Projects FAQ#

How do I create a new project, and who becomes its person in charge?#

Open Workspace → Projects and click Create Project. The Create New Project dialog asks for a Project Name, a Project Code, a Client, a Start Date and an End Date; description, amount and location are optional. The person creating the project is automatically set as its Person In Charge — there is no field for it on the form.

If the client you need is not in the list, choose New Client inside the Client dropdown and fill in the quick-add form (name, email, contact number) without leaving the dialog. The full client record can be completed later in Client Management. Full walkthrough: Creating a Project.

Why can't I type a project code?#

Your organization has switched project codes to automatic numbering. When that is on, the Project Code field is locked, shows Auto-generated, and the code is assigned when you save. An administrator controls this on the Project Settings page, where the Project Code Numbering card sets the prefix, separator, number padding and next number, with a live preview of the next code. Switching the mode back to Manual makes the field editable and required again.

What does saving a project as a template capture?#

A template is a snapshot of the project's setup: its tasks (reset to Backlog), team roles, milestones, checklists, dependencies, custom fields, board lanes and automation rules. No progress, dates or assignees carry over, so every project started from the template begins fresh.

Save one by right-clicking a project on the list page and choosing Save as Template. To reuse it, pick it from the Template (optional) dropdown at the top of the create dialog — the action button changes to Create from Template. The dropdown only appears once you have at least one saved template. See Project Templates.

How do I keep the project list from getting cluttered?#

Two tools do this. Folders group related projects — one folder per client or per quarter, for example — and are managed in the list's Grid view, where you can create them, drag projects into them, and collapse the ones you are not using. Deleting a folder never deletes its projects; they simply return to Uncategorized. See Project Folders.

For work that has finished, right-click the project and choose Archive Project. Archiving hides the project from the default list without deleting anything, and Unarchive Project brings it back; the Status filter chip switches between Active and Archived. See Project List.

What are Views, and which one should I use?#

Views are saved lenses on the same set of tasks, shown as tabs on the project page after Overview. A Project Tracker (list) view is best for grouped, column-based work where you want filters and drag-and-drop ordering. A Board view is a Kanban layout whose columns come from status, assignee or priority — that is where you work by lane. A Gantt view puts each task on a calendar as a bar, grouped by milestone by default. (Doc appears in the picker but is marked coming soon.)

Every project starts with a default Project Tracker view, and you can add, rename, duplicate, reorder and delete views — a project must always keep at least one. Each view carries its own grouping, filters, columns and a privacy setting (Private, Shared or Public). See Project Views.

Why doesn't my task appear on the Timeline or a Gantt view?#

A task is drawn as a bar only when it has both a start date and a due date. Anything missing either one is collected in the Tasks without dates section at the bottom of the page, with a count — open each entry, add the two dates, and it appears on the calendar straight away.

If the task does have dates but you still cannot see it, check the toolbar: the Project, Assignee and Priority filters may be narrowing the list (the page subtitle reads "X of Y tasks" when filters are active), and the cross-project Timeline only ever shows projects you are a member of. See Project Timeline.

How is the Project Health score worked out?#

Project Health is a single percentage built from five weighted factors: Schedule (25%), Overdue (25%), Blockages (20%), Issues (15%) and Activity (15%). A project with no tasks yet shows Not Started rather than a score. Click the card to open the health dialog, where each factor has its own score and a detail line, and clicking a factor jumps to the part of the project it came from.

The Activity factor deserves a note: it measures how recently something was recorded in the project's Activity Log against your organization's Client Interaction Frequency, set on the Project Settings page and overridable per project. A project nobody has touched scores lower even if its tasks are on time. See Project Details.

How do I add people to a project, and where do team roles come from?#

Project membership is managed on the project's own Team tab, where members hold roles such as Creator, Moderator and member. Project team roles — the roles used for planning and assignment — are defined on the project's Fields tab.

Once roles exist, you can fill in assignments in bulk: open Settings → Automate on the project page, tick the roles to assign, choose Assign All Members or Round Robin for each, and pick whether the run touches unassigned tasks only or overwrites every assignment. If the dialog reports that no team roles are defined, set them up on the Fields tab first.

