Top 7 Project Tracker Templates to Manage and Track Workflows in 2025

A good project tracker template can make a big difference in how efficiently your team manages tasks and deadlines. It provides structure, visibility, and accountability so projects stay on track. 

Based on a 2024 study by the Project Management Institute (PMI), 73.8% is the average project performance rate, which shows how vital tracking tools are in boosting success and reducing wasted effort. In the sections below, I’ll introduce the top project tracker templates for 2025 and explain how each one can support your team’s goals.

What is a project tracker template?

A project tracker template is a pre-built framework that lets you manage and monitor tasks across a project. It offers a structured way to track responsibilities and progress without having to build a system from scratch. Most templates come with columns or fields for task names, owners, start and due dates, and status updates. 

By using one, teams can easily visualize project stages and keep everyone accountable. These templates often come in different formats, such as spreadsheets, Kanban boards, or Gantt charts, to match various project management styles. 

Why use a project tracker template for your projects

Managing projects without a clear structure can quickly lead to unclear responsibilities and missed deadlines. A project tracker template offers a simple yet effective way to bring clarity and visibility to your team’s work. Here are other ways a project tracking template is helping project managers:

• Improves organization: A template lays out all tasks, deadlines, and owners in one place so nothing slips through the cracks. This central view keeps your team aligned on priorities.
• Saves time: Templates provide a ready-made structure, eliminating the need to build tracking tools from scratch. You can start managing projects right away without spending hours on setup.
• Boosts accountability: With clear task assignments and due dates, everyone knows what they are responsible for. This reduces confusion and makes it easier to follow up on progress.
• Enhances communication: Project tracker templates streamline the process of sharing updates with stakeholders. According to Grammarly, knowledge workers now spend an astonishing 88% of their workweek communicating across various channels. By providing a single source of truth, project trackers help keep everyone aligned and minimize the need for lengthy check-ins and status report emails.

What are the best free project tracker templates?

The table below gives you a quick side-by-side look at the best free project tracker templates. In the following sections, we’ll dive deeper into each option and learn more about their features, functions, and best use cases.

1. monday.com – Best for timeline tracking

monday.com’s project tracking template shines for project managers handling resources and timelines. Each activity has a cost field and timeline bar for balancing financials alongside project execution. You can set up groups for each category or project stage, then refine them to show team ownership or assign them to individuals.

The template features color-coded sections for each group (planning, execution, launch) to simplify oversight while highlighting stuck or high-priority tasks through the status column. monday.com offers this template on its free plan, and since it’s available in Gantt chart view, it also serves as a free Gantt chart template.

2. ClickUp – Best for task-oriented team projects

ClickUp’s collaborative project tracker is best for managing projects with detailed task lists. Its tabular layout highlights due dates, statuses, and priorities for granular visibility into deliverables. The red/yellow/green indicators make it easy to spot delays, while grouping by project stages keeps progress structured.

This sample project tracking sheet also includes features like custom statuses to monitor project progress and custom fields to add specific attributes for each task or milestone. You’ll find a navigation tab at the top of the template that lets you switch between four different views (Assignees, General, Gantt, and Getting Started), making it easier to organize and access project information.

3. Smartsheet – Best for executive project reporting

Smartsheet offers a project management spreadsheet built for executives or portfolio managers who need at-a-glance project rollups. While project tracking templates typically follow the traditional table layout, Smartsheet combines progress chart, risk task list, and milestone timeline in one view to provide a quick health check across multiple initiatives.

The template set includes an Excel-style task tracker template along with a rollup dashboard that summarizes key project details. It’s designed for reporting, with three built-in report types: milestones, at-risk tasks, and a task rollup. For Smartsheet subscribers, licensed sheet owners and admins get access to a bonus feature that enables baselines, allowing them to measure and compare a project’s progress against its original plan.

4. Wrike – Best for deliverable management

Wrike’s resource management template suits teams managing multiple interdependent workstreams. Its Kanban-style board groups tasks into categories like Deliverables, All Other Tasks, and This Month, which helps teams prioritize by timeline and project stage. Cards and status labels, on the other hand, make it easier to manage large-scale deliverables across departments.

You can use this template for project tracking when you need to distinguish between deliverables and non-deliverables while maintaining an overview of your team’s workload. It’s fully customizable, letting you add start and end dates to tasks and track their status regularly to keep everything on schedule.

