Create your first project

When you sign in for the first time, Onplana walks you through creating your organization and offers three ways to start your first project. This guide covers all three, and how to pick.

Choose how to start

From the sidebar, open Projects and select New Project. You land on the template gallery, where you can start from a prebuilt plan or begin from scratch.

Pick one of three starting points:

• Template gallery - prebuilt plans (software launch, marketing campaign, event planning, OKR planning) with phases, tasks, and milestones already laid out. Best when your work matches a known shape.
• AI kickstart - describe the project in a couple of sentences and Onplana drafts the plan: epic, tasks with estimates, and starter risks. Best when you want a tailored starting point fast.
• Blank project - just a name and dates. Best when you already know exactly what you want to build out.

Note

On Enterprise organizations with project governance turned on, New Project opens a proposal form instead of the template gallery, so new work goes through your review pipeline. See the governance guides for that flow.

Fill in the basics

1. Give the project a name your team will recognize in lists and reports.
2. Set the start and end dates. These drive the Gantt timeline, health indicators, and overdue warnings later, so realistic dates beat optimistic ones.
3. Optionally set a budget and mark whether the project is billable (you can change both later in the project’s Finance tab).

Invite your team

Open the project and use Members to add teammates. Members can be assigned tasks immediately; people you invite by email join the organization when they accept. See Invite your team for roles and seats.

What happens next

• Tasks live in the Work tab: list, kanban board, calendar, and (on Pro plans and above) a Gantt chart with baselines.
• Progress is calculated automatically from completed tasks; you never edit the percentage by hand.
• If you have existing schedules in Microsoft Project, you can import a .mpp, .mpx, or XML file instead of re-entering the plan. See the migration guides for the full walkthrough.

Want a guided look before you build? Take the product tour on the main site.

FAQs

Can I change the project type or template afterwards? A template only pre-fills tasks; after creation it is a normal project you can reshape freely.

Why can’t I see the New Project button? Your organization may restrict project creation to managers. Ask an admin to check the permission matrix under Organization Settings.