Project plans

This topic is organized into the following sections:

About project plans

A project plan is an eRoom item that lets you create a simple, structured project schedule containing tasks that describe the lifetime of your project. Project plans encapsulate a set of project-planning-specific features that help you manage and track your projects with great flexibility and precision. For example, you can

Project plans and project tasks can have spaces for comments and votes, and attachment boxes, just like other eRoom pages. You can also export and import project plans.

The front page of a project plan is its summary page, on which tasks are displayed in rows. Data for each task is shown in columns determined by whether you pick Gantt view or details view. On the summary page, you can click an task title or its icon () to open an individual task page.  

You can create project plan dashboards in your eRoom that summarize and display tasks from one or more project plan data sources. Your My eRooms page includes a Dashboards tab on which you can display and organize your database, calendar, and project plan dashboards. Thus, My eRooms provides a central location for keeping current with frequently updated items in multiple eRooms.

Working with project plans

You begin to create or edit a project plan just like you do other items. When creating a project plan, click the project plan icon on the Create page to open the Create Project Plan page. When editing a project plan, the Edit Project Plan page opens, which has the same fields as the Create Project Plan page.

To create or edit a project plan:

  1. Type or edit the project plan's name.

  2. Choose a start date. This sets the official beginning of the project and provides an initial start date for tasks. You can edit the start date at any time later, but note this can affect the start date of tasks.  

  3. Specify whether you want weeks in your schedule to begin on Sunday or Monday (the default). When the Gantt chart's scale is in weeks, a "week begin" indicator (small tick mark) appears in the column for either Monday or Sunday in the Gantt column's header, next to the corresponding date. The "weeks begin on" setting also controls which day of the week appears in the first column of date pickers in the project plan.

  4. Optionally, describe your project plan.

  5. Decide whether members can add comments and take votes on the summary page of the project plan.

  6. Decide whether to include an attachment box on the summary page.

  7. Decide whether to keep change logs for individual tasks. If Keep change logs is on, each project task has a change log shown only on the Task page.  

  8. Decide whether to enable progress reports. If enabled, affordances for entering and measuring progress and status appear throughout the project (in the details view, ToolTips in the Gantt view, the Task page, the Create/Edit Task page, and the Edit Progress page). If progress reports are disabled, affordances for entering and showing a "done" state are shown instead.

If you enable progress reports, specify the following:

Disabling progress reports permanently translates states of done into either " yes" or " no". Re-enabling progress reports translates any tasks that were already done into 100% complete, and the rest into 0% complete.

  1. Pick the working days and holidays for your project. Use either default days in effect in the current community (set at the site or community level), or customize them by picking Use custom days unique to "Project Plan". If you use the default working days and holidays, you cannot change them at the project level. In this case, any updates at the community level also updates the project's working days and holidays.

To use custom days, do the following:

  1. Specify any Categories into which you can group project tasks, for example, by type of work (engineering, testing, marketing, etc.), or by project stages (requirements, design, prototype, etc.).

  1. Click "access control" to set access control for your project plan. Initially, anyone who can get to the project plan can Open it, and its creator (and, therefore, its owner) is the only member who can Edit it (change its properties). Like database entries, project tasks have no access control settings of their own -- ownership settings for the project plan determine who can create and modify project tasks.

Specify whether the project plan is read-only, hidden, or reserved for editing.

Pick who can edit project tasks. Choices are as follows:

To grant task resources permission to file progress reports, select the check box labeled "A member who is assigned as a task resource may file progress reports" (it is selected by default). When you do so, links to the Report Progress page are shown to such members in details view and on the Task page.

Click "OK" to put the project's access control settings into effect.

  1. To use any custom commands in your project plan, click "custom commands". (For details about custom commands, see the Server Extension Programmer's Guide within the eRoom API Help.)

  2. Click "OK" to create the project plan and open its summary page.

Note: Each user's local time zone is used to calculate the current day and all dependent values, such as how much progress is planned for each project task, whether progress reports are overdue, and whether tasks are overdue.

Working with tasks

Each entry in a project plan is a task. To view a task, click its icon () or its title on the project's summary page. Or, click an entry in the tasks list of the eRoom map. The Task page opens.

To create or edit a task:

  1. To create a new task, click at the top of the summary page of your project plan. Or, click "new task" in the command bar. The Create Task page opens.

To edit a task, do one of the following:

The Edit Task page opens.

  1. Type or edit a Title for your task. (Task ID is set automatically and is read-only).

  2. If performing this task is dependent on any other tasks in the project plan, specify its Predecessors by clicking to open the Choose Predecessors page and select the task's dependencies.

