Managing Projects

Create, deactivate & delete projects from the AYON web app.

Last updated 4 days ago

Overview

Projects are fundamental to AYON, serving as the core framework for your work's settings and configurations. All work in AYON must be conducted within a project, so your first step is to create one.

Projects Dashboard

Project dashboard page is where you you can also manage your projects create, deactivate and delete them. where you can view and edit project attributes.it’s where you can view project’s stats, team and latest activity.

Project page can be access on the home panel pressing h key twice.

A dashboard for an AYON project named "AY_CG_demo," featuring a left sidebar with a list of projects, a central overview displaying project statistics (folders, products, versions, tasks), a project activity heartbeat, a visual feed of recent assets and thumbnails, and a right sidebar detailing project attributes like FPS, resolution, and status.

Create New Projects

You can create as many projects as needed, as AYON is designed to handle hundreds of projects with ease.

To create a new project, navigate to the Home page or the Project Settings page. From either location, click the plus icon (+) or the three dots icon (...) at the top of the projects list sidebar.

AYON Project dashboard sidebar and task board view featuring a red arrow pointing to the "Add new project" plus icon and tooltip, illustrating project creation within the Projects management interface.
"Create a new project" modal interface demonstrating initial configuration of Project Name, Code, and Anatomy preset, with the "Folder types" section expanded to show default Folder, Library, Asset, Episode, Sequence, and Shot definitions.

When creating a new project, you will define the following:

  • Project Name: This name must not contain spaces and cannot be changed after creation.

  • Project Code: A shorter code for the project, used in displays where space is limited. This code can be customized, and a regular expression (regex) can be configured to generate it automatically based on the project name.

  • Anatomy Preset: Select the anatomy preset to use for this project (default: AYON default).

  • Project Anatomy: Configure project settings such as attributes, storage, statuses, and more. For further info, see Project Anatomy.

  • Library project: When this toggle is enabled during project creation, AYON will create the project as a library project.

Deactivating and Deleting Projects

It is highly recommended to deactivate real projects rather than deleting them, especially if they contain published work. Deletion should be reserved primarily for test projects with no critical data.

To deactivate or delete a project:

  1. Select the project in the sidebar.

  2. Click on the three dots (...) at the top.

  3. Choose to Deactivate the project.

  4. Optionally, Delete the project (this is not recommended for production projects).

AYON Projects dashboard sidebar menu highlighting the project management context menu (three dots icon) and a red arrow pointing to the "Deactivate" action, demonstrating the workflow for deactivating an existing project within the project management interface.

A project can be reactivated after deactivation. However, a deleted project cannot be restored after deletion unless it was backed up beforehand.

Viewing Archived Projects

By default, the sidebar only shows active projects to reduce clutter. To view projects that have been completed or hidden, use the Show Archived toggle button at the top of the sidebar. Toggling this on will reveal all archived projects within their respective folders or the root directory.

AYON Projects dashboard sidebar menu highlighting the project management context menu (three dots icon) and a red arrow pointing to the "Show archived" action , demonstrating the workflow for displaying deactivated projects which appear greyed out in the sidebar list.
Archived projects are viewable by turning on the "Show archived" setting

Organizing Projects with Folders

⚡ Project Folders require a Pro or Studio subscription.

Project Folders allow you to group your projects into a structured hierarchy. This feature is designed to help production teams categorize projects in whatever way suits their workflow, such as by client, project type, or current status, without affecting the project's physical location on disk.

Creating and Managing Folders

To manage your project organization, use the Project Actions menu at the top of the sidebar or the right-click context menu:

Create a Folder: Click “Create folder” in the Project Actions menu or use the universal F shortcut key.

  • If no project is selected, a new empty folder is created at the root level.

  • If a folder is selected, it creates a subfolder within it.

  • Project folders support a nested hierarchy, allowing for deep organization of your studio's work.

Folder Options: When creating or editing a folder, you can specify a Label, and choose a custom Icon and Color to help visually identify project groups. These settings can be updated at any time via the Project Actions menu or by right-clicking the folder.

Two projects are selected and the projects action menu is open showing a list of actions. The "Create Folder" action is highlighted indicating this is how to create a new Project folder.
Create project folder menu option
A dialog showing the creation form of a new project folder. The folder is called "advertising" the icon is a "loud speaker" and the colour a bright yellow.
Creating a new Project Folder with an icon and color

Managing Projects within Folders

  • Moving Projects: To organize an existing project, select it and use the Move option in the Project Actions menu, or right-click the project and select Move. From here, you can choose the target destination folder.

