Group work orders into a shutdown, a renovation or a campaign, with phases, budget and RFIs
Run a shutdown, a renovation or a campaign as one job: phases, budget, team and RFIs
A project groups the work orders that belong to the same undertaking — an annual shutdown, a building renovation, a machine installation, a preventive campaign — and gives them a shared plan, budget and progress. Each project carries its own reference (PRJ-1, PRJ-2…), a manager, a team and as many phases as the job needs. The work orders themselves stay ordinary work orders: your technicians keep working exactly as they do today, and the project rolls their status and cost up for you.
A project can cover several assets. Pick them on the project form; the project then appears on each asset's Projects tab, next to its work orders. Projects reached indirectly through an asset's work orders are listed separately, with the work orders that connect them.
The “Audit history” tab lists every change made to the project — its creation, each edit field by field with the old and new value, phases, team members, linked work orders and costs — with who made it, the date and the time. A change made automatically (a phase status following its work orders) reads “System”. When a project is deleted, its last entry stays in the company audit log (Company Settings), filtered on Project. Available on the Business plan and above, to roles with the audit permission.
Set a planned budget on the project and the Budget tab compares it with what has actually been spent, gathered from the labor and parts costs of the linked work orders. The same table breaks both figures down phase by phase. A phase that is not backed by work orders — a subcontracted lot, a supplier quote — carries its own planned and actual cost instead, so nothing is ever counted twice. A cost that belongs to the project but to no work order — materials bought directly, a contractor invoice, a permit fee — is recorded with Add cost under Other costs at the bottom of the Budget tab, and is added to the project's total cost.
On the Business plan, Reports › Builder also offers Projects as a data source: reference, name, type, status, priority, location, planned start, planned end, planned year, planned budget and actual cost. Group by location, priority or planned year and add a sum to build your own cut of the plan. The two budget columns appear only to people allowed to see report costs.
Reports › Templates offers the "Capital Plan" template: the projects still ahead (planning, active or on hold) across all your sites, by location, by priority and by planned year, then listed by location, each with its planned budget and its actual cost to date. It is not tied to the report period: it always shows the plan as it stands. Amounts stay in each project's currency.
Important:
Projects have their own permissions (view, create, edit, delete, manage team) and RFIs have theirs. If a colleague cannot see Projects in the sidebar, check their role under Organization > Roles before looking at the plan.
A location's Projects tab lists its projects, including those of its sub-locations unless you untick Include sub-locations. See in Projects opens the full list already filtered on that location, with its totals and its grouping.
In the timeline, a thin bar under each planned bar shows what actually happened: from the day the phase — or its first linked work order — started to the day it was completed, running to today while the phase is still open. Once a phase is finished, the number of days late or early appears under its name. If the phase was marked Completed after the work ended, correct “Started on” and “Completed on” in its edit form: the bar and the gap follow.
The planned cost of a phase can always be edited, whether or not work orders are linked to it. Its actual cost is calculated: the costs of its work orders plus the direct costs assigned to it. When you add a direct cost on the Budget tab — a contractor invoice, materials bought outside a work order — pick the phase it belongs to; a direct cost left without a phase appears on its own line, so the table still adds up to the totals.
In a phase's details, choose the Vendor carrying out the work — a contractor, a consultant, a testing lab… — beside its Person in charge. The teams are shown from the linked work orders. The vendor appears on the phase and in the PDF report.
A phase with no person in charge or no dates of its own shows those of its linked work orders instead: the people assigned to them, their teams, and the earliest start and latest due date, marked "from work orders". The teams show even to a colleague whose access does not cover those work orders, so everyone can see which team handles each phase. Anything you enter on the phase itself always takes precedence, and nothing is copied into it. Click a phase name to open its work orders.
In the Phases tab, switch from “List” to “Timeline” to see each phase as a bar from its start date to its end date, filled with its progress, with today marked. A phase without dates of its own uses the dates of its linked work orders (dashed bar), and a phase with a single date is shown as a milestone. Click a bar to open that phase in the list. Dates are changed from the list, with the phase's Edit button. If you can edit phases, the click also opens its edit form.
