Set up your projects

Projects are the work people's time and cost land on. Capitalisation, R&D claims, staffing and AI attribution all use them. Your Engineering or delivery lead owns the project list, and your Finance lead owns each project's cost centre.

Before you start

• Organisation basics are done, especially your cost centres and their categories.
• If projects will come from Jira, Linear or Azure DevOps, connect your project tool first.
• You need access to manage the roadmap. Ask your Flowstate admin.

Projects are under Delivery → Roadmap, on the Projects, Initiatives and Spend timeline tabs.

1. Decide where projects come from

What: Choose whether people can create projects in Flowstate, or whether projects only come from your project tool. Who: Engineering or delivery lead. Where: Settings → Organisation → General, section Project creation. Done when: Allow projects to be created in Flowstate is set the way you chose.

Choose one:

Option	How it works	Trade-off
Allowed (the default)	People can add projects in Flowstate, and synced projects arrive too.	Flexible, but projects can drift from your project tool.
Project tool only (switch off)	The New project buttons disappear. Projects still arrive from your project tool, the spreadsheet import and the API.	One source of truth for your project list.

2. Give every project an owner, dates and a cost centre

What: Fill in the fields capitalisation, claims and staffing depend on. Who: Engineering or delivery lead for owner and dates; Finance lead for cost centres. Where: Delivery → Roadmap → Projects. Select a project to open its side panel, or select Add Project. Done when: Every active project has an Owner, Start Date, End Date and Cost Centre, and the Needs attention filter shows nothing you haven't agreed to leave.

Field	Notes
Project Name	Required.
Owner	Shown as Project lead in the side panel.
Priority
Cost Centre	The project's own cost centre. Its category decides whether the project can be capitalised.
Start Date	Required.
End Date	Needed to close a CapEx claim once the project is done.
Value Stream	Optional grouping for reporting.

• A project is only capitalised if its cost centre's category is CapEx. Set a cost centre on every project you might capitalise. See cost centres.
• When you link a synced project that has no cost centre and no initiative, its owner gets an Inbox task called Attribute project "…", asking them to choose a cost centre or add it to an initiative.

Project status

A project's status is Backlog, To Do, In Progress, Paused, In Review, Done or Cancelled. If the project is linked to your project tool, its status comes from the tool, so change it there. Otherwise, set it in Flowstate. See which system owns what.

3. Group projects into initiatives

What: Group related projects into initiatives, so you can report effort, forecast and spend for a body of work. Who: Engineering or delivery lead, with the Finance lead. Where: Delivery → Roadmap → Initiatives. On a project, select Attach to initiative. Done when: Every project that belongs to a funded body of work shows its initiative rather than No initiative.

• An initiative's status is Draft, Planned, In progress, In review or Done.
• A project can belong to one initiative.
• A project keeps its own cost centre. Adding it to an initiative, or removing it, doesn't change how it's classified or capitalised.

4. Clear the project data checks

What: Fix the projects Flowstate flags as having missing or inconsistent data, so capitalisation and claims are built on clean projects. Who: Project owners, co-ordinated by the Engineering or delivery lead. Where: Delivery → Roadmap → Projects, filtered by Needs attention. Flagged projects show an amber warning on their row, and a Needs attention block at the top of their Overview. Done when: The Needs attention filter returns no projects, or only ones you've agreed to leave.

Each problem says what's wrong and where to fix it. For a linked project, Fix in opens it in your tool.

Check	What it means	Usual fix
Effort logged but not in progress	Effort was logged in a month when the project wasn't in progress.	Update the status in your project tool, or move the effort in effort reporting.
Effort outside the project dates	Effort was logged before the start date or after the end date.	Update the dates, or move the effort.
Open past its end date	The end date has passed but the project is still open.	Update the status, or move the end date.
In progress but idle for 4 weeks	In progress, but no effort logged in the last four completed weeks, or ever.	Update the status, or log the effort.
Done with no end date	Marked done without an end date, so its CapEx claim can't be closed.	Set the end date.
Not linked to a delivery tool	Not linked to a project in your project tool.	Link it, or create the project in your tool.
Missing rationale inputs	Needs a capitalisation rationale but is missing an owner, description, cost centre or linked tickets.	Fill in what's listed.

Each day, the people who approve capitalisation get a to-do saying how many projects need cleaning up, and the project contact — or each project's owner — gets an Inbox item and an email listing theirs. Both clear themselves once the projects are fixed. Set the contact under Settings → Organisation → Notifications (see Choose how people are notified).

You're set up when

• Delivery → Roadmap → Projects lists the projects you expect, from the source you chose.
• Every active project has an owner, dates and a cost centre with the right category.
• Projects that belong together are grouped into initiatives.
• Needs attention is empty, or only holds projects you've agreed to leave.

Day to day

• Roadmap: projects, initiatives and the spend timeline.
• Projects: keep each project's owner, dates, status and cost centre up to date.
• Initiatives: group projects and report on a body of work.
• Spend timeline: each project's spend month by month.
• Project value: what a project is meant to move, and whether it delivered.
• Developers can manage projects through the REST API, and initiatives through the MCP server.