The Choose Predecessors page lists all the tasks in the project plan.

If a task is already chosen as a predecessor, its check box is selected. If a task is dependent on the current task, it has no check box.

When you click "OK" on the Choose Predecessors page, you return to the Create/Edit Task page, and eRoom recalculates any fields that show "available after refresh," but does not commit any changes until you click "OK" to update the task.

  1. For Duration, specify how many working days you expect the task will take to complete. Enter "0" for a milestone date.

If you change a task's Duration, click "Recalculate" to adjust the read-only Finish date.

Because the duration of a predecessor can be a non-whole number of days, or even zero (a milestone), a task may be scheduled to start either the same day as a predecessor's finish date or the day after. For the same reason, eRoom takes into account how much of a task's first day is available when calculating expected progress and status.

  1. For Earliest start, click to pick the soonest date by which the task can begin. Any date is acceptable, but dates earlier than the project plan's start date have no effect.

If you change a task's Earliest start date, click "Recalculate" to adjust Start and Finish dates.

Note: "Recalculate" only recalculates the dates displayed, you must click "OK" to apply the new values.

  1. If progress reports can be filed for the task when you finish creating it, you can choose to Omit duration, progress, and status from summaries. If progress reports are disabled, you can Omit duration and state of completion from summaries. This setting enables you to specify tasks that you don't want factored into the project's overall schedule -- that is, you might want to highlight calendar-related information (such as dates of a trade show or a promotional period) that has no effect on actual scheduled work.

  2. The read-only Start and Finish fields show eRoom-calculated dates, in DD MMM YY format. The dates change dynamically as Duration, Earliest start, and Predecessors are changed. The default values for both fields are the project plan's start date.

eRoom sets the start date for a task to the earliest date upon which all of the following conditions are true:

Start dates are unaffected by reported progress of predecessors. If a predecessor is reported to be 100% complete earlier than its scheduled finish date, the scheduled start dates of its dependent tasks are unaffected.

When a start date arrives, and no progress report has yet been filed

  1. Pick a Category for the task, if appropriate. A drop-down menu lists "none" followed by the project plan's categories in order they were created.

  2. Pick the task's resource(s) by clicking to pick members.

  3. Optionally, specify any Notes or a Description for the task.

  4. Decide whether members can add comments and take votes, or add attachments on the task's View Task page.

  5. Click "OK" to create the task, or click "Add Another" to create the task and display a new Create Task page (empty).

Reporting progress

When progress reporting is enabled for a project plan, the Report Progress page permits task owners and (when authorized) task resources to file a progress report and see a report history.

To create a progress report for a task:

  1. Open the Report Progress page by clicking one of the following:

  1. Specify the following:

As you enter changes in one progress field, eRoom dynamically updates the values in the other two progress fields accordingly, factoring into account the task's start and duration, and the project plan's working days and holidays. A status icon and read-only field are also updated dynamically. For a comment, you can enter up to 128 characters.

When actual progress is 100% or matches work (in days), the task is considered "finished." This determines whether the task appears in the summary when the "unfinished tasks" filter is on, whether its report date is exempt from turning red if older than the "reports are due" limit, whether its finish date is exempt from turning red when that date has passed, whether it appears on the Task page, and whether any corresponding tasks in Microsoft Outlook are marked complete upon the next synch.

  1. Click "OK" to file the report.

In the progress reporting history (see below), a row is added for the current date and eRoom calculates the status of the task.

Progress reporting history

The progress reporting history shows all existing progress reports for the task, with all the above values and the date of the report. If no progress reports have been filed, the message "No reports have been saved" appears in the progress reporting history.

The progress reporting history is separate from the change log, if any, and is always provided as long as progress reports are enabled. If the task's start date has not arrived, a report may still be entered. However, the percentage ahead/behind is shown as "100%" in the progress reporting history, while the status is simply shown as "not started" everywhere else.

If the task has zero duration (a milestone), only the progress reporting history is shown. If reports were entered before the task was designated a milestone, the actual percentages all read "100%" and the planned values all show 0 (zero). A prompt explains that progress may not be entered for milestones.

Calculating status

eRoom calculates the status of the task by comparing actual progress and expected progress. It is not a comparison between actual progress and total duration. Actual progress comes from the latest progress report, or (if none) is assumed to be zero. Expected progress is either the progress expected for the end of the current day, if a report is overdue, or otherwise the progress expected for the end of the day of the latest report.

