Projects & Budgets
Projects are the backbone of Warren. Each project holds its phases, assignments, budget, and time logs — giving you a single place to see how a job is progressing from pitch to close.
Overview
The Projects section shows all your studio's work as a list or grid. Filter by status, search by name, and archive completed work to keep the list clean.
Each project card shows:
- Project name and client
- Status badge
- Budget burn percentage bar
- Assigned team member avatars
- Start and end dates
Create a project
Press ⌘N or click "New Project"
Works from anywhere in the app. The New Project sheet opens.
Enter the basics
Name, client, start date, end date. All are required. You can change them later.
Set a budget
Enter the total budget amount and select a currency. You can also set a billing rate per hour — Warren uses this to calculate how much of the budget is consumed by logged time.
Add phases
Choose from Warren's nine built-in design phases, or type a custom phase name. Add as many as the project needs.
Save
Click Create Project. It appears in the list at Proposal status.
Project phases
Phases break a project into trackable chunks. Warren includes nine built-in phase types designed for design studios:
Each phase can have its own date range and team assignments. Phases appear as separate lanes in the Gantt view, making it easy to see which part of the project is active at any given time.
Epics
Epics sit between a project and individual tasks. Use them to group a body of related work — a sprint, a feature, a campaign phase — and track it through a dedicated Kanban board.
Create an Epic
Press ⌘⇧E or open a project → Epics section → "Add Epic"
The Epic form sheet opens. Give the epic a name, optional description, and color swatch.
Set a status
Choose Planned, Active, Completed, or Cancelled. The epic's progress bar in the project view shows how many tasks are done vs. total.
Open the Kanban board
Tap any epic row to open its full Kanban board. From there you can add tasks, move cards between columns, and review the activity feed.
Tasks
Tasks are the granular units of work inside an Epic. Every task has a name, status, priority, optional assignee, and optional due date.
Task statuses
| Status | Column |
|---|---|
| To Do | Backlog |
| In Progress | In Progress |
| In Review | Review |
| Done | Done |
| Blocked | Shown in any column with a red indicator |
Priority levels
Create a task
Press ⌘T anywhere inside a Kanban board, or click the + button at the top of any column. You can also use the global ⌘T shortcut and select the target project and epic from the form.
Comments & Activity feed
Open any task to reach its detail sheet. The left pane shows the task details and a comments thread; the right pane shows the per-task activity feed.
Comments
Anyone assigned to a project can leave a comment on a task. Comments are timestamped and attributed to the author. You can edit or delete your own comments.
Activity feed
Warren automatically logs every status change, assignment change, priority update, and comment on a task. The feed is visible to all team members with project access and is capped at 200 events per project to stay fast.
Project statuses
| Status | Meaning | Visible in list? |
|---|---|---|
| Proposal | In pitch / not yet confirmed | Yes |
| Active | Underway — time is being logged | Yes |
| On Hold | Temporarily paused | Yes |
| Completed | Finished and closed | Archived (hidden) |
| Cancelled | Cancelled before completion | Archived (hidden) |
Project templates
If your studio does the same kind of work repeatedly, create a template once and reuse it. Templates save your phase structure, default hours, and billing rate.
To save a project as a template:
- Open any project.
- Click the ⋯ More menu.
- Choose Save as Template.
To use a template when creating a new project:
- Click New Project.
- Select From Template.
- Pick the template, adjust dates, rename as needed.
Burn rate
The Burn Rate view shows you how quickly a project is consuming its budget. Open it by clicking Burn Rate in the project detail panel.
What you'll see
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Total budget | The full budget you set on the project |
| Used | Hours logged × billing rate |
| Remaining | Total budget minus used amount |
| Invoiced | Amount already invoiced to the client (from Harvest) |
| Unbilled value | Logged hours not yet on an invoice |
| % Used | How far through the budget you are |
Burn status
Burn forecast
The Burn Forecast projects your current spend rate forward to the project end date. It answers: "If we keep working at this pace, will we finish on budget?"
The chart shows three lines:
- Actual burn — what's been logged so far
- Forecast — projected burn to end date at current rate
- Budget ceiling — the project's total budget
Share links
You can share a read-only project view with clients or external stakeholders — no Warren account needed.
Open the project
Navigate to the project you want to share.
Click "Share"
Found in the top-right of the project detail panel.
Optional: add a password
Toggle password protection and enter a passphrase. Anyone with the link will be asked for it before they can view the project.