Overview

Three use cases
that build on each other

First scheduling and capacity planning in one system, then the departments as co-planners, then external suppliers. Each stage widens the circle of people who maintain the same plan – and each one can be introduced on its own.

A project plan in Linetrack that project management, departments and suppliers work on together

In brief

Linetrack covers three use cases that build on each other: scheduling and capacity planning in one system, collaborative project management, and integrating suppliers. Each stage widens the circle of people who maintain the same plan – from project management to the departments to the external partner. The stages build on each other, but each one can be introduced separately.

91 %

named a tangle of spreadsheets and
tools as their starting problem

100 %

named missing transparency
across the project portfolio

56 %

had a live interface running
within the first six months

1512

industrial projects steered
in parallel

*All figures on this page come from a full survey of every productive Linetrack implementation, as of August 2026. Multiple answers were possible.

Where to start

The three use cases at a glance

The order does not follow product tiers but the question of who writes into the plan. Each card names in one sentence who plans along and what becomes visible in the plan as a result.

Stage 1

Scheduling and capacity in one system

Who plans along

Project management plans dates and available capacity in the same data set instead of reconciling two separate tools.

What that makes visible

Whether a committed date sits on free capacity. Resource conflicts become visible across projects, not once the date has already slipped.

Scheduling and capacity planning in one system

Stage 2

Departments plan along

Who plans along

Department heads and team members maintain their own share – each role with write access to exactly the part it answers for.

What that makes visible

Project status as of the last feedback instead of as of the last status request. The status round disappears as a work step.

Collaborative project management

Stage 3

Suppliers plan along

Who plans along

The external partner gets their own tasks and their own access, and reports dates and progress straight into the plan.

What that makes visible

The subcontracted share. A reported delay feeds straight through into the overall plan instead of being transferred by hand.

Integrating suppliers into projects

The three pages describe the same plan from three angles, not three products. Anyone who only needs one stage only needs to read one page.

Who writes into the plan

Who works on the plan – stage by stage

The three stages are a reading order, not product tiers. They describe how far the circle of people with their own write access to the plan has been opened. Anyone starting out usually starts with dates and capacity planning – without connected capacity, nobody can see what a commitment actually costs.

Every further stage adds no feature – it adds at least one further role with its own write access. What grows is therefore not the range of functions but the share of the plan that is maintained first-hand.

How the circle grows

Four roles, three stages: each stage carries over the roles of the one before it and adds at least one more.

already involvednew at this stage

Stage 1Scheduling and capacity in one system1 roleThis makes visible: whether a committed date sits on free capacity – resource conflicts become visible across projectsStage 1: Scheduling and capacity in one system. 1 role with write access to the plan: Project management. New at this stage: Project management. This makes visible: whether a committed date sits on free capacity – resource conflicts become visible across projects.
Stage 2Departments plan along3 rolesThis makes visible: project status as of the last feedback instead of the last status requestStage 2: Departments plan along. 3 roles with write access to the plan: Project management, Department head, Team member. New at this stage: Department head, Team member. This makes visible: project status as of the last feedback instead of the last status request.
Stage 3Suppliers plan along4 rolesThis makes visible: the subcontracted share – a reported delay feeds straight through into the overall planStage 3: Suppliers plan along. 4 roles with write access to the plan: Project management, Department head, Team member, Supplier. New at this stage: Supplier. This makes visible: the subcontracted share – a reported delay feeds straight through into the overall plan.

The stages describe how far the circle of co-planners has been opened – they are not product tiers. The four roles and their write access are taken from the three use-case pages linked above.

The decisive point

Why the order has a reason

Planning together without connected capacity is misleading. If a department writes into the plan while the system does not know the workload behind it, all you collect are commitments whose price nobody can see. That is why connecting dates and capacity comes first, not last.

Each stage widens the circle of people writing, not the range of functions. From one stage to the next no capability is added, only a role that answers for its own part of the plan – and with it a piece of the plan nobody has to ask about any more.

A different question is how many projects run alongside each other. Portfolio overview, prioritisation and competition for resources between projects belong to multi-project management. This page is about many roles on one plan, not many plans side by side.

