Project Planning tool FAQs

In the Gantt area, to the right of the assignments timeline bar, right click on the employee to remove and select Delete Assignments .

1. Click on the predecessor task - the task that must finish before the other task can start.

2. While holding the Ctrl key, select the successor task - the task that cannot start before the other is finished.

3. Click the Link button on the toolbar.

By default, the Project Planning tool will use 100% of an employee's available time to plan the project currently opened. Use the Employee Target Allocation option to reduce this percentage. You may need to review and adjust the Target Allocation for each project that the employee is assigned to.

1. 1. From the Resource Utilization tab, locate the time frame in question and the employee to be assigned.

   2. For each project that the employee is assigned to in the targeted time frame, open the project and take note of the employee’s Target Allocation %. The sum of these should not be over 100%.

   3. Determine which of the projects can be adjusted.

   4. Open that project, reduce the employee’s target allocation value, level and re-publish.

   5. This should free up some time for the employee.

1. Click the Open Project button on the Project Scheduling view's toolbar.

2. Select the Convert an existing project option.

3. Select the project from the list.

4. (Optional) Check the 'Keep existing budget dates' box to keep any assignment dates already established for the project.

5. Click Open.
   
   See Import a Project for full details

Select the placeholder in the lower right side pane and click on the Replace Resources button located just above the list of placeholders. Select the employee to assign, adjust rates if necessary and click OK.

From the Vacation tab, select the New button on the toolbar. Enter Start and Finish dates, select [All] from the employees list, select the Holiday option, enter a descriptive name and click OK.

Click the project properties button on the Project Scheduling view's toolbar, set the Start date and click OK. Depending on the state of the project, you may want to level and re-publish the project.

Click the Progress button on the Project Scheduling view's toolbar.

• For each task, data representing the Current Plan is shown in blue and the Projected Schedule is displayed in orange. The Current Plan is the budgeted hours and timeline as set in the Project Scheduling view. The Projected Schedule is the forecasted hours and finish date based on data (time and ETCs) entered by employees plus data from other active projects.
• For each task, you can review its progress on time using the 2 columns to the right of the task name. When the Projected Schedule is shown in red, this means that the time (or time + ETC) entered against the task is over its budget.
• You can review Start/Finish dates using the timeline bars. A thin black line in the blue timeline bar represents actual hours entered by the assigned employee.

Until the Save button has been used, any changes made to a project schedule can be discarded by creating a new project (or opening another project) and selecting the Cancel option when prompted to save changes made to the project. Until changes to a project have been published, the changes are not available to employees tracking their time.

To delete a project, go to the Project Assignments view (Menu > Views tab > Employees & Projects > Project Assignments), click on the project name in the assignment tree and then click Delete on the toolbar. Warning: If a project is deleted, all the hours worked for that project are deleted. Any expenses entered for the project are also deleted.

You can print either the Gantt view or the Utilization view using the Print button in the tab's toolbar.

The Allocation % for all employees is calculated based on the project's Start and Finish dates. When an employee is assigned to a task, the task's finish date will probably change. If any one task's finish date changes then it's likely the project's Finish date will change as well. With the project's finish date changed, the Allocation % is recalculated for all employees.

The Allocation % is calculated based on the project's Start and Finish dates. When an employee is assigned to a task, the project's Finish date is likely changed as well. Because the project's date range has changed, all allocation percentages, for ALL employees, are recalculated.

The heat map shows activity not just for the open project but for multiple projects. Clicking in the specific area of the heat map will display the projects and tasks scheduled in that time period.

The Project Scheduling view shows the planned finish date for the project and does not reflect possible changes due to actual time entered by employees. The Progress view's Projected Schedule shows how a project is tracking when actual hours tracked, ETCs and other planned projects are considered.

Each employee has his or her own settings. This means that if one employee's over allocation target is 120% and another employee's is set to 105%, and both are working at 110%, then one employee will show in green and the other in red.

Skillsets are temporary resources useful when the type of work to be performed can be reasonably defined (Mechanical Engineer, Web Designer, etc.) but the exact employee to assign to the work cannot be finalized. When you assign a skillset to a task, a placeholder is automatically created (in the lower right pane) and the placeholder is actually assigned to the task instead of the source skillset. The creation of placeholders is important when the time comes to replace these temporary assignments with employees.

The Allocation % is the employee's approximate workload for the open project and all published projects. The calculation is done for the date range of the open project and excludes any Admin % set for the employee.

Example: Rudy works 40 hours a week and has an Admin % setting of 20%. This means that 8 hours per week (40 x 0.20) cannot be scheduled for Rudy. The remaining 32 hours is now considered by the Project Planning tool as 100% allocation. When Rudy's Allocation % shows 50% for a given week, then it can be assumed that Rudy has 16 hours of free time during that week.

The Warning symbol is displayed in the left most column of the Project Scheduling view when an assignment is overallocated (overbooked) because there are both Start and Finish constraints set for the task. Clicking on the Warning symbol will launch that task's assignment properties window.