For example, if a recent progress report states that actual progress was 3 days and the plan was 2 days, the status is "ahead by 1 out of 2 days." However, if after 5 more working days a fresh report is overdue, the old actual progress (3) is compared to expected progress for today (2 + 5 more = 7). The status is now "behind by 4 out of 7 days."

Status is composed of a percentage ahead/behind, days ahead/behind, and one of three icons corresponding to whether the percentage is late, tardy, or on time/ahead. The difference between late and tardy is specified by a plan-specific or site-wide threshold.

Status appears formatted according to the following rules, where P is the percentage ahead/behind and D is the days ahead/behind:

These special cases can occur, in order of priority:

Once a task's start date arrives, if the first progress report becomes overdue:

See also: Summary rows in details view for information on how status is calculated for a summary of tasks.

Viewing project plans

Project plan summary pages have two views: Gantt (the default) and details. To switch between them, click for Gantt view; click to view details.

Note: Project plan tasks shown in the map mirror the filtering, grouping, and sorting in effect.

Gantt view

Features of Gantt view include the following:

Sorting by the Gantt column works with a filter in effect (though some tasks may be hidden). You cannot sort by the Gantt column, however, with a grouping in effect. In this case, eRoom sorts tasks as if by start dates.

When you sort a project plan by a column other than Gantt, the only secondary sorting is the same as for eRoom databases (by order of task creation).

Sorting does not affect the order of groups. Instead

eRoom also provides buttons for "today" and "go". The default start date is the project plan's start date. When you specify a different start date, the chart redraws to show that date as the first column.

Set the date scale (in week, in months, in quarters) of the Gantt chart using the scale drop-down list.

The Gantt chart shows a column for each day. The width of the column varies according to the scale in effect. When the scale permits, durations or progress that are non-whole numbers are represented accordingly.

The background of the Gantt chart makes working days visually distinct from non-working days and holidays, and identifies the current day.

In the Gantt chart

The Gantt bar in a summary row extends from the start of the earliest summarized task through the finish of the latest.

Hovering over a summary Gantt bar shows a ToolTip with the following details:

These calculations exclude the following tasks:

Calculation

Excluded tasks

duration

tasks with "omit" turned on

status

  • tasks with "omit" turned on

  • tasks with start date in the future

  • milestones

latest report

  • tasks with "omit" turned on

  • tasks with start date in the future

  • milestones

  • tasks that are finished

actual vs. planned

  • tasks with "omit" turned on

  • tasks with start date in the future

  • milestones

done

  • tasks with "omit" turned on

  • milestones

If no tasks qualify to be summarized, the word "none" appears, except as below.

The status field states "not started" if all tasks have start dates in the future, or "milestones" if all tasks are milestones.

The latest report field has different formats depending on the latest reports being summarized:

If any date shown is overdue, it appears with a "one or more overdue" comment.

Details view

Features of details view include:

Sorting by status sorts the rows in the following order (or in reverse, if sorted "descending"):

Sorting by predecessor sorts the rows according to the ID of the first predecessor in each row; sorting by resource sorts the rows according to the first resource in each row.

A blank field is shown if no tasks qualify to be summarized.

The formatting of the latest report field is the same as in the Gantt chart's ToolTips, except if the date is overdue, it appears in red with a "one or more reports are overdue" ToolTip. If the date is a range, and either one is overdue, both appear in red with the ToolTip.

Printing project plans

On the summary page of a project plan in Gantt view, click "print view" in the command bar to open a print view page. This page includes (non-printing) instructions to help you make your project plan printing choices.  

On the print view page in Gantt view

See also: Printing items in the Working with items topic

Cut, copy, paste, delete, and restore actions

Copying and pasting project plans

When you create a project plan by pasting a copy, eRoom copies everything (including attachments and discussions) except for change logs, reporting histories, and actual progress.

Copying and pasting tasks

When you create a task by pasting a copy into the same or different project plan, eRoom assigns the task a new ID, and copies everything (including attachments and discussions) except for the change log, reporting history, and actual progress.

Copying a task has no effect on its dependents, but cutting or deleting a task causes the dependents to lose their dependency on it. If a deleted task is restored from the recycle bin, any dependent tasks regain their dependency on it.

If the source and destination project plans have different settings for progress reporting (enabled or disabled), eRoom either translates tasks with a percent done as either "yes" or "no", or translates any finished tasks as 100% complete, and the rest 0% complete.

Summary

The properties of project plan tasks that cut, copy, paste, and 'restore from recycle bin' actions can affect are:

These affects are summarized as follows:

Item

Action

Keep

Clear

New ID?

