Interface & command palette

TruePPM’s v2 interface is a single, calm workspace shell built on the navy/sage design system. Everything you need to orient — where you are, what’s healthy, what to do next — lives in one top bar, and a keyboard-first command palette gets you anywhere without reaching for the mouse.

The unified app-shell bar

The top of every project and program is a single bar (it merges what used to be two stacked rows). Left to right it carries:

Adaptive identity — a breadcrumb of your current program / project. It shows in the bar only when the left rail is collapsed or you’re on a phone, so wayfinding is never duplicated.
Project switcher — a compact, searchable dropdown at the left edge of the view tabs that lets you jump between the projects you’re a member of without leaving the project view. Selecting a project keeps you on the same view you were looking at (Schedule stays on Schedule), and it’s fully keyboard- and screen-reader accessible. On a project, it shows the current project’s name (or, when you belong to just one, plain non-clickable wayfinding). Off a project — on My Work, Notifications, or a listing page — the same control becomes a “Jump to project…” picker so any project you’re a member of is one hop away from anywhere; it’s hidden only when you belong to no projects at all.
View tabs — the grouped, methodology-adaptive navigation (below). The strip scrolls horizontally on narrow screens rather than dropping or clipping labels.
The health cluster — one bordered context read-out (below).
Context-aware ”+ New” — a create menu whose default action matches where you are (a new task on the board, a new risk on the risk register, and so on).
Presence, run status, notifications, and your account menu — including the Light / Dark / Auto theme toggle, which lives only here.

Background task runs

A small badge in the TopBar’s right cluster — role="status", reading “N background operation(s) running” — appears only while at least one task is in flight (a schedule recalculation, an import, an export job); it disappears the moment the count returns to zero, so the calm shell stays quiet rather than carrying a permanently-visible, empty run indicator. A spinner and a live count sit inside it.

The badge is driven by real-time WebSocket events (task_run_started, task_run_progress, task_run_completed, task_run_failed, task_run_cancelled) landing in a small client-side store — it does not poll. Three read APIs back the same underlying task-run records at different scopes:

Endpoint	Scope
`GET /api/v1/task-runs/{id}/`	A single run by id, from anywhere.
`GET /api/v1/task-runs/active/`	Every pending/running run across the projects you belong to — the personal in-flight view this badge summarizes into one count. Not a PMO rollup.
`GET /api/v1/projects/{project_id}/task-runs/`	A project’s own run history; `POST .../task-runs/{id}/cancel/` (project Admin+) requests cancellation of one still in flight.
`GET /api/v1/projects/{project_id}/scheduler-runs/`	The scheduler-recalculation subset of a project’s run history, filterable by status and date range — the audit trail behind the Schedule view’s “last recalculated” indicator.

The command palette (⌘K)

Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows/Linux) anywhere to open the command palette. It is the fastest path to:

Jump to any view — “Go to Board”, “Go to Schedule”, including views you’ve hidden from the tab bar.
Navigate between your projects and programs — resolve any project or program by name from anywhere, not just your current one.
Pick up where you left off — a Recent group lists the projects you’ve most recently opened (with their program and a “2h ago” recency hint) the moment you open the palette, before you type a thing.
Find people — start typing a name to search across your teammates and jump to them.
Find any work item anywhere — type a name to search across every program and project you belong to, without opening each one first. Results arrive in Epics, Stories, Milestones, and Tasks in all projects groups, each carrying a program ▸ project breadcrumb (never a WBS code): pick one to jump to it in the schedule, or a backlog item to land on its program backlog. Plain tasks and milestones are included by default, so a waterfall project with no epics or stories is fully searchable. The search is access-scoped on the server — you only ever see work you already have access to.
Open a task — on a project, type to find a task and open it inline. When the project has an active sprint, that sprint’s tasks get their own Current sprint tasks group with room for more results, so a search scoped to the sprint you’re working in isn’t cut short.
Filter tasks by label — on a project, type a label’s name and a Labels group offers it with its color swatch and how many tasks carry it. Pick one to land on the Board with that label filter already applied, so “show me everything tagged Rework” is two keystrokes rather than a hunt through the filter menu. Labels belong to a project, so the group offers the current project’s labels.
Jump to a settings section — start typing and a Settings group surfaces the exact section you want (type “smtp” for Email & SMTP, “oidc” for Single sign-on, “tokens” for your personal API tokens). Workspace sections appear for workspace admins; your personal settings appear for everyone, each labeled Workspace or Personal so same-named sections stay clear. Pick one to land right on it.
Run actions in context.

Type to filter; arrow keys move; Enter activates; Escape closes. The palette is a pop surface with a focus trap, so keyboard and screen-reader users get the same reach as a pointer.

