Payment milestones & timelines ⏱️

MAY 16, 2023

Overview

This release introduces dynamic payment milestones that update automatically based on the project duration and value.

The new-look deal timeline supports parallel phases and scheduling dependencies including fixed start dates or phase offsets. You can also add more phases to a deal (increased phase limit from 5 to 10 per deal).

It also adds options for exporting the deal hierarchy (phase > feature > task) as a multi-level numbered list using standard Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).

Payment milestones

You can now use payment milestones to describe your expected payment structure

• Choose a progress payment preset, or create custom milestones
• Schedule due dates based on deal / phase progress, or fixed / relative dates
• Calculate price as a percent of total deal value or a fixed amount

Like everything in Estii, dynamic milestones automatically adjust to changes to your deal price and duration, and are exported as beautiful waterfall charts within proposals.

Milestone presets

Choose from a range of preset payment structures (such as equal split progress/payment) or create custom milestones with fixed/ progress dates, and fixed / percentage values.

Edit milestones

Edit the name, description, date and price for each milestones (as either fixed values or percentage of deal value/progress.

Milestone overview

A summary of the active milestones appears on the deal overview page as a waterfall chart

Milestone overview template

The milestone chart is also automatically added to the proposal overview

Milestone detail template

The Payment milestone appendix includes a more detailed list view with milestone descriptions, as well as additional payment terms

New look timeline view

The timeline view (used in the deal overview and proposals) provides an overview of then entire deal. It has been redesigned to work with a broader range of scheduling scenarios including parallel and offset phases.

The scale of the timeline automatically updates based on the deal duration.

Phase schedule dependencies

You can now schedule when individual phases should start:

• Automatic (default) - start immediately after the previous phase (existing behaviour)
• Fixed date - start on a specific date (must be after deal start)
• Relative offset - start relative to the end of another phase (or the start of the deal)

Increased phase limits

To coincide with the new phase timeline features, we’ve also doubled the phase limit per deal from 5 to 10!

Work Breakdown Structure

What Is a Work Breakdown Structure?

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a tool used in project management to organise and break down complex tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces. The WBS consists of multiple levels numbered and indented to reflect the hierarchical structure of the project.

Or in plain english, a hierarchical numbered list

1. Phase 1
	1.1 Feature X
		1.1.1 Task N
		1.1.2 Task M

How it works in Estii

You can now export the deal hierarchical (phase > feature > task) in WBS format.

• Proposal slides - scope slide settings has toggle to include numbers
• Deal export - now includes a scope tab containing phases, features and tasks in WBS structure

Proposal template improvements

We’ve made numerous tweaks to the proposal templates to support larger numbers of phases, and the inclusion of milestones.

• Single phase deals now split ‘contents’ section into ‘overview’ and ‘scope’ sections
• Table of contents groups phases into a single section when more than 5 phases
• Budget slide - compact layout for 5+ phases
• Timeline slide - updated with new look
• Scope slide - option to include hierarchical WBS numbering (phases > features >tasks)
• Scope slide - added resource option for ‘price only’
• Rate card slide - groups sequential phases with the same rate card (and margin) when more than 3 combinations

Deal stats in settings

You can now keep track of the total number of tasks and estimates in a deal on the settings page.