Understanding Key Project Terms in Pacer

 

Goal

To clearly understand the core terminology used in Pacer so you can confidently build, manage, and execute projects across multiple locations and teams.

Plan availability: Projects, Baselines, Milestones, Project Coaches, and Project Management are available on Jog, Run, and Sprint. Task Dependencies (Task Pre-Requisites/Dependencies) are available on Run and Sprint only.

How Pacer Uses These Terms

Project

A Project is a deliverable that needs to happen across multiple locations or teams in your organization.

The project name is universal and appears the same on every location’s dashboard. It describes what is being accomplished at an organizational level — not at a single property.

For example, you would name a project “New Hotel Opening”, not “Hotel B Opening,” because the same project will appear on Hotel A, Hotel B, and Hotel C dashboards.

Baseline

A Baseline is a template of tasks that lives inside a project.

A project can contain multiple baselines. When sending a project to a location, admins can choose one or multiple baselines to include.

Think of it like this:

• The Project is the manila folder.
• The Baselines are the pieces of paper inside the folder.

Task owners at the location level only see the project and their assigned tasks. Admins build the project behind the scenes by combining one or more baselines.

Milestones

Milestones are tasks that are marked as especially important.

If a milestone is missed, it can impact the project’s Zero Date (the anchor date that drives the timeline of the project).

Not every task needs to be a milestone — only those that are critical to keeping the project on track.

Task Dependencies

Task Dependencies allow you to set prerequisites between tasks.

• You can set up tasks in a one-to-one sequence (Task A → Task B → Task C).
• You can have multiple tasks feeding into one final task.
• You cannot have one task serve as a prerequisite for multiple different downstream tasks.

Note: Dependencies help keep work in the right order and protect your timeline, but they are not available on Jog plans.

Project Implementation Manager

The Project Implementation Manager is visible only to Admins, Owners, and Moderators.

This field identifies who at the organizational level is responsible for ensuring the project is executed across the entire portfolio.

Communities

Communities are how Pacer controls which tasks each user can access.

An Admin or Owner can create and manage communities by navigating to Admin Menu > Task Config > Communities. When creating a task, you must associate it with a community — this field is required.

When setting up a user profile, you can assign them to one or more communities. Users will then have access to all tasks associated with their assigned communities.

Project Coach

The Project Coach is a location-level contact.

This person helps answer task-related questions and acts as the liaison between corporate and the property-level team.

Disciplines

Disciplines are parent categories that group departments together.

For example:

• Discipline: Sales & Marketing
• Departments under it: Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Business Development, Guest Experience

Disciplines help organize work at a higher level across teams and departments.

How To Apply This in Pacer

1. Create a Project to represent the organization-wide deliverable.
2. Add one or more Baselines to structure the required tasks.
3. Mark critical tasks as Milestones.
4. Configure Task Dependencies (if on Run or Sprint) to control task order.
5. Assign a Project Implementation Manager at the portfolio level for accountability.
6. Assign a Project Coach at each location to support task completion.
7. Organize work using Disciplines and Departments for clarity and reporting.

Tip: When naming projects, use organization-wide language. If the name only makes sense for one location, it likely should not be a portfolio-level project.