Wherever you see an RRS or a calendar icon you can click to receive a feed. RSS feeds are available for specific plans, as well as for milestones you own, and an overall feed. The feeds are secured by encryption and a password. For most web browsers and operating systems you simply click on the icons and follow the prompts. The calendar feeds will allow you to synchronise Milestone dates into your calendar with most calendaring applications, including Microsoft Outlook and OS X's iCal.
Use the "My Account" page to change your username, email or password. This is also the place to upload a profile picture, redeem vouchers and adjust any other Milestone Planner settings.
The most succesful plans are ones that are viewed and reviewed frequenty. Keep signing in to MilestonePlanner.com and refreshing your plans. Milestones should be as clear and specific as you can make them, and plans that are shared with multiple people always seem to stay on track more that when you go solo!
