Project Status Reporting Made Simple (with Templates & Tools)

Keeping all project stakeholders informed and engaged through the project lifecycle isn’t just a best practice — it’s a proven driver of project success. Studies show that teams that maintain strong stakeholder engagement see project success rates as high as 78% vs. only 40% where engagement and communication are lacking.

Regular project status reports — detailing progress, issues, and upcoming priorities — are critical to fostering this engagement, aligning teams, and keeping projects on course. Thorough reporting: 

• Improves communication & transparency. Effective project status reporting enhances communication by providing a clear channel for information flow. It ensures that all team members, stakeholders, and management have access to up-to-date project information, fostering transparency and reducing misunderstandings.
  
  
• Increases accountability across all project stakeholders. Regular status reporting encourages team members to take ownership of their tasks and deliverables. By clearly defining responsibilities and deadlines, you create a culture of accountability where individuals are more likely to meet their commitments and contribute to the project's success.
  
  
• Guides decision-making to keep projects on course. Project status reports provide accurate and timely data, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions. This real-time information ensures the project stays on track and aligned with its goals by allowing for quick adjustments to project strategy, resource allocation, and priorities.
  
  
• Allows for early risk assessment & troubleshooting. By consistently tracking and reporting on project progress, potential issues and risks can be identified early. This proactive approach allows the team to implement mitigation strategies before problems escalate, reducing the impact on project timelines and budgets.
  
  
• Ensures alignment through the whole project lifecycle. Regular status updates keep all stakeholders informed and engaged in the project's progress. This ongoing communication ensures that project goals remain aligned with stakeholder expectations, fostering trust and support throughout the project lifecycle.

Several types of project reports assist here: daily and weekly updates, monthly and quarterly status reports, executive project status reports, and project closure reports. 

This guide shows you how to utilize each type of report to reap these benefits and see greater project outcomes. It includes: 

• What each report covers & how to use them 
• How to build reports (steps & best practices) 
• Free project report templates to get you started 
• Background on our project status reporting tool, Workamajig, & how it automates this reporting

5 Types of Project Status Reports 

While successful projects require engagement from all stakeholders, different stakeholders need different levels of detail, at different intervals. A one-size-fits-all approach to reporting rarely works. 

Strategic project teams follow a tiered system — granular updates for immediate team coordination, broader summaries for management oversight, and strategic reviews for executive decision-making. 

Daily Updates 

Daily status reports are concise updates typically sent to direct supervisors and project team members. They outline:

• Completed work
• Ongoing tasks
• Issues encountered

The purpose of these reports is twofold: to showcase productivity and progress, and to highlight any issues requiring discussion. This regular snapshot keeps peers and supervisors informed while enabling quick collaboration and problem-solving.

Weekly Project Status Reports 

Weekly status reports offer a broader overview of project progress and allow managers to stay informed about various ongoing projects and campaigns. 

These reports work well for cross-functional teams or when managing multiple projects simultaneously, providing more context than daily updates while being more frequent than monthly summaries.

The typical format includes:

• Last week’s accomplishments
• This week’s goals
• Challenges (issues, blockers, dependencies)

Monthly Status Reports 

Monthly status reports provide a mid-level view that's perfect for keeping upper management in the loop without overwhelming them with daily details. These reports focus on the bigger picture — what's been accomplished, how it ties to larger agency goals, and whether projects are on track.

The typical format includes:

• Major milestones reached
• Key accomplishments that support business objectives
• Budget and timeline status
• Significant challenges or risks

Monthly reports strike the right balance for busy executives who need to understand project value and progress but don't have time for weekly updates.

Quarterly Status Reports 

Quarterly status reports offer the highest-level strategic view, typically presented to agency owners, partners, and senior leadership. These comprehensive reviews align with fiscal quarters and focus on long-term trends, overall project health, and strategic alignment with agency goals.

The typical format includes:

• Financial summaries and budget performance
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) and trend analysis
• Significant milestones achieved across the quarter
• Strategic risk assessments and mitigation plans
• Forecasts and planning for the upcoming quarter

Quarterly reports are especially valuable for long-term client relationships and retainer work, as they provide opportunities to reassess project strategies, reallocate resources, and ensure continued alignment with client priorities.

