Enabling Project Brief

NB: Project Brief requires the Stage Gate Process to be enabled first. See our article on enabling Stage Gates.

Before creating your Project Brief, it needs to be enabled for your initiatives and projects. Use the Enable Project Brief toggle to enable or disable the Project Brief. For initiatives, you can find this toggle in the Initiative Classification Configuration settings on the Project Brief tab. For Projects, you will find this toggle in the Project Brief settings under the Program Configuration.

Disabling the Project Brief will not erase your existing template. Likewise, disabling the Stage Gate Process will consequently disable the Project Brief but retain the template.

To use the Project Brief, a template needs to be created for it. This template will determine which items are available and for which stage. The template will also allow you to position and resize items as needed.

Classic Model (Initiatives)

Jump to instructions for Program Model

To access the Project Brief configuration:

1. Navigate to the Administration section of Amplify
2. Navigate to Classifications from the side menu
   
3. Either create a New Classification or scroll down Initiative Classifications and Edit an existing one.

If you are creating a New Classification:

1. Select Initiative from the Object Type select box
2. Enter the initiative details as usual
3. Navigate to the Stage Gate Process tab
4. Toggle the Enable Process option to enable it (this has to be enabled to access Project Brief)
5. Select a process
6. Click Create to save your classification

This will redirect you back to the Classifications page.

1. Identify the new or existing classification and click Edit
2. Navigate to the Project Brief tab
   
3. You will now see the template builder for the Project Brief

Program Model

Jump to instructions for Classic Model

1. Navigate to the relevant parent Program
2. From the side menu, click on Configuration to open the sub menu
3. Click on Project Brief
   
   
4. You will now see the template builder for Project Brief

The Template Builder

There are two sections to the template builder. The toolbar and the template.

Toolbar

The toolbar is how you add widgets to the template as well as saving changes to the template. To add a widget to the template:

1. Select a section of the template to add the widget to from the Section select box. This selection is divided into the Initiative Properties and the Stages
   
2. Select a widget to add to the selected section from the Widget select box
   
3. Click the Add button to add the selected widget to the selected section
   

Note that there are some rules to adding widgets to the template.

• Each widget can only be added to each section once
• The Heading and Subheading widgets are excluded from the first rule
• Only initiative properties can be added to the Initiative Properties section
• No widgets can be added to the Stage Gate Process section
• The list of available widgets includes all custom fields

Template

The Project Brief template is divided into multiple sections. The amount of sections is dependent on the stage gate process in use for the initiative classification.

The first section houses the Stage Gate Process widget. This section is uneditable and will be present at every stage.

The second section is the Project Properties section. This section will display at every stage and may only contain the items available in the initiative properties. These items will be excluded from the stage approval baseline.

The proceeding sections are for each stage in the stage gate process. Although all of the sections are displayed together in the template, only the relevant stage will be displayed on the Project Brief at a time.

Widgets

A widget represents its actionable counterpart that will be available in the Project Brief. As no data exists for these widgets at the configuration level, these widgets appear as blank blocks with only a title. The size and position though are true representations of their appearance on the Project Brief.

The Heading and Subheading widget is an exception and will be explained later.

Each widget on the template can be manipulated in three ways (special cases will be mentioned separately):

1. Position
2. Width
3. Presence

Position

Each widget can be moved easily around its section by holding down click and dragging it. While dragging the widget a preview of its impact will be shown.

Note that widgets cannot be moved from one section to another.

Width

Some widgets can be presented at different widths, these widgets possess a handle icon. By clicking on and dragging this icon widgets can be made narrower or wider, depending on its capacity.

Note that only widths can be manipulated. Due to the nature of unavailable data, each widget has a fixed height. Each widget has its own accomodation for extended data.

Using a combination of position and width, the Project Brief can be designed both hierarchically and aesthetically to your specifications. The template will maintain this design throughout the classification.

Presence

To remove a widget from its section, click on the trash icon in the widget. Widgets removed this way will not destroy any data, they will simply be unavailable in that section.

Customisation

Some widgets (tasks) have an additional option to customise the data presented in the widget. Clicking on this icon will reveal a list of options to choose from which includes all of the items' available fields including custom fields.

A maximum of four options may be selected and a minimum of one. If all selections are cleared (zero selections checked) the options will return to their default selections.

Heading Widgets

The Heading and Sub Heading widgets are exceptional in that they are the only widgets that can be actioned from the configuration. They are also the only widgets that can be added multiple times to each section.

The heading contains a text field that can be used to create subsections or to present information that is unsuitable for a custom field.

This widget cannot be edited from the Project Brief itself.

Text Area Fields

Text Area Fields (multi-line text fields) have an additional action for customised heights. Much like the width handle icon, these fields also have a vertical handle icon at the bottom of the widget. Clicking and dragging this icon up and down allows you to adjust the height of the field. Any text that does not fit into the defined area will result in scrolling.

Saving the Template

Once you have made your changes to the template, click the Save button in the toolbar. Any changes to the template will be simultaneously applied to every Project Brief using the classification.

We advise caution when editing and saving changes to an active template. We recommend that teams using the relevant Project Brief are informed of upcoming changes.

Stage Baseline

The Project Brief introduces a new function to Baselines. When enabled in the Stage Gate Configuration, a Project Brief baseline will be recorded once a stage has been approved and progressed.

This baseline is used to display the state of the Project Brief for every previous stage. By using the Stage Gate widget on the Project Brief, users can click on previous stages to view an uneditable version of that stage's Project Brief. This feature is useful for auditing and tracking changes throughout the initiative lifecycle.