Add a milestone to an Initiative

Use these instructions to add additional milestones to Initiatives. To add milestones, you must be either an Initiative creator, sponsor, or owner, or a system administrator. When you can add milestones depends on where the Initiative is in the approval process. For more information, see Edit an Initiative.

IMPORTANT: New Initiatives come with two default milestones: Initiative Kickoff and Initiative Completion. If you delete both of these Initiatives without adding any others, and then save the file, and then go back to the plan file page, the default Initiatives will be restored. (However, if the milestones are deleted during the owner or sponsor review stages, the Initiatives are not restored.) This is a safeguard to prevent creating Initiatives with no milestones. While you can save an Initiative without milestones, the best practice recommendation is to have at least one Milestone per Initiative. This is especially important because Initiative status is based on milestone status. You do not have to add all the milestones before submitting the Initiative for approval; the Initiative owner or sponsor can add milestones before the Initiative is approved to Active Tracking The Initiative approval process stage in which Initiative owners and system admins can update Initiative measure data and milestone status..

To add a milestone to an Initiative:

  1. Open the Initiative’s plan file page.

  2. On the plan file page, click the Milestones/Measures tab.

  3. In the Milestone section, under the Milestone column, click Add a Milestone.

    Fields for the new milestone are created, with your name in the Owner field.

  4. In the Milestone field, type a name for the milestone.

  5. If you are not going to be the milestone’s owner, then from the Owner drop-down, select the person who is responsible for executing or managing this milestone activity.

    NOTE: Unless a milestone owner also happens to be the Initiative owner or sponsor, they do not update milestone statuses. The Initiative owner is typically the person who updates milestone statuses after the Initiative is approved to Active Tracking The Initiative approval process stage in which Initiative owners and system admins can update Initiative measure data and milestone status. stage.

  6. In the Start Date field, click the calendar icon (), and select a start date.

    NOTE: Milestones are sorted in order of Start Date. For example, if a milestone has a Start Date of 9/2/1019 and an End Date of 10/2/2019, it will be sorted before a milestone with a Start Date of 9/30/2019 and an End Date of 9/30/2019. Milestones are sorted when you save the Initiative.

  7. In the End Date field, click the calendar icon (), and select a completion date for the milestone.

    IMPORTANT: Ensure all milestone time frames fall within the Period Begin and Period End dates of the Objective with which the Initiative is associated. The Initiative Completion milestone defaults to the associated Objective’s Period End date unless modified.

  8. Click Save.
  9. Verify that the milestones are in the desired order. If not, change the start dates as needed.
  10. After you are done creating milestones, do one of the following:
    • If you are ready to submit the Initiative, click Submit. In the submission dialog, enter a comment, and click Submit.
    • If you are creating an Initiative, return to Create an Initiative.
    • If you are editing an Initiative, return to Edit an Initiative.
See also