Designing your own Projects in Landscape
Use this guide to help you get started with using Projects in Landscape.
Start by customizing the following dropdowns and lists to suit your needs:
These items are customized in Settings > List Items > Projects or Settings > Projects. You must be an administrator to access settings.
Project Type. Default values include ‘Acquisition’ and ‘Restoration’, but often people want to break this down into more specific types, like ‘CE Acquisition’, ‘Fee Acquisition’, ‘Buy-Protect-Sell’, etc.
Project Stage. Set these values to match your own needs. For example, instead of ‘Inquiry’ and ‘In Progress’, you may want to use ‘Pre-approval’, ‘Due Diligence’, ‘Closing’, ‘Post-closing’, etc. Note that you can only have one set of stages, so try to use stages that can apply to most kinds of Projects.
- Task Lists. This is the big one! Take some time to examine your existing processes for acquisitions and try to add tasks and task groups that match these processes. Alternatively, you may wish to use this time to restructure things a bit and try a new approach. We recommended that you avoid using required work at first, as it can overcomplicate things for new users, and that you make several task lists to cover the needs of a whole project. You can then append the task lists as needed. Task lists that relate to specific funding streams can also be very useful to have.
FAQ: ‘Can we have a ‘N/A’ task status to note tasks that don’t apply to a Project?’
While technically you can customize the available task statuses, it is not recommended that you add a task status of ‘N/A’. This is because Landscape will always consider that task to be ‘Incomplete’, and it will show up on your list of incomplete tasks in all future queries unless you specifically exclude that status from the query. Instead, we recommend that you either remove the task that does not apply, or that you mark it as ‘Completed’ but note ‘N/A’ in the task name.
✅ Test it out! Once you’ve got the above items customized, you’re ready to test out the workflow. Create a few new Projects (either from scratch using the ‘Create’ button, or by adding them to existing Active Properties) and add your new task list. Set the appropriate stage and type, then start moving down the task lists and noting what you’ve completed. Add comments as necessary. You may want to add communications with the Landowner or funding partners.
Once you’ve got your basic project customizations in place, move on to reporting and more comprehensive project tracking
Reports. Work on developing a Landscape Report that summarizes your project data in a useful way. We’ve got some great starting points for you here.
Custom Dashboards / Widgets give you an instant snapshot of key project data. How many active projects are you working on? Do you want to see that broken down by stage? How about a map of all Projects assigned to you?
Funding. Start tracking funding in your projects. Define your funding sources first, then add appropriate agreements and/or disbursals. Remember that the disbursal is what actually ties the funding source to the project and allows you to see what funds have gone where.
- Create Budget templates to track planned vs. actual expenses in a Project. Remember that each line item needs to have a unique category.
Write down your workflow!
Because projects often have specific reporting requirements, most organizations find it useful to have an internal document outlining their workflow for project tracking in Landscape. This should be considered a living document that is subject to change, and exists to help you standardize how data is added to Landscape. Remember that how you use the system will always be evolving to suit your needs.
The document might be laid out something like this:
Step 1) Once a potential acquisition moves past the inquiry stage and has been approved by the Project Management Committee, create the Property in Landscape. Enter the landowner contact information, location (address, jurisdiction, county), and the number of acres.
Step 2) From the Property record, create and attach a Project with Type, 'Acquisition'. Add the appropriate Phase 1 checklist and update the Stage field to match the phase of the Project. If a particular funding workflow is necessary, add that as a separate task list as well.
Step 3) Add new task lists and keep the Stage updated as the Project progresses. Make sure that Task deadlines and assignments are entered and updated.
Step 4) Change the Project status to 'Completed' when all Tasks are finished and the property has been successfully acquired. If the Project stalls, change the Status of both the Project and the Property to 'Inactive'.
Reach out to support@dendroyka.com if you have any questions along the way.