User guide

Visit milesto.io and click "Get Started" in the top navigation bar.

Enter your email address and choose a strong password, then click "Sign Up". You can also sign up with Google SSO if available.

Check your email for a confirmation link. Click it to verify your account and you will be redirected to the dashboard.

On your first visit you will see a Welcome screen with an option to take a guided tour. We strongly recommend completing it - it takes under 2 minutes and walks you through every core feature.

The dashboard is your home base. It shows all your projects as cards, each displaying planned progress, actual progress, financials, and schedule at a glance.

The sidebar on the left lists your projects and provides quick access to "My Work" (your personal task list across all projects).

At the bottom of the sidebar you will find the "+ Add Project" button to create new projects, and a gear icon to access account settings, theme toggle, and help.

The notification bell in the top-right corner shows smart alerts about overdue items, approaching deadlines, and milestone completions.

1. Click "+ Add Project" in the sidebar or use the command bar (Ctrl+K / Cmd+K) and type "Create project".

2. Enter a project name (e.g., "Website Redesign"), set the planned start and end dates, and optionally set a budget.

3. You can start from a blank project or choose one of the built-in templates (Software Development, Construction, Business Initiative).

4. Click "Create" - your project card appears on the dashboard. Click it to enter the project.

Milesto.io uses a strict four-level hierarchy: Project → Milestone → Task → Deliverable.

A Project is the top-level container. It has a name, dates, budget, and members.

A Milestone represents a major phase (e.g., "Planning", "Development", "Testing"). Projects contain milestones.

A Task is a work package within a milestone (e.g., "Design mockups", "Build API"). Milestones contain tasks.

A Deliverable is the atomic completable unit - the smallest piece of work that someone marks as done. Tasks contain deliverables.

All progress flows bottom-up: completing deliverables updates the task, which updates the milestone, which updates the project. You never manually set progress - the system calculates it from deliverable completions.

Click "+ Add Project" in the sidebar or press Ctrl+K and type "Create project".

Fill in the project name, planned start date, planned end date, and optional budget.

Choose whether to start from scratch or use a template. Templates pre-populate milestones, tasks, and deliverables so you can get started faster.

Click "Create" to add the project to your dashboard.

Click any project card to enter it. The overview page shows:

Overall Progress - the combined planned and actual progress percentages with a delta badge showing how far ahead or behind you are.

Milestones - a count of total milestones and how many are remaining.

Days Remaining - how many days until the planned end date, with a status label (On Track, Delayed, or Completed).

Budget Used - actual cost spent versus the total budget.

Below the metrics, you will see all milestones listed as expandable cards with their own progress bars and schedules.

Click the gear icon in the top-right of any project page to open project settings.

Here you can edit the project name, dates, budget, description, and Project Value (total contract amount for revenue tracking).

The Members tab lets you invite team members by email, change their role (Editor or Viewer), or remove them. Set hourly rates for each member in the Rates tab.

The Advanced section lets you save the project as a reusable template (creates a clone - your original project is preserved), archive it, or delete it.

To duplicate an existing project, open the three-dot menu on any project card and select "Clone".

Choose which elements to clone: milestones, tasks, deliverables, dependencies, and/or member assignments.

The cloned project is created with new dates relative to today but preserves the structure of the original.

Milestones are the major phases of your project. Think of them as chapters in a book - they organize work into logical, time-bound groups.

Examples: "Planning & Design", "Development", "Testing & QA", "Launch".

Each milestone has a planned start and end date, a weight (how much of the project it represents), and a description.

Inside a project, click the "+ Add Milestone" button at the top-right of the milestones section.

Enter the milestone name, planned start and end dates, an optional description, and a weight.

Weight determines how much this milestone counts toward overall project progress. For example, if "Development" is more work than "Planning", give it a higher weight.

Click "Create" and the milestone appears as a card on the project page.

Weights are relative, not percentages. If you set three milestones with weights 200, 500, and 300, the system normalizes them to 20%, 50%, and 30% respectively.

