Stage Gates

Group Milestones to better visualize complex approval processes and track your projects based on Stage Gate.

Warning: You must have the Milestones Module enabled to perform the actions on this support page.

What are Stage Gates?

Stage Gates are a group of Milestones in the same process phase. They help you visualize complex approval sequences and track projects holistically rather than relying on individual Milestones.

Example of an Item with Stage Gates. Stage Gates make it easy to visualize which step of the process you are in.

Configuration Options

Pro Tip: Reach out to your Customer Success Manager for help setting up Stage Gates on any of your Templates.

While configuring Stage Gates, you can decide:

The name of each Stage Gate
A description that will appear when you hover over a Stage Gate
Which Template to place your Stage Gates on
The order of Stage Gates on your Template
Which Milestones on that Template are part of each Stage Gate

Caution: Sub-ordered Milestones cannot be mapped to separate Stage Gates.

How do Stage Gates work?

Stage Gates have three statuses that indicate whether the Stage Gate is Not Started, Active, or Complete.

A Stage Gate is Not Started when there is an Active Stage Gate before it. A Stage Gate is Active when all Milestones in the previous Stage Gate have been approved or when it is the first Stage Gate with an unapproved Milestone. COMPLETE A Stage Gate is Complete when all its Milestones are approved.

Stage Gates will automatically transition between statuses as Milestones are approved and un-approved.

Example of Stage Gates. When the 2.2 - Validate Milestone is approved, the 2 - Plan & Validate Stage Gate will automatically transition to Complete and the 3 - Implement Stage Gate will become Active.

Pro Tip: Hover over any Stage Gate to learn key information about it. A tooltip will appear showing the Stage Gate's Status and description.

Filter Items by Stage Gate

An advantage of Stage Gates is you can use them to filter for Items at certain approval stages.

For example, you might have a project where 3 Milestones occur simultaneously in the first step of the process. Without Stage Gates, you would need to filter for each Milestone individually to locate projects in step one. When those Milestones are grouped into a Stage Gate, all you need to do is apply one simple Stage Gate filter.

To filter for Items by Stage Gate, select the Stage Gate criteria in the Item Filter:

Stage Gate Name: Select which Stage Gate you are interested in. You can select one or multiple Stage Gates.
Stage Gate Status: Select Active, Not Started, or Complete. Only Items with the specified Stage Gate in the selected status will be included in your Item List.

Add a Stage Gate column to Item Lists

Adding a Stage Gate column to Item Lists helps you quickly see which Stage Gate is currently Active on each Item in the List.

If there is an Active Stage Gate on the Item, it will appear in the column.
If all Milestones in all Stages Gates are Approved, the column will display "All Complete."
If the Item does not have any Stage Gates, the column will be blank.

Ofie Profile Pic Pro Tip: Forget how to add a column to an Item List? Check out our support pages on editing columns on Cards and configuring the view of a Custom List.