5. Notion – Best for personal or creative projects

Notion’s template caters specifically to individuals organizing their daily activities or creative teams managing diverse project types. Its clean, database-style layout lets you sort and view projects by status, type, or priority. Compared to other project tracker templates, this emphasizes simplicity and adaptability rather than rigid task management.

The template offers four different views: List, Focus, Kanban, and Projects by type. By default, it opens in the Focus view, which highlights what needs your attention right now, ideal for projects with upcoming deadlines. If you prefer Kanban, you’ll see projects organized by status, such as Queue, Priority, and Done. You can also switch to the Project type view to filter and review all projects under a specific category.

6. Jira – Best for agile development

Jira’s project tracker template is designed for sprint-based planning, which makes it best designed for agile development teams. The timeline view shows epics and releases across months for visualizing dependencies and tracking progress toward sprint goals. As an issue tracking software, Jira is great for managing bugs and development tasks and providing easy access to project and task status.

You can also compare actual progress with the projected timeline to spot potential delays or resource bottlenecks early and take action to keep the project on track. In addition to the timeline view, the template also offers a Kanban board for a more structured and visual workflow, as well as a list view that serves as a centralized hub for all pending tasks.

7. Teamwork.com – Best for client-facing workflow

Teamwork’s Kanban-style project tracker template works well for marketing or client-facing teams thriving on visual workflows. The To Do–Doing–Done format keeps collaboration simple, while thumbnails and tags (like freelancer or needs approval) ensure accountability. Overall, it’s best for fast-moving, approval-heavy projects.

This template lets you break down workflows into stages or phases so it’s easy to share visual updates and move work across the pipeline. When managing multiple projects for different clients, having a real-time project tracker like this becomes essential for providing quick updates on the status of every task.

Tips for effective project tracking

Keeping projects on track requires more than just assigning tasks. It is about maintaining visibility, communication, and accountability. By following these best practices, you can streamline workflows and ensure smoother project delivery.

• Set clear goals and milestones. Defining specific goals and milestones gives your team measurable checkpoints to stay aligned. It also makes it easier to track progress and spot delays early.
• Prioritize tasks effectively. Not all tasks carry the same weight, so identify high-priority items that impact the successful delivery of the project. This helps your team focus energy on what matters most.
• Communicate regularly. Consistent updates keep stakeholders informed and reduce misunderstandings. Use status meetings or project dashboards to share progress in real time.
• Monitor risks and bottlenecks. Track potential risks before they become roadblocks. Proactively addressing resource shortages or task delays prevents your project from falling behind schedule.
• Review and adjust frequently. Projects rarely go exactly as planned, so review progress regularly and make necessary adjustments. Small course corrections prevent bigger setbacks later on.
• Adapt a project management software. Using project management software centralizes tasks, deadlines, and communication in one place. In fact, 82% of companies use project management software to drive organizational efficiencies, according to monday.com, highlighting how essential these platforms have become for boosting productivity at scale. These tools feature dashboards, Gantt charts, and Kanban boards that make it easier to see progress at a glance.

How to choose the right project tracker template for your team

Choosing the right project tracker template depends on how your team works and the type of projects you manage. The right template should balance simplicity with functionality so it adapts to your workflows seamlessly. 

• Customization: Look for templates that allow you to adjust fields, stages, and task categories to fit your team’s specific needs. A customizable tracker ensures you are not locked into a one-size-fits-all format.
• Flexible project views: Select templates that offer multiple views such as timeline, Kanban, and list. This flexibility allows team members to visualize progress in the way that works best for them.
• Ease of use: A good project tracker should be intuitive and simple for your team to adopt quickly. If it feels overly complex, it can slow down progress instead of improving it.
• Collaboration features: Templates that support real-time collaboration through features like chat, comments, and file sharing make the workflow smoother. These features minimize the need for long email chains and keep all updates in one place.
• Scalability: Consider templates that can grow with your team and projects. A scalable tracker helps you move from small initiatives to larger, multi-department projects without switching to new templates.

The best project tracker templates provide a solid foundation for keeping tasks organized and projects on track. While downloadable templates can be useful for smaller initiatives, they often lack the adaptability and collaboration tools that growing teams need. If you are looking for templates, do not settle for basic downloads; opt for a project tracking software solution that comes with built-in templates and robust features to support your long-term goals.

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