¶ Designing Roadmaps
Key Note: In Planally, creating a “project” can mean creating a contract, tender, research initiative, product, audit, or any other entity defined by your workflow. The steps below apply universally, but examples here use projects for clarity.
Roadmaps in Planally define the requirements of your workflow and what is automated when your team utilizes your workflow. They organize phases and activities so that every project follows a structured process. A roadmap ensures consistency and automation when new projects are created.
¶ Overview
A roadmap represents the sequence of phases and activities that make up your workflow. When you create a project, you select a roadmap to apply its structure automatically. This ensures that:
- All projects follow a standardized process.
- Governance rules and activities are automated.
- Teams have clarity on what needs to be done at each phase.
To access the Roadmaps page:
- Navigate to Workflow > Configuration > Projects > Roadmaps.
¶ Key Features
- Create Roadmaps: Define lifecycle phases for your workflow.
- Add Activities: Assign tasks and deliverables to phases.
- Update Activities: Adjust priority, permissions, and relationships.
- Publish Roadmaps: Make the roadmap active for new projects.
- Manage Applicability: Set activities as Mandatory, Prerequisite, or Applicable.
- Visualize Dependencies: Use Diagram View for complex workflows.
¶ Creating a Roadmap
¶ Steps
- Navigate to Workflow > Configuration > Projects > Roadmaps.
- Click Add Roadmap.
- Enter:
- Name
- Description
- Colour
- Mark Assignable if you want this roadmap available for new projects.
- Click Save.
¶ Adding Activities to a Roadmap
Once your roadmap is created, you can add activities to each phase. Activities define the tasks required at different stages of the project.
You can add activities using:
- Table View: Displays activities in a structured list.
- Diagram View: Visualizes activities and their relationships.
¶ Steps to Add Activities
- Open the roadmap and select Table View or Diagram View.
- Click Add Activity.
- Choose:
- Template (Form Builder template, Gate, or Generic activity)
- Phase (e.g., Initiation, Planning, Execution, Closing)
- Applicability:
- Mandatory – Must be completed.
- Prerequisite – Required before other activities.
- Applicable – Optional but relevant.
- Click Save.
¶ Updating Activities
You can update activities anytime to reflect changes in your process.
¶ What You Can Update:
- Priority – Adjust importance (this determines the order in which activities appear).
- Permissions:
- Assign roles for the activity.
- Define endorsement and approval policies for each status (Not Planned, Planned, In Progress).
- Related Work:
- Link activities using relationships:
- Related: Creates a general link between two activities for reference or context.
- Start-to-Start (SS): The linked activity cannot start until the current activity starts.
- Finish-to-Start (FS): The linked activity cannot start until the current activity is finished.
- Start-to-Finish (SF): The linked activity cannot finish until the current activity starts.
- Finish-to-Finish (FF): The linked activity cannot finish until the current activity finishes.
- View links in Table or Diagram view for better visualization.
- Link activities using relationships:
¶ Publishing a Roadmap
When you are done configuring your roadmap, you need to publish it so it becomes active for the workflow.
¶ Steps to Publish:
- Open the roadmap.
- Click Publish.
- Confirm the action.
¶ What Happens After Publishing:
- The roadmap is now available for use in the workflow.
- Users can select this roadmap when creating new projects.
- All existing projects using the workflow can be updated to the latest roadmap version.
- In each project, a notification will appear indicating that the project can update to the latest roadmap changes.
- When updating, changes will apply from the current phase onwards (previous phases remain unchanged).
¶ Deleting A Roadmap
Deleting an activity removes it from your workflow. Existing projects using the Roadmap will not be remained, but your Roadmap will not be able to be recovered. An alternative to deleting a roadmap would be to make the unavaiable to users by making in un-assignable.
¶ Steps to Delete:
- Open the roadmap.
- Click Settings
- Click Delete Roadmap.
- Type DELETE in the confirmation box
- Click Delete Roadmap.
¶ Best Practices & Tips
- Publish the roadmap only after all activities and phases are finalized.
- Communicate updates to project teams before applying changes.
- Use Diagram View for complex roadmaps to visualize dependencies.
- Define endorsement and approval policies early for governance.