Online Help: Program Management 8.1

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Online Help: Program Management

8.1

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Page 2 Copyright 2006

ARAS CORPORATION

Copyright

©

2006 Aras Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Aras Corporation

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Phone: 978-691-8900

Fax:

978-794-9826

E-mail: Support@aras.com

Website: http://www.aras.com

Notice of Rights

subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, V1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at

http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).

Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Distribution of the work or derivative of the work in any standard (paper) book form for commercial purposes is prohibited unless prior permission is obtained from the copyright holder.

Aras Innovator, Aras, and the Aras Corp "A" logo are registered trademarks of Aras Corporation in the United States and other countries.

All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. Notice of Liability

The information contained in this document is distributed on an "As Is" basis, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose or a warranty of non-infringement. Aras shall have no liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this document or by the software or hardware products described herein.

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What's New?

What's new in 7.2?

1. Project Grid Layout Preferences enable tailoring of Project Plan in Project window

2. Project Status Color Map Preferences enable tailoring of Activity status colors 3. Email notification for Project Activities

4. Filtering of Project Activities in Project Plan

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Online Help: Program Management 8.1

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What's new in 8.1?

1. Multiple Assignments for Activities

2. InBasket enables completion of both Activity and Assignments

3. Customizable business rules for Project Update and Scheduling calculation by Project

4. Customizable business rules for Activity and Assignment Completion 5. Tailorable Activity Completion Dialog Worksheet Forms and Grids 6. Scheduling supports 4 precedence types and lead time

7. Target dates for activities and management of planned dates within float 8. Filtering of Project Activities in Project Template

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System Administration

Roles

Roles are used in Project Templates to designate what type of personnel would be responsible for a specific task. For example, a Design Engineer may be responsible for designing a DFMEA for a particular part. So, for that activity the responsible role may be Design. Later, when the Project is created from the template, the Project creator will fill in the specific design engineer who will be responsible for this task.

Roles are stored in the Project Role list. This list is then used as the data source for the Role property in the project template. The System Administrator may also need to see this list when setting up identities, in order to add a description field to each identity (see Setting Up Identities).

To create the Project Role list:

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2. Search for and open the Project Role list for edit.

3. Click on the New Item icon and add entries as required. 4. Save, Unlock, and Close the list.

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System Administration

Sequences

When a new project is created, its project number is automatically generated by a sequence. If required, the format of this sequence can be changed.

To change the sequence format:

1. From TOC, Administration, Sequences, search for Project Number sequence. 2. Open the sequence for edit, and the following dialog will display:

3. Here is a list of the properties and their contribution to the sequence configuration:

a. Name - the name of the sequence item. This name is referenced by the ItemType definition when specifying a data source of sequence for the project number property.

b. Prefix - the alpha-numeric prefix of the generated number. For example, if you were to specify the prefix of "Project-", the next Project number would look like this: Project-1348

c. Suffix - similar to Prefix, except added to the end of the number. For example, if you were to specify a suffix of -GTX, the Project number would look like: Project-1348-GTX.

d. Pad With - specify the character to fill in the required number of spaces

e. Pad To - the total number of characters for the number, excluding the prefix and the suffix. For example, if the Pad To is set to 8, and the Pad With = x, the Project Number would look like this: Project-xxxx1348-GTX.

f. Step - the increment by which the number differs from the previous and next, 1 by default.

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Setting Up Identities

Setting up the identities is similar to building a company organization chart. Here is a list of steps to make this process easier.

1. Create identities for the top level department headings, for example: Engineering, Sales, and Marketing.

2. For each top level heading, create subordinate departments. For example, Engineering might have: Development, Support, and QA. Support, in turn, might further consist of: Customer Support, Documentation, and Training. Make sure you add the subordinate departments as members to their respective group identities.

3. Once the departmental structure is in place, create individual users and add their identities to their respective departments. In Innovator, one user identity can belong to more than one group.

There are two basic Identities used in Program Management - Project Management and Quality Engineering. Once the user identities are set up as shown above, they can be added to the Program Management and Quality Engineering Identities. Add the highest level department possible to avoid repetition and promote ease of maintenance. When creating Identities, we suggest you use the description field to label each identity with a role label. In Roles we talked about how the templates will use roles as opposed to identities to designate the responsible personnel. When creating a project from the template, the actual identities have to be substituted for the roles. If the identities have a description that corresponds to their role, the searching for the appropriate personnel will be much easier. Here is an example of a search dialog, where the user is searching for all identities whose description corresponds to the "Design" role.

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Permissions

In order for the Project Management team, and the Quality Engineering team to have the correct permissions, both of these identities must be added to All Employees. This will ensure that all personnel that have a permission to create and edit a project, can also add parts and deliverables to that project. Please follow the steps in Setting Up Identities first, before adding them to All Employees.

If you create new Item Types to be used as Deliverables, make sure that you set the permissions on these items such that the Identities that add and view the Deliverables have "get" permissions on all items that are the Poly Sources of Deliverables.

For example, let's create a new Item Type, called ExampleDeliverable, and give it a new Permission.

1. From TOC, Administration, Permissions, create a new Permission. 2. Name it CanGet.

3. Add the following Identities to the permission, and give them the CanGet access: Project Management, and All Employees.

4. Save, Unlock and Exit the Permission.

5. From TOC, Administration, ItemTypes, create a new ItemType. 6. Name it ExampleDeliverable.

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7. Click on the Permissions tab, and add the new permission as the default.

8. Add other properties and settings as required. 9. Save, Unlock and Exit the new Item Type.

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PolyItem Setup

In Program Management, the Deliverable Item is defined as a PolyItem. It is up to the system administrator to determine which Item Types can be a Deliverable.

