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Build a project tracking app
See where every project stands, what it is waiting on and what was decided. Owners answer three questions each week, and one list puts blocked work at the top.
Built around a purpose
Twelve summer projects, one list for Monday.
For whoever gets asked where things stand across several projects, each with its own owner and deadline. That might be a school district's operations office in summer, a manager opening three new stores, or a nonprofit lead reporting on grant-funded projects.
For illustration: the operations office of a small school district near Sacramento, California, runs 12 projects over the summer break. Each has to finish before teachers return in August. They include Wi-Fi upgrades at two elementary schools, laptops for every sixth grader, flooring in four classrooms and a library annex turned into classrooms. Today their status lives in a shared spreadsheet with a tab per project, a Monday email thread and vendor quotes in several inboxes. Bring the spreadsheet, the questions leaders keep asking in that thread and the name of each project's owner.
A list of the summer's 12 projects that leaders read each Monday, with blocked and at-risk work first and the decision each one needs. Behind every row is a project page with its milestones, dated updates, logged decisions and the quotes and floor plans they refer to.
Stored updates and decisions, sign-in for project owners and district leaders, and uploaded quotes and floor plans are backend capabilities, so this is an app with data. Model and service usage is metered separately. Build and preview it on any plan. Putting it live needs Go or Pro. See pricing
Write down what each status means
Before building anything, write one sentence per status. On track: the next milestone date still holds. At risk: it may slip, and the owner has a plan to recover it. Blocked: the project waits on someone outside the team, such as the fire marshal's inspection of the annex walls. Ask Studio to require a one-line reason whenever a status changes.
Give each project one owner and a checkable milestone
List the 12 projects with one owner each, the next milestone with its date, and the finish-by date. Where the sheet shows two names, as on the Wi-Fi work IT shares with facilities, choose one owner and list the other as a contributor. Word each milestone so anyone can check it, such as "access points mounted in building B" rather than "continue install".
Swap the status paragraph for three questions
Build a weekly update with three short fields. What moved since last week? What happens next, and by when? What is in the way or needs deciding? Show last week's "next" line above the form, so the owner says whether it happened. Ask owners to post by Friday noon, and let a status change only through an update.
Log each decision on the project it changes
When the leadership team decides something, record it on that project: the date, who decided, what was agreed and which milestone moves. Approving a second flooring quote is one example; pushing the phone system switch past Labor Day is another. Link each decision to the update that asked for it, so the question and the answer sit together.
Sort the Monday view by what needs attention
Ask for an overview the leadership team opens at the start of its Monday meeting. Blocked projects come first with the decision each needs, then at-risk ones, then any milestone due within 14 days. On-track projects fold into one line. Flag any project without an update since last Monday, so a missing update is as visible as a blocked one.
Scope the first version
What a first version includes.
Project list
All 12 projects with owner, status and its reason, next milestone and date, finish-by date and when the latest update came in.
Status definitions beside the picker
Your three sentences, shown wherever someone sets a status, so "at risk" means the same thing to the IT lead and the facilities manager.
Three-question weekly update
What moved, what's next and what's in the way, plus a status. Last week's next step sits above the form. Keep it short enough to fill in on a phone between buildings.
Project page
Milestones with dates and a done mark, updates in date order, decisions, contributors, and files labeled quote, drawing, inspection or sign-off.
Decision log
Every decision across projects with its date, who made it, what changed and a link to its project. Filter it by project or by month to answer when something was agreed.
Monday overview
Blocked first, then at risk, then milestones due within two weeks, then one line for everything on track. Each row shows the owner, the blocker in the owner's words and the days since the last update.
Missing updates
Projects with no update since last Monday. A scheduled task you set can email those owners on Friday afternoon. Send the first reminder to yourself and check the wording before any owner gets one.
Test it in the preview
Before you share it.
- Set the annex conversion to blocked with the reason "waiting on fire marshal inspection". On the Monday overview it should sit at the top with that reason, above every at-risk project.
- Try to change a project's status without posting an update. The app should ask for the reason and the three answers first. If the status changes silently, describe the rule to Studio again and retest.
- Published apps open in a browser, including on phones. Post an update for the Wi-Fi project on a phone, as its owner would between buildings. If the form asks for more than the three answers, a status and its reason, cut it.
- Log a decision that moves the phone switch milestone three weeks later. The project page and the Monday overview should both show the new date, and the decision should still say what the old one was.
- Leave the flooring project without an update this week. On Monday it should show as missing, even though its status still reads on track.
- Describe in Studio that people can edit only the updates they wrote. Sign in as the facilities manager, post on a facilities project, then try to edit an update the IT lead wrote. That edit should be refused. Signed out, the app's link should show no project, update or file.
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- Make "at risk" safe to report. If marking the flooring job at risk means defending it in front of the superintendent, its owner may wait until it is blocked. Treat "at risk" as early notice, and save leadership time for blocked projects.
- Keep the finish-by date apart from the next milestone. Teachers return on a fixed date, while milestones move. Showing both makes a project whose milestones keep sliding toward that date stand out before it is blocked.
- Vendor quotes and inspection reports can carry prices and contact details that not everyone needs. Limit the files to project owners and district leaders through the access you describe for each collection.
- Everyone in this example uses the published app, so they sign in as app users.
A little more context
Good questions.
Is this a task manager?
Not quite. A task list tracks every to-do; this app tracks where each project stands, what it waits on and what was decided. Owners can keep detailed tasks wherever they already work, and the weekly update carries only what leaders need. If work arrives as one-off requests rather than planned projects, the requests guide below is the closer fit.
Can I start from our project spreadsheet?
Yes. Bring the workbook that holds your projects, owners, statuses and dates. With a tab per project, as in the example, say in the prompt that each tab is one project and its rows are milestones. Then check that 12 tabs became 12 projects, each with one owner and a real date. An upload is a snapshot, not a sync, so pick a Monday to switch and stop editing the sheet that day. The spreadsheet guide below covers splitting a sheet into related records.
Can a model write the Monday summary?
It can draft one. A language model in the app can turn the week's updates into a short summary, when you ask or on a schedule you set. Ask it to name the project behind each sentence and to quote blockers as owners wrote them. Someone checks the draft against the updates before it goes out.
Should this replace our other tools?
Only where they hold project status today. Keep a tool that does its own job well, such as the help desk IT already uses for broken laptops. Export what you need before you retire anything. The guide below on consolidating a process spread across several tools covers deciding which ones stay.
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