This means you can use any scale you like - the system handles the math. The normalized percentage is shown in parentheses on each milestone card.

If you change a weight, all milestones automatically re-normalize. You do not need to ensure they add up to 100%.

Milestone status is computed automatically from its tasks and deliverables. You never set it manually.

Not Started - no deliverables have been completed yet.

In Progress - at least one deliverable is complete but not all.

Completed - all deliverables under all tasks in this milestone are done.

The milestone progress percentage is the weighted average of its task completions.

Tasks are work packages within a milestone. They group related deliverables together.

Examples under a "Development" milestone: "Build Authentication", "Create Dashboard UI", "Set Up Database".

Each task has a name, planned start and end dates, and can have dependencies on other tasks.

Inside a milestone, click the "+ Add Task" button.

Enter the task name, planned start and end dates, and optionally set dependencies on other tasks.

You can also create tasks quickly using the command bar: press Ctrl+K and type "Add task".

Dependencies define the order in which tasks must be completed. If Task B depends on Task A, Task B cannot start until Task A finishes.

To set a dependency, open a task and go to the Dependencies tab. Select which tasks must be completed first.

Dependencies work across milestones - you can make a task in "Phase 2" depend on a task in "Phase 1". The Dependencies tab shows tasks from all milestones in the project, grouped by milestone name.

A violet badge appears on task cards when they have cross-milestone dependencies, showing the count of links to tasks in other milestones.

When you enable auto-scheduling, the system automatically calculates task dates based on their dependencies, ensuring no task starts before its predecessors finish.

Dependencies are shown visually in the Gantt chart as connector lines and in the workflow diagram as edges between nodes.

The workflow diagram provides a visual flow-chart view of your tasks and their dependencies within a milestone.

Each task appears as a node with a status-colored border. Arrows between nodes show finish-to-start dependencies with duration labels. Purple borders mark the critical path.

Drag nodes to rearrange the layout, or use Auto Layout (top-right) to automatically position tasks with predecessors on the left and successors on the right.

Drag from one task's gray handle to another to create a new dependency. Click any arrow to remove it.

The legend (top-left) shows status colors: green = completed, blue = in progress, red = delayed.

Deliverables are the atomic unit of work in Milesto.io. They are the only entity you directly mark as done.

Think of them as checklist items: "Write login page HTML", "Configure CI pipeline", "Get client approval on mockup".

Every deliverable belongs to a task. You cannot create a deliverable outside of a task.

Open a task (click on it from the milestone card or from the Deliverables tab).

Click "+ Add Deliverable" at the bottom of the deliverable list.

Enter the deliverable title and optionally set a due date and assignee.

Click "Create" - the deliverable appears in the list with an unchecked checkbox.

Click the checkbox next to any deliverable to mark it as complete. The system automatically records the actual completion date.

You can also mark deliverables as done from the "My Work" page - check the box next to any item in your list.

Once marked done, the deliverable is struck through and the completion cascades upward: task progress updates, milestone progress updates, and project progress updates - all automatically.

Click the person icon on any deliverable to assign it to a team member.

Search for the member by name and select them. The deliverable now appears in their "My Work" list.

You can also bulk-assign deliverables: select multiple using checkboxes, then use the bulk action bar that appears at the top.

Each deliverable supports file attachments through named file slots. Expand the Files section on any deliverable card to upload documents.

File slots allow multiple distinct files per deliverable (e.g., a BOM, Safety Plan, and QA Manual on a single deliverable), each with its own independent version chain (V1, V2, V3...).

When uploading to a deliverable that already has files, you choose whether to add a new file slot or update an existing one with a new version.

All deliverable files are also visible in the Documents tab, organized in a tree: Milestone → Task → Deliverable → File Slots.

Progress in Milesto.io is always calculated bottom-up by the database - never manually set.

When you complete a deliverable → the parent task progress updates (based on how many of its deliverables are done).

When tasks update → the parent milestone progress updates (based on task completions).

When milestones update → the project progress updates (using normalized milestone weights).