To set up the Deliverable Item Type:

1. From TOC, Administration, ItemTypes search for and open Deliverable for edit.

2. Select the Poly Sources tab.

3. In the Actions, select Pick Related.

4. Click the New Item icon . A search dialog will be displayed. Select any Item Types that will serve as deliverables.

5. Make certain that the individual Item Types selected have correct permissions set up, i.e. that Project Management and All Employees have "get" access to each of these Item Types.

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Daily Update Setup

Daily Update is a method that should run once per day to update all the active projects. For more information on what this method does, see About Daily Update. Should you need to run this method automatically on a daily basis, say every day just after midnight, there is a way to configure this through the Innovator Service utility.

The Innovator Service is a Windows Executable that runs as a Windows Service. For more information on Innovator Service, please refer to the Innovator Service Usage Instructions manual, found on your Innovator Installation CD. The Innovator Service executes according to a configuration file which can specify what methods to run, for which database, on which server, when, and how often. Here is an example of this configuration file which requests the method dailyUpdate to be run on the

InnovatorSolutions71 database, once per day at midnight.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <innovators> <innovator> <server>http://host_name/Innovator71</server> <database>InnovatorSolutions71</database> <username>admin</username> <password>innovator</password> <http_timeout_seconds>6000</http_timeout_seconds> <job> <method>dailyUpdate</method> <months>*</months> <days>*</days> <hours>0</hours> <minutes>once</minutes> </job> </innovator> <eventLoggingLevel>2</eventLoggingLevel> <intervalMinutes>2</intervalMinutes> </innovators>

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Please refer to the Innovator Service Usage Instructions manual for a more complete explanation of the configuration file, as well as instructions on how to install and run this service.

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Background and Theory

Workflow, LifeCycle, and Project

Definitions

All of these three items - Workflow, LifeCycle, and Project - are designed to model and execute a process. Because of their differences, however, each one is suited better for a specific type of process. Knowing these differences will allow the user to judge more clearly which type of item should be used to represent a specific process. Let's look at the definitions:

LifeCycle - a set of mutually exclusive states that some thing may be in, often

representing a stage of a process. For example, all parts or manufactured items have a lifecycle.

The specific states may be called: design, review, released, in-change, superseded, and so forth. It is clear how a part that is in the design state, cannot also be in the

superseded state. Usually there is a specific flow through these states, which may branch out or feed back in loops.

Workflow - a finite set of activities necessary to carry out a process. For example, a workflow for a PR (problem report) might look like this:

In the above diagram, specific activities are shown for each PR that may enter the system. These activities must be performed in the order specified. Each activity might further contain lists of action items for the responsible personnel assigned to the activity. Project - A progressively elaborated series of steps and actions to achieve a unique result. A project manages the issues of scope, time, and cost to achieve this result.

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Background and Theory

Comparison of Functionality

A question may arise as to which concept is more suitable to model a given process. Here is a brief comparison of functionality between the LifeCycle, the Workflow, and the Project.

Keep in mind that a result of a project action, called Activity2, maybe an item that has its own workflow and lifecycle. For example, you might have a project that requires a completion of an ECN as one of its activities. So, basically a Project can incorporate all of the other planning concepts, except for another project.

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Project Management

Components of Project Management

The PMI (Project Management Institute) suggests that the following knowledge areas comprise Project Manager:

 Project Integration  Scope Management  Time Management  Cost Management  Quality Management

 Human Resource Management  Communication Management  Risk Management

 Procurement Management

Aras Program Management (PM) addresses the issues of Project Integration, Scope Management, and Time Management. Other Innovator BRSs, such as Quality Planning, address Quality and Risk Management, while Product Engineering addresses

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Project Process Groups

There are basic project phases that each well planned project should go through. According to PMI, these phases are:

Each phase can then be broken down into more concrete activities. For example, in the Planning phase, the following steps are necessary:

PMI advises all project managers to put as much work as necessary into the planning of the project in order to produce the result as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The more unknowns exist in the system when the project begins, the less is the likelihood of success of the project. Remember that the goal of any project is to effectively manage time, scope, and resources.

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Innovator

PM

Phases and Steps

The following is a list of steps that a project manager might wish to execute prior to sitting down in front of a computer. Just like a successful programmer will first develop the algorithm and the data model, before writing code, the project manager must lay out the project first. The following is a suggested list of steps.

To Initiate the Project:

1. Select the Project 2. Define the result

3. Select the Project Manager 4. Select target start and finish dates

5. Document the purpose of the project in Project Charter.

Planning the Project:

1. Define the scope

2. Break scope down into intermediate results 3. List the activities, the work to achieve results 4. List the resources to do the work

5. Take account of risks 6. List work to be done

7. Decide the order of activities 8. Determine the duration of activities 9. Estimate the amount of work for activities 10. Assign who will do the activities

11. From all of the above, create, review and communicate the project plan.

To Execute the Project:

1. Assignees: complete and add deliverables, complete activities

To Control the Project:

1. Review Project and Activity status, make changes as required

To Close the Project

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PolyItem

Implementation Types

An ItemType can be defined with two different implementations. Single Item and Poly Item.

Single Item

The Single Item type is the most common implementation approach. In Single Item, each ItemType represents an individual business object, and is represented in a

relational database as a single table. Examples of a Single Item type include definitions of Part, Document, Project, DFMEA, etc.

Poly Item

A Poly Item implementation type represents a polymorphic class of ItemType. A Poly Item ItemType can represent a collection of other ItemTypes. A polymorphic (Poly Item) ItemType is typically used when a property of some other item can reference more than one possible type of Item - a project Deliverable, for example. The type of deliverable can be one of many possible types if Item. The deliverable may be a Document, a Part, a Control plan, etc.

The Poly Item type has a somewhat limited set of compatible relationships that are applicable in the ItemType definition. Only those Tabs that remain active in the ItemType form are supported in a Poly Item type.

