Managing Projects:
Managing Project Tasks
Project Planning & Scheduling
Project Collaboration
Project Risk Management
Project Controlling
Financial Management of Projects
Workflows
Exporting/Importing Project Plans to/from 3rd party tools
Other Documents and Resources :
Projects are thought to be "containers" of sub-projects and tasks. You want to set up a new project if you have a new group of people collaborating.
Projects are carrying permission information for the tasks below the project.
A complete list of projects is available from http://[YOUR_SERVER]/intranet/projects. Permission settings might prevent users from viewing or editing projects.
The quickest and most convenient way finding a project is probably using the ]po[ Full Text Search. A search box is located on the top right corner of each ]po[ screen.
Alternatively you can go to http://[YOUR_SERVER]/intranet/projects and browse or filter by project name.
To create a new project please use the Admin link "Add New Project" that can be found on http://[YOUR_SERVER]/intranet/projects. Depending on your configuration you might need to set some project attribute values first by going through a 'wizard' before seeing the main creation page.
A new project can also be created by cloning an existing one. If no clone link is available from a Project Admin Menu, please ask your System Administrator to allow cloning by setting parameter EnableCloneProjectLinkP accordingly.
Project can be created using any existing project as a "Project Template". A link is provided in the side bar of a Projects main page:
A wizard allows a user to choose what elements should be copied to the new project:
New members can be assigned using the "Add member" link in portlet "Project Members"
that will lead to the following page:
You can either search for a particular user to added to the project or you can select one or more users from the multi-select box. Users can be added as "Project Managers" or "Full Members".
If users get assigned to subprojects or task, the system adds them automatically to their parent elements. This helps Project Managers of the Parent Projects to get an overview of all employees involved in all subprojects. Please do not reverse this automatic assignment. If you want to limit visibility or time sheet tracking on parent elements, please consider adjusting parameters PermissiveHourLogging and TimesheetTaskVisibilityScope.
Projects can be structured by adding Sub-Projects and Tasks to Projects. A link can be found in the sidebar on a Projects Main Page.
If this link is not visible, the user might not have the permission to create Sub-Projects or the creation is not allowed in general.
When to create a subproject?
In order to delete a project you need to set its status to "Deleted". Projects will be soft-deleted, which means they remain in the system but will be invisible. Deleted projects can be recovered if necessary.
Bulk operations on a project's status can be performed in portlet "Project Hierarchy"
Tasks are created within Main Projects or Sub-Projects.
Time attributes
Tasks are associated with three different measures of time:
Cost Center
The Cost Center field is pre-set with the Cost Center the current user is assigned to.Materials
Tasks are associated with a single type of service ("material"). Materials are linked with the price list module, so that you can specifiy a price per customer and material.Gantt Scheduling
Tasks are the base for Gantt scheduling algorithms. Tasks may depend on each other and may have different ways to be started and ended.Comprehensive information about a task are available from the "Task Page":
a) Create a new project
b) Assign resources to your main project
c) Create tasks within you project/sub-project and set task attributes such as 'name', 'start/end date', 'Planned Units', 'Billable Units', etc.
Projects planned using Microsoft Project (MS Project) or other tools can be imported into ]po[. ]po[ also allows you export projects to MS Project , ProjectLibre and GanttProject .
Advantages of using desktop applications for the planning process are the following:
For details please see Exporting/Importing Project Plans to/from 3rd party tools -> How-to & Preconditions
]po[ provides basic Gantt Charts in a Portlet Component on the Projects Main Page:
Clicking on the magnifying glass icon you'll get an exclusive view on a separate page:
Further clicks on the icon provide you with more detailed information down to Year/Quarter/Month and Day.
For better results simply export the project to either MS Project, GanttLibre or GanttProject and create a Gantt Chart from these applications. We are currently working on a AJAX based Gantt Editor to be released in Spring 2014.
A typical ]po[ configuration implements Milestones as (Sub-) Projects. To set a project as a "Milestone Project", set its type to: "Milestone".
All activities that need to be conducted for a milestone will become 'Tasks' of this project.
