The Gateway Definitions configuration page has three main sections, Gateway Configuration, Gateway Controls and a Gateway Table.
The Gateway Configuration allows the Administrator to edit the name of the Gateway to suit organisational/project terminology e.g. Stage Gate. Other editable fields include a Gateway Code and an email address for a Gateway approver, this will be an approver email address of all Gateway approval requests e.g. be the central PMO, Program Manager etc. Note that the Gateways Configuration can support multiple reviewer emails if separated by a comma.
The second section of the page is the Gateway Controls, this section has five simple Yes/No radio button fields and a dropdown that contains Gateway Status’.
The ‘Enable Gateway’ toggle allows the Administrator to enable or disable Gateways in PM3.
The ‘Only admin can select Gateways Set’ toggle should be set depending on how your organisation operates. You may want only the Administrator to be able to select which Gateway set is to be used for all plans in PM3. This may be a standard Gateway Set, set by your organisation which can effectively be locked and only changed by the Administrator.
The ‘Only admin can close Gateway’ toggles whether only an admin can close gateways.
The ‘Dependencies between Gateway?’ toggle determines whether the dependencies between the Gateway milestones exist when a Gateway Set is added to/changed in a Milestone Plan.
The ‘Gateway Key set initially’ toggle enables the ‘Gateway’ flag of the Key Milestones when a Gateway Set is add to/changed in the Milestone Plan.
The ‘Gateway Statuses’ dropdown allows the Administrator to Add/Remove the status of the Gateway. These Gateway Statuses are the options that a Gateway approver can choose from when assessing whether a Gateway should be approved or not. The options will display as buttons in an email to the approver, who will reply by clicking the appropriate reply, shown below.
The third section of the page is the Gateway Table, this section allows Administrator is able to create new Gateways, create new Gateway sets, assign a Gateway to a Gateway set, edit any Gateways and delete Gateways.
Gateway Name – A short text field to name your Gateway e.g. Design Sign off
Gateway Milestone Name – The Gateway name that will be displayed in the Milestone Plan view
Gateway Suffix – The Gateway Suffix is essentially the abbreviation or code for the Gateway which will be displayed in the Milestone plan
Once a new Gateway has been created, the next step is to define the criteria needed to pass that Gateway. To do this, highlight the Gateway in the Gateway table and click the Define Criteria icon on the top ribbon of the screen.
This will take you into a Define Criteria screen:
This screen enables the Administrator to define the Gateway criteria Category, describe the Assessment Criteria e.g. all design documents must be completed and uploaded to Project SharePoint site and choose whether the criteria is Mandatory.
The top ribbon on the page now includes an icon to copy criteria from other Gateways, this is useful for when Gateways share common criteria’s.
The next column/s in the Gateway table will be the Gateway Sets created by the Administrator. As the screenshot above shows, we have created three Gateway Sets for example purposes, Small Project, Medium Project and Large/Complex Project.
To create a new Gateway Set, choose the icon in the page ribbon
Once you’ve created a new Gateway Set, this will then appear in the Gateway table at the bottom of the screen. You can now assign your Gateways created earlier to your Gateway Set using the tick box functionality. These Gateways will now appear in your milestone plan under the Gateway Set selected.
The Gateways created and respective criteria will be displayed in the Gateway menu under the Governance tab. Here the user will be able to see all the Gateways created in PM3, the name, description, whether it’s mandatory, a RAG status, attachments to upload as evidence of the Gateway and any supporting evidence in a text format..