The invisible dependency
Acceptance testing on your project waits for another project to go live. Each of the two schedules is correct; it is the link between them that appears nowhere, until the day it breaks.
Solutions Multi-project management for client and supplier projects
Multi-project management starts where a task tool stops: when a milestone in your project waits for the delivery of another project, run for another client or by one of your suppliers. Tracking every task does not tell you whether the whole holds together. In pylotik, projects link to one another, their dependencies are watched in the same Planning view, and each organization reads only what concerns it.
The problem
A task is tracked. A set of projects is managed.
The delays that cost the most almost never start inside a project. They start at the joint between two.
The supplier out of sight
Part of the work is handed to a subcontractor, who keeps their own tracking. You learn of a slip in a meeting, when it is already in your own schedule.
The portfolio rebuilt by hand
To know where a client's projects stand, or those of a department, someone rebuilds a table from several trackers. It is wrong the day it is presented.
How it works
From a project to a network of projects.
The base is the same for everyone: a project connects one supplier and one client, and is split into work packages, tasks, phases and milestones, with a kickoff and a close. The Extended Project module adds what you need to manage several projects together.
Bring together the projects that move together
A project can link other projects: projects you run for other clients, or projects where you are the client yourself, run by one of your suppliers. The Planning view shows them together, each with its own work packages and milestones. The link holds one level: a project and its linked projects.
Say what waits for what
Two forms, which cover the essentials: a task or phase "starts after" the end of a prerequisite, and a milestone is "reached only after" the end of another. The prerequisite can belong to the same project or to a linked one.
Visible conflicts, untouched dates
A dependency is watched, never enforced: no date is moved behind your back. When a prerequisite slips past what depends on it, the conflict shows in the Planning view, and the arbitration stays a decision, not a recalculation.
A project that splits up
A large project splits into several work packages, each with its own milestone template. It is often the first need of a growing project, before it is even linked to others.
The Extended Project module (several work packages, linked projects, dependencies between projects) is available from the Business tier, billed separately from the seat, with no limit on users. A single-work-package project and its internal dependencies stay in the core. Details are on the pricing page.
Several clients, several suppliers
Everyone sees their own project. You see the whole.
A link belongs to the organization that declares it. Neither the client of your project nor the supplier of a linked project sees that you have brought these projects together: each keeps reading their own project, with their own rights. When the linked project is run by a supplier, you read it through their latest validated minutes shared with you, never through their internal schedule, and their private milestones stay theirs.
It is the same rule as client access, applied to a network of projects: a truth shared where it should be, and each party's responsibility intact. It is the principle of operational commitment management, extended to several organizations.
The limits
What to know before you choose.
One client per project
A project always connects one supplier and one client. Several clients are managed together by linking their projects, not by sharing a single project between them.
No account at your neighbor's
A subcontractor does not receive an account in your project: they run their own, of which you are the client, and you link it to yours.
No automatic recalculation
Dependencies flag, they do not reschedule. No computed critical path, no automatic shifting of dates: the schedule stays the one you decided.
What pylotik is not, either: a portfolio tool reserved for a projects office, which consolidates without opening any access to the client. It consolidates too, with a portfolio overview, but it manages the projects themselves first, with their clients. To see where pylotik sits among the other tool families, start from the product tour.
Frequently asked questions
What we are asked about multi-project management.
Can I link a project run by another supplier?
Yes, if you are its client: your supplier runs it in its own organization, you link it to yours, and you read it through the validated minutes it shares with you.
Does my client see the projects I linked to theirs?
No. A link is visible only to the organization that declared it. Your client keeps reading their own project, and only that one.
Do dates shift automatically?
No. A dependency is watched: a conflict shows in the Planning view, but no date moves without a decision. This is deliberate: a date committed to a client does not change behind the back of the person who gave it.
How many levels of projects can be nested?
One: a project and its linked projects. That is enough for a set of projects, and it keeps the reading simple.
Do I need the Extended Project module to manage several projects?
Not to follow them side by side: the portfolio overview is part of the core. Yes to split a project into several work packages, link projects together and set dependencies from one project to another.
Next
Going further.
- Operational commitment management: the commitments between a client and its supplier, and how they are kept.
- Industrial project management: subcontractors, sites and clients on the same project.
- The product tour and the pricing.
- Security and hosting: designed and hosted in France.