Project phases are simply a way to organize groups of tasks within your project into stages or milestones. Examples of phases might be:

• Foundation, Site-work, Framing, Plumbing & HVAC, Electrical, Carpentry and Finish if you are building a house
• Requirements, Design, Development, Test, Training and Go-live/Support if you are implementing a new software system
• Sprint Cycle 1, Sprint Cycle 2, Sprint Cycle 3 and so on if you are developing using Agile methodology
• Qualification, Proposal, Negotiation and On-boarding if you are using projects to win new business

Phases are normally recommended for larger projects containing more than 40 tasks. There are alternative ways to group tasks within a project including tasks-lists or sub-tasks or milestone tasks. You can use these different options together, for example using phases with a billing milestone at the end of each phase for major deliverables, in conjunction with task-lists or sub-tasks to break up smaller deliverables into individual tasks.

To define phases separately from milestones in your project

1. Click on the "MILESTONES" tab
2. Click on "Edit Phases" link
3. Enter each new phase in the popup. Each phase is a free text input, though you are not allowed to save a project with two phases having the same name.

Phases will appear in the order in which you added them. Delete and re-enter phases to move them up or down.

You can define phases based on milestones so they are directly linked or related to each other.

Once phases have been setup in your project it is very easy to assign tasks to a phase. Click on the "Phase" column next to your task and select the phase from the drop-down list which appears.

Your system administrator can allow you to define new phases at task level on the fly, including from the my tasks application. Click here for more information on project type settings such as allowing new phases to be defined at task level.