How work is organised

StatusLoop organises work in three levels. Getting this right early saves a lot of reshuffling later, and it is the one thing worth understanding before you create anything.

Space

A portfolio grouping — usually a department or business area. “Payments Platform”, “Operations”, “Customer Experience”. Most organizations have between two and ten.

Program

A multi-project initiative inside a space. “Risk Engine 2026”, “Partner Portal”. A program is the level an executive asks about by name.

Project

The unit of delivery, and the only level that carries a status. “Gateway Selection”, “Terminal Procurement”. If something needs a red/amber/green rating, it is a project.

Deciding where something belongs

The useful test is who asks about it. If a VP asks “how is Payments doing?”, Payments is a space. If a director asks “how is the Risk Engine work going?”, that is a program. If a project manager reports on it weekly, that is a project.

A common mistake is making everything a project under one space. That works until you have thirty of them and no way to roll them up. If you find yourself prefixing project names to group them — “Risk: migration”, “Risk: testing” — that prefix wants to be a program.

Inside a project

Projects contain the detail: phases come from your space's template, and each phase holds tasks. Milestones sit alongside them for dated commitments that are not themselves work.

• •Phases — the stages a project moves through. Created automatically from the space's phase template.
• •Tasks — the work itself, with an owner, dates and a status. Task dates roll up to set the phase dates.
• •Milestones — dated commitments to track against, such as a go-live or a board review.
• •Subtasks — a checklist inside a task, when a task needs breaking down.

Where people fit

Anyone can own a project, a task or a milestone. Two kinds of people can own work:

• •Members — people with a login. They sign in, submit updates and see the portfolio.
• •Tracked-only people — contractors, shared resources or executives who will never log in, but whose work you still want visible. They take no seat and cost nothing.

Both appear in one roster under People, so there is no double entry. A tracked-only person can be upgraded to a member later by inviting them — matching on email, so you do not end up with a duplicate.