What should be included in a project status report?

A project status report includes the project name, reporting period and owner; an overall status (usually Green, Amber or Red) with a two-sentence summary; status by area such as schedule, budget, scope, resources and risks; what was done this period; what's planned next; the top risks and issues with owners; and any decisions needed from the reader, with a date.

How do you write a project status report?

Pull this period's facts from your project tracker first: finished tasks, slipped dates, budget spent and open risks. Rate each area Green, Amber or Red against agreed definitions, then set the overall status. Write the two-sentence summary last, so it reflects everything below it, and end with any decision you need, naming who should make it and by when.

What is RAG status in project management?

RAG stands for Red, Amber, Green, a traffic-light rating for how on track a project or part of a project is. Green means on plan; Amber means at risk but recoverable with the current team's actions; Red means off plan and needs a decision or help from above. Some teams add Blue for completed work, known as BRAG.

How often should you send a project status report?

Weekly for active projects with a delivery date in the next few months, and monthly for long programs or for senior stakeholders who only need the trend. Send it on the same day each period so readers know when to expect it. Send an extra update straight away whenever the overall status turns Red.

What is the difference between a project status report and a project tracker?

A project tracker is the working spreadsheet the team updates task by task: owners, due dates, status and percent complete. A project status report is a one-page summary written from the tracker for people outside the team, such as sponsors, clients or leadership. The tracker answers what each task is doing; the status report answers whether the project is on track and what the reader needs to do.

Can ChatGPT write a project status report?

Yes. Paste your tracker rows or notes into ChatGPT and it can draft a status report with a summary, done and next lists, and a risk table. You supply the judgment calls, such as the RAG ratings and the decision you need. To get a formatted one-page document or a single status slide in your brand, use a design tool such as Playyy, which writes and lays out the report in one step.

What is a simple project status report template?

The simplest version has four lines: overall status with a color, what got done, what's next, and what's blocked or needs a decision. It fits in an email or a chat message and suits small internal projects. Add status by area and a risk table once a project has a budget, a sponsor or several teams.

Project Status Report Template: Weekly and Monthly

A project status report tells the people who aren't in the daily work, such as sponsors, clients and leadership, whether the project is on track, what changed this period, and what they need to decide. It fits on one page and gets read in two minutes. Below is a project status report template for weekly and monthly updates, how to set RAG status honestly, and a filled-in example as both a document and a single slide.

Direct answer. A project status report template has five blocks: a header with an overall Green, Amber or Red status and a two-sentence summary; status by area (schedule, budget, scope, resources, risks); done this period and planned next; a risks and issues table with owners; and decisions needed, with a date.

The Project Status Report Template

Copy this skeleton into a doc or an email. Every block answers a question a stakeholder will ask if it's missing.

PROJECT STATUS REPORT: [Project]
Period: [Week of / Month]   PM: [Name]   Sponsor: [Name]

OVERALL STATUS: [Green / Amber / Red]
Summary: [Two sentences: where we stand, the one thing to know]

STATUS BY AREA
Schedule   [G/A/R]  [Milestone dates vs. baseline]
Budget     [G/A/R]  [Spent to date vs. plan]
Scope      [G/A/R]  [Change requests this period]
Resources  [G/A/R]  [People and vendors available]
Risks      [G/A/R]  [Top risk and its trend]

DONE THIS PERIOD          NEXT PERIOD
- [Milestone / output]    - [Priority] ([Owner])
- [Decision made]         - [Milestone due] ([Date])

RISKS AND ISSUES
[Risk] | Impact [H/M/L] | Owner [Name] | Mitigation by [Date]

DECISIONS NEEDED
[What] from [Whom] by [Date]

One-page project status report template with an overall status block, a status-by-area table for schedule, budget, scope, resources and risks with green, amber and red dots, done and next lists, a risks and issues table, and a decisions-needed box

The order matters. A sponsor reads the overall status and summary first and often stops there, so those two lines have to carry the whole message. Everything below them is supporting detail for readers who want it.

Weekly vs Monthly Status Reports

The same template works for both. What changes is the time frame and how much detail each block carries.

	Weekly status report	Monthly status report
Reader	Project sponsor, client contact, team leads	Leadership, steering committee, finance
Length	Half a page to one page	One to two pages
Done / next	Specific tasks and outputs this week	Milestones reached and the next month's milestones
Budget	One line: spent vs. plan	Spent, forecast at completion, variance
Extras	Blockers that need help this week	Trend of RAG ratings over the month, key metrics

A weekly project status report template keeps everyone close to the work, so it can be brief. A monthly report is read by people further from the project, so it adds the trend ("Amber for three weeks, now Green") and a budget forecast.

How to Set RAG Status Honestly

RAG ratings are the most-read and most-argued part of any status report. Wikipedia's traffic light rating system entry notes that "project managers often use a RAG rating to indicate how on track or at risk" a project is, and that some teams add blue for completed work, a variant called BRAG. The color only helps when everyone uses the same definitions.