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Creating a Poly Item Item Type

To create a Poly Item type ItemType:

1. From TOC, Administration, select Item Type. Create a New ItemType

2. Enter data for the header properties of your new Item Type, selecting Poly Item for the implementation type.

4. You will receive the following warning.

Select Ok.

5. Note the many of the relationship tabs are disabled when selecting the Poly Item type.

6. Select the “Poly Sources” relationship tab

7. Select existing ItemTypes that the Poly Item will support. For example, the following could be a list for the Deliverable Item Type.

8. Select the Properties tab. Enter any common property names that you would like to display in selection search item browser grids. If a property name is added that does not exist in all the Poly Sources, then an error will be thrown when saving the ItemType.

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Searching Poly Items

A Poly Item can be a property data source of another item (such as the Deliverable property of a Project Activity2) or a Related Item. When selecting existing Items, the Search Browser dialog will display an additional pull down list of the Poly Sources. You can search across all the Poly Source Items at once as shown below.

Or, you can select a specific Poly Source from the pull down list to confine the search to a single type. In the example below, Parts was chosen as one of the possible

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Creating a new Item via a Poly Item

When a Related Item uses a Poly Item as its source, a user will see an additional dialog when creating a new Related Item. When creating a new Related, you must first select which of the Poly Source types you wish to create. For example, if you are creating a new Deliverable for a specific line item in Project, here is the first dialog that would display:

Select the Type of Item, and the rest of the process of Item creation should be familiar.

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PM Data Model

The

PM

Data Model

The diagram below shows the simplified Program Management data model.

The Project is the center, or the main focus of the data model. A program may contain several projects. A project consists of WBS elements that in turn consist of activities. Each activity consists of tasks and is assigned to a specific individual (the assignment identity). An activity may also contain a list of predecessors, which is a list of other activities that need to complete before the tasks of this activity can be started. An activity may contain deliverables to be attached as the activity completes. An activity may also contain comments and a time record, indicating who did which task and how long it took.

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Back at the project level, if the project is created from a template, then the Team tab will contain the roles that are assigned to activities in the project. The project manager will then assign an Identity to each role in the team. The project may also have Documents attached. The documents may actually be any deliverable that is associated with the project as a whole. Usually, though, these documents are input documents, perhaps specs or customer requirements, which govern the whole project. Finally, the project may be associated with a Part that needs to be approved by the client. Usually the purpose of the project is to receive production approval on a particular Part. In those cases, it would make sense to have the part associated with the project.

This data model is a bird's eye view of the Program Management components. Later sections will go into detail in describing each of the components and their relationship to each other.

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Scheduling

About Scheduling

There are three types of scheduling available for any given project - Forward, Backward, and Milestone. The Forward scheduling is based on the target start date, the

precedence of the activities, and the duration of the activities. The Backward scheduling is based on the target finish date of the whole project, the precedence and the duration of the tasks. And finally, Milestone scheduling is based on the target finish date of each phase of the project, which is represented by a specific type of milestone, as well as the precedence of activities within each phase, and the duration of the activities within each phase. All of the scheduling types are based on the Critical Path method, with certain additions and modifications for each specific type. To understand how scheduling works, it's best first to learn the Critical Path method, and then to identify the modifications for each scheduling type. Here is a good path through the information:

1. Critical Path method 2. Forward Scheduling 3. Backward Scheduling 4. Custom Scheduling

It is important to understand what happens to the scheduling algorithm when the Planned dates are changed by the Project Manager. For example, if activity B and C depend on activity A, and the Planned Start on activity A is moved forward by 5 days, this will affect the start dates for activities B and C. The new planned start for activities B and C will be calculated, but if it still falls between the early and late start of B and C, as calculated previously, the planned start dates for B and C will not be changed. This is true for all types of scheduling.

In release 8.1 scheduling is executed on the server only, the scheduling method can be selected by Project and can be configured to run when a choice of events occur. In prior releases scheduling was executed on the client only.

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Critical Path Method

The critical path method represents each activity as a box with several properties:

Notice that the two center properties, the Task ID and the Task Duration, are marked in blue. This is because, unlike the other properties, these two can be changed by the Project Manager. The other properties, the four dates, are calculated by the scheduling algorithm and cannot be changed manually.

The easiest way to understand the Critical Path method is to look at a diagram of a given project, where each activity is represented as above. Here is an example:

In the above project, activity B is the predecessor of activities C, D, and E, which are in turn predecessors of activity F. The Target Start Date is the implied predecessor of A and B, while the Target Finish Date is the implied successor of F and A.

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Scheduling

The following are the general steps of the Critical Path method:

1. Start with the target start date, which is 0, and enter this date into the Early Start of each activity that does not have a predecessor. Hence, there is a 0 for the Early Start of activities A and B.

2. For each activity that now has an Early Start, we add the duration and get an Early Finish date. Looking at activities A and B, we have 5 and 9 for the Early Finish dates respectively.

3. If the activities whose Early Finish dates are already calculated have successors, these successor activities are calculated next. For each successor activity (such as C, D, or E), look at all of the predecessor activities (which here is just B), and enter the latest of the predecessor activities' Early Finish dates into its

successor's Early Start date. Here the only activity where the early dates have been calculated, and which has successors, is B. B is also the only predecessor of C, D, and E. So, enter B's Early Finish, which is 9, as the Early Start of C, D, and E. Notice that C, D, and E all have 9 in the top left corner, which is their Early Start date.

4. For all activities that have an Early Start date, use their duration to calculate an Early Finish date. So, for C, D, and E, take the Early Start date, which is 9, and add the individual durations to get their individual Early Finish dates. Because C is a milestone, and has 0 duration, its Early Finish will equal its Early Start. Both D and E have a duration of 5, so their Early Finish will equal 9+5=14.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 recursively until all successors have Early Finish dates. In this example, F would be next. F's Early Start would be the latest of the Early Finish dates of all its predecessors, which are C, D, and E. The latest Early Finish of those three activities is 14. So, 14 would be the Early Start for F. Then, to calculate F's Early Finish date, add the duration to its Early Start date.

