Automatic Progress Reports

Stop writing status reports. Start sharing progress automatically.

GoalPath's Automatic Progress Reports turn your team's actual work—completed items, blockers, velocity changes—into clear, consistent weekly narratives for leadership. No extra reporting. No status meetings. Just trustworthy updates that write themselves.

How It Works

The Two-Tier System

Progress reports use a hierarchical approach that mirrors how organizations think about work:

1. Milestone Summaries (Foundation Layer)

Every Sunday evening (10pm UTC), GoalPath analyzes each active milestone and generates a focused summary:

• What was delivered - Completed items with enough context for stakeholders to understand value
• Active blockers - Only mentioned if significant (no noise)
• One actionable insight - What to focus on next week

These summaries are synthesized from:

• Completed work items (with descriptions and task details)
• Activity history (who did what when)
• Unresolved highlights flagged by your team
• Current in-progress work
• Upcoming items in execution order
• Past 4 weeks of context for pattern recognition

2. Project Progress Reports (Executive Layer)

All milestone summaries roll up into a single, coherent project-level progress report structured for leadership:

Overview (1 paragraph)

• What changed this week
• Current delivery situation: going well / steady / facing challenges
• One choice or consideration for leadership (optional, only when relevant)
• Framed for external stakeholder understanding

Metrics (factual data)

• Active blockers (highlighted when > 0)
• Items completed this week
• Work in progress (items and milestones at end of week)
• Velocity (story points per week, when available)
• Ordered by stakeholder priority, no interpretation or commentary

Milestone Progress (synthesis, not paste)

• Each milestone gets 1-2 sentences maximum
• Focus on what changed since last week
• Recommendations consolidated (not repeated per milestone)

Upcoming Milestones Forecast (current week only)

• Data-driven delivery forecasts for in-progress and next planned milestones
• Best case, expected, and risk-adjusted completion dates
• Grouped by team with clear execution order
• Active blockers highlighted per milestone
• Concept milestones marked (less reliable estimates)
• Based on your team's actual velocity data, not guesswork

Looking Ahead (1 paragraph)

• What to watch next week
• Known dependencies or time constraints
• Natural progression from current work
• Upcoming holidays that might affect velocity
• Purely informational - no recommendations or action items

Length: 400-600 words—concise enough for busy executives to scan in 2-3 minutes, detailed enough to actually understand what's happening.

Upcoming Milestones Forecast: Data-Driven Delivery Dates

A key part of progress reports is the Upcoming Milestones Forecast table, which appears automatically in current week reports (not historical backfills).

Forecasts are powered by GoalPath's velocity tracking system, which continuously measures your team's actual delivery speed and uses that data to predict realistic completion dates.

How It Works

The forecast table shows delivery predictions for:

• All in-progress milestones (currently being worked on)
• Next 2 planned milestones per team (what's coming up)

For each milestone, you see:

1. Milestone - With concept indicator if forecasts are less reliable
2. Expected - Most likely completion date based on current velocity
3. Best case - Earliest possible completion if everything goes perfectly
4. Risk-adjusted - Latest date accounting for typical delays
5. Notes - Important context (like "Concept milestone" or active blocker counts)

Teams appear as section headings above their milestones (e.g., "### Backend"), not as a column in the table. Blocker counts are appended to the Notes column when present (e.g., "In Progress — 2 blockers").

Date Format: All dates shown as YYYY-WNN (ISO week format), e.g., 2025-W14 = Week 14 of 2025

The Math Behind Forecasts

Forecasts aren't guesses—they're calculated from your team's actual execution data:

• Velocity tracking: Story points completed per week per developer
• Historical patterns: How accurate past estimates have been
• Current capacity: Who's actively working on what
• Execution order: Dependencies and planned sequencing
• Standard deviation: Variability in your team's delivery times

The system pre-calculates forecasts weekly and stores them, so reports show consistent dates throughout the week. This prevents "date jumping" where forecasts change daily.

Blocker Detection

The "Blockers" column counts items within each milestone that have active, unresolved highlights. This surfaces:

• Technical blockers (API issues, infrastructure problems)
• Dependency blockers (waiting on another team)
• Decision blockers (need leadership input)
• Risk highlights (potential issues flagged by team)

When a milestone shows "2 blockers," stakeholders can immediately see which work streams need attention.

Team Grouping

For projects with teams enabled, the forecast table groups milestones by team alphabetically, then shows them in execution order within each team. This makes it easy to see:

• Which teams have heavy upcoming workloads
• Where blockers are concentrated
• How work is distributed across the organization

For single-team or solo projects, the table simply lists all milestones in execution order.

When Forecasts Appear

Current Week Reports Only: The forecast table only appears in reports for the current week. Historical reports don't include forecasts because they're backward-looking—forecasts are about what's ahead, not what already happened.

If you manually generate a report mid-week, it will include the forecast. But if you backfill last week's report, no forecast appears.

Example Forecast Table

Teams appear as section headings above their milestones (e.g., "### Backend" followed by that team's rows).

This table immediately shows stakeholders:

• Frontend will likely finish Dashboard Redesign this week or next
• Payment Integration has 2 blockers that need attention
• Mobile Responsiveness is still in concept phase (less certainty)
• Backend has heavier upcoming workload (Authentication → Payment)

The Trust Factor: Evidence, Not Opinion

Traditional status reports have a fundamental problem: they're based on what people say is happening, not what's actually happening.

GoalPath's progress reports are different:

When leadership asks "what's happening with Project X?", they get a factual, consistent narrative with data-driven delivery forecasts—not political spin or someone's best guess.

You Stay in Control

Critical principle: The AI drafts. You decide.

