Project Management
5 min read
How to Complete Your Student Projects on Time with Wrike's Timeline
If you're a university undergraduate or graduate student, you should know that we recently announced our Wrike for Students program.
We want to give you a Wrike account to keep track of all of your assignments, group projects, and random to-dos completely free — because you're already spending enough on your education.
Student projects, especially group projects, have unique requirements. You have to figure out how to collaborate effectively, which is even harder when you can't meet in person every day. Using the Timeline in Wrike is one way to make sure you're getting all your work done on time.
Basic Organization for Your Group Project
To get started, create a new Project and share it with all the members of your team in Wrike. Inside that project, create individual tasks for every piece of work required to reach your end goal. Assign each of those tasks to the responsible group member(s) in your Wrike account, and set the durations and due date for that piece of work.
For example, say your project is to write a group report. If you want to finish basic research six weeks before your final deadline, your task called "Complete basic research" should be due six weeks before the task, "Print & submit the final report."
Check the Timeline to Review Your Project Schedule
Once your group project is in Wrike, with due dates set and individual assignments doled out, everyone can use the Wrike Timeline to view and track the overall progress. The Timeline will show you what tasks are completed (green), overdue (red), and what deadlines are coming up (blue).
Set Key Dates as Milestones
Any project-related date that absolutely cannot be shifted should be set up as a task with a milestone date. Examples include final deadlines from your professors and presentation dates. Once you set a milestone, that date cannot be automatically adjusted by the rescheduling of other tasks.
Create Dependencies to Automate Task Rescheduling
If you have a series of tasks for your project that depend on one another (e.g. You can't start "Write first draft of paper" until "Complete basic research" is done), set them up as dependencies on your timeline. There are four common types of dependencies:
Task B can't start until Task A is completed. (Most common scenario.)
Task B can't start until Task A has started.
Task B can't be completed until Task A is completed.
Task B can't be completed until Task A has started.
By linking all your tasks together as dependencies, you'll be able to reschedule everything (except milestones) with one drag-and-drop movement on the Timeline. This is helpful if work gets pushed back or moved forward. When you drag one task three days either direction, every dependent task will be shifted accordingly.
Add Missing Tasks in the Schedule
If you've built your project but missed a key step, you can create a new task right from the Timeline to set the due date and dependencies immediately. Then, click to open your task and you can assign the new task to a group member.
More on How to Use Wrike for Student Projects
If you want to learn more about how to use Wrike for your student projects, check out these other helpful articles:
The In-Depth Guide to Using Wrike’s Online Gantt Chart Maker
Achieve fast, easy, efficient project management using Gantt charts
4 Common Mistakes New Wrike Users Make, and Tips to Avoid Doing the Same
If you're a student and you'd like to take advantage of Wrike to manage your classwork, sign up for your free student account now.
