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Create, configure and manage Projects

Projects let you manage your teams, tasks, and everything you need to get things done within your workspace. Once you've set up your Workspace, the next step is to create a Project. Each project acts as a container for your work, bringing together the work items, cycles, modules, and all the other tasks you and your team need to manage.

Create project​

To create a new project in your workspace, you can either press P or head over to the Projects tab in the sidebar and click Add Project. You’ll need to fill in a few key details to set up your project:

  • Project name
    Give your project a clear and meaningful name.
  • Project ID
    This is like a unique ID attached to every work item in the project, making it easier to track and differentiate them across your workspace. You can update this identifier later if needed.
  • Description (optional)
    Provide a brief description to help your team understand what the project is about.
  • Access
    Choose whether the project is Private or Public. See Project visibilty for details.
  • Lead (optional)
    You can designate a lead for the project. This person will be the go-to for queries related to the project's execution.

These attributes can always be edited later under the General tab in the project's settings.

Create project

Project visibility​

When creating a new project, you'll need to decide who can access it by choosing between Private and Public visibility.

Public projects​

These are open to everyone in your workspace (except guests). Any team member can discover and join these projects on their own, making them perfect for company-wide initiatives, shared resources, or collaborative efforts where you want maximum visibility and participation.

Private projects​

This works on an invite-only basis. Only project admins can add new members, giving you complete control over who has access. This is ideal for sensitive work, client projects, or anything that needs to stay within a specific group of people.

You can always change a project's visibility later if your needs evolve. Just remember that switching from private to public will make the project visible to your entire workspace, so make sure that's what you want before making the change.

Project settings​

Click the … icon next to your project name on the sidebar and click Settings. Project settings

Project timezone​

Each project can have its own timezone setting, managed by project admins. The project timezone affects how dates and times are displayed within the project context. For example, the Cycle schedules (start and end) will align with the timezone set here. However, Members will see Cycles starting and stopping based on the timezone set in their profile settings.

Add and manage members​

To add members directly to your project, they first need to be part of your workspace. Invite them to the workspace if they're not already there.

Once they're in the workspace, you can invite them to join the project and assign roles like Admin, Member, or Guest. You can always update their roles later if needed.

If you want to make sure every work item gets assigned, you can set a Default assignee for when work items are created without one. This ensures nothing slips through the cracks.

Project members and teamspaces

How users join projects​

Users can become project members in two different ways, and understanding both helps you manage your project team effectively.

Direct project membership is where you specifically invite users to your project and assign them roles. These members have access only to the projects you've added them to, and you have full control over their permissions.

Teamspace-based membership happens automatically when your project is linked to a Teamspace. All members of that teamspace automatically receive Member access to your project, making it perfect for teams that collaborate across multiple projects.

Users can have both types of access simultaneously. When this happens, Plane automatically applies whichever role gives them higher permissions. For example, if someone is a Guest on your project but joins a linked teamspace, they're automatically upgraded to Member access. If they're already an Admin, they keep their Admin role.

Enable features​

After creating a project, you can turn on specific features based on your requirements:

  • Cycles: Timebox work items in your project, helping to build momentum and keep things moving forward.
  • Modules: Group related work items together logically, making it easier to manage large projects.
  • Views: Create custom views with filters and save them for quick access later.
  • Pages: Document information, ideas, and guides related to your project.
  • Intake: Capture incoming requests for your project and quickly add them to your workflow.
  • Time Tracking - Log time spent on work items and download worklogs.

Project features

Archive Project​

You can archive a project in Project settings. Archiving a project will remove it from your sidebar, keeping your workspace clean and focused on active projects. However, you can still access the archived project and easily restore or delete it permanently at any time.

Archived Projects

Delete Project​

You can delete a project to completely remove it in Project settings. However, be careful—once deleted, everything tied to that project, like work items, cycles, views, modules, and pages, are also deleted.

warning

Right now, Plane doesn’t offer a way to recover a deleted project, so be sure before you hit delete.

Troubleshooting​

Unable to create new projects​

When attempting to create a new project, the page auto-refreshes, but no project is created.

This issue typically occurs in self-hosted instances when the Unsplash API key configured in your instance has expired or is invalid.

Update the Unsplash Access key in God mode to resolve this issue.