AFAIK, if you have PAL, that means eligibility is completed (or at least for non-ee i think). For me, AST indicates eligibility is not started whereas GCkey indicates they are reviewing. AST indicating Biometric, Medical and Background completed and given that eligibility is cleared, it means processing of the application is almost done, it should ready to finalize to make decision. Speaking of Eligibility - this should be least worring because the nomination from provincial itself certificates you're eligible. Federal VO tends to reverify your eligibility them by AD if needed.
I was looking at others timeline and noticed some folks got ecopr (starts with T) in their AST the same day when BG was completed and for some applicants, it was after couple of weeks.
Also, many applicants are waiting for portal1 for quite some time after they have ecopr in their AST. Those applicants when calling IRCC, they confirmed that they will get portal soon but how soon, no one knows except "Doctor Strange" from marvel who can predict what happens in future.