This ensures every progress number you see is always accurate and consistent.

Milesto.io uses a database-authoritative model. All progress, status, and dates are computed by PostgreSQL triggers - the frontend only displays what the database calculates.

This means you cannot manually override a progress number. If you see 30% actual progress, it means exactly 30% of the weighted deliverables have been completed.

Planned progress is calculated based on the planned schedule - it shows where you should be at any given date if everything went according to plan.

Planned progress (blue) represents where the project should be based on the timeline. It increases linearly from 0% on the start date to 100% on the end date.

Actual progress (green) represents real completions. It only increases when deliverables are marked as done.

When actual is below planned, the project is behind schedule (shown by a red ▼ delta badge). When actual is above planned, the project is ahead (shown by a green ▲ delta badge).

The S-curve chart on the Reports page plots planned and actual progress over time.

The dashed blue line is the planned curve. The solid green line is the actual curve. Milestone diamonds mark key dates.

A healthy project has the green line tracking close to or above the blue line. If the green line falls significantly below, the project is at risk.

You can toggle between Daily, Weekly, Bi-weekly, and Monthly views using the buttons above the chart.

Delta badges appear next to progress numbers throughout the app. They show the difference between planned and actual progress.

A green ▲ 5.0% badge means you are 5 percentage points ahead of plan.

A red ▼ 10.0% badge means you are 10 percentage points behind plan.

These badges update in real-time as you complete deliverables.

Inside any project, click the "Reports" button in the navigation bar. The reports page has five tabs: Overview, Milestones, Tasks, Gantt, and Export.

The Overview tab shows a dashboard with the S-curve progress chart, milestone status donut chart, and cost breakdown.

The S-curve compares planned vs actual progress over time. The donut shows how many milestones are completed, in progress, or pending.

The cost section shows budget spent vs remaining.

The Milestones tab provides a detailed breakdown of each milestone with its planned progress, actual progress, date range, and number of tasks/deliverables.

Click any milestone row to expand it and see its tasks.

The Tasks tab shows every task across all milestones with its progress, date range, and status.

This view is useful for finding specific tasks that are behind schedule or identifying bottlenecks.

The Gantt tab shows a timeline view of all milestones and tasks as horizontal bars.

Use the Week/Month zoom toggle to adjust the time scale. The red vertical line marks today.

Task bars are color-coded by their status: blue for planned, green for completed, amber for in progress, red for overdue.

If you have created baselines, toggle "Planned" to overlay the original schedule for comparison.

Click "Fullscreen" for a larger view, especially useful when presenting to stakeholders.

The Export tab lets you generate a PDF report or download a CSV spreadsheet of your project data.

The PDF includes the S-curve chart, milestone summary, and task breakdown - ready for stakeholder distribution.

The CSV export contains raw data for all tasks and deliverables for use in spreadsheets.

A baseline is a snapshot of your project schedule at a point in time. It captures the planned start/end dates of all tasks.

Click "Create Baseline" on the Reports page. Enter a name (e.g., "Original Plan" or "Q2 Rebaseline").

Once created, the baseline appears as a comparison overlay on the Gantt chart so you can see how much the schedule has shifted.

Set a project-level budget when creating the project or later in project settings. This is the total budget for all work.

You can also set budgets at the task level for more granular tracking. Task budgets appear in the Financials tab.

Log actual costs against tasks using the Time Log feature. Enter hours worked and the cost rate.

The system aggregates all logged costs and shows them in the Financials tab alongside budgeted amounts.

The Financials tab includes Earned Value Analysis (EVA) metrics for Team and Pro plans:

CPI (Cost Performance Index) - measures cost efficiency. CPI > 1.0 means under budget. CPI < 1.0 means over budget.

SPI (Schedule Performance Index) - measures schedule efficiency. SPI > 1.0 means ahead of schedule. SPI < 1.0 means behind.

EAC (Estimate at Completion) - projected total cost based on current spending patterns.

ETC (Estimate to Complete) - how much more budget is needed to finish the remaining work.