6. Once all activities have early dates, the calculated Early Finish date for the whole project can be determined. This date is the latest of all Early Finish dates of all activities that do not have a successor. In this example, the calculated Early Finish date for the project is 14. This completes the forward pass of the Critical Path method.

7. Next is the backward pass through the same diagram of the project. We start with the target finish date, which is 20. Copy this target finish date to the Late Finish of all activities that have no successors. In this example, these are A and F.

8. Calculate the Late Start of all activities where the Late Start date has been determined. The Late Start date = Late Finish - duration. So, for A and F, the Late Start dates would be 15 and 20 respectively.

9. Identify all the predecessors of the activities that have Late Start dates calculated. For each predecessor, find the earliest Late Start date of all of its successors, which then becomes that predecessor's Late Finish date. In this example, A and F have been calculated. A does not have predecessors, but F does - C, D, and E. For all these three activities the only successor is F, so it's F's Late Start that becomes their Late Finish. Hence, C, D, and E all have 20 for their Late Finish.

10. For all activities that have a Late Finish date, calculate their Late Start date, using their individual durations. In this example, we calculate the Late Start for C,

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D, and E by subtracting their duration from the Late Finish date. The results are 20, 15, and 15 respectively.

11. Repeat steps 9 and 10 recursively until all predecessors have Late Start dates. In this example, we would now calculate the Late Start for B. B has 3 successors - C, D, and E - where 15 is the earliest Late Start date. So, B would now have the 15 as the Late Finish, and 6 as the Late Start.

12. Take the earliest of the Late Start dates of the activities with no predecessors, and that becomes the calculated Late Start date for the whole project. That completes the backward pass through the diagram, as well as the Critical Path method itself.

The Project Manager has the freedom to determine the actual start date for each activity, as long as it lies in the interval between the calculated Early and Late Start dates.

However, those activities where the Early and Late Start are equal are defined as being on the Critical Path, since they allow no leeway if the schedule is to be kept.

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Scheduling

Forward Scheduling

Forward Scheduling is based on the Critical Path method of calculating the four dates - Early Start, Late Start, Early Finish, and Late Finish - for each activity in the project. If you have not done so yet, please read through the Critical Path Method explanation first, as we build upon it in this section.

Let's take an example project as shown below. This is the same example as used in the Critical Path Method explanation.

The Forward Scheduling method follows these steps:

1. Start with the target start date for the project, which becomes the Scheduled Start date for the project.

2. Based on the Scheduled Start date, calculate a Critical Path Method forward pass to determine the early dates for all activities in the project.

3. Calculate the Scheduled Finish date for the project which is the latest date of the following: the Target Finish date and the Early Finish date of all activities that have no successors. This step is necessary to ensure that the Scheduled Finish date of the project is after all the activities complete. Quite often the Target Finish date, which is specified by the Project Manager in the Initial Form of the project, ends up being too early. But remember that for Forward Scheduling, the Target Finish is NOT a delimiter, where as the Target Start is.

4. Use the Critical Path method to calculate a backward pass through the activities, using the Scheduled Finish date as the final finish date. This will calculate the Late dates for each activity.

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5. The early dates (Early Start and Early Finish) are then copied to the Plan Start and Plan Finish dates for each activity. Here is a view of the whole project:

6. The Project Manager can then go through each activity and change the Plan Start date to any date between the Early Start and Late Start dates for that activity. Here is a view of Activity D inside a project:

Note that the calculated dates are in the System Managed area, and these cannot be changed manually. Since this project is using Forward Scheduling, the Project Manager only needs to change the Plan Start. The Plan Finish is

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Scheduling

Backward Scheduling

Backward Scheduling is based on the Critical Path method of calculating the four dates - Early Start, Late Start, Early Finish, and Late Finish - for each activity in the project. If you have not done so yet, please read through the Critical Path Method explanation first, as we build upon it in this section.

Let's take an example project as shown below. This is the same example as used in the Critical Path Method explanation.

The Backward Scheduling method follows these steps:

1. Start with the target finish date for the project, which becomes the Scheduled Finish date for the project.

2. Based on the Scheduled Finish date, calculate a Critical Path Method backward pass to determine the late dates for all activities in the project.

3. Calculate the Scheduled Start date for the project which is the earliest date of the following: the Target Start date and the Late Start date of all activities that have no predecessors. This step is necessary to ensure that the Scheduled Start date of the project is before the latest possible start of all activities. Quite often the Target Start date, which is specified by the Project Manager in the Initial Form of the project, ends up being too late. But remember that for Backward Scheduling, the Target Start is NOT a delimiter, where as the Target Finish is. The only difficulty that may arise here is that the Scheduled Start may end up earlier than today. In that case, the Project Manager has to either change the duration of the tasks, or precedence, or the Target Finish date.

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4. Use the Critical Path method to calculate a forward pass through the activities, using the Scheduled Start date as the Start date. This will calculate the Early dates for each activity.

5. The late dates (Late Start and Late Finish) are then copied to the Plan Start and Plan Finish dates for each activity. Here is the view of the project with calculated dates:

If you compare these dates to the dates in Forward Scheduling, you will see that they are different. Again, this is because the plan dates in Backward Scheduling are the Late dates, where as in Forward Scheduling they are the Early dates. 6. The Project Manager can then go through each activity and change the Plan

Finish date to any date between the Early Finish and Late Finish dates for that activity. Here is a view of Activity D inside a project:

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Scheduling

Note that the calculated dates are in the System Managed area, and these cannot be changed manually. Since this project is using Backward Scheduling, the Project Manager only needs to change the Plan Finish. The Plan Start is automatically calculated.

