Milestone Basics

Before you begin

A person with the Sys Admin role defines the Milestones, how they are grouped and what dependencies exist between them. See topic Milestones Overview for more information on what actions each Role can perform with Milestones.

Overview

Milestones are target dates for specific events within the life cycle of an Order or Matter. LPG allows for the definition of multiple milestone targets within Orders and Matters and the recording of when these targets are actually achieved.

Customer system administrators define milestones and their groupings, enabling the bulk application of milestones to Orders and/or Matters.

A ‘Timeline’ tab is available on Matter and Order screens. From this tab, the user has a visual ‘Gantt’ representation of the Matter / Order timeline, including any milestones that have been specified.

Once a library of milestone types has been established, these can be grouped together for association to an entity (Order or Matter) according to the Work Type on the entity. This association will allow the creation of multiple milestone instances for the entity from a single button selection. Milestones can also be manually added to the entity outside of the group association.

If Work Type associations to milestones have been configured, LPG allows for automatic milestone creation (instantiation) on Matters and Orders. Milestone instantiation can be restricted by contract. If milestone instantiation is turned on, Order milestones associated to the Order Work Type are automatically created when the Order is transmitted and Matter milestones will be automatically instantiated on Matter creation.

Emails and /or Messages can be automatically triggered to warn of impending milestones or advise of milestone breaches.  Milestone warning and breach notifications are managed from the Customer Configuration messaging screen.

Milestone Scope:

N1 - Order Milestones are only associated with Orders (accessed via the Order screens).
N2 - Matter Milestones are only associated with Matters (accessed via the Matter screen).

Milestone Types:

Milestone Types are created in the context of Orders or Matters and specify the rules used for the calculation of the target and warning dates.  Essentially, the milestone target dates are automatically calculated as a number (N2 - Offset) of working or calendar days (N1 – Strategy) from a specified Entity date (N3 – Relative to).

The Customer Sys Admin defines for each Milestone whether it is visible to and editable by the Provider. If set as editable, the Provider operations personnel can enter the Actual Date of the Milestone. (The Actual Date of all Milestones is editable by Customer Operations personnel except in specific circumstances as described in topic Manage Milestones.)

Milestone Dates:

N1 - Baseline Date is the initial, system-calculated forecast date by which the Milestone should be completed.

N2 - Forecast Date is the current date by which the Milestone should be completed.

N3 - Warning Date is the date on which a notification will be sent out warning that the Milestone soon needs to be completed.

N4 - Actual Date is the date on which the Milestone was completed.

The Baseline Date, Forecast Date and Warning Date are initially calculated and set by LPG but the Customer Operations personnel can manually edit the Forecast and Warning Dates. See topic Manage Milestones for details.

Milestone Status:

Until the Milestone is completed (the Actual Date is entered), a coloured circle is displayed next to the milestone to indicate its status. The colour of the circle indicates the following:

	Forecast date has been exceeded and no Actual Date has been entered.
	Forecast date is in the future and no Actual Date has been entered.
	The Warning Date has passed and no Actual Date has been entered.
	The status cannot yet be determined because the dates are dependent on the preceding Milestone in the chain. (not applicable to Anchor Milestones)
	The Milestone has been put on hold.
	This Milestone is no longer active.

Once the Actual Date is entered the status symbol changes from a circle to a tick. The complete statuses have the following meanings:

	Actual Date is later than Forecast Date
	Actual Date is same as or earlier than Target Date

Anchor Milestones:

Anchor Milestones are related to Order or Matter dates (e.g. Start Date, Acceptance Date *, End Date). Anchor Milestones are identified by this symbol .

N1 - Anchor Milestones can be “stand-alone” (with no dependent Milestones) or “chained”. Stand-alone Milestones identify tasks that need to be done in relation to the Order or Matter but have no dependencies.

N2 - An anchor Milestone can be at the start of a chain* of Milestones. Each Milestone in the chain is dependent on the Milestone preceding it in the chain (e.g. Milestone B starts 2 days after Milestone A. Milestone C starts 2 days after Milestone B.). Dependent Milestones are identified by this symbol .

* Acceptance Date as an anchor and chained milestones are only available if Extended Milestones have been enabled.

Milestones may be grouped and a Milestone Group may contain individual Milestones (N1) and chains of Milestones (N2). If a Milestone Group is added to an Order or Matter, all the Milestones within the group are included. A Milestone that is within a group cannot also be added to the Order or Matter as a “stand-alone” Milestone.

Extended Milestone functionality:

If ‘Extended Milestone’ functionality has been purchased, the following additional features are enabled: 

• Automatic Instantiation
  If Automatic Instantiation is turned on, all Milestones associated to the worktype on the Order or Matter are automatically added when the Matter is created or the Order is transmitted to a Provider. 

• Working Hour granularity
  Working Hour granularity provides the ability to define a milestone using a ‘working hour’ strategy which references the definition of working day from the working day calendar.  This enables the creation of milestones with targets that are measured in hours rather than days.

• Milestone Dependencies
  Milestone Dependencies enables relationships between milestones to be defined so that follow-on impact of a change can be monitored.  New milestone types can be created ‘relative to’ another milestone using a ‘previous milestone’ context.

Once these ‘dependent’ milestones have been created, they can be linked to each other in a chain within a group.  The chain of milestones can then be added, actioned or dropped as a group or individual elements within the chain can be actioned or dropped.  Completing a milestone in a chain causes any preceding active milestones to be automatically completed.

• Extended Anchor points
  In addition to the Order or Matter ‘Start’ and ‘End’ date anchor points that were available in basic milestone functionality, milestones can be created relative to ‘Order Acceptance’ and ‘Order Completion’ dates or ‘Previous Milestones’, if a chain has been defined.  If ‘Order Acceptance’ or ‘Order Completion’ dates are selected, the milestones can only be automatically instantiated once these dates have been achieved.