In a landscape where agility and adaptability are paramount, the ability to track progress empowers product managers to navigate complexities with confidence, driving innovation and success.

Progress tracking serves as the compass guiding the journey from ideation to product launch and beyond. It provides insights into the current status of the development, aligning with strategic goals, and enabling managers to make informed decisions and adjustments as necessary. By monitoring progress, product managers can identify bottlenecks, anticipate challenges, and allocate resources effectively, thus maximizing efficiency and minimizing wasted efforts. Moreover, progress tracking promotes accountability within the team, encouraging individuals to meet deadlines and deliverables.

In Craft.io, progress tracking relies on the Status assigned to work items in your Workspace, which indicates their position in the product life cycle. These statuses fall into four categories:

While the first two indicate ongoing work, the latter two signify completed ones. An item's progress is determined by the completion of its sub-children, and likewise, the progress of a group depends on the completion status of its constituent items.

The simplified calculation illustrates the completion ratio of an item, which is determined by the count of its children that have reached the 'Done' status category. For instance, consider an Epic containing three Features, where two are marked as 'In Progress' and the third as 'Done', resulting in a 33% completion depicted in its progress bar. Another scenario involves an Epic with two Features, where one of the Features is marked as 'Done'. The other Feature contains three Stories, one is marked 'Done', and the others 'In progress'. In this case, the calculation results in 2 out of 6 items, equating to a 33% completion rate, as the progress calculation includes both direct and indirect descendants.

While the Numerical progress calculation also relies on the Status assigned to an item, it introduces an additional dimension - a numerical field containing a specific weight - for a more precise calculation. This method allows Product Managers to track, for example, their delivery progress. When connecting your Craft.io Workspace to your Devtool and mapping the Story Points field between the tools, consider an Epic containing three Features, each assigned with different Story Points: 15, 20, and 10, for a total of 45 Story Points. When one of these Features is marked as 'Done', the completion ratio will equal X/45.

The item progress indication is available throughout the Workspace but varies from one view to another: While in the Table view it is visible through the 'Progress' column, in Kanban and Swimlane views it is visible by adding the property to the layout of the cards, and in the Timeline view it is always visible, alongside the item's title and status.
​

To visualize the group's progress, open the 'View settings' and enable the 'Present group progress bar' toggle. Additionally, you can specify whether the group progress should consider all group items or only the filtered-in items displayed in the current view. This is done by opening the 'Progress calculation (advanced)' menu.

Each view can be configured independently with either the Simplified or Numerical calculation method. Customize your preference by navigating to 'View settings' and selecting 'Progress calculation (advanced)' > 'Progress calculation method.' When choosing 'Numerical', designate the specific field you wish to use for calculation, which may include any numerical custom field. Please remember that the chosen calculation method will be uniformly applied to both group and item progress within the selected view.

🎥 Watch this video of the Progress enhancements released in February 2024

In Craft.io Roadmap views, which are organized by the default Quarter field, you'll find a unique properties panel that includes a separate Quarter progress tracking.

Click on the Quarter's title or dates to open the panel and navigate to the 'Completion' section. Then, select the property you wish to use for calculation: Item type (Epic or Feature), Time Spent, or Story Points. Alternatively, you can set the progress tracking to Manual and adjust the progress indicator by dragging it to the desired location on the bar.

Please note, that you may still add the general progress tracking indicators to the roadmap view.

For more information about the Querter properties panel and its features, please refer to this article.