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Precedence types and lead time

Diagram

Where A is a predecessor of B as shown in the diagram above, note the direction of the arrow

PRECEDENCE TYPES

 Finish to Start means B cannot start before A has finished. This is the most common precedence type and is the default value, if no precedence type is specified then Finish to Start will be assumed. In the Predecessors column in the Project Pan only the row number # will be shown without a suffix

 Start to Start means B cannot start before A has started, shown as #SS in the Predecessors column

 Finish to Finish means B cannot finish before A has finished, shown as #FF in the Predecessor column

 Start to Finish means B cannot Finish before A has started, shown as #SF in the Predecessor column

LEAD AND LAG TIMES

 Lead and lag time is measured in working days. Where the number is positive it means wait time

 If A is the predecessor of B with SS precedence and +1 day lead time then B cannot start until waiting 1 day after A has started, shown as #SS+1 in the Predecessor Column

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Scheduling

Custom Scheduling

Custom scheduling methods can be provided as a customization where standard forward or backward scheduling do not meet business needs.

Milestone Scheduling has been discontinued in release 8.1; users preferred the explicit precedence provided by forward or backward scheduling rather than the 'implied' precedence' of milestone scheduling.

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Activity Target Dates

Forward Scheduling

1. For each Activity the Critical Path Method calculates the earliest and latest dates. In the example below the earliest is Monday the 4th and the latest is Friday the 8th.

2. However in the example there is a predecessor which has a planned date one day after its earliest date, the predecessors planned date pushes the start date of this activity one day later too.

3. The project manager has selected and Activity Target date of Wednesday the 6th, it will be adopted if possible. In this case it is possible, otherwise the closest available date to the target date would be adopted.

4. If there were no Target date then the prior planned date, or the closest available date to the prior planned date would be adopted.

5. If there were no Target date and no prior planned date the earliest available date would be adopted.

Forward Scheduling

1. For each Activity the Critical Path Method calculates the earliest and latest dates. In the example below the earliest is Monday the 4th and the latest is Friday the 8th.

2. However in the example there is a successor which has a planned date one day before its latest date, the successors planned date pushes the finish date of this activity one day earlier too.

3. The project manager has selected and Activity Target date of Wednesday the 6th, it will be adopted if possible. In this case it is possible, otherwise the closest available date to the target date would be adopted.

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Scheduling

4. If there were no Target date then the prior planned date, or the closest available date to the prior planned date would be adopted.

5. If there were no Target date and no prior planned date the earliest available date would be adopted.

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Business Calendars

 Business Calendars are used by Program Management scheduling methods for scheduling calculations

 They may be edited by members of the Administrators Identity  They indicate which days are not normal workdays

 All Users and Projects in the same database share the same calendars

 By default Saturday and Sunday or not normal workdays but they can optionally be selected as workdays for calendar years

 Other holidays can be set as non-workdays as required

 Years for which there is no Business Calendar will be treated the same as the default, Saturday and Sunday will not be work days all other days are.

To add a Business Calendar

1. Select the Calendars Item from the Administration category in the TOC 2. Select the Add New toolbar button or Menu Item or context menu item 3. Enter a four digit year number

4. Uncheck Weekend Days Off checkbox if Saturday and Sunday are workdays 5. In the Relationships tab click to add a new holiday date

6. Note that the Day Off checbox may be edited in the grid, if required

7. Exceptions which are not calendar days in the selected year will be ignored 8. When all the holidays for a year have been added, click Save, Unlock and Close

To edit a Business Calendar

1. Select the Calendars Item from the Administration category in the TOC 2. Select a year and open it for editing

3. Edit as required

4. Save, Unlock and Close

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Program Management Items

Templates

Create a Template

Expand TOC

Project templates allow the company to facilitate project creation more easily and smoothly. Templates help to standardize processes, as well as provide a reusable structure for similar projects. Templates can also include best practices and lessons learned from past history. Templates do not include any kind of scheduling or status information.

A Project template may look like this:

The properties and columns of the template are:

1. Name - A unique project template name

2. Description - the description of the template; this field is not copied into the actual project, so it should be used to describe the particular attributes of this template, helping the Project Manager to identify the appropriate template for a new project.

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a. N - the activity or milestone number. Used to identify the activity as a

predecessor for another activity. For example, Activity 1 above has an N of 1. It is defined as the predecessor of Activity 2.

b. Project Tree - shows the tree element, its place in the tree, and the element's name.

c. Predecessor - a comma separated list of predecessors for this tree element. A predecessor is an activity or a milestone that has to complete before the

successor activity can start. In milestone scheduling, each phase must have at least one milestone with no successor, and most likely the rest of the items of the phase as its predecessors. The date of this milestone will be the end date of the phase.

d. Plan Duration - the planned number of working days the activity should take h. Plan Hours - man hours required to complete the activity. This entry is not

related to duration, but is for planning purposes only. The 8/80 rule should be used here - if the activity is less than 8 hours, it probably does not merit its own activity; if activity is more than 80 hours, it should probably be broken down into more manageable pieces.

i. Attach Required - if checked, then a deliverable must be attached for the activity to be complete.

j. Attach Type - from the drop down box, specify the deliverable type; this property is not required to have a value.

k. Role - personnel responsible for this activity; in a template, a precise assignment of a specific identity cannot be made. Therefore, a role is used to designate the personnel responsible. The role list is controlled by the system administrator in Roles.

l. Required - if checked, this is a required activity. The assignee has to specifically check if off on their Activity Completion Form, and perhaps sign off on it, that this

particular activity is completed.