Filtering the settings rail

Once you’re inside settings, the left navigation rail has a filter box at the top. Type to narrow the section list — it matches synonyms as well as labels, so “smtp” finds Email & SMTP and “oidc” finds Single sign-on — and press Enter to jump to the first match. Clearing it (the ✕, or Escape) restores the full rail. The filter is on the desktop rail; on a phone the settings header keeps its Jump to section menu.

The methodology-adaptive context bar

The health cluster is a single bordered unit whose three segments adapt to the project’s methodology, so you always see the right three signals:

Agile — active Sprint · Points (or item count) · Velocity
Waterfall — Forecast (P80) · At-risk · Critical
Hybrid — Sprint · Forecast · Critical

Slots are fixed: a zero or empty segment reads calmly (“0 critical”, ”—”, “No active sprint”) rather than vanishing, so the bar never reflows. At-risk and critical counts above zero open a task popover; a forecast date is neutral (informational, not a risk colour); and team-private velocity shows a “kept to the team” wall rather than a number when the team’s privacy policy withholds it.

Grouped, methodology-adaptive view tabs

The view tabs are grouped into PLAN · TRACK · PEOPLE so related surfaces sit together, and the set adapts to methodology — an agile project doesn’t show the Gantt-centric tabs a waterfall project leads with, and vice-versa. On agile and hybrid projects a Deliver group co-locates the sprint circuit (Backlog → Sprints → Board). Overview always leads and Settings always trails. You can further tailor the bar with Customize views (hide the tabs you don’t use); hidden views stay reachable from the command palette.

Customize views also carries an opt-in to additionally surface the Schedule under Deliver, for hybrid teams who want the plan sitting next to the sprint cadence. It is off by default — Schedule stays in Plan for everyone who doesn’t opt in — and it is purely a placement of the nav tab: it never changes your rollups, reports, or exports, and it only ever tailors your own view, not a teammate’s. See View focus for the role-based lens that re-orders and re-points these surfaces for you.

Pinned projects and programs

Pin the projects and programs you return to daily and they collect in a Pinned group at the top of the sidebar, so the handful you actually work on are one click away regardless of how many you can see.

Pin from any of these:

the pin in the Project Overview header, beside the project’s actions;
the pin beside a program’s name on its Overview;
the pin in the top corner of a program card on the Programs directory;
the project rows on a program’s Projects tab;
the project and program rows in the sidebar’s Browse switcher;
the command palette — Cmd+K (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) opens on your pins, and typing a name offers Pin and Unpin as commands. Alt+P pins or unpins the highlighted row without closing the palette.

Select the pin again to unpin. Every confirmation carries Undo for a few seconds, so nothing here is a one-way door.

On a touch device the pin is always visible — you do not need to hover to find it. On a mouse, an unpinned row reveals its pin as you hover, and keyboard focus reveals it too.

Where pinned items appear

On the Programs directory, pins are lifted into their own Pinned group above Everything else. Each heading names its count and confirms that whichever sort you chose still applies inside the group — pinning changes the grouping, never the sort. Turn the Pinned first checkbox off for one flat list in pure sort order, with pinned cards keeping their mark. Searching flattens the groups, so a pin never outranks a better text match.

A newly pinned card stays where it is rather than jumping to the top under your cursor. It moves into the Pinned group the next time you open the page, or straight away if you choose Re-sort now in the confirmation.

A pin is private to you. It is a personal shortcut, not a signal about the project: pinning grants no access, changes nothing for anyone else, and no screen, export, or API response tells another person what you have pinned or how many people pinned a given project. Teammates cannot see your pins, and you cannot see theirs.

You can pin up to 100 items. Past that, unpin something before adding another — the app says so plainly rather than silently dropping the new pin.

Role-based landing

Opening a project lands you on the view that matches your View focus lens — a PM lands on the Schedule, a Scrum Master on the Board, and the neutral default lands on the Overview. The lens is presentation only: it never changes your permissions or what anyone else sees.

Light, Dark, and Auto

The whole interface supports Light, Dark, and Auto themes via a single toggle in your account menu. Chrome and content adapt together — there is never a dark sidebar stranded on a light app.

When your session expires

If your session expires while you’re working — a timed-out token, a signed-out tab left open — TruePPM shows a “Your session expired” prompt rather than silently dropping you onto the login screen with no explanation. From there you can:

Sign in to re-authenticate immediately, or
Continue viewing (read-only) to keep looking at whatever the app already has loaded in this tab — the schedule, a board, a report — without losing your place. This dismisses the blocking prompt in favor of a slim banner pinned to the top of the screen that stays visible while you browse.

Read-only mode never fetches new data (nothing more can load until you sign in again) and never sends writes: if you try to save, complete, or otherwise change anything while read-only, TruePPM blocks the attempt before it reaches the server and brings the sign-in prompt back rather than failing silently. Sign in again from either the original prompt or the persistent banner to resume normal work.