Executive Project Status Reports

Executive project status reports are high-level summaries designed to give agency leadership a quick, comprehensive overview of project health and progress. These reports focus on strategic elements like overall performance, key milestones, budget status, major risks, and critical decisions requiring leadership attention.

Executive reports often include visual elements like dashboards or scorecards to present complex information at a glance. They emphasize project alignment with agency goals, potential impacts on client relationships, and any significant changes or challenges that could affect project success.

Project Closure Reports 

Project closure reports mark the formal conclusion of a project, serving as a comprehensive summary of the entire project lifecycle. These reports typically include:

• Overview of the project's objectives
• Final project deliverables
• Budget analysis
• Timeline adherence
• Overall performance against initial goals
• Achievements and lessons learned
• Unresolved issues
• Recommendations for future projects

By documenting the project's journey from inception to completion, these reports provide valuable insights for future projects and help evaluate overall success. They also play a crucial role in formally releasing project resources, celebrating wins, and ensuring all contractual obligations are met before officially closing the project.

How to Write a Project Status Report 

The most efficient way to manage project status reporting is to create templates for each report type (based on the frameworks outlined above) and keep them on hand for project managers to quickly complete and send to relevant parties.

Key Elements of Project Status Reports 

While the specific content varies by report type and audience, the most effective status reports include these core elements:

• Project Info & Objectives — this is a brief overview including project name, key stakeholders, and primary goals. It sets context, especially for reports covering longer timeframes.
• Current Task/Project Status — this is the heart of any status report, covering what's been accomplished, what's in progress, and how it compares to the original plan.
• Timeline & Project Milestones — this gives a visual representation of progress against the planned timeline, highlighting key deadlines and achievements.
• Issues & Risk Assessment — this outlines current challenges, potential project risks, and mitigation strategies. Be transparent about problems while focusing on solutions.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) — these are the relevant metrics that show project health (e.g., budget adherence, resource utilization, quality measures).
• Next Steps & Action Items — this is a forward-looking section outlining upcoming tasks and specific actions required from team members or stakeholders.

Best Practices for Writing Reports 

• Keep it concise and relevant. Focus on essential information that drives decisions or actions. Avoid unnecessary details; concentrate on key updates, progress, and issues that are most relevant to the project's current state and goals.
• Use visuals. Charts, graphs, and dashboards make complex data digestible and help stakeholders quickly grasp project health.
• Tailor content to your audience. Executives need high-level summaries while team members require more operational detail. Adjust depth and focus accordingly.
• Maintain consistent formatting. Following a familiar structure helps stakeholders quickly find information and track changes over time.
• Focus on actionable insights. Highlight areas requiring attention, decisions, or resources rather than just presenting data.
• Provide context for changes. When reporting deviations from project plans, explain the reasons to help stakeholders make informed decisions.
• Use clear, jargon-free language. Write for your least technical audience to ensure everyone can actually understand the updates.
• Establish regular schedules. Consistent timing sets expectations and maintains project momentum.

Special Considerations for Executive Status Reports 

Executive reports require extra attention since agency leadership time is limited and decisions carry higher stakes.

• Focus on high-level information. Prioritize top-level insights and KPIs while avoiding operational details — executives need overall project health, not task-level minutiae.
• Highlight critical issues & decision points. Clearly identify challenges requiring executive attention and outline crucial decisions needed with context for swift decision-making.
• Provide strategic insights & recommendations. Present well-thought-out recommendations and link project progress to broader agency goals and client value.
• Use an Executive Summary Format. Structure these reports as one-page overviews capturing the most critical information at a glance — use bullet points, concise paragraphs, and visual aids for efficient scanning.

Free Project Status Report Templates 

Below are free templates for the:

• Daily Status Report 
• Monthly Status Report 
• Executive Project Status Report 
• Project Closure Report 

We provide download links below each template. Once you open the download links, go to “File” → “Make a copy” to save your own editable version.