4. The Project Plan tab - the icons are:

a. - Add new WBS Element - adds a new WBS element to the tree structure, below the selected tree element.

b. - Add new activity - adds a new activity to the tree structure, below the selected tree element.

c. - Add new milestone - adds a new milestone to the tree structure, below the selected tree element.

d. - View/Edit selected Item - opens the detail dialog for the selected tree element

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Program Management Items

e. - Delete selected Item - deletes the selected (highlighted) tree element

f. - Indent item - Indents the selected item, applies only to WBSs.

g. - Outdent item - Outdents the selected item, applies only to WBSs.

h. - Cut - Cut the selected item (stores it to a clipboard)

i. - Paste - pastes the selection to selected area; available only when the clipboard contains information.

j. - Expand all - expands all the nodes on the project tree.

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Approve a Template

Once a template is created, it does not automatically appear in the list of available templates for creation of a project. The reason for this is the Template life cycle. Let's take a look at it.

As you can see from the life cycle above, a template has two states - Pending and Approved. When the template is created, it is in the Pending state. Any member of the Project Management identity has the permission to promote a template to an Approved state. So, upon a review of the template, the Project Manager needs to promote the template in order to make it available for project creation.

To promote an item to the next state:

1. From TOC, Templates, Project Templates, select the template that you would like to promote.

2. Select the Promote Icon , or the Promote menu choice from the right-click pop-up menu.

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3. A list of available state for promotion will be displayed. In this case, there is only one state available.

4. Select Approved, and hit the green check icon .

The same process can be used to promote the template back to the pending state, if for some reason the project management team decides that the template is inadequate.

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Create Project from Template

A project can be created from any approved template. When the project is created this way, it will automatically inherit the work structure of the template. Some activities may be optional and may be modified or even deleted by the project manager. However, some activities, marked as required on the template, cannot be deleted from the project once it is created. This structure is enforced in order to preserve the company required structure and best practices.

The following is a list of steps that are different if the project is created from a template rather than from scratch. To get the complete list of all steps and a full description of all properties, follow the Create a Project page flow.

To create a project from a template:

1. From TOC, Portfolio, Projects, create a new Project. The initial form will appear:

2. Fill in the required properties, making sure that the correct template is selected for the Project Template property. If the required template does not seem to appear in the drop down list, make sure that the template is in the right life cycle state, see Approve a Template. For more information on initial form properties, see Create a Project.

3. Hit the green check button to start the project creation process.

4. Once the project is created, the project manager needs to assign the actual identities instead of roles. To do this:

a. Go to the Team tab of the new project. All the roles that were created on the template, will appear in the list here.

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b. To assign a specific identity to each role: i.Select the role to be replaced.

ii.Click on the Pick/Replace Selected Item icon . A search dialog with all identities will appear. If your system administrator crated descriptions for each identity, corresponding to the role list, you can search directly by the description field:

iii.Select the identity to fulfill all Design responsibilities (or whatever role that you are working on), and hit the green check mark to complete the selection.

iv.Notice that back in the Project, under the Team tab, the selected identity has replaced the previous relationship to null.

v.Continue to replace all related items, until all roles have an identity associated with it. 5. On returning to the Project Plan, there may be 1 or more dialog boxes indicating that Assignments and Leaders have been added.

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Project

About Projects

An Innovator Project is a tool that allows the Project Manager to control the scope and time of a project, using a specific structure of other items, such as WBSs, Activities, and Deliverables. The Project Manager creates and organizes the structure. Then, the assignees are given the responsibility for specific activities in the project. When the assignees complete these activities, they update their worksheets, which in turn update the Project, allowing the Project Manager to track the progress of the project. Let's take a closer look at each of these items separately, and then together as they fit into the whole structure.

 WBS  Activity2  Deliverable  Project

 Activity Completion Worksheet

The project also has a life cycle associated with it, as shown below:

The project has several states, Pending, Active, Cancelled, or Closed. Only the Owner, or the Project Manager of the Project has the permission to promote the project from one state to another. Once the Project is in the Closed state, it is unlockable, or uneditable.

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WBS

WBS is defined as Work Breakdown Structure. The WBS is an element directly under the root in the Project tree, and it contains other elements such as activities, milestones, and even nested WBSs. The purpose of WBSs is to allow the user to break down the project into manageable pieces or phases, represented by the WBS, where each one has a distinct deliverable. In the case of Milestone scheduling, each WBS should be assigned a phase, with at least one milestone in it. WBSs can also be nested. Here is an example of what a Project structure could look like:

While the WBS might have deliverables associated with it, its schedule is derived from the schedule of the activities and milestones that it contains. So, for example, if a WBS contains one activity whose start date is today and end date is tomorrow, then the WBS start date is today and the end date would be tomorrow. Its metrics, such as the % complete, or how close it is to schedule, are rolled up values from the values of contained activities and milestones.

The WBSs immediately below the root level are represented as phases at Project level. For example, take a look at the tree structure below. Notice that there are 3 main phases (plus root) in this Project:

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These three main phases are reflected in the Project header as well, once the project is promoted to an active state:

Thus, the Project Manager has a good view of the overall progress of each phase just by glancing at the progress of the WBSs.

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Activity/Milestone

An Activity, or an Activity2 is a basic building block of the Project Plan. An activity has a list of tasks associated with it, a time period or duration during which these tasks are to be completed, and a list of deliverables to be submitted. A milestone is an activity, except with zero duration. Aside from the information appearing in the Project Plan tab of the project, there is also a detail dialog for each activity. Let's look at a Design Project and its tree of activities:

Note the highlighted activity, Functional Spec. We will use this activity as an example. To take a more detailed look at the activity, you can either select View/Edit Selected Item from the right-mouse-click pop-up menu, or by hitting the View/Edit item icon . The Activity2 Detail Dialog is then displayed. Notice that this dialog does not have any of the typical Save, Exit, or Unlock icons. All information that is changed on this dialog is automatically saved when the dialog is closed. The information on this dialog is connected to the information for the activity on Project Plan tab. No matter where the

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information is changed, it is updated in both places.

