The following steps will give you a very basic Project Plan template. Follow these steps to familiarise yourself with the foundation before you start adding your own real project details.
Basic Project Plan Structure
1) Create a new base
Create a new base and give it a name. A base is like a new document in Airtable. This is your space for all your projects. Don’t create a new base for each project. I’ll tell you how to use a single base for everything.
In Airtable home, click “Add a base” → “Start from scratch”. Name it: Master Project Plan
You’re now inside your new base with one default table called “Table 1”.
2) Table 1: Your Projects
This will hold each project you are managing.Rename the table. Click the “Table 1” name → type: Projects.
Rename the first field (leftmost column). Click the header “Name” → “Rename field” → Project. Select field type: “Single line text”
3) Create key fields
Now you’ll create the columns that hold all key information for each of your projects.
Add a field: Client. Click “+” to the right of the last column. Name: Client. Select type “Single line text” (in the next step, we’ll convert this to link to a Clients table, but we haven’t created the Clients table yet)
Add field: Status. Select type: “Single select. Add options: Planned, Active, On hold, Completed, Cancelled.
Add field: Phase. Select type: “Single select”. Add options: Discovery, Planning, Execution, Closing.
Add field: Start date. Select type: “Date”
Add field: Target end date. Select type: “Date”
Add a field: Owner. Select type: “Single line text”
Add field: Priority. Select type: “Single select”. Add options: High, Medium, Low
Add field: Description. Select type: “Long text”
You now have a simple Projects table, which is the top layer of your plan.
4) Create test projects
Add 2–3 projects to test:
- Project A – Data Platform Programme
- Project B – Website Redesign
These four steps will give you the base structure you need in order to create any project plan.
In the next step, we’ll add new tables for your Deliverables, Workstreams, Milestones, RAID log, Actions, Decisions, Stakeholders and so on.
Then we’ll link all these tables to each other by selecting a common unique identifier field, just as you would do in database engineering, but without the coding!
5) Now the fun part… Create a table for each part of your Project Plan
Deliverables / Workstreams Table
Create the table columns as follows:
- Deliverable Title (Single Line Text)
- Project (Linked to Another Record), and select a project. This is your key link between a Workstream and a Project.
- Assignee (You can later create an Assignee table to link to)
- Status (Single Select – To Do, In Progress, Done)
- Start Date (Date)
- Due Date (Date)
- % Completion
- Notes (Long Text)
- Tasks (linked to another record), we’ll create this next. Come back to link it after that.
- RAID Log (Linked to Another Record), we’ll create this next. Come back to link it after that.
Tasks Table
Create the table columns as follows:
- Task title
- Task details
- Project (Linked to another record), and select Project table. This is your key link between tasks and a project.
- Workstream (Linked to another record), and select Workstream table. This is your key link between tasks and a Workstream (i.e. your Workstream will have many tasks, and every task will belong to a Workstream).
- Assignee
- Deadline, select Date
- Status, pick Single Select, and create options: To Do, In Progress, Done, Blocked
- RAID Log (Linked to another record), and select RAID Log table. This is your key link between tasks and a a RAID record. (i.e. a task may be at risk and you identify what the risk is by adding a record in the RAID table)
RAID Log Table
Create the table columns as follows:
- RAID title, single line text
- RAID description, long text
- Project (Linked to another record), and select a project. This is your key link between a RAID record and a project.
- Related Task (Linked to another record), and select a task table. This is your key link between a RAID item and a task.
- RAID Type, pick single select, and add options: Risk, Issue and Dependency.
- RAID Status, pick single select and add options: Open, Mitigated, Accepted, Transferred, Closed.
- Path to Green, long text field to write in freeform what needs to be done to resolve the RAID item.
- Owner, if you created an Assignee table, then link to it, otherwise, use it as a single line text.
- Workstream (Linked to another record), and select Workstream table. This is your key link between a RAID item and a workstream.
Decisions / Questions Log Table
Create the table columns as follows:
- Decision title
- Projects: link to table
- Decision date
- Decision owner
- Decision status
- Summary
Stakeholders RACI Table
Create the table columns as follows:
- Name
- Role
- Influence
- Interest
- Project: link to Project table
Actions Log Table
Create the table columns as follows:
- Action
- Details
- Owner
- Due Date
- Status
- Meeting: if you create a meeting table where you keep meeting notes, you can link to it. Otherwise, make this a Date type field and in the Notes column, link to your meeting notes.
Once you created all your tables, go back to each table and make sure there is at least one link from each table to another. This will ensure that all tables that make up your project plan are linked to each other by at least one data field. For example, tasks can be linked to a deliverable, risks can be linked to a task, deliverables can be linked to a project and so on. Without this linking structure, your table will remain orphan and won’t be any use to you.