Plan and track your thesis stage by stage
Bring every stage, task and deadline from research question to defense into one project. Your advisor follows progress as a Viewer, and you see what is slipping on the calendar and the timeline.
Why theses drift off plan
A thesis runs for years and usually rests on one person. The research question is still narrowing while the literature review continues; the proposal is being prepared for the committee while ethics application documents are gathered; once data collection starts, writing waits. Stages overlap rather than follow one another, and when one slips, the knock-on effect on the rest often goes unnoticed.
Part of the schedule is not yours to set. Progress committee meetings, graduate school deadlines, the timing of the ethics decision and the turnaround on your advisor’s feedback all shape the plan from outside. Tracking those dependencies across notebooks, message threads and scattered documents eats into the time that should go into the research itself.
YouReply Manage sets up your thesis as a research project: phases, chapters, tasks and milestones live in the same data. From one place you can see which chapter is waiting on which analysis, which work sits on the critical path to your defense, and what needs to be finished before the next advisor meeting.
The stages of a thesis, and the tools you use at each
Choose the thesis type when you create a project and it starts with these phases. The order is a starting point; rename, reorder, remove or add phases to fit what your graduate school and your methodology require.
Research question
The starting point, when the topic narrows and the research problem and questions are put in writing.
- Research problem, objective and research questions in the brief
- A method field: quantitative, qualitative or mixed
- Target population and planned sample size in the brief
Literature review
The period when sources are read and annotated. As the reading list grows, it gets harder to see what is done.
- Checklists for groups of sources, with the progress counter shown on the card
- Labels by theme or source type
- Reading work pulled into planned work with effort estimates
Proposal
The thesis proposal is written and presented to the progress committee, and later committee dates are set.
- Milestones with due dates for committee meetings
- Tasks due before the meeting attached to the milestone, with its completion ratio
- Revisions requested by the committee split into subtasks
Ethics approval
Application documents are prepared and the board’s decision is awaited. Data collection cannot start before it arrives.
- The application task linked to data collection tasks with a “blocks” link
- Dependency arrows on the timeline, with a violated link flagged
- A task template for preparing the application: title, checklist and subtasks
Data collection
A survey, interviews, an experiment or archival work. Data is collected in its own tool; the plan for that work lives here.
- Interview and session dates on the calendar, rescheduled by dragging
- Work without a date yet kept in its own lane on the timeline
- Filtering the board by research phase
Analysis
Data cleaning, the analysis plan and turning results into tables. The analysis itself happens in YouReply Analyze or in the software you already use.
- Analysis steps split into subtasks
- A “blocks” link showing which chapter is waiting on which analysis
Chapter writing
Introduction, methods, findings and discussion. Each chapter goes through several rounds of drafts.
- Chapter as a work package, draft round as a task, revision as a subtask
- Moving the card of a draft sent to your advisor into the Review column
- Chapter progress tracked by work package in the project summary
Advisor feedback
Notes from meetings are worked through and the to-do list for the next meeting is agreed.
- Notes recorded in task comments, with a field-by-field change history
- The gap between two meetings planned as a working period with its own goal
- Unfinished work moved to the next period
Submission and defense prep
Format checks, a reference list review, submission, the defense presentation and the revisions the committee asks for.
- Milestones for submission and defense; closing one with open work is flagged, not blocked
- Critical path highlighting for the work that would delay submission
- Reopening the milestone for post-defense revisions
What you get as someone writing a thesis
A ready-made phase set for theses
The ready-made research template is a starting point, not a required structure; a master’s and a doctoral thesis, or a quantitative and a qualitative one, do.
The core of your thesis in the brief
The research brief keeps the title, research problem, objective, research questions, method, target population, planned sample and planned versus actual.
Timeline and critical path
In the Gantt view, bars are grouped by work package and dependencies are drawn as arrows. If the ethics decision is late, the flagged violated link shows.
Viewer access for your advisor
Add your advisor or co-advisor to the project as a Viewer. A Viewer can see the project but cannot change anything, and permission checks are enforced on the server.
An honest view of your own progress
The project summary shows the status breakdown, work package progress, the completion trend and opened versus closed work. If new work is being opened faster.
What YouReply Manage does not do
- It does not write, edit or format the thesis text; writing stays in your own editor.
- It does not collect data or run analysis. Survey building and response collection happen in YouReply Survey, statistical analysis in YouReply Analyze and qualitative coding in YouReply Qualitative.
- It does not recruit participants or handle your ethics application on your behalf.
- It does not connect to university or graduate school systems; formal submissions and applications go through your institution’s own channels.
Thesis management questions
- I am writing my thesis on my own. Is this for me?
- Yes. Phases, tasks, the calendar, the timeline and milestones work the same way in a one-person project. The Free plan includes 2 active projects and 5 seats, and the whole research template is available on it. Plan details are on the pricing page.
- Can my advisor make changes to the project?
- It depends on their role in the project. An advisor added as a Viewer sees progress but cannot change anything. If you will be working on the project together, you can give them the Contributor role instead; permission checks are enforced on the server.
- How do I track the proposal, committee meetings and defense date?
- Create each one as a milestone with a due date and attach the tasks that belong to it. A milestone shows its completion ratio; if you close it while work is still open, that is flagged but not blocked. If revisions are requested after the defense, you can reopen the milestone.
- What happens to the project once my thesis is done?
- Projects are archived, not deleted. You can archive the finished thesis project and restore it if the committee asks for further revisions later or you need it again while turning the thesis into a publication. Task comments and the field-by-field change history stay with the project.
- I advise several thesis students. Do I have to set up the same structure every time?
- No. Define a project template with columns, labels, phases and starting work packages, and start each student’s project from it; you can keep separate templates for master’s and doctoral theses. Each project counts as an active project, so compare plans on the pricing page based on how many you need.
Related pages
Academic research management
Bring work packages, researchers, milestones and reporting dates into one project. See which output is falling behind and which work is critical on the way to the next report, on the same screen.
Field research management
Plan questionnaire review rounds, the sample and quota plan, participant recruitment and data quality work in one project. See on the timeline which work sets the report delivery date.
Market research management
Set up the project from a template once the proposal is accepted, then track sessions, findings and stakeholder deliverables in one place. Your clients and stakeholders follow progress as Viewers.
Set up your thesis as a project
Start with the thesis phases, fill in the brief and add your advisor as a Viewer. No credit card required.