Let's take a look at the properties and tabs of this dialog:

1. There are three areas in the header of this dialog:

a. For Use By Project Manager - all the following properties are to be filled out by the Project Manager identity of this project

i.Name - the name of the activity

ii.Project Manager - the manager of the project

iii.Date Start Sched - the scheduled start date for the activity. The Project Manager can select a date between the early start date (Date Es) and late start date (Date Ls) which are calculated by the scheduler. When these dates are the same date, the Project Manager has no choice.

iv.Date Due Shed - the scheduled due date for the activity. The Project Manager can select a date between the early finish date (Date Ef) and the late finish date (Date Lf), as long as the scheduled start date plus duration will equal Date Due.

v.Expected Duration - the duration of the activity, transferred here from the Project Plan tab.

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vi.Work Est - the estimated number of hours to complete the activity.

vii.Is Required - a boolean to indicate if this activity is required. This applies if the project was created from a template where an activity can be marked as required. In the case of a required activity, the check box will be checked, and the property is read only (set by the template).

viii.Description - the description of the activity

ix.Deliv Type - the Item Type of the Deliverable. This applies only if the activity requires a deliverable, but even in this case, specifying the type of deliverable is not required.. x.Deliv Required - boolean to indicate if the activity requires a deliverable to be complete.

If checked, the activity cannot be completed until the deliverable is attached by the responsible assignee.

b. System Managed - these properties are managed by Innovator. The values shown here are all read only.

i. State - the state of the activity, could be one of two - active or pending. An active state is reached when the project is promoted to the active state, and the

scheduled start date for the activity is today or earlier.

ii. Status - the traffic light indicator of the activity, as well as the rolled up % complete of all the underlying tasks.

 No color - the activity is pending, meaning the scheduled start date has not been reached

 Green - the activity is active (i.e. the start date is today or earlier), and the number of days between today and the planned finish date of the activity is greater than 6.

 Yellow - the activity is active (i.e. the start date is today or earlier), and the number of days between today and the planned finish date of the activity is less than or equal to 5, but greater than or equal to 1.

 Red - the activity is active (i.e. the start date is today or earlier), and the planned finish date of the activity is today or earlier. iii. Date Activated - the date this activity was started. It may have been started

earlier than the scheduled date.

iv. Date Due Original - The original due date, which may be used later in tracking and metrics to indicate the accuracy of planning and predicting project success. v. Date Es - the earliest possible start date calculated by the date propagation

algorithm.

vi. Date Ls - the latest possible start date calculated by the date propagation algorithm.

vii. Date Ef - the earliest possible finish date calculated by the date propagation algorithm.

viii. Date Lf - the latest possible finish date calculated by the date propagation algorithm.

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c. For Use By Assignee - properties that are under the control of the identity assigned to complete the activity. These properties echo the values entered in the Activity Completion Worksheet. So when an assignee updates the

Worksheet, the new values are reflected here as well. i.Date Start Act - the actual date that the activity was started. ii.Date Due Act - the actual date that the activity was completed

iii.Complete - % complete at the point when the assignee chooses to update this information.

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Assignments

Assignments tab - this tab is used to list the specific tasks that may be required by the activity. These may be specified by the template, or by Project Manager, or both.

Whatever tasks are listed here, will also appear on the Activity Completion Worksheet of the Assignee. Below is a sample list of tasks that might comprise an activity.

To add a task, click on the New Item icon , which will create a new row in the table. Fill out the following properties:

Name - This is the Identity of the person assigned, to add or change an assignment use the Pick/Replace icon

Role - This will be used to populate the Identity from the Project Team Work Estimate - The number of hour work estimated for this assignment

Percent Load - The percentage of the assignees time the assignment should take Percent Complete - The percentage complete reported by the assignee using the ACW Dialog from the InBasket

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Tasks

Activity Tasks tab - this tab is used to list the specific tasks that may be required by the activity. These may be specified by the template, or by Project Manager, or both.

Whatever tasks are listed here, will also appear on the Activity Completion Worksheet of the Assignee. Below is a sample list of tasks that might comprise an activity.

To add a task, click on the New Item icon , which will create a new row in the table. Fill out the following properties:

Rqd - required task - if checked this task is required to complete before the activity can be marked as complete.

Description - the description of the task to be completed

%Compl - % Complete - the degree of completeness of each task. Some assigned tasks may already be somewhat completed by others before they are assigned, which would be indicated here. Also this is a good place where the assignee can keep track of their progress with each task. The % Complete of the individual tasks does not roll up into the %Complete of the Activity.

Due Date - each task may have its own due date or not. If no value is entered, a required task of an activity is due on the due date of the activity itself

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Time Records

Activity Time Record Tab - the purpose of this tab is to keep an accurate track record of the actual amount of work required by this activity, and who performed it. This information is currently not used anywhere, but could be used later to run statistics and metrics. Here is a view of what the information in this tab may look like:

a. To add a new time record, hit the New Item icon , which will create a new line in the table.

b. Fill out the following properties:

i.Who - the identity who completed the work hours described by this line item ii.Date From - the date on which this work was started

iii.Date To - the date on which this work was completed iv.Hours - the number of hours spent on the work

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Predecessors

Activity Predecessor Tab - this tab shows the Activities which precede the selected Activity,

The same information is presented in condensed form in the Project Plan Predecessors should be added or edited by the Project Manager by editing the Predecessor column in the Project Plan.

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Deliverable

A Deliverable is an item that is submitted as a result of a completed task or activity. For some activities the deliverable may be a specifications document, a design drawing, a DFMEA, an ECN, or any other type of item that the company may wish to produce. The personnel responsible for the activity has a choice of attaching a new deliverable, or an existing one. Again, depending on how many item types can be a deliverable, first the user is asked to choose the specific item type, and then to select from the instances of it.

