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In this video, we'll discuss how to add a task, milestone, or stage gate to a project plan,

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how to use dependencies, how to edit a task, and how to use constraints in tasks.

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So let's take a look.

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Project Plans allow you to track the progress of your project and identify any challenges you may face.

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So let's take a look at an example.

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If we open up the Project Plan for our drone project, here under Project Management,

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we can see it contains a standard list of tasks that our company has asked for in each of our projects.

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These include tasks such as requirements, importing of the CAD assembly,

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creating investigation requests, approvals, and sign offs.

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To create a project plan, you have three activity types available to you: Task, Milestone, and Stage Gate.

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Milestones represent key points in the project lifecycle and help keep you on track.

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Stage gates indicate a decision is required in order for the project to continue.

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Tasks are the most common and represent basic tasks in the project,

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such as requirement gathering, importing of CAD files, and so on.

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So, how do we create these tasks and build out a project plan?

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Well, let's go over to a new project for a bicycle and see how it's done.

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If we go into the Project Management section, we can see we've already created a couple of tasks.

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We have a design kickoff task, and we also have a requirement gathering sub task.

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When adding a new task, you have two options.

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You can either add a main task, so if we added a main one, it would be number 2,

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versus adding a sub task to our design kickoff.

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To add a task, a main task, we would click the "Add" button. To add a sub task, we're going to click the plus sign.

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From here, we get the pop up to create the task. The first thing we need to do is add in the workflow.

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This is the process the task will follow in order to move from Draft to Completed.

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Next thing we need to do is put in the name of the task, something descriptive to indicate what the task is.

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For example, create requirement documents.

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We then need to assign the task. You can assign a task to either a team, a person, or a role.

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In this case, we're going to select the "Team" because we don't know who is going to take this on yet.

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We also need to put in the duration, how long we think it will take for the task to be completed,

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and then we also need to put in the constraint type.

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Constraints are added to tasks to help enforce start or end dates for tasks.

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For example, creating our requirement document,

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we're going to set it up so that it starts no earlier than a Monday in the next month, in November.

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This will give us plenty of time to ensure we can get to this task on time.

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We also have the option to put in a description, add in documentation, and also associate the task with an item in the BOM structure.

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Once we have all of this in, all we need to do is click on "Add" and add the task to our project plan.

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You can see here we see all of the details in the fly out for the activity or the task.

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So, now that we've created a requirement gather or requirement document task,

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we're also going to add in a stage gate for an approval.

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To do that, I would click on "Add"and from the dropdown select "Stage Gate".

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In here again we need to put in the name. So this time it's going to be Requirements Review and Approval.

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Again assign it to our team because we haven't decided who will be doing this review and approval, and then put in the start date.

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We want to put the start date after we know the requirement documentation will be completed.

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And again, give them a good amount of time to do the review and approval.

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Once we've done that, we can go ahead and click on "Add".

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And again, we can see all of the information here in the fly out for our stage gate.

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So along with constraints in your tasks,

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you can also create dependencies between your tasks, your milestones, and your stage gates.

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This ensures that one task is not started before the task it is dependent on is completed.

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For example, we cannot create Requirement Documentation until we've gathered the requirements.

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In order to create a dependency, the tasks must be in a draft state.

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To connect them, I would select the task and then click and draw the line to the task it is dependent on.

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So for example, we have now connected our requirement gathering task to our requirement documentation task.

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One thing to note is that Constraints and Dependencies work together when building out your project plan.

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You can see here as I move the Requirement Gathering task that the Documentation task moves with it,

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because they are dependent on each other.

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As we move these activities or tasks in the project plan, the constraints and dependencies work together.

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It should be noted that if you need to continually move your activities or your tasks in the project plan,

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eventually you will reach a point where the constraint will need to be fulfilled and the task will no longer move in the plan.

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This is usually when you have a constraint based on a specific date. Okay.

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So now that we have created our dependencies, we've created our tasks and our stage gates,

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you will, as your project progresses, may need to make updates to your tasks in the project plan.

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For example, tasks will need to be reassigned, dates will need to be updated, workflows will need to be started, and so on.

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To edit a task, you would select the task and in the fly out, you would click on the "Edit" option.

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From here, you can then make the changes.

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So for example, for our Requirements Review and Approval, we know that Dawson is going to be the one to do that.

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So I can change the assignee value from the team to Dawson specifically.

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Dawson will now show up in the Assignee column for this particular task.

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She'll also receive an email notification telling her she has been assigned a task in this project,

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so she can go ahead and check out what the details are for that particular task.

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So we have seen how project plans can be created with Tasks, Stages, and Milestones.

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We have seen how Constraints and Dependencies work together and how you can edit tasks.

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From here, I encourage you to continue learning about what you can do with Project Management.