None of the three stages ends with a finished plan. How planning turns into a running comparison with what actually happens is described under project planning and control.

91 %

named a tangle of spreadsheets and tools as their starting problem

56 %

had a live interface running within the first six months

How the pages fit together

Use case, product page, concept page: what is where

There are several pages for each of the three cases, and they answer different questions. Knowing the split gets you to the page that actually answers your question faster.

Use case – the sequence inside the project. Who writes what into the plan and when, in which order it happens, and what follows from a deviation. These are the three pages this overview links to – each describes one stage of the circle.
Product page – the scope of a module: which functions exist, what they look like in the system and what a demo shows. Stage three, for example, has the supplier access product page. If you want to know whether a function exists, that is the right page; if you want to know how the sequence in the project works, use the use-case page.
Concept page – the umbrella term together with its limits. Supplier management also covers selection, qualification, evaluation and the contractual relationship. Of all that, Linetrack covers the coordination of dates and tasks inside the running project, not the purchasing process – the concept page draws that line in detail.

In practice: for a question about functions (“Can the supplier attach files to a task?”) the product page is quicker. For a question about sequence (“What happens if they report a two-week delay?”) the use-case page. For a question about scope (“Isn't that purchasing's job?”) the concept page.

The industry pages cut across all of this. They sort the same questions by project structure rather than by use case – for example project management in mechanical and plant engineering, where all three stages usually meet, because the same designers and fitters work on several projects and substantial shares of the work are subcontracted.

Honestly bounded

Where the three use cases end

Three points are covered in detail on the child pages and should not be missing here, because they decide what to expect.

Collaborative does not mean everyone may change everything. Every write permission belongs to a role: project management answers for milestones, phases and the targets per department, the department head plans within those targets, team members report progress on their own tasks. And the decision about what happens in a conflict is still taken by a person in a meeting – the system supplies the figures, not the verdict.
Not a chat or social collaboration tool. There is no activity stream, no channels, no reactions. Communication stays in Microsoft Teams, in Outlook and in the meeting room; the planning stays in the system. Interfaces connect the systems that are in daily use.
Not a procurement or SRM system. Tendering, qualification, evaluation, ordering and framework agreements stay in the procurement system. Linetrack coordinates dates and tasks in the running project, not the awarding of contracts.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about the use cases

Still have questions?

Book a call with our team.

Which three use cases does Linetrack cover?

Scheduling and capacity planning in one system, collaborative project management, and integrating suppliers. The three build on each other: first dates and capacity sit in the same data set, then the departments maintain their own share, then the external partner joins with tasks of their own. Which tool gets replaced along the way – Excel, MS Project or Primavera – is answered by the tool comparisons.

In which order should the stages be introduced?

In the order they appear here. The rollout starts in project management: the median time between kick-off and the first self-planned project is 10 working days. After that it is extended into further departments step by step, while existing projects keep running. Suppliers come last, because their feedback only changes anything once someone internally can see its effect.

Do we have to use all three stages?

No. The stages build on each other in substance, but each works on its own. Companies that subcontract little stay with the first two permanently. If only project management works in the system, you still get schedules checked against resources – but the plan is then only as current as the last status request.

Can we start with stage 2 if capacity data is not maintained yet?

Technically yes, in practice rarely useful. A department head maintains their share because the workload view is their own planning tool – and that view comes out of the capacity data: hours committed from all projects, minus holidays, sickness and work in progress. Without capacity data, planning together is reduced to a reporting duty towards project management, and that is the first thing to be dropped under deadline pressure.

Who plans along – and who decides?

Depending on the stage, up to four roles write into the plan: project management, department head, team member and supplier, each with write access to their own area of responsibility. Decisions are separate from that: whatever a department head can solve within their area, they solve themselves; anything beyond it is escalated visibly to project management. The system shows the effect, the decision stays with people.

Where do the three use cases end?

In three places. Collaborative does not mean everyone may change everything – write permissions belong to roles. Linetrack is not a chat tool; communication stays in Teams and Outlook. And it is not a procurement or SRM system: tendering, evaluation and ordering stay in the procurement system, while Linetrack coordinates dates in the running project.

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