Please note: For now milestones imported from MS Project and other 3td part tools are marked as 'Milestone' in the projects attributes
Tracking Milestones
http://[YOUR_SERVER]/intranet-milestone/ provides an overview about late, current and future milestones
For additional information please see Forum User Guide
For additional information please see Filestorage User Guide
Mail Integrations allows the assignment of emails to Project. For additional information see Mail Integration
Project Risks are managed using Portlet "Project Risks".
In order to to create an Impact/Probability matrix, the project attribute "Budget" needs to be set. The matrix shows the number of risks that exist of a given Impact/Probability combination, wheras the value for 'Impact' scale is calculated as the ratio btw. 'Project Budget' and 'Risk Impact'.
Multiple risks can also be uploaded from a CSV file. For additional information and a sample CSV file please refer to this page.
References:
Each task member is given the possibility to report the level of completion on the projects "Task" page.
Overall project progress is tracked by the attribute "Percent completed" that is shown in the "Project Base Data" Portlet on the Projects 'Home' page
This value can be either entered manually or evaluated automatically based on the "% completed" values of the projects tasks belonging to this project.
Portlet "Timsheet Tasks" shows operational progress on a sub-project level:
The screenshots shows a project structure that consist of a main project and two sub-projects. Each sub-project as two tasks.
Out of all values shown in column "%", four values represent a value entered by a user:
and three values have been calculated by the system:
Several Views, Portlets and Reports are available to monitor the progress and evaluate deviations.
This View is available from the Projects Sub Menu and shows Planned Units, Billable Units, Logged Time and % Completion on a Project level.
The following Reports provide you with the key indicators on a Program or Portfolio level:
For additional information please see EVA Portlet Page
Calculation of a project margin is based on the following assumption:
Employee salaries is a fixed cost items, which his means that a costs of an employee hour does not vary among projects. However, sales prices for services provided by one and the same employee might vary from customer to customer. Those prices are managed in the customers price table and used to generate customer invoices. Project margin is by default calculated using the sum of invoices issued, minus the internal (Timesheet Costs) and external costs (Provider Bills, Project Expenses).
Let's assume you are a freelancer and you have just performed 3 days of training for a customer. You now want to write an invoice quickly and your ]project-open[ has been configured to allow such ad-hoc invoicing. You company is called "Tigerpond Inc.", and your customer is called "ABC Consulting".
The entire process takes less then a minute if the customer's information already exists.
Please see the Detailed Tutorial for screenshots.
(Creating a simple ad-hoc invoice with ]project-open[.)
This screencast shows how to create a project and tasks in ]project-open[. Based on the logged hours an invoice will be created by using a wizard that guides the user through the process.
From V4.0 on ]po[ provides support for "Project Programms". "Project Programs" are a set of several related projects that are related to each other.
While the concept of "Parent-" and "Subprojects" always requires having the same client, "Project Programs" can be bundled based on arbitrary criteria.
In order to create a "Programm", a new Project of type "Program" needs to be created. In some distributions this particular Project Type would need to be enabled first.
Also the DynField "Program" of Object Type "Project" needs to be visible and editable for all users that should be capable to create Programs and assign Projects to them.
]project-open[ comes with a pre-configured Project Approval Workflow.
In order to activate this workflow you have to add the string "project_approval_wf" to each "Intranet Project Type" category (String1) this workflow should be triggered for.
(Please note that is not sufficient to set this value for a parent category)
If you have the permission to export all projects, you should see a link on the Project List Page (http://[YOUR_SERVER]/intranet/projects)
The feature is provided by package Intranet Gantt Project. It should be pre-installed in all V4.x ]po[ distributions by default.
Project Plans can be imported and exported from/to ]project-open[ form the Projects Main page by all users with privilege: VIEW GANTT PROJ DETAIL
Contact your System Administrator if you do not see the links for importing and exporting to 3rd party tools. The links are only available if package intranet-ganttproject is installed on your system.
a) Create a project in ]project-open[b) Assign resources to your project ("Add member")
c) Use the "Export Links" on the Projects Home and save the file to your local machine.
d) Use GanttProject/ProjectLibre/GanttProject and create additional tasks, dependencies and resource assignments comfortably with the "Drag-and-Drop" features provided by the 3rd party applications
e) Import the structure back to ]project-open[ using the link "Import from MS-Project, PL or GP"
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Tel Europe: +34 609 953 751
Tel US: +1 415 200 2465
Mail: info@project-open.com