These metrics help you forecast whether the project will finish on budget and on time.

Set a Project Value in Project Settings (gear icon) to represent your total contract amount - what the client is paying for the project.

Once set, allocate portions of the project value to individual milestones by editing each milestone and entering a Revenue Value. Use the $/% toggle to enter the amount as a fixed dollar value or as a percentage of the total project value - both modes stay in sync.

The Financials tab automatically shows a Value & Profit card with: Project Value, Project Cost (budgeted), Gross Profit and GP margin, and how much value is still unallocated across milestones.

The project header also displays the Project Value alongside Budgeted and Actual cost boxes for quick reference.

The system prevents milestone allocations from exceeding the project value, and blocks reducing the project value below what has already been allocated.

Available on Starter, Team, and Pro plans.

Click the eye icon near the cost boxes in the project header to hide all financial data across the entire project.

When costs are hidden, all budgeted and actual cost values are replaced with "••••" on: the project header, milestone cards, task cards, deliverable cards, the financials page, reports tab, dashboard overview cards, and earned value metrics.

This is designed for screen-sharing with customers or stakeholders who should not see internal cost data. Color indicators (red/green budget status) are also neutralized to prevent data leakage.

The toggle persists across page refreshes via localStorage. Click the eye icon again to reveal costs.

Navigate to the Documents tab inside any project. You can upload project-level files (contracts, BOQs, specifications) by clicking "Upload" or dragging and dropping.

Supported file types include PDFs, images, spreadsheets, Word documents, and more. Files are stored securely and available to all project members.

Re-uploading the same filename creates a new version automatically. Each file shows its version number, uploader, size, and content hash for integrity verification.

Documents uploaded here can also be used by the AI Planner to auto-generate project plans.

Each deliverable supports multiple named file slots, each with its own independent version chain. This is ideal for deliverables that require several documents (e.g., a "Critical Documentations" deliverable might have separate BOM, Safety Plan, and QA Manual files).

Upload a file to a deliverable from the task drawer (expand the Files section on any deliverable card) or directly from the Documents tab tree.

The first file you upload creates a new slot named after the file. When you upload again, you choose: "Add as new file" (creates another slot) or "Update existing" (adds a new version to an existing slot, e.g., BOM V1 becomes BOM V2).

Expand any file slot to see its full version history with dates. You can preview or download any version.

The Documents page shows all deliverable files organized in a tree structure: Milestone → Task → Deliverable → File Slots.

Click any folder to expand it and see the files inside. Each slot shows its latest version number.

Hover over a deliverable folder and click the upload icon to add files directly from the tree - no need to navigate to the task drawer.

Storage varies by plan: Free (100 MB), Starter (2 GB), Team (10 GB), Pro (50 GB).

The current storage usage is shown at the top of the Documents page.

Open project settings (gear icon) and go to the Members tab.

Enter the email address of the person you want to invite and select their role: Editor (can modify) or Viewer (read-only).

The invited person receives a notification and the project appears in their dashboard.

Owner - full control. Can delete the project, manage members, and edit everything. There is one owner per project (the creator).

Editor - can create, edit, and complete milestones, tasks, and deliverables. Cannot delete the project or manage member roles.

Viewer - read-only access. Can view all project data but cannot make any changes.

If you are on a paid plan, your account belongs to an organization. Go to Settings → Organization to manage it.

Here you can rename your organization, view all members, and generate invite links.

Invite links allow anyone with the link to join your organization directly.

Seat limits depend on your plan: Free (1), Starter (3), Team (10), Pro (25).

Click "My Work" in the sidebar to see all deliverables assigned to you across all projects.

This is your personal task list. It shows pending items grouped by project, with due dates and status indicators.

Use the filter tabs at the top: All Pending, Overdue, Due Today, This Week.

The "Assigned to me" checkbox filters to only show items you own. "Show completed" reveals done items.

Sort by due date, project, or status using the sort dropdown.

Check the box next to any deliverable to mark it done - right from the My Work page. No need to navigate into the project.

