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Projects

The central record in Vellum — every piece of work, file, and event ties back to one.

What is a project?#

A project represents a single piece of work for a client — a renovation, a licensing process, a new build. Every project belongs to one company and one location (branch), is associated with one client, and has one responsible employee.

Within a company, the project's identifier needs to be unique. Two projects can share an address or a client, but never the same identifier.

Fields#

These are the fields you'll see when you create or edit a project:

Identifier
required
A short code unique within your company (e.g. `2025-014`). Used as the human-readable name across the app.
Client
required
The client this project is for. Required.
Office
required
Which of your office branches owns this project. Required.
Project type
Optional template that pre-seeds stages.
Responsible
An employee who answers for the project. Optional, but recommended.
Address
The site address (the project's, not the client's).
Dates
Start, end, ready, and concluded dates — set as the project moves through states.
Description
Free-text notes about the project.

States#

Every project sits in one of five states. The state is yours to set — Vellum doesn't move projects between states automatically based on file approvals or stage progress.

Lifecycle#

A typical project moves through these states roughly in order, and you can also jump back when needed (for example, moving from Concluded back to Ongoing if a client comes back with changes):

  • New — created but not yet started.
  • Missing Documentation — work paused, waiting on client paperwork.
  • Ready — all inputs in hand, ready to begin.
  • Ongoing — actively being worked on.
  • Concluded — delivered.

Deletion behaviour#

Deleting a project is reversible — the project disappears from listings, but the data stays. There's no in-product restore yet, so reach out to support if you need a record back.

Stages and stage files are removed alongside the project. Events that were linked to the project are kept; they stay on the calendar, just without a project association.