What is a project?
A project on our platform is a dedicated space where engagement and participation take place. It’s where you structure an initiative, invite input, and guide participants through a process.
Projects are the core building blocks of your platform:
They can be used to gather ideas, run surveys, ask questions, or organize community discussions.
Each project contains phases (steps on a timeline) that define how and when users can contribute.
Projects hold their own content, settings, access rules, and branding. Making them distinct from each other.
Key things to know about projects on our platform:
Standalone spaces: Each project can be tailored to a goal (e.g., co-creating a policy, running a consultation).
Phases and timelines: Projects use phases to structure participation over time.
Access control: You decide who sees and participates in a project (admins only, selected groups, or open to everyone).
Optional folders: Projects can be grouped into folders for better organization but still function independently.
In short: A project is the “container” for your initiative: everything from design, phases, and input forms to events and participation methods lives inside it.
In terms of hierarchy on the platform we separate a project from a folder and a phase:
A folder is used to group together multiple projects that have a certain similarity (e.g. infrastructure work, an area/district, …). We'll go more in depth about folders later in this article.
A phase is used to describe what’s going on within a project (e.g. a project can start with a survey phase, after which an information phase follows to inform the users of the findings in the survey) We'll go more in depth about phases later in this article.
Why is project setup important?
Setting up a project properly on our platform is more than just filling in a few fields, it lays the foundation for how your engagement will run.
A well-set-up project ensures:
Clarity for participants: users instantly understand what the project is about, how to contribute, and when.
Smooth participation flow: well-structured phases and input forms prevent confusion or bottlenecks.
Consistent branding and messaging: visuals, descriptions, and tags help the project feel coherent and professional.
Proper access control: only the right audience sees and interacts with your project.
Easier management later: good setup means less troubleshooting, fewer edits, and smoother archiving or duplication.
A rushed or incomplete setup often leads to:
Missing context for users (they don’t know why or how to engage)
Broken timelines or inactive phases
Manual rework later (editing tags, fixing URLs, patching access rights)
In short: Good setup upfront saves time, avoids confusion, and makes your project more impactful.
What is a project lifecycle?
A project lifecycle describes the stages a project goes through from creation to closure. Understanding these stages helps you plan, manage, and communicate your project effectively.
The four main stages are:
Draft: The project is being built and isn’t visible to participants. Only admins, project managers, or reviewers (via preview links) can see it.
Published: The project is live and visible to users. Participation is possible when there are active phases.
Archived: The project is no longer open for participation but remains visible in the archive section of the platform.
Published – Finished: A status applied automatically when the last phase has ended. The project is visible but no longer active.
Why it matters:
Helps you know when to make changes (some edits aren’t possible after certain statuses).
Ensures participants see the right version of the project at the right time.
Keeps your platform organized: projects don’t clutter the homepage when they’re archived.
Testing your project before publishing it:
We have a feature called ‘preview link’ that allows you to share a project with key stakeholders before you Publish your project, this way you can test and preview your project while it is still in the Draft stage.
You can find out more about preview links in the support article: here.
Project Publication Status
This status can by default only be managed by platform admins, therefore Project Managers are required to contact their admins (or folder manager) in order to get their project published or archived.
We have a feature ‘approver flow functionality’, and if this is enabled for your platform, you will be able to request project publication approval from your admin or folder manager. This request will trigger a notification to the admin or folder manager requesting them to review and approve the project. Once approved, the project manager can publish the project at their own leisure.
Pricing: The approval Flow Functionality is available to Premium and Enterprise Price Plan, if you would like this feature disabled you can contact our support team via the chat bubble.
Note on Archived Projects:
Archived projects remain visible in the main project list. However, if you want to hide them from the navigation bar’s dropdown menu, you have two options:
Reorder the project list: Go to the “ordering” tab in the top left corner of the “Projects” list. Drag the archived projects to the bottom of the list.
Organize them into a folder: Move them into a “Finished Projects” folder to keep your active list clean and focused.
Different views for Project Management
The Project Management View helps you manage participation projects efficiently and in an organized way. It offers multiple views with filtering, editing, and organizing options.
Project List View
In the Project List View, you can quickly find and manage projects using filters.
Available filters:
Project manager
Status: Public, Draft, Archived
Folders
Participation state: Not started, Collecting data, Information, Past
Participation method
Visibility: Public, Groups, Admins
Discoverability: Public, Hidden
Time range
Additional information shown in this view:
Number of participants in the project
Current active phase
Status and access rights visibility
Start and end date of the project
Actions:
Copy or delete a project: Click the three dots next to the "End date" column.
Edit a project: Click the project title.
Folder List View
In the Folder List View, you can manage project folders.
You can see:
Folder manager name
Folder status
Number of projects inside the folder
You can filter by:
Manager name
Status
Actions:
Delete a folder: Click the three dots next to the "Status" column.
