ControlRoom Free is the free project-control workspace for PMOs and technical teams: plan, budget, risks and decisions in one view, with an AI review that points to the evidence behind every claim. This guide covers the full path, from signup to your first export.
What the Free tier includes
- 2 active projects and 5 archived projects, plus a pre-populated demo to explore without touching your data.
- 2 AI reviews per workspace per week: they check that every key claim in the project has a recorded source.
- 3 one-time exports per account, in PDF and PPTX, ready for stakeholder review.
- Reports available for 30 days, with the option to keep them up to 12 months.
- No credit card: signup is open.
Step 1 — Sign up and verify your email
Open ControlRoom Free and create the account with email and password. You will receive a verification link valid for 24 hours: open it to activate the account.
Step 2 — Create your first project
After login, create a project and enter real data from one of your projects, however small: one budget line and five to ten activities are enough. The workspace organizes itself: plan, phases, activities and budget in a single view.
Step 3 — Open the cockpit
The cockpit shows deterministic signals before any review: progress against plan, budget deviations, open risks and pending decisions. They are calculations, not opinions: you can verify them yourself against the data you entered.
Step 4 — Request an AI review
Up to 2 times a week you can ask the AI review to examine the project: for every key claim it points to the recorded source, and flags where evidence is missing or diverges. It is the most useful check when you present status to decision makers.
Deterministic signals versus opinions: an example
Imagine an activity with a budget of 2,000 euro, actuals at 2,400 and claimed progress of 60%. The cockpit shows the 400 euro deviation and the comparison with the plan: calculations you can redo yourself on the data you entered. The AI review adds source verification: if the claimed 60% matches no recorded evidence, it flags it. The judgment — what to do about the deviation — stays with you.
Who gets the most out of Free
- PMOs of small and medium teams that want an always-current project status, without chasing shared spreadsheets.
- R&D and engineering teams running projects in parallel, where deviations must be seen early, not at the end.
- Anyone preparing periodic stakeholder reviews who wants to arrive with verified data instead of slides assembled at the last minute.
What Free does not do (for now)
Honesty about what to expect: no automatic scheduling, no invoicing, no paid tier available yet. Free quotas are the ones stated above; if paid options arrive one day, they will be presented explicitly.
Step 5 — Export the report
Export the report to PDF or PPTX in one click: data, deviations and decisions in a format ready for stakeholder review. Remember: exports are 3 per account, so use them when the report needs to travel.
And then?
- Leave feedback from the Feedback button in the app: every note goes into the roadmap.
- Come back regularly: the cockpit is meant to be consulted before reviews, not after.
- If the workspace no longer fits, paid options will be presented when available; until then Free stays free.
The full path — signup, first project, cockpit, AI review and export — is covered in the steps of this guide. Start here.
If reporting is your next problem, also read Automating Project Status Reporting: What Works (and What Doesn't): what to delegate to automation and what to keep manual.