What is a Tollgate in the PPM in Profit.co?

What is a Tollgate in Project Management?

A Tollgate is a control point or milestone within a project where progress is reviewed, and a decision is made whether to continue to the next stage. In the context of your PPM tool, a tollgate represents a stage in the project lifecycle, and passing through each tollgate requires either an approval or completion of a checklist.

Each tollgate acts as a quality gate, ensuring that essential deliverables, reviews, and decisions are made before advancing the project further. This helps maintain control, reduce risks, and align stakeholder expectations.

What is the Purpose of Tollgates?

Tollgates provide structure and governance for your project execution. Here’s how they help:

• Stage-wise Visibility: They allow project owners, portfolio owners, and stakeholders to track which stage the project is currently in.
• Compliance & Quality Checks: Each tollgate can have required checklists or approvals that ensure the project meets defined standards before moving forward.
• Controlled Progression: Prevents teams from jumping to the next stage without completing prior obligations.
• Better Decision-Making: Provides clear checkpoints to evaluate feasibility, performance, and alignment with goals at various stages.
• Standardized Processes: Promotes repeatable and consistent project delivery frameworks across portfolios.

Who Can Use or Monitor Tollgates?

• Project Owners: Primarily responsible for managing tollgate checklists and submitting them for approval.
• Portfolio Owners: Monitor tollgate progress across multiple projects to ensure alignment and compliance.
• Approvers: Depending on your workflow, specific roles or stakeholders may be designated to approve tollgates before the project progresses.

Note: The actual approver will see the status as “Approved,” while the remaining approvers will see “Auto Approved,” indicating the system auto-approved the request after another approver’s action.

How to Set Up a Tollgate in a Project?

To create a new Tollgate sequence, navigate to Portfolios and Projects → Tollgate from the left navigation panel and click the Create button.

Enter the name of the sequence and enable or disable the stages as needed.

To add a new stage, click on the Create option and enter the necessary details.

Note: To create a checklist for each stage, click the Add Checklist button.

Once done, click the Create Button.

To use this tollgate during project creation, navigate to Portfolios and Projects → All Projects from the left navigation panel. Click on the 'Create Project' button, enter the necessary details, and select the desired tollgate sequence under the Tollgate Sequence option.

Once done, click the Add button, and finally, click the Create button.

To view the tollgate, click on the project name and switch to the Tollgate tab.

Once the checklist is completed, click on the Move to next tollgate button.