Timeline View (available on higher-tier plans)
The Timeline View shows projects in a visual timeline for better scheduling and planning. Access it via the “Timeline” tab in the top-left corner.
You can see:
All projects represented as timeline bars
Project phases when you hover over a bar
You can filter by:
Project manager
Status
Folders
Participation state
Participation method
Visibility
Discoverability
Time range
Other options:
Change timeline view to: Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, or Multi-year
Spot gaps to apply engagement strategies.
Ordering View (available to admins)
The Ordering View lets admins reorder projects and folders.
You can:
View all projects
Reorder them by dragging and dropping
Customize the order for the project and folder legacy widget on the homepage.
Project launch checklist
Before you publish a project, review this checklist to ensure nothing critical is missed. Completing these steps makes your project more engaging, easier to manage, and clearer for participants.
Checklist:
Double-check if all the user data relevant for your project is a required registration field
User info relevant for your project should be asked during the platform registration flow.
Customize project tags, areas and statuses
Review and adjust tags, areas and ensure status handling is clear.
Grant access to the right groups of users
Also check if the info you need is asked during the platform registration flow.
Add a timeline to your projects and a description to each project phase
Don't leave the description of a timeline phase empty
Customize the input form (for ideation projects)
You can customize the way to collect input in an ideation project
Customize your project map (if relevant)
You can change the zoom level of and add layers to the map that shows in your project
Enhance project design with Content Builder
Use flexible layouts, multi-media content and third-party embeds in your project descriptions
Double-check automated emails
Define which automated emails people should or should not receive from your project
Assign project responsibilities
Distribute responsibilities internally. Each project can have its own manager
Why this checklist matters
Completing these steps ensures:
Participants see a well-branded, clear project.
You avoid rework after launch (e.g., editing access rights or fixing missing descriptions).
Responsibilities are clear, someone is accountable for each aspect of the project.
What are the different project settings?
When creating and editing a project, there are several settings to help you configure your project to your needs. Below you’ll see a summary of these settings and a brief explanation of what they mean and are intended to achieve.
You can find the project settings when you are in the backoffice of your project in the top-right corner.
General
Project Name (Title):
Your project title is the first thing people will see, it’s how your work will appear on the homepage widgets, in the Projects tab and if you haven’t set a custom “slug,” this title will also automatically become the default URL for your project.
Project URL (slug):
The URL of your project
By default the slug (the part after '/projects/') is the title of the project. This can be changed in Project Settings. You can also change this for folders. Go to Edit folder and go to "Settings" and fill in you desired slug under "URL". This is not possible for inputs or ideas.
Furthermore, the language part of the URL (eg: /en-CA/) is not important for the functionality of the URL - it only brings information. Therefore you can share your project URL without the language part and it will still work.
Redirects and shortened URLs
You can not delete the "/project/" or "/folder/" section on the url when editing the slug yourself. If you want this part of the URL to be removed you need to ask the support team to create a redirect for you.
The support team can create redirects for you as long as the domain stays the same. This is most useful to be able to share shortened URLs for your project.
Tags and Areas:
Whether you generate dozens, hundreds or even thousands of ideas through your platform, it helps to have a good method to categorize, filter and find ideas that relate to specific tags. This is possible through our tag functionality, which allows you and the users to categorize input.
Tags and areas are used on our platform in 2 ways:
User notifications: When a user registers, they can select certain tags and/or areas to follow. When you assign a project with these tags, users will get (if enabled, see article 'Emails on the platform') an email notification saying that a project they might be interested in is published. We also have a ‘for you’ widget on the homepage builder (see article 'Homepage Builder') where projects that fit the user’s preferences where the projects will appear that have overlapping tags and/or areas with the ones that the user follows.
Ideation projects: Ideation projects come with the option to assign a ‘tag’ to your idea. Only tags that have been chosen on the project-level can be chosen by users to add to their idea. If you want to assign tags to your project, but don’t want users to assign a tag to their idea, you can disable this by removing the section in the input form (see article 'Ideation Proposals and Input Management')
Notes:
If you delete a tag from the project, ideas that already have been tagged will keep their tags. You can remove the tags manually in the Input Manager tab, or if you wish to delete all reference to the tag from all of your projects, you can delete it from the Settings panel in the Admin panel.
The tags are managed in the platform settings and only accessible to platform admins. There is a list of pre-defined tags, to remove this the platform admins has to contact our support team via the chat bubble.
Description
Every project has a short project description that is, together with a project image, shown on the homepage. This and other settings are defined in the Project settings through the ‘General’ and ‘Description’ tabs. You can fully customize your longer project description, using the text-editor or have more advanced design options by using the content builder.
To get more in-depth into our content builder feature, read our support article: here.