  • Removing from Folders: To move a project back to the root level, select Move > Unset folder from either the Project Actions or right-click menu.

  • Flexible Organization: Project folders are completely customizable. They can be used to group projects by any criteria—such as Client, Director, Year, or internal priority.

Two projects are selected and the projects actions menu it open showing the projects are being added the advertising folder.
Moving a project into a folder

Finding and Favoriting Projects

As your studio’s project list grows, you can use Search and Pinning to keep your most important work accessible.

Pinning Projects

For faster access to your most frequent productions, you can Pin projects to the top of your sidebar. Pinned projects remain at the top of the list, regardless of the folder structure or sorting.

You can pin a project in three ways:

  • Hover: Hover over a project in the sidebar and click the Pin icon.

  • Project Actions: Select a project and use the Pin option in the Project Actions menu at the top of the sidebar.

  • Right-click: Right-click any project and select Pin.

To unpin, simply repeat any of these actions.

A list of projects with one project selected showing the pin action
Pinning a project to the top

Searching for Projects

To quickly find a specific project, click the Search button (or use the / shortcut) at the top of the project list.

  • Rankings: The search will display the top matches based on your query.

  • Pinned Priority: Pinned projects are automatically surfaced higher in the search rankings, making them even easier to find when using the search bar.

Searching for a project

Project Attributes in AYON

Project attributes in AYON can be accessed via the Home page → Overview tab → Select project.

Alternatively, they can be found below attributes section in Project Anatomy.

Each project has a set of attributes:

  • Default Attributes: Every project includes three default attributes: Status, Code, and Library.

  • Defined Attributes: Additional attributes are managed in the Studio Attributes. These can be either built-in or user-defined.

Many attributes are defined on both project and folder entities. When an attribute exists on both, the folder (as a child entity) inherits the value of the project attribute by default.

Modify Values of Project Attributes

Currently, There are two ways to modify the values of project attributes.

  1. Via Home page: You can modify the values of project attributes via clicking Edit button found in Home page → Overview tab → Select project → Edit

  2. Via project anatomy: You can modify these values below attributes section in Project Anatomy.

Creating Project Hierarchy

You can create folder structures and tasks manually via the Project Overview Page.

Automated Project Hierarchy Creation

  • Many AYON addons support editorial publishing, allowing you to create shots using your DCC. Upon publishing, AYON will automatically create any missing project hierarchy for you.

  • When connecting AYON to third-party production trackers like Flow (ShotGrid) or ftrack, AYON will create any missing project hierarchy during project sync, ensuring your AYON project matches your connected production tracker.

Project Level Webactions

Project level AYON’s webactions are designed to run on an entire project. To use them, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to your project by clicking the Projects button in the top-left corner or by pressing its shortcut key, 1, as mentioned in the AYON Web App Keyboard Shortcuts.

  2. On the Project Overview Page, you'll find the project-level web action icons in the top-right corner, next to the ⚙️Customize button.

  3. Clicking the actions icon will display a list of available project actions for you to choose from.

FAQ

Who can create new projects?

By default, only administrators and managers can create projects.
To grant regular users permission to create new projects, you must set the Studio permissions → Select Access Group → Create projects permission on the permissions page.

For more details, refer to the documentation on User Permissions and Project Access Groups.

Where are deactivated projects? and how to activate them again

Find Deactivated Projects

On the Home page (H+H), click the three-dot button next to "Projects" and select Show Archived. Deactivated projects will appear in the list, displayed as greyed out.

Reactivate Projects

On the Projects dashboard (Home (H+H) → Overview tab), you can reactivate a project using one of the following methods:

  • Right-click the project and select Activate.

  • Enable the project's Status attribute (i.e., toggle the active attribute).

Who can access projects?

In project access page, you can specify access groups which manages the access permissions.
For more details, refer to the documentation on User Permissions and Project Access Groups.

How to convert a project to a project library?

If the project was not marked as a library project during creation, you can still set it as a library project by editing the “Library” checkbox in the project’s attributes.
Go to the Home page → Overview tab → select the project → Edit → Library.

How to Back Up and Restore Projects?

For self-hosted AYON Server, backing up and restoring projects require access to your AYON Docker directory. This process is explained here in AYON Server Provisioning.

For ynput cloud instances, backups are done periodically as outlined in Database restore points row on ynput pricing page.