Project folders
Once you have more than about eight projects, the Projects page stops being a list and starts being a wall. Folders fix that, and they pay you back with a dashboard you did not have to build.
What a folder is
Section titled “What a folder is”A named group of related projects — a client, a product line, a department, a quarter.
A project lives in one folder, or in none. Projects without a folder are not pushed into a fake “No folder” bucket; they simply render flat, alongside the folders.
The folder dashboard
Section titled “The folder dashboard”Open a folder and the first thing you get is one honest headline:
26% · 17 of 65 tasks
over a five-state progress rail — the same five status types used everywhere else in dotby, so the number means the same thing here as it does on a project card.
Below it, a table with one row per project:
| Column | Shows |
|---|---|
| Project | Name and key |
| Status | Where the project itself stands |
| Lead | Who owns it |
| Target date | “6w left”, or “12d late” in red |
| Progress | % complete over the same rail |
Totalled at the bottom. A glance down the page tells you which project is dragging the folder.
Filter the whole folder by person
Section titled “Filter the whole folder by person”Pick a person and the entire folder narrows to their work — every project, every board, at once. This is the fastest honest answer to “what is Marina actually carrying right now?”, because it crosses project boundaries the way real workloads do.
Work across the folder
Section titled “Work across the folder”From a folder you can open a cross-project list, board, or timeline. Same layouts you already know, sourced from every project in the folder instead of one.
The timeline is the interesting one: every project becomes a lane, and you can draw a dependency arrow from a task in one project to a task in another. Move the blocker and the cascade pushes work in the other project too.
The Projects page reads the same way
Section titled “The Projects page reads the same way”Even outside folders, every project card answers “how is this going?” without a click:
- % complete over the five-state rail
- the “9 of 30 tasks” it divides by, so the percentage is never a mystery
- the target date, as “6w left” or a red “12d late”
Cards are grouped by folder, so the page is a status board rather than a directory.
When to make a folder
Section titled “When to make a folder”Make one when two or more projects share a stakeholder, a deadline, or a budget.
Do not make one just to tidy up. A folder with one project in it is a folder that costs you a click. If what you actually want is to roll several projects up under one outcome — with a lead, a health trail, and a projected finish date — you want an initiative instead.
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| To organize the Projects page | A folder |
| To answer “is the Q3 launch on track?” | An initiative |
| Both | Both — they are independent |
- Run an initiative — outcomes above projects.
- Timeline and dependencies — the portfolio Gantt.
- Projects and views — inside a single project.