Project Tags
In this section you can select which tags can be used by users within the project during a proposal or ideation phase to assign to their input.
Access Rights (Project Level)
The access rights on the project level (which are different from the phase level access rights, see section in Phase Settings below) allow you to configure 3 things: discoverability, visibility and assigning project managers that act as admins within the context of the project.
To learn more about our project-level access rights, read our article on ‘Access Rights’
Data
If you’ve already set up your project and run some tests (for example, by filling out a survey), you can choose to reset all participation data. This action will keep your project setup intact but will permanently remove all data collected so far, essentially giving you a clean slate for real participation.
Timeline
The Timeline is the default tab you’ll see when you access your project’s back office. It allows you to manage the phases of your project in a clear, chronological order. Phases must be set up sequentially, and only one phase can be active at any given time.
Use the Timeline to structure your project and clearly communicate its schedule and approach to end-users.
Within each section of the Timeline, you can configure the specific phases you want to include. For more details on configuring these phases, see the section: What are the different phase settings?
Participants
In this tab of the project settings, you can track participation in your project. You’ll see when users have participated, how many have taken part, and view available demographic insights.
Note: If your project allows participation without an account, or if anonymous participation is enabled, demographic information will not be displayed.
Traffic
In this tab of the project settings, you can track the visits on your project page, as well as their language, device type and source from where they came from before they landed on the project page.
Messaging
You can use the Messaging app to send emails to users who have participated in or are following the project.
Note: If your project allows participation without an account or anonymous participation, those users cannot be contacted through the Messaging tab.
Events
You can find the events in the project settings, as the events aren't directly related to a phase, but always to the main project. Events allow you to link between your process and events happening outside the platform, for instance a launch event, offline participation sessions, theme-related events, or the release of final conclusions.
Events are displayed in a card view under timeline and separately in a tab on the project page. We still show the relevant events for every phase (happening when the phase is active) in that phase.
How to create a project?
Step 1: Click on the ‘Projects’ tab in the backoffice of your platform
Step 2: Click on ‘New Project’ in the top right
Step 3: Fill in a title for your project in all available languages for your platform
Step 4: Create a timeline of different phases that outline your project
Step 5: Configure the project settings as per your preferences
How to copy a project?
To copy a project, go to the project management view, click the three dots in the far right of the bar to the project you want to duplicate, and select "Copy project". You can then rename it and update the details as needed.
You can also use this as a quick way to create multiple similar projects that only require minor adjustments.
How to publish a project?
The status of a project can by default only be managed by platform admins (or folder managers within their folder), therefore Project Managers are required to contact their admins (or folder manager) in order to get their project published or archived.
Approval Flow Feature
We have a feature ‘approver flow functionality’, and if this is enabled for your platform, you will be able to request project publication approval from your admin or folder manager. This request will trigger a notification to the admin or folder manager requesting them to review and approve the project. Once approved, the project manager can publish the project at their own leisure.
Pricing: The approval Flow Functionality is available to Premium and Enterprise Price Plan, if you would like this feature disabled you can contact our support team via the chat bubble.
Archived Projects:
Archived projects remain visible in the main project list. However, if you want to hide them from the navigation bar’s dropdown menu, you have two options:
Reorder the project list: Drag the archived projects to the bottom of the list in the “All Projects” tab in the back office.
Organize them into a folder: Move them into a “Finished Projects” folder to keep your active list clean and focused.
How to delete a project?
Navigate to the ‘Projects’ tab in your backoffice
Find the project you want to delete in the list
Click the 3 dots at the right and click ‘Delete Project’
Confirm
What is a phase?
Every project has a timeline, and this timeline is made up of different phases. Each phase is defined by a specific participation method.
While the project itself sets the overall scope, visibility, and high-level overview, the phase is where you configure the details for each step. Because each step in a project can be quite different, phases have their own settings and specifications depending on the chosen participation method.
You can learn more about these options in the Phase Settings section below, or by checking the Overview of Our Participation Methods article.
What are the different phase settings?
Each project contains a timeline divided into phases. Each phase has its own settings, depending on the participation method used.
Setup:
Participation methods: all
The Setup section defines the default settings for a phase. Each participation method has unique settings.
Required fields: Phase title and phase dates.
Phase dates: Determine where the phase sits in the timeline. Only one phase can be active at a time; overlapping dates are not allowed.
Tooltips: Each setting includes a tooltip with more details on what the setting achieves.
Access rights:
Participation methods: all
Phase-level rights define who can participate in each phase action (posting input, commenting, voting, completing surveys, etc.). You can also choose to ask for extra demographic questions on the phase level.
To learn more about our phase-level access rights, read our article on ‘Access Rights’
Input Manager:
Participation methods: proposals, ideation, voting
In the input manager you can find all inputs related to the phase and enable or disable them to other phases within the same projects. To read more about the input manager, read our article on ‘Ideation, proposals and input management’.