Activity Deliverables Tab - holds the deliverables of this activity. The deliverables may be attached here, or on the Activity Completion Worksheet. Either way, once attached they will appear in both places.

To attach an existing deliverable, select Pick Related from the Actions drop down box , click on the New Item icon , and select the deliverable from the Search dialog.

To create a new deliverable, select Create Related from the Actions drop down box, click on the New Item icon, and follow the process of creating a new Deliverable.

To set up different items that can be deliverables, go to PolyItem Setup. To learn about creating PolyItems and how they work, go to PolyItem.

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Comments

Activity Comments Tab - this tab holds any commentary and files that may be necessary to complete an activity. For example, if a template is necessary to write a functional specification, it could be included in the comments, along with any other file, such as a CAD drawing, or an Excel spreadsheet. Here is a view of the information in this tab:

a. To add a new comment, click on the New Item icon , and a new line will be added to the table.

b. Fill out the following properties:

i.Created By - the identity responsible for this comment, defaults to who ever is creating this item

ii.Created On - the date the comment was created, defaults to when the line item is created

iii.Comments - the actual comment or description

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Create a Project

Create a Project, Initial Form

Expand TOC

The best way to create a project is to do so from a template. Creating from templates assures that the lessons learned in the past and incorporated into the templates are duplicated and utilized. To learn how to do this, go to Create Project from Template.

To create a new project from scratch:

1. From TOC, go to Portfolio, Projects, create a new Project. 2. An Add Project dialog will appear.

3. Enter values for the following properties: a. Name - the name of the project

b. Use Template - click No, since we are not creating from a template here. c. Start Date - the target start date; required. This date is the basis of the Forward Scheduling algorithm.

d. Finish Date - the target finish date; required. This date is the basis of the Backward Scheduling algorithm.

e. Scheduling Type - there are three choices available: Forward, Backward, and Milestone. For more explanation on how each scheduling type works, click on the links. i.Forward - calculates the Planned Finish Date by using the given tasks duration and

precedence and the target Start Date.

ii.Backward - calculates the Planned Start Date backward from the target Finish Date accounting for the given tasks durations and precedence.

iii.Milestone - used for projects that are divided into phases, with a hard milestone

completion date in each phase. The Planned Start Date for each phase and activity and the project itself will be calculated backwards from each milestone, accounting for the tasks duration and precedence.

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4.Once the information is entered, the green check mark is enabled. Click the green check mark to save the information and go on to the Project Form.

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Create a Project, Project Form

Once the initial data screen is filled out and saved, the Project Form is displayed. The project form is divided into the header at the top of the form, and the tabs at the bottom of the form.

Let's look at all the header properties of a project:

1. Project Number - read only field; this number is generated automatically; to change its format, go to Sequences.

2. Project Manager - an individual identity; can be changed by anyone from the Project Management Identity; defaults to the creator of the project

3. Name - the name of the project

4. PH1, PH2, etc - Once the project is promoted into the Active state, an indicator for each phase of the project (represented by a WBS element) will be placed on the form. This indicator displays the status of the phase.

5. From Template - if the project is created from a template, the value of this property is the name of the template, and a link to the actual template 6. Target Start - the start date entered on the initial form

7. Target Finish - the finish date entered on the initial form

The target dates should not really change throughout the lifecycle of the project. However, they may be adjusted to reflect the evolving nature of the project.

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8. Scheduling Type - the scheduling type entered on the initial form; forward, backward, or milestone. Go to Scheduling for more information on these.

9. Scheduled Start - the planned start date for the project. If the Schedule Type is Forward, this date is the same as the Target Start. For all other values of

Schedule Type, this date is calculated based on the target finish date and the duration and precedence of activities. See Scheduling.

10. Scheduled Finish - the planned finish date for the project. If the Schedule Type is Backward, this date is the same as the target finish date. For all other values of Schedule Type, this date is calculated based on the target start date, or the milestone dates, and the duration and precedence of the activities. See Scheduling.

11. Description - the description of the project; this property is intended to hold the project charter - the statement of scope and purpose.

Continue to Create a Project, Project Plan to examine the Project Plan tab of the Project Item.

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Create a Project, Project Plan

Once the header properties have information, the next step is to fill out the values in the Project Plan tab. This tab contains the actual structure of the project. The Project Plan tab has a grid that holds information, and a tool bar with icons that act on the items in the grid. We will examine the icons separately.

Let's take a look at the columns of the grid first:

1. N - the activity or milestone number. Used to identify the activity as a

predecessor for another activity. For example, Activity 1 above has an N of 1. It is defined as the predecessor of Activity 2.

2. Project Tree - shows the tree element, its place in the tree, and the element's name.

3. Predecessor - a comma separated list of predecessors for this tree element. A predecessor is an activity or a milestone that has to complete before the

successor activity can start. In milestone scheduling, each phase must have at least one milestone with no successor. The date of this milestone must be the end date of the phase.

4. Status - this field shows two different concepts - % complete and Status. For parent nodes, the values are rolled up from the children. The % complete indicates what percentage of the activity has been completed, and is taken directly from the Activity Completion Worksheet for each activity, and then rolled up for the parent nodes. The Status, or the color indicator applies only for projects which have been promoted to the Active state and works as follows: a. No color - the activity is pending, meaning the scheduled start date has not been reached

b. Green - the activity is active (i.e. the start date is today or earlier), and the number of days between today and the planned finish date of the activity is greater than 6.

c. Yellow - the activity is active (i.e. the start date is today or earlier), and the number of days between today and the planned finish date of the activity is less than or equal to 5, but greater than or equal to 1.

Online Help: Program Management 8.1