Project plan

Cut & paste

All

 

No

 

Copy & paste

Task predecessors

 

No

 

Restore from recycle bin

All

 

No

Individual task

Copy & paste into same project plan

Task predecessors

 

Yes

 

Copy & paste into another project plan

 

All

Yes

 

 

Restore from recycle bin into same project

All

 

No

Chain of tasks

Copy & paste into same project plan

Task predecessors (dependencies within chain and first task's dependencies beyond chain)

 

Yes

 

Copy & paste into another project plan

Task predecessors (dependencies within chain)

 

Yes

 

Restore from recycle bin into same project

All

 

No

Exporting and importing project plans

Like databases, you can export and import project plans as CSV (comma-delimited) files.

To export a project plan:

  1. In details or Gantt view, click "export" in the command bar.

The Export Project Plan page opens.

  1. Decide whether to Export rich text as HTML.

  2. Decide whether to save the file in Unicode format.

  3. Click "OK".

The Export Complete page opens, which contains a link to a .csv file.

  1. Click the link to download the exported file.

  2. Click "OK" or "Cancel" to close the Export Complete page and return to the project plan summary.

All tasks are exported, regardless of whether grouping or filtering is in use, and regardless of whether tasks are done or not. Summary values are not exported.

In the CSV file, the first row shows the names of the exported fields, as follows:

Dates are exported in YYYY-MM-DD format. Resource names are exported in "first middle last" format. Attachments, discussions, and change logs are not exported. Any fields containing commas or quotes are 'escaped' using quotes. Graphics in HTML are lost.

When importing a CSV file, eRoom checks that each data row is well-formed (i.e., the number of fields in a data row matches the number of fields in the header row). If there's a problem here, it's usually because the wrong delimiting character is used in the data rows but the header row is OK. If any of the data rows are malformed, eRoom will alert you to the problem, such as in the following message: "No rows will be imported. This could be because there are no rows in the file, or all rows don't have the correct number of fields. Please check the file and try again."

If there are more rows in the CSV file than the maximum specified as a server tuning parameter (the default is 100,000), eRoom displays a message saying there are more rows than allowed. In this case, you can split the file into smaller increments and try importing again.

To import a project plan:

  1. In details or Gantt view, click "import" in the command bar.

The Import Project Plan page opens.

  1. Browse to locate the CSV file you want to import.

  2. Specify whether Incoming formatted text is HTML.

  3. Click "OK" to open the Import <file name.csv> page, which lists the field names eRoom found in the file. If you proceed with the import, the rows following the header are imported as tasks, as in this table (opens in a new window).

The first row is expected to contain field names, which can be in any sequence and can include unknown names or blanks; eRoom parses the row for matches to the names it recognizes, case-insensitive, and ignores the rest. The only required field name is Task_Name.

If the number of tasks in the project plan reaches the maximum (500) during the import, and more rows remain to be imported, the import is cancelled. An error page opens and suggests you remove some existing tasks or eliminate some rows from the import file and try again.

Exporting CSV files from Microsoft Project

When you save Microsoft Project files in CSV format, you can filter out the summary rows before importing the CSV file to eRoom. Otherwise, eRoom project plans interpret summaries as tasks, thus mixing elapsed time (summary rows) with work duration (task rows). The following steps provide guidelines for importing CSV files from Project into eRoom project plans.

  1. Start by creating an eRoom-specific map for exporting Project files. The easiest way to do this is to export any eRoom project plan as a CSV file and then start opening the exported CSV file in Project. When project lets you select an import/export map, choose New Map instead. For data to import/export, pick "Tasks", and select "Export header row/Import includes headers". Accept the default field mappings. (Some eRoom fields will be listed as "not mapped" because they have no counterpart in Project.) Before finishing the dialog box or wizard, give your new map a name, such as "eRoom project plan". In the Import Mapping or Save Map dialog, click Organizer and check that your map was added to Project’s "global.mpt" template, so you can use it later. If necessary, use the Organizer to copy it there. You can then cancel opening the eRoom file.

  2. Next, in Microsoft Project, create a filter that omits Summary tasks. Do this by picking from the Project menu Filtered for...: task description > More Filters. Create a new task filter (named, for example, "No summaries") that specifies Field Name "Summary" equals "No". Select the "show in menu" check box, and save your filter. Back in the More Filters dialog box, click Organizer and check that your filter was added to Project’s "global.mpt" template, so it remains available later. If necessary, use the Organizer to copy it there. You do not need to apply the filter.

  3. Finally, when you export a Microsoft Project file (using Save As .csv), use your "eRoom project plan" map with the "No summaries" filter.