Managing projects effectively requires more than just tracking tasks and milestones. One of the most powerful tools for gaining visibility across your innovation portfolio is the Project Health Status feature in Accept Mission’s Innovation Studio.
Health statuses allow admins to define clear signals such as green for healthy, yellow for at risk, and red for trouble. This gives everyone an immediate understanding of how projects are progressing. Used consistently, they provide project leaders, steering groups, and executives with an easy way to assess the state of innovation efforts at a glance.
In this article, we explain what Project Health Status is, where you can find it, the default statuses provided, how to configure them for your organization, and how they connect to reporting tools like Power BI and integrations such as the API and Power Automate. We also share best practices and a practical example using our demo company, InnovationLands.
Why Project Health Status matters
Every organization running multiple projects needs a quick way to understand where attention is required. Detailed project updates are valuable, but they can take time to review. Project Health Status provides a single indicator that summarizes the overall situation of a project: is it on track, delayed, at risk, or completed?
For innovation managers and steering groups, this brings several advantages:
Clarity at a glance: Instead of digging through long updates, you instantly see where projects stand.
Consistency: All project leaders report status using the same framework, so results are comparable.
Focus for decisions: Steering groups can quickly identify which projects need discussion or intervention.
Transparency: Teams, departments, and leadership share a common language for project health.
💡 Tip: Encourage project leaders to update the health status as part of their regular reporting cycle (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly). This keeps the overview accurate and helps avoid surprises.
Where to find Project Health Status
When you open a project in Innovation Studio, you see the project detail page. Just below the project image is the project toolbar. On the far right of this toolbar, you find the Project Health Status selector.
By default, every new project is set to the “On track” (green) status. Admins and project leaders with the right permissions can change this to reflect the actual state of the project. For example, you might switch it to At risk if a key milestone has slipped, or Off track if the plan is no longer credible.
Visibility across the platform
Kanban view: In the Projects overview (Innovation Studio → Projects → Kanban), each project card displays its health status in the lower right corner. Hovering over the status shows the title.
List view: The same information is visible as a column in the list of projects.
Exports: Health Status is included in data exports, making it accessible for reporting in external systems.
This means that across your portfolio, you can scan projects and immediately understand their condition.
💡 Tip: In steering group meetings, use the Kanban overview to quickly identify which projects are green, yellow, or red before diving into detailed reports.
Default health statuses
Accept Mission provides a standard set of health statuses to help you get started. These can be customized later, but the defaults offer a clear framework out of the box.
Title | Description | Severity (0–100) |
Not started | Work not begun; baseline agreed; no risks impacting schedule. | 0 |
On track | On plan for scope, schedule, and budget. | 20 |
On hold | Paused by decision; no work expected until a specific date. | 40 |
At risk | Material risk; mitigation plan in progress; slip ≤ 2 weeks. | 60 |
Off track | Plan not credible; scope or schedule at risk; needs escalation. | 90 |
Completed | Outcomes delivered and accepted. | 100 |
The Severity score is a numeric value (0–100) linked to each status. This score is useful for dashboards, reporting, and integrations. For example, “On track” is typically 20, while “Off track” is 90.
Configuring health statuses for your organization
Admins can fully tailor Project Health Status to match organizational needs. To configure:
Go to Innovation Studio → Settings → Health Status.
You will see a table with all current statuses.
From here you can:
Reorder statuses by drag and drop.
Set a default status (applied automatically to all new projects).
Edit titles, descriptions, and severity scores.
Change colors to fit your company’s visual language.
Update icons to make statuses more recognizable.
Add new statuses if needed.
💡 Tip: Keep your set of statuses simple. Too many options make it harder for project leaders to choose and reduce clarity for steering groups.
Example with InnovationLands
Imagine InnovationLands runs ten innovation projects in parallel. By configuring statuses, the innovation manager ensures every project leader reports consistently. For example:
Green = On track
Orange = At risk
Red = Off track
In the Kanban overview, leadership can instantly see which projects need attention. If three projects are orange and one is red, those become priority discussion points in the next review meeting.
Best practices for using health statuses
Update regularly: Health status should not be static. Require project leaders to update it weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly as part of their reporting.
Combine with canvases: Alongside status updates, leaders can complete a canvas (for example, project status update canvas) for detailed reporting. This provides context behind the color.
Use in steering groups: Let the visual overview guide discussions. Green projects can be skipped quickly, while yellow and red projects deserve attention.
Integrate into process: Make status updates a mandatory part of project governance. This ensures reliable data across the portfolio.
Reporting and integrations
One of the biggest advantages of Project Health Status is that it does not just live inside the Innovation Studio. The data is also available in your reporting tools and integrations:
Power BI: Health status values and severity scores are included in the Accept Mission data connector. This allows you to create dashboards showing how many projects are green, yellow, red, and so on.
API: Health status fields can be retrieved via the API, making them accessible in external applications.
Power Automate: You can trigger workflows based on project health. For example, if a project moves to “Off track,” Power Automate could automatically send an alert to the steering group.
💡 Tip: Many organizations create a Power BI dashboard showing the percentage of projects in each status category. This gives executives an instant understanding of the health of the entire innovation portfolio.
Practical example
Let us return to our demo company, InnovationLands. Their project leaders are required to update project health every two weeks.
Project A is on track and stays green.
Project B has experienced supplier delays and moves to orange (At risk).
Project C has run significantly over budget and is switched to red (Off track).
In the next steering group meeting, the team spends little time on Project A but dives deep into Projects B and C. The health statuses ensured that leadership immediately knew where to focus.
Summary
Project Health Status is a simple but powerful tool for managing innovation projects:
Found in the project toolbar and visible in Kanban, List, and exports.
Comes with a set of default statuses that can be fully customized.
Helps project leaders communicate clearly and consistently.
Provides steering groups with an instant overview of portfolio health.
Connects seamlessly to Power BI, API, and Power Automate for advanced reporting and workflows.
When used consistently, Project Health Status turns subjective project updates into objective signals, helping organizations like InnovationLands stay on top of their innovation portfolio.
💡 Recommendation: Define clear rules for when each status should be used. For example, “red” might always mean a project is over budget or more than four weeks delayed. This consistency ensures everyone interprets statuses the same way.