In the Phases tab, open a phase and use × beside a work order to take it out of that phase only: it stays in the project. The × on the Work Orders tab removes it from the project. You confirm both, and neither deletes the work order. “New work order in this phase” says on the form which project and phase the work order will join, including when you create several at once. Its title starts as “Phase – Project”, which you can change.
A phase is a stage of the job — preparation, dismantling, assembly, commissioning. Add one from the Phases tab with its name, its start date and its end date; open “More details (owner, cost…)” to set a person in charge and a planned and actual cost. Phases are ordered, and each carries its own status: Pending, In progress, Completed or On hold. The list shows each phase's dates by name, and the day it was completed. The person in charge is notified when a phase is put in their hands.
A project and each of its phases show their Planned start and Planned end, then their Actual start and Actual end once the work has begun and finished. The timeline draws the plan as a bar and what actually happened as a thin line under it.
The projects list doubles as a portfolio of the work planned across your sites. Filter by Location to see one site, its sub-locations included, and by Planned year to see what is due in a given year. Use Group by (location, priority or planned year) to get one block per group with its number of projects, its planned budget and its actual cost. The two budget cards at the top add up everything the filters match, not just the page on screen. Amounts are totalled per currency: a project with its own currency is never added to the others.
From the projects list, Print gives you either the list on its own or the list with each project's work orders nested underneath, with each project's location, planned budget and actual cost. When the list is grouped, the print keeps the groups and their subtotals and ends with the grand total. Export produces an Excel or CSV file with each project's planned year, planned budget and actual cost. Both cover the whole filtered set, not only the page on screen. The actual cost only appears if your role can see work order costs.
The progress percentage counts both the linked work orders and the phases, so a phase you complete by hand still counts when work orders exist as well. A work order counts as finished once it is Completed, Validated or Closed. The project status stays yours to set — Planning, Active, On hold, Completed, Closed or Cancelled — unless you switch on "Auto-update project status from phases" on the Overview tab, which derives it from the phases instead. On hold and Cancelled always stay manual: a paused project never restarts itself.
On a project's page, Export PDF produces a report to share at a management review or keep with the project file: overview and custom fields, phases with their progress, people and dates, the linked work orders grouped by phase, the team, planned against actual per phase, and the documents with their photos. Untick the sections you do not need. The report only contains what you are allowed to see: work orders, documents or cost figures your role does not open are left out. Available from the Starter plan.
An RFI is a formal question raised on a project: a missing dimension, an unclear specification. It carries a responsible party, a due date, the drawings it refers to, and a written answer that stays on the record. Each one gets its own reference (RFI-1, RFI-2…) and moves through Draft, Submitted, In review, Answered and Closed, with cancel and reopen available. Assign it to a colleague or to a vendor; the answer and its attachments stay with the project. RFIs are listed under Projects in the sidebar.
Viewing projects is available on every plan. Creating and editing them — including phases, budget and RFIs — requires the Business plan.
A phase with no linked work order has no calculated cost: type its Actual cost in its edit form (Phases tab).
Create the phases first, then attach work orders to them as you go: progress, the budget breakdown and the phase-by-phase reading all follow from that one link, and nothing has to be maintained twice.
The Timeline lists every phase, with or without dates — a phase without dates shows “No dates”. On a wide screen it also shows each phase's number, start date, end date and progress. The PDF report has a Timeline section too (planned and actual windows), each phase's contractor, and each work order's assignee and due date. The Duration column gives each phase's planned length in days.
On the Work Orders tab, pick any existing work order to attach it to the project; from the Phases tab you can attach it to a specific phase instead. Attaching a work order changes nothing about it, and unlinking it never deletes it. Turn on "Auto-update phase status from work orders" and each phase then follows the work orders inside it instead of being set by hand.
FreeMaint CMMS
© 2026 FreeMaint. All rights reserved.