Daily Status Report Template 

Click here to download

Monthly Status Report Template

Click here to download

Executive Project Status Report Template 

Click here to download

Project Closure Report Template 

Click to download

Workamajig Project Status Reporting Tools 

While manual status reporting tacks on a time-consuming project activity, Workamajig automates this tedious task through a combination of customizable reporting tools and real-time project monitoring dashboards that you can give all project stakeholders 24/7 access to.

Workamajig Project Status Reports & Automated Scheduling Tools 

Let’s talk first about our project status reporting tools. 

Workamajig has a variety of out-of-the-box and custom reporting tools that allow you to generate status-style reports at various frequencies and with different levels of detail.

• Project Status Summary — these are Workamajig's main status reports that track project and task status, and estimated and actual hours. You can customize report date ranges to create daily, weekly, or monthly status updates for different stakeholder groups.
• Project Tasks Report — these are detailed lists of open and completed tasks organized by assignee, due date, or status. Perfect for daily team updates or weekly progress tracking across multiple projects.
• Project Timeline Report — these export visual project schedules and Gantt chart data that work perfectly for quarterly strategic reviews or executive presentations requiring timeline overviews.
• Project Recap Analysis — these are comprehensive performance reports that track budget hours vs. actual hours and baseline dates vs. actual completion dates, ideal for project closure documentation and identifying areas for improvement.

Our custom reporting tools let you create and save personalized report formats to match your specific needs. You can build executive-style summaries with high-level KPIs or detailed operational reports tailored to your agency's workflow.

Even more convenient? You can schedule these reports to send to the right people at the right times — automatically. This takes the burden of reporting off project managers while ensuring all project stakeholders get the info they need. Nobody's left wondering about project status. 

Note: You can also export reports as PDF or Excel files and email project status updates directly from Workamajig to anyone part of the project.

Workamajig Real-Time Project Monitoring Dashboard 

Most convenient of all is our real-time project monitoring dashboard. This dashboard provides the current status of any and all active projects; project managers can choose who has access (internal teams or external stakeholders) so they can track progress at any time. 

Our dashboard displays all active projects with clear status breakdowns, including timeline and financial health, current stage, actual hours, and completion percentage. 

We also provide visually-friendly color-coded icons that tell you project health at a glance — green icons mean projects are on course, yellow indicates projects are at risk of overruns, and red shows projects that have already exceeded planned timelines or budgets. 

Our system also sends alerts about at-risk projects so managers are notified of potential delays or budget overruns before they have real impacts on projects. This gives managers time to identify solutions and course-correct while there's still an opportunity to get back on track. 

You can also customize this dashboard to suit your projects and preferences best:

• Assign colors to projects and their phases so anybody can quickly see their progress
• Change the dashboard view (from Gantt charts to a calendar or list view)
• Personalize which project details and columns are displayed — you can even create custom columns and adjust sorting preferences to fine-tune the dashboard to your exact requirements

Then, when users want more specific details on a project, they can easily click to view the most current updates. Workamajig provides an automated Daily Feed within each project that shows the latest progress, task completions, team comments, file uploads, and other real-time activity.

Portals for 24/7 External Stakeholder Access 

Workamajig Portals let you create dedicated hubs for the external parties you work with (vendors or clients) and bring them directly into project workflows without compromising security or overwhelming them with irrelevant details.

You set roles and permissions when inviting users, so external parties can hop into Workamajig anytime and only see what's relevant to them. For example, you can give clients access to check project status, join feedback discussions, and submit new requests — all without viewing sensitive internal information.

Plus, there are no additional fees for these portals!

Improve Project Management with Workamajig 

While effective project status reporting is critical for project success, the reporting process shouldn't consume hours of your team’s time each week and distract from project activities. 

Workamajig automates reporting to keep everybody informed, projects on track, and teams focused. From automated report scheduling to real-time dashboards and client portals, project management software eliminates the manual work while improving communication and accountability across all stakeholders.

Curious how Workamajig saves time and keeps everybody in the loop? Request a free demo to see how our project status reporting tools do the heavy lifting for you!

Originally published January 28, 2025.