Create a Project
Creating and editing a project are the same full page, not a dialog and not an admin-only screen. It has two addresses — /projects/new for a new project and /projects/<id>/settings for one that already exists — and every way in lands on one of them. You get a breadcrumb, three stacked panels — Project, Access, Exceptions — and one save bar at the foot of the page covering all three.
Where it opens from
Four controls open the editor, and they all open the same one:
| Control | Opens |
|---|---|
| New project in the Projects page heading | The editor, empty. |
| Create a project on Home, while the workspace has none | The editor, empty — it no longer stops at the Projects page on the way. |
| Edit project in a row or card menu on the Projects page | That project, filled in. |
| Edit project in a project’s sidebar row menu | That project, filled in. |
Settings → Projects opens the same editor from its own list — Edit project…, or Manage access… for the same page with the Access panel in view. What differs is only where you end up afterwards: the crumb, Cancel and a finished save all return you to the list you arrived from.
The editor is not part of Settings. It answers to whether you may create or edit projects, not to whether you may open the admin area — so someone who is allowed to set a project up is never sent into a settings shell they cannot otherwise use. Two things deliberately stayed behind on Settings → Projects: your plan’s project limit, and deleting a project.
The page
The page has its own address, so it can be linked to and reloaded. The breadcrumb above the panels reads Projects / New project when creating and Projects / <name> when editing; the Projects crumb takes you back to the list.
Nothing saves as you type. The save bar at the foot of the page says where you stand:
| Situation | Save bar |
|---|---|
| Creating | There from the first paint. It reads No changes until you type something and Unsaved changes after, with Cancel and Create project. |
| Editing | Appears once something differs, reading Unsaved changes, with Cancel, Discard and Save changes. Discard puts all three panels back to how you found them. |
The bar is also where a refused save explains itself: the messages under The Project panel and Access and Exceptions appear there as well as beside the control they are about.
Saving returns you to the list you came from. Leaving with changes still pending is caught first: Leave without saving? — “Your changes to <name> will be lost.” — with Cancel and Leave.
One save covers all three panels. Renaming the project, changing what everyone gets and adding an exception are one save, not three. That also means the access rules are rewritten every time the project is saved, which is why editing needs the Manage project members capability alongside Edit projects.
The Project panel
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Icon | No | One glyph and one colour — see Choosing an icon. A project saved without touching it gets a default folder glyph. The chip beside the control is the project’s identity as it will appear everywhere else: “Its chip in the sidebar, both project lists, the cards and the project header.” |
| Name | Yes | “Shown in the project switcher and on every run recorded in it.” Saving without one — on either page — answers Name is required, at the field and in the save bar, rather than greying out a button that would have told you nothing. |
| Summary | No | “One line, for people choosing between projects. Optional.” It is the second line of the row in the projects list, and the description on the project card. |
| Completed | No | A switch, on the edit page only. “Moves it out of the project switcher and out of new runs. Everything recorded stays, and it can be reopened.” The create page has no such switch — new projects start active. |
Choosing an icon
A project has one identity control, and it produces one thing: a glyph on a coloured chip. Opening it gives you a Filter… box over a grid of named glyphs, with the colours underneath. Typing filters the grid by glyph name — rocket narrows it to the rocket. Eighteen colours are offered, each announced by name for screen readers: Gray, Red, Orange, Amber, Yellow, Lime, Green, Emerald, Teal, Cyan, Sky, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Purple, Fuchsia, Pink and Rose.
A glyph and a colour are chosen as a pair. Clicking a glyph selects it and offers the colours for it; the pick is made when you choose the colour, and only then does the save bar notice. Choosing a colour on its own keeps the glyph the project already had.
Emoji and uploaded icons keep working. A project whose icon was set to an emoji still draws that emoji everywhere — in the sidebar, in both project lists, on the card and in the project header — and the editor says so: “Currently an emoji. It keeps showing everywhere until you choose a glyph here.” Picking a glyph replaces it; not picking one changes nothing. There is no longer a way to set a new emoji or upload an image: one project, one chip, drawn the same in every place that names the project.
Access and Exceptions
The Access panel sets what everybody gets by default, and opens with a sentence spelling out the result. Exceptions lists the people and groups that are treated differently. Both are covered in full on Project Access.
Two validations block a save and say who or what is missing:
- Choosing One role for everyone without picking the role: “Choose the role everyone gets.”
- Setting a person’s exception to A specific role without picking one: “Choose a role for <name>, or give them a different kind of access.” — the message names the person, so a long list does not have to be searched.
Creating a project, step by step
- Click New project on the Projects page — or Create a project on Home, if the workspace has none yet. (If the button is disabled, you are at your plan’s project limit — see All Projects (Admin).)
- Give the project a name. Optionally pick an icon and write a one-line summary.
- Leave Everyone gets on Their own workspace role, or set one role for the whole project.
- Add exceptions now if you already know them — or skip it; they can be added at any time.
- Click Create project. You land back on the Projects list, and the new project is already there — Active, with the icon and summary you gave it, and in the sidebar too.
Who can create and edit projects
Creating, editing and completing projects come from your Access Level, not from your Role:
- Tenant Admin and Project Admin can do all of it, in every project in the workspace.
- Regular User cannot, whatever Role they hold. A custom Role has no way to grant it: Roles carry project-level permissions, and this is a workspace-level one. See Roles.
Because the permission is the gate rather than admin membership, a Project Admin never has to open Settings to set a project up — the Projects page and the sidebar row menu both reach the editor directly.
What someone without the permission sees
The controls are not there to be clicked: no New project button, and a row or sidebar menu carrying Pin to sidebar alone — pinning is a personal convenience, not an administrative act. Typing an address in by hand is answered plainly, and the page refuses rather than half-loading:
- the create page: “You do not have permission to create projects.”
- a project’s settings page: “You do not have permission to edit projects.”
The refusal does not say whether the project exists. A settings address for a project that is not there answers exactly as one that is — the same sentence, word for word. Someone who may not edit projects cannot use the editor to find out which project numbers a workspace has.