Every report is fully editable before it's shared:

• AI missed context? Add it.
• Tone not quite right? Adjust it.
• Want to emphasize something? Do it.

All edits are tracked with a humanEdited flag and activity logs, so there's always a clear record of what was AI-generated vs. human-refined.

Getting Started

Progress reports are enabled by default for all projects. Your first report generates automatically on Sunday evening—no setup required. It's ready for you Monday morning.

Configuring Your First Report

Before your first report generates, optionally customize settings in Project Settings → Automation:

• Language: Choose from English, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, French, Spanish, Italian
• Auto-send email: Toggle whether reports email automatically or require manual review
• Default recipients: Add team members and stakeholders who should receive reports

These are optional—reports work perfectly with default settings (English, manual review, no auto-send).

Configuration Options

Language Settings

GoalPath supports 8 languages with consistent, proper terminology:

• English (default)
• Swedish
• Danish
• Norwegian
• German
• French
• Spanish
• Italian

Reports are generated entirely in your chosen language—not just translated, but written naturally from scratch. This includes the forecast table with proper date formats and terminology.

Email Settings

Auto-send Email

• On: Reports automatically email to default recipients after generation
• Off: Reports generate as drafts; you manually review and send

Default Recipients

• Add any email address (team members or external stakeholders)
• Recipients are stored as name <email@domain.com> format
• Each recipient receives the same report via email
• Reports are also always available in the GoalPath dashboard

Custom Prompts (Advanced)

For teams with specific communication preferences, you can customize the AI prompts. However, the structural format is fixed:

Fixed Structure (Cannot Change):

1. Overview section (1 paragraph executive summary)
2. Metrics section (factual list: blockers, completions, WIP, velocity)
3. Milestone Progress section (1-2 sentences per milestone)
4. Upcoming Milestones Forecast table (current week only, data-driven)
5. Looking Ahead section (1 paragraph, informational only)

What You Can Customize:

Custom Milestone Summary Prompt

• Adjust tone (more technical vs. business-focused)
• Add company-specific terminology
• Emphasize particular types of information

Custom Project Update Prompt

• Change emphasis within sections
• Adjust tone for different stakeholder types
• Add specific guidance about what to highlight
• Modify language style preferences

What You Cannot Customize:

• Section order or structure
• Forecast table format or logic
• Metrics selection or ordering
• Multi-language terminology (uses system-defined translations)

Real Benefits by Role

For Individual Contributors

✅ No status report homework - Your completed work speaks for itself ✅ Credit where credit is due - Items you finish show up with full context ✅ Blockers reach leadership - Highlights you flag get automatic visibility ✅ Focus on building - Less time explaining, more time creating

For Team Leads and Project Managers

✅ Reclaim 3-5 hours weekly - No more manual status writeups or slide decks ✅ Consistent communication - Same structure, same quality, every week ✅ Historical patterns visible - See trends over months: recurring issues? velocity changes? ✅ Onboard stakeholders instantly - Historical updates create perfect context

For Executives and Leadership

✅ Signal over noise - One concise update per project, per week
✅ Data-driven forecasts - See 3-point delivery estimates (best/expected/risk-adjusted) for all upcoming work
✅ Blocker visibility - Know exactly which milestones have active blockers before they become critical
✅ Earlier risk detection - Issues surface in writing with evidence before they're critical
✅ No status meetings needed - Read asynchronously, ask questions in context
✅ Evidence-based decisions - Grounded in real velocity data, not optimistic spin
✅ Organizational memory - Auditable record of what happened and when

For External Stakeholders (VCs, Investors, Board)

✅ Consistent communication - Professional, structured updates they can rely on
✅ Delivery forecasts - See realistic completion dates with confidence ranges, not just "on track"
✅ Portfolio visibility - If they're on multiple companies' updates, they see clear comparisons
✅ Authentic progress tracking - Evidence-based reporting builds trust
✅ Forward-friendly - Clean format makes it easy to share with their networks

Best Practices

Add External Stakeholders as Recipients

Don't just use progress reports for internal communication. Add VCs, investors, advisors, and board members as recipients.

Why this matters:

• Builds trust: Consistent, evidence-based communication with data-driven forecasts
• Reduces update requests: They get information proactively
• Professional signal: Shows you're a disciplined, transparent team

When a new investor, board member, or executive joins, backfill the last 8-12 weeks of reports and add them to ongoing recipients. This creates instant context without scheduling a "catch-up meeting."

Common Questions

Does this replace all status communication?

No, but it significantly reduces it. You still might have:

• Quick Slack updates for urgent issues
• Monthly or quarterly deep-dive reviews
• One-on-one conversations about career/performance

But it eliminates:

• Weekly status meetings where people read Jira tickets
• Manual status report writeups
• "What's happening with X?" emails
• Slide decks for routine progress updates

What if we don't use story points?

Progress reports don't require story points—they work with item completion. Story points are used for velocity-based forecasting when available, but reports work perfectly without them.

If you track items as Done/Not Done, reports work perfectly. The forecast table will still show planned dates based on execution order.

What happens if there's no activity?

If a milestone has zero activity and zero blockers, the summary says so clearly:

"No development activity this week."

If there's no activity but there are blockers, they're formatted clearly:

"No development activity this week.

2 active blockers:

1. API rate limit blocking user import
2. Design review pending for checkout flow"

No fake progress. No spin.

What if we have multiple teams?

Progress reports work great for multi-team projects:

• Each team's velocity is tracked independently
• Milestones can be team-specific or cross-team
• Reports synthesize all team activity into one coherent narrative
• The forecast table groups milestones by team alphabetically

Leadership gets a single report showing how all teams contribute to project progress, with clear team-based forecasts.