Pacing & velocity
See whether an engagement is ahead or behind plan — the burn-up chart, pace, velocity, and runway.
Once an engagement has a budget and a timeline, ProjectPacer tells you whether you're on track — not just how much you've used, but whether you're using it at the right speed.
Two ways to see your engagements
The Engagements list has a view switch in the top bar:
- Compact — a slim row per engagement: name, a budget bar, and the pace read-out. Best for scanning a long list.
- Detail — a full status card per engagement, handy for teams with a handful of active ones. Each card shows budget used with a pace line (where budget use should be today, based on how much of the timeline has elapsed), the pace verdict, the timeline position (Week N of M, or Month N of M past ~18 weeks) with the start–end dates, hours or dollars remaining, velocity vs. goal, and a small burn-up sparkline. Milestone-billed engagements also show milestones delivered.
Your choice is remembered on this device. Every number on a Detail card is the same pacing math explained below — just surfaced for the whole list at once. Use the Metrics button (in Detail) to choose which optional stats — remaining, velocity, milestones, burn-up, effective rate, last activity, contributors — show on every card, up to five at once. Timeline, budget used, and the pace verdict always show.
The expected pacing curve
When you set up a non-recurring engagement, you pick how the work is expected to spread over the timeline:
- Even — steady from start to finish.
- Front-loaded — heavier early.
- Back-loaded — heavier late.
- Custom — enter your own phases (weeks + hours/dollars each).
That curve becomes the dashed target line on the burn-up chart. Your actual usage is the solid line — above it you're ahead, below it you're behind.
What the numbers mean
How far ahead or behind the expected curve you are, right now. Within a small tolerance band it reads on pace; otherwise over or under.
Your recent hours-per-week, next to the velocity goal — the pace you'd need to hit your target by the end.
For ongoing engagements, how long the budget lasts at your current pace; for timed ones, when you'll hit the target if nothing changes.
You can set the target % you're pacing against (100 / 90 / 80 / custom) on the engagement — useful when you deliberately want to leave headroom.
An engagement with no end date has no expected curve, so there's no ahead/behind — it just tracks usage against the budget and shows a runway. Pacing needs a timeline.
If the budget is in dollars but no bill rate resolves for the work, ProjectPacer can't convert it into expected hours — so pacing is blocked until you set a rate. The engagement will say so and point you to the Billing step.