How to set up a campaign

A campaign is the top level of planning: a named, dated piece of work that projects in different teams point at, such as Autumn drop, Black Friday or the spring wholesale season. You create one from Create new (+) and see it come together on Work › Roadmap. For where it sits relative to projects and tasks, read What are projects and campaigns? first.

Your workspace may use its own word for this; Settings › Terminology shows both.

Before you start

Creating a campaign and changing its dates needs Create and edit campaigns and cycles, which admins have by default. That is a step above projects on purpose: a campaign is workspace-wide, and a project belongs to one team.

If Campaign is missing from your Create new menu, this permission is the reason. Putting a project into a campaign needs Edit, archive and delete projects in that project's department, which department leads and admins have by default.

How do you create one?

1. Open Create new (+) under the workspace monogram and choose Campaign. On a phone, it is the Create pill in the Open menu drawer.
2. Type a Campaign name, for example "Autumn drop".
3. Pick a Start date and a Target date.
4. Press Create campaign.

Give the campaign both dates here. A campaign with its own Start and Target draws its own band on the roadmap, and you change those dates later by dragging the band.

Can you create one from a project instead?

Yes, if you can create campaigns. The Campaign picker on a project's Properties card ends in New campaign, which asks only for a Campaign name and puts the project straight into it.

A campaign made this way has no dates of its own. Its band on the roadmap stretches from its earliest project to its latest one and moves as those projects move. If the campaign needs its own Start and Target, create it from Create new (+) instead.

How do you put projects under it?

From each project. Open the project's Overview and pick the campaign in the Campaign row of its Properties card. It saves as soon as you pick.

A project belongs to one campaign at a time. Choose No campaign in the same picker to take it out again.

You can also choose a campaign while creating a project, in the New project dialog. See How to start a project.

Where do you see a campaign?

Four places, each answering a different question:

• On the roadmap, as a band with its projects nested under it. This is the main one, and the band appears once at least one project belongs to the campaign.
• On the company calendar at Work › Calendar, as a blue megaphone marker on the campaign's Target date, when it has one.
• On each project that belongs to it, in the Campaign row of the Properties card.
• On every task inside those projects, just under the title in the task panel, in the line that reads department, project, then campaign.

The last one is quietly the most useful. Somebody looking at a single task can see which launch it belongs to without going anywhere.

How do you see everything happening in one campaign?

Open Work › Roadmap, keep the grouping on Campaign, and pick the campaign in the All campaigns picker.

You get every project under it as a bar with its milestones as diamonds, and opening a project's row shows its dated tasks as dots. Today is marked by a blue date pill at the top. That is the closest thing to a campaign page, and it is covered in How to use the roadmap.

How do you change a campaign's dates?

Drag its band on Work › Roadmap. Dragging the middle moves the start and target together, dragging either end changes just that date, and it saves when you drop it.

The band drags when the campaign has both a Start and a Target, and you hold Create and edit campaigns and cycles. Everyone else sees the band without being able to move it.

When is a cycle the better fit?

When you want a repeating stretch of time rather than a named piece of work.

A campaign has a launch date and ends when it ships. A cycle is a stretch such as a fortnight, and next fortnight there is another one.

They work together: a task can be in the Autumn drop campaign through its project and in this fortnight's cycle at the same time. See How to set up and work in cycles.