Agree on these with your sponsor at kickoff and print them at the bottom of the report:

Green. On plan. Any issues can be handled by the team without help.
Amber. At risk. A date, cost or scope target may slip, but the team has a plan to recover it. Watch closely.
Red. Off plan. The team can't recover without a decision, more budget, more people or a change in scope from someone above.

Two habits keep the ratings useful. First, rate each area separately, then set the overall status no better than the worst area that matters to the sponsor. Second, go Amber early. A project that sits on Green for weeks and then jumps straight to Red has lost the trust of its readers, even if the jump was unavoidable.

Writing Each Section

Summary. Two sentences: where the project stands and the one thing the reader must know. Write it last.

Status by area. One line of reason next to each color. "Amber: two new page types requested" tells the sponsor what to ask about; "Amber" alone starts a meeting.

Done this period. Outputs, decisions and moved metrics, not activities. "Homepage designs approved" beats "worked on homepage."

Next period. Three priorities, each with an owner, plus any milestone due.

Risks and issues. A risk might happen; an issue already has. Give each an impact rating, an owner and a mitigation with a date. Keep the table to the top three to five.

Decisions needed. The block that makes a status report worth sending. Say exactly what you need, from whom, and by when. When nothing is needed, say so in one line.

Project Status Report Example

Here's the template filled in for a fictional website relaunch, week 6 of a 12-week plan.

Project status report: Harborlight Outfitters website relaunch (fictional sample) Period: week of November 10 · PM: Priya Natarajan · Sponsor: Head of Ecommerce

Overall status: Amber. Design is signed off and the build is on schedule, but the product data export from the old platform is slipping and puts the December 4 content milestone at risk. We need a scope decision on two new page types by November 20.

Status by area. Schedule: Green. Design signed off November 6, on plan. Budget: Green. $41k of $96k spent, on plan. Scope: Amber. Two new page types requested (gift guide, store locator). Resources: Green. Full team and agency available through launch. Risks: Red. Old platform's product export has failed twice.

Done this week. Homepage and product page designs approved. Hosting and CDN set up. 27 of 40 blog posts migrated.

Next week. Front-end build of homepage (Sam). Finish blog migration (Alex). Content freeze for product copy (Priya).

Risks and issues. Product export failing (issue, high impact, Alex): vendor support ticket open; fallback is a manual CSV export by November 21. Holiday traffic during launch week (risk, medium, Sam): launch on a Tuesday morning with a rollback plan.

Decision needed. Approve the two extra page types (+$4,800, +1 week) or move them to phase 2. Needed from the sponsor by November 20.

Each block answers its question in a line or two, and the decision at the bottom is specific enough to answer by email.

The same report as one slide

When the update is presented in a weekly meeting, the report fits on a single slide: four status tiles, done and next lists, the decision, and a milestone line.

Single project status slide for a fictional website relaunch: an Overall Amber badge, four status tiles for schedule, budget, scope and risks, done this week and next week lists, a decision-needed box, and a milestone timeline from design to launch

Status Report vs Project Tracker

A status report sits on top of a tracker. The tracker is the team's working spreadsheet: one row per task, an owner, a due date and a status. Our project tracker template covers that sheet column by column, with a CSV you can paste into Excel or Google Sheets.

The status report is what you write from it for people outside the team. Each week, filter the tracker for tasks finished, tasks blocked and tasks due next week, and those three views become the done, issues and next sections of the report. Keeping the two separate means the tracker can stay detailed while the report stays short.

Make the Report in Playyy as a Document or One Slide

Playyy is an AI design agent that writes and lays out a project status report as a formatted document or a single slide, on one editable canvas. Paste your tracker rows, meeting notes or the filled-in template into the AI report generator and ask for a one-page status report with an overall RAG status, status by area, done and next, risks and decisions. It returns a formatted document with headings, tables and callouts, ready to edit by chat and export as a PDF.

To start from a blank structure, ask for a project status report template. Playyy creates the sections; ask it to leave visible placeholders such as [Owner], [Status] or [Risk] for anything you haven't supplied, so every rating in the report comes from you. Fill it in each week, or paste new notes and ask it to update the report.

For the meeting version, give the same content to the presentation maker and ask for a single status slide like the one above: status tiles, done and next, the decision and a milestone line. The slide exports as PPTX or PDF, and your brand kit keeps the colors and fonts consistent across every week's update.

Conclusion

A project status report template earns its place by making every update answer the same questions in the same order: are we on track, what changed, what's at risk, and what do you need to decide. Use the weekly version for sponsors close to the work and the monthly version for leadership, agree on RAG definitions up front, and write the summary last. Keep the detail in your tracker and the report to one page, or one slide.