The Workspace-level Team Management page is a different thing: it is a company-wide view of people, teams, workload and training. The teams themselves are created in Manpower, not there.

My project doesn't show Fit-Gap or Risk Register — where are they?#

They start hidden. Overview, Activity Log, Files, Notes, Requirements, Issues Log, Client Pending and Discovery are visible out of the box, while Fit-Gap, Risk Register, Tasks and Processes are switched off to keep the tab bar tidy. Click the eye icon at the right end of the tab bar, then tick the tabs you want. Your choices are remembered per project, and Overview can never be hidden. See Project Details.

What is the difference between an issue, a client-pending item, and a risk?#

Issues and client-pending items are not separate records — they are flags on tasks. An issue is a task flagged as a problem raised against the work; flag an existing task from its Activity panel, or click Add issue on the Issues Log tab to create one, and clear it with Resolve Issue. A client-pending item is a task flagged as waiting on the client, carrying a contact, an impact level, a commitment date, follow-up logging and a Mark received action.

A risk is different: the Risk Register is an editable spreadsheet where each row records likelihood, impact, an automatically calculated score, a mitigation plan and an owner. Fit-Gap uses the same spreadsheet, one row per client requirement compared against what the system can do today. Both support Excel export, a blank template download, and import.

Where do project notes live, and how do they attach to a project?#

Notes are written in one place — the Notes workspace under Workspace → Notes — and appear on a project when they are linked to it. Creating a note from a project's Notes tab links it automatically; a note written in the workspace is linked by its author through the Link button, and one note can belong to several projects.

Unlinking removes the note from that project's tab only; the note itself is untouched and stays with its author. Notes save automatically as you type, and sharing is separate from linking — visibility (Private, Shared or Company) and per-person Viewer or Editor roles are set in the note's Share dialog.

How can a client follow a project without an ANTE account?#

Open the project, click Settings → Share, and generate a share link. The client opens a public page protected by an eight-character passcode and sees the project's live progress, milestones, completion trend and a read-only timeline, and can comment on individual tasks. Internal staff notes and the internal activity feed are never shown there. The page is always current, not a saved snapshot, so there is nothing to re-send after an update.

The passcode is shown only once. If you lose it, use Reset passcode to issue a new one for the same link, Regenerate link to replace the URL and passcode together, or Revoke to cut off access entirely. Each project has one active share link, and only members with edit access see the menu item. See Sharing a Project.

How do I collect onboarding answers and documents from a client?#

Use Discovery. Pick a questionnaire template, click Share questionnaire, and copy the fill link and passcode — ANTE does not email them, you send both through whatever channel you already use. The client answers on a public page with autosave, and the send's status moves from Shared through Opened and In progress to Submitted, with a progress count you can watch from the Sends table.

Everything the client uploads is gathered under Files on the send's detail page, each file labelled with the question it answered; a project's Discovery tab rolls the same list up across every questionnaire sent for that project. If a client needs to change a submitted answer, use Reopen on the existing send rather than sending a new one, so the whole history stays on one record.

What is the difference between a project and an engagement?#

A project runs from a start date to an end date toward a set of milestones and finishes. An engagement is built around a client contract and the work that repeats under it — monthly bookkeeping or a BPO arrangement, for example. It keeps the contract dates, the agreed scope and deliverables, and recurring processes that run on a monthly, weekly or interval schedule and generate the tasks for each cycle automatically.

An engagement also carries its own ongoing logs for client interactions, issues, pending items and risks, so a long-running service relationship has one record instead of a chain of short projects.

What is the difference between a process template and an instance?#

A template is the reusable blueprint — a named sequence of steps, each with a type, an assignee, a form and any automation. An instance is one actual run of that blueprint, with its own code, progress, assignees and captured field values. Starting a process creates a new instance and leaves the template untouched.

Only Active templates can be started, which is the usual reason a template is missing from the picker: a Draft or Archived template must be activated first. When you start one you can link the run to a project or an engagement, or leave it standalone. See Project Processes.