Input Form:
Participation methods: proposals, ideation, voting
In this section you can edit the form that users have to fill in when they want to participate in the phase. For more information on the input form, read our article on ‘Ideation, proposals and input management’.
Map:
Participation methods: proposals, ideation, voting
If you want to use maps in your phase, this is the place where you can configure your map. To read more about maps, read our article on ‘Map Consultations’.
Results:
Participation methods: surveys
In this section you will find an overview of the answers provided to your survey phase.
Survey Form:
Participation methods: surveys
In this section you can edit the survey form provided to users. You can add questions, pages and logic to achieve the desired outcome of your survey. To read more about surveys, read our support article on ‘Surveys’.
Report:
Participation methods: information sharing
In this section you can create a report and choose to make it visible or not to end-users. To read more about how to use our report builder tool, read our support article on ‘Report Builder’.
Volunteering:
Participation methods: Volunteering
In this section you can manage your volunteering phase. To read more about how to use our volunteering feature, read our support article on ‘Volunteering’.
How to setup your project timeline in phases?
Step 1: By default your project will contain a first phase
Step 2: Choose a timeframe on which you want the phase to be active
Step 3: Choose your desired participation method for the phase
Step 4: Configure the settings for the phase
Step 5: Press the + icon on the right of the timeline to add extra phases until you have your entire project outlined
How to delete a phase?
Step 1: Navigate to the Project that contains the phase you want to delete
Step 2: Click on the phase in the timeline that you want to delete
Step 3: Below the timeline you’ll see the phase title, on the right side of the screen you’ll see 3 dots. Click these dots and press ‘Delete phase’
Step 4: Confirm
What is a folder?
A folder is used to group together multiple projects that share a common theme or characteristic (for example, infrastructure work, a specific area, …).
Folders don’t have any additional functionality beyond organization — they simply help you structure your projects and improve visibility on the homepage.
Folder management
You can invite people to help manage your folders (and the projects within them).
What folder managers can do:
Edit the folder description
Create new projects within the folder
Manage all projects within the folder
What folder managers can’t do:
Delete projects
Access projects that are not in their folder
Notes on current folder functionality
You can’t have folders within folders.
Folders don’t have timelines.
Folder cards are not shown the same as other project cards on the homepage (no time indication or number of comments/participants).
Folders cannot be custom-styled for a department or project.
You cannot create smart groups of people who participated in a folder — you need to select all projects in the folder manually.
Why folders matter
With many projects going on, organising them into folders can help provide clarity by giving a clear structure of the different things going on, and where they fall into place.
What are the different folder settings?
What it controls:
Folder managers can edit folder pages, update descriptions, and oversee all projects in the folder.
A folder manager can act like a platform admin within the context of the folder.
Visibility behavior:
A published folder is visible to everyone.
If all projects in a folder are in draft, the folder stays hidden until at least one project is published.
If published projects are added to a draft folder, the folder won’t appear on the homepage, but the projects remain accessible via direct links or search.
What are folder use-cases?
Folders are flexible containers for organizing projects in ways that best fit your platform. Below are common use cases.
1. Multiple participation methods in parallel
Projects are sequential by nature, each phase follows another.
If you want more than one participation method happening at the same time, you’ll need to create two separate projects.
A folder keeps those projects grouped together, so users and admins still see them as part of the same initiative.
2. Organizing projects by policy, area, theme, or district
Use folders to group projects under broader umbrellas like Health & Safety, Education, Environment & Sustainability, or Transport.
Alternatively, create folders by districts or neighbourhoods.
This structure makes it easier for admins and users to navigate, understand what’s happening, and learn more about related initiatives.
3. Alternative creative uses
Projects aren’t limited to idea collection, they can also be:
Spaces for feedback on public services
Places for community-centered research
Templates for exploring local issues
Think of folders and projects as blank canvases for experimentation and custom setups.
How to create a folder?
Step 1: Click on the ‘Projects’ tab in the backoffice of your platform
Step 2: Click on ‘New Folder’ in the top right
Step 3: Fill in a title, short and long description for your project in all available languages for your platform
Step 4: Assign desired projects to the folder
Step 5: Optional - assign a folder manager to the folder
How to reorder projects inside a folder?
You can arrange the order of the projects within folders. Go to the tab “folders” in the top left corner of the “projects” list and press on the folder title - this will bring you inside the folder settings. Then using the double arrows at the far left of the projects. When you click and hold these arrows you can drag them to the desired place. They will then appear in the folder in that order.
How to edit a folder?
If you want to edit a folder, navigate to the “folders” tab in the top left corner of the “projects” list. Press on the folder title. This will bring you to the folder settings.