One platform for 15,000+ projects , from portfolio planning to engineering execution
A design and engineering software company uses Airtable to connect COO-level portfolio initiatives to Jira-synced engineering delivery, cascading OKRs, and resource capacity modeling, replacing fragmented tracking across Asana, Smartsheet, Trello, and a product roadmap tool, and automating executive newsletters and finance reporting.
The problem
Program and project tracking was split across Asana, Smartsheet, Trello, and a product roadmap tool, with each team operating its own taxonomy and reporting cadence. Executive leadership had no cross-org view of initiative progress, and status updates required manual PowerPoint assembly each week.
Resource and capacity math was done by hand, cross-team dependencies were invisible until they became blockers, and time-entry models were rigid. Finance reporting required duplicative data entry across disconnected systems, and there was no consistent way to link COO-level portfolio objectives down to individual engineering tasks in Jira.
What they built
The team deployed Airtable as the company-wide program management layer, connecting its cross-org portfolio programme through to Jira-synced engineering execution. OKRs cascade from leadership initiatives down to individual tasks, with automated status rollups surfacing risk to executives in real time. AI-generated executive newsletters replace manual slide-deck assembly, and holiday-aware capacity scheduling replaces manual utilization calculations.
A project intake and triage system standardizes how work enters the portfolio, applying consistent taxonomy across IT, PMO, Customer Success, and GCO. Multi-base rollups aggregate progress data from every business unit into Finance dashboards, and an employee utilization and timesheet module provides accurate, holiday-aware capacity figures without rigid week-ending constraints.
The outcome
Executive leadership now has a real-time, consolidated view of all initiatives without manual reporting cycles. Automated rollups deliver risk escalation and status summaries across more than 15,000 projects, and the AI-generated newsletter means no human compiles executive briefings from raw data.
Four or more prior project and portfolio tools have been replaced with a single governed platform, eliminating duplicative licensing and data-entry overhead. Engineering and portfolio layers are synchronized through a live Jira integration, and standardized templates govern how every new project launches across the organization.
Inside the solution
Organization-wide program and project management
Project and Portfolio Management
Resource Planning
Executive Reporting
- Cross-org long-range planning and OKR tracking
- Jira-synced engineering execution
- Resource and capacity modeling
- Executive dashboarding and risk rollups
- Multi-base portfolio rollups
- Cross-functional project intake and triage
- Automated status rollups
- AI-generated executive newsletters
- Employee utilization and timesheet logging
- Holiday-aware capacity scheduling
- Cross-team dependency tracking
- Task and subtask orchestration
- Roadmap visualization
- Fragmented tool sprawl across Asana, Smartsheet, Trello, and a product roadmap tool
- Manual status reporting and PowerPoint creation
- Lack of cross-org visibility for leadership
- Disconnected planning and execution layers
- Inconsistent project tracking
- Misaligned taxonomies across business units
- Manual utilization and capacity math
- Disconnected cross-team dependencies
- High licensing costs for disparate PM tools
- Duplicative data entry
- Rigid week-ending models for time entry
- Real-time executive visibility across all portfolios
- Consolidated tool spend
- Automated status rollups and risk escalation
- Standardized cross-functional taxonomy
- Aligned planning and engineering execution
- Standardized project governance
- Reduced manual administrative work
- Automated task generation
- Clear risk escalation pathways
- Standardized execution across 15,000+ users
- Standardized project templates
- Real-time roadmap visibility
- Automated reporting for Finance
- IT
- Customer Success
- GCO
- PMO
- Jira
- Workday
- Snowflake
- Salesforce
- Active Directory
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- SharePoint
- Power BI
- Asana
Enterprise Program & Project Management
Run every initiative, OKR, project, and engineering ticket in one governed portfolio base, with intake triage, cross-team dependency tracking, and holiday-aware capacity and utilization math built in. Automations convert approved intake requests into templated projects, escalate Off Track projects instantly, and email a weekly executive digest, while AI fields draft newsletter blurbs, risk summaries, and triage recommendations from live data.
How to build organization-wide program management on Airtable
Define your portfolio taxonomy
Connect to Jira for engineering execution
Cascade OKRs and model capacity
Automate status rollups and reporting
Standardize intake and govern launches
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Airtable's bidirectional Jira sync keeps portfolio records and Jira tickets aligned in real time. Engineers update tickets in Jira, and those changes surface immediately in Airtable dashboards, so program managers and executives always see current status without asking teams for updates.
Yes. Airtable supports granular view and permission configurations, so IT, PMO, Customer Success, and Finance teams each see role-appropriate views of the same underlying data, without needing separate databases or manual data exports.
Automation workflows in Airtable pull the latest status, risk flags, and milestone data from portfolio records and pass them to an AI summary block, which formats a structured newsletter draft. This replaces the manual process of compiling slides or emails from raw project data.
The capacity module imports calendar data and applies it to individual utilization calculations, so scheduled capacity reflects actual availability. This eliminates the rigid week-ending models that previously distorted workload estimates.
Migration involved mapping each tool's data model to Airtable's unified taxonomy, importing historical records, and switching teams to Airtable workflows incrementally. Standardized project templates then governed all new launches, preventing the taxonomy drift that had fragmented the prior tools.