The completion cascades upward automatically: task, milestone, and project progress all update in real-time.

Milesto.io generates proactive notifications based on your project data:

Overdue alerts - when a deliverable passes its due date without being completed.

Approaching deadline - when a deliverable is due within the next 2 days.

Milestone complete - when all deliverables under a milestone are done.

Risk alerts - when the system detects a bottleneck or schedule risk (Team+ plans).

Click the bell icon in the top-right corner of the sidebar to open the notification center.

Unread notifications are highlighted. Click any notification to navigate to the relevant item.

The badge on the bell icon shows the count of unread notifications.

Press Ctrl+K (or Cmd+K on Mac) anywhere in the app to open the command bar.

You can also click the search box in the sidebar that shows "Search or jump to... Ctrl+K".

Type a project name to jump directly to it. Type a feature name (e.g., "reports", "financials") to navigate to that section.

The command bar searches across all your projects and pages.

Type action commands to perform tasks without navigating:

"Create project" - opens the project creation dialog.

"Add milestone" - opens the milestone creation form.

"Add task" - opens the task creation form.

"Add deliverable" - opens the deliverable creation form.

These actions contextually create items in your current project.

Click the "Ask Milesto" button in the top-right of any project page to open the AI chat drawer.

The AI understands your project data and can answer questions like:

"What needs attention first?" - identifies the most urgent items.

"Which milestones are at risk?" - analyzes schedule health.

"What is on the critical path?" - shows the chain of tasks that determine the project end date.

The AI can also perform actions: "Assign all deliverables in Testing to Sarah", "Complete all deliverables in Site Prep", "Shift Development forward 5 days".

All actions require your confirmation before they are applied.

Ask a hypothetical question: "What if Planning slips 5 days?" or "What happens if Development is delayed 2 weeks?"

The AI runs a simulation and shows an Impact Diff Card with: project end date change, number of tasks affected, and whether the critical path is impacted.

If you like the result, click the "Apply Changes" button on the card to actually shift the dates.

Usage limits: Team (25/month), Pro (50/month).

Navigate to the AI Plan tab in your project. Upload a document (scope of work, project brief, requirements doc).

The AI reads your document and generates a full project structure: milestones, tasks, and deliverables.

Review the generated plan, make edits if needed, then click "Apply to Project" to add everything to your project.

Refinements allow you to ask the AI to modify the generated plan: "Add a testing phase", "Split the development milestone into frontend and backend".

Usage limits vary by plan (see the Pricing page).

The weekly briefing is an automated status report generated every Monday. It includes:

A natural language summary of project health and key changes from the past week.

An S-curve trend chart showing planned vs actual progress over time.

Milestone progress breakdown with completion percentages.

Completed deliverables from the past week and upcoming deliverables for the next week.

Navigate to the Briefing tab inside any project. Past briefings are listed by date.

Click any briefing to view its full content. The briefing can also be delivered to your email.

Available on Team and Pro plans.

The Workload Dashboard shows how deliverables are distributed across team members.

Each team member has a bar showing their pending, in-progress, and completed deliverables.

Members with significantly more items than others may be overloaded - consider reassigning some deliverables.

The dashboard highlights members who have more deliverables due this week than is sustainable.

Red indicators signal overallocation. Use this to proactively balance work before deadlines are missed.

Available on Team and Pro plans.

Auto-scheduling uses task dependencies to automatically calculate start and end dates.

When you set a dependency (Task B depends on Task A), the system ensures Task B starts after Task A ends.

If Task A is delayed, all downstream tasks automatically shift forward to maintain the dependency chain.

1. Create your tasks with approximate dates.

2. Go to each task and set its dependencies in the Dependencies tab.

3. Enable auto-scheduling from the project settings or use the "Auto-schedule" action.

4. The system recalculates all dates based on the dependency graph, respecting task durations.

Tip: set dependencies first, then run auto-scheduling. This produces the most accurate timeline.

Project Insights uses your project data to detect patterns and risks automatically. The insights panel appears on the project overview page.

Available on Team and Pro plans.

Bottleneck - identifies tasks blocking the most downstream work. Tasks with near-zero schedule float that block 10 or more items are flagged as HIGH severity. Resolving bottlenecks has the biggest impact on the overall timeline.

Risk Driver - flags items most likely to cause delays based on current progress and schedule variance.

Acceleration - highlights critical work due soon that could speed up the project. Headlines dynamically show when the work is due (e.g., "Critical work due within 3 days").

Leverage - shows high-weight tasks with the biggest impact on project progress (e.g., "High-weight work item - 12.3% of project"). Excludes tasks blocked by incomplete predecessors since they are not immediately actionable.

Each insight includes a severity level (High, Medium, Low) and a detailed explanation. Click "Show more" to see insights beyond the initial list.

Insights are smart - they suppress false alarms on pending tasks whose planned start date has not yet arrived.

Go to Settings (gear icon in sidebar → Account Settings) to edit your name, email, and avatar.

Your display name is shown to other team members on assigned deliverables and in the activity feed.

Set your timezone in Settings. This affects how dates and deadlines are displayed throughout the app.

The timezone is also used for weekly briefing generation and notification timing.

Choose between Light, Dark, or System theme in Settings → Theme section.

You can also quickly toggle the theme from the sidebar: click the gear icon → "Theme: Light/Dark/System".

"System" follows your device setting - if your phone or laptop is in dark mode, the app automatically switches.

Change your password in Settings → Password section. Enter your current password, then your new password.

Password strength is shown with a colored bar: weak (red), fair (yellow), good (blue), strong (green).

Use at least 12 characters with a mix of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols for best security.

View your current plan and usage in Settings → Billing.

Upgrade or downgrade your plan from this page. Changes take effect immediately.

See the Pricing page for a full comparison of plans and features.

Start by defining milestones (major phases), then break each into tasks, then create deliverables for each task.

This top-down approach ensures nothing is missed and creates a logical hierarchy that makes progress tracking meaningful.

Set milestone weights proportional to the actual effort involved. A 2-week milestone should have a higher weight than a 2-day one.

Accurate weights make the overall project progress percentage meaningful. If all milestones have equal weight but one takes 80% of the effort, the progress number will be misleading.

Define which tasks depend on which before running auto-scheduling. The more dependencies you set, the more realistic the generated timeline will be.

Without dependencies, auto-scheduling cannot know the correct order of work.

Make it a habit to check the S-curve chart on the Reports page every Monday. This gives you an immediate visual indicator of project health.

If the actual (green) line is falling behind the planned (blue) line, take corrective action before the gap widens.

Power users rely on Ctrl+K for everything: navigating between projects, creating items, and jumping to specific sections.

It is faster than clicking through menus and is available from any page in the app.

Make "My Work" your daily starting point. It shows exactly what is assigned to you, what is overdue, and what is due today.

Complete deliverables directly from My Work - no need to navigate into each project separately.

When you need to assign, complete, or reschedule many deliverables at once, use checkboxes to select multiple items and the bulk action bar that appears at the top.

This is much faster than editing items one at a time.

Use the AI Chat to ask questions about your project instead of manually analyzing data. The AI considers all tasks, dependencies, and progress to give you accurate answers.

Use What-If simulations before making schedule changes to understand the downstream impact.

Use AI Draft to quickly generate a project structure from a scope document - then refine it to match your exact needs.

Set up weekly briefings on Team+ plans. The automated email provides a professional status update without any manual effort.

Share the briefing link with stakeholders who do not have a Milesto.io account.

Upload deliverable files using the file slots system rather than emailing documents back and forth. Each file slot tracks its own version chain automatically.

When a stakeholder sends you a revised BOM, upload it as a new version of the existing BOM slot - not as a new file. This keeps the version history clean and makes it easy to compare or roll back.

Before presenting to a client or external stakeholder, click the eye icon in the project header to hide all cost data.

This masks budgets, actual costs, and financial indicators across the entire project. Toggle it back on after the meeting.