Planning Tutorial

Activity required : planning.ro
Plug-in required : Project Management, Planning

Incremental Epic integrates with dedicated planning tools to allow you to generate and update project plans.

A common planning tool is Microsoft Project™ which Incremental Epic supports 'out-of-the-box'. This tutorial is based on using Microsoft Project. Other planning tools can be integrated through custom plug-ins. The procedures for using these is exactly the same.

This tutorial covers:

• overview
• pre-requisites
• set up
• create a plan
• view / update the plan
• synchronise the plan
• planning data and synchronisation constraints
• delete the plan
• handling timeouts

Overview

You use use a project's tasks to create a plan in your planning tool. The plan is saved as a file in the document repository, from where the plan can then be viewed and updated directly. With most planning tools, Incremental Epic also allows you to synchronise the data between it and the plan.

Pre-requisites

To generate or update a plan the following must be true:

• you must have the planning plug-in(s) installed;
• you must have the read-write planning activity;
• the document repository must be set up;
• the planning tool must be have been set up;
• the project must have a status of 'Awaiting Work' or later;
• there must be tasks in the project.

Set Up

1. Open your user preferences and select 'System Settings / Planning' (you must have the administration activity to do this);
2. Select the planning tool to use - in the absence of custom plug-ins you have only one choice - Microsoft Project:

   

3. Set any tool-specific settings - note you may have to change settings on the tool itself - see any notes on the screen:

   

4. With Microsoft Project you must select the format of the plan to generate:
   • choose '.mpx' if you are using Project 98 or earlier - this is the fastest format but unfortunately is not supported by later versions;
   • choose '.mpp' for later versions;
   • the final option '.xml' is only for support purposes.

    

Create a Plan

1. Open a project at the 'Awaiting Work' stage or later, which has tasks (either imported from an estimate or manually added as emergent work);
2. Right-click on any task in the 'Tasks' tab; if all pre-requisites are satisfied you will see a 'Planning' option; click this:]#

   

3. If there is no plan associated with the project yet, you will be presented with the project creation screen:
4. A name for the project plan file and a start date for the plan will be suggested. The start date is based on the date work has been recorded as started within Epic. If there is no such date you will have to enter this manually. You will also have the options:
   • add unauthorised tasks : whether or not the plan will include tasks that are with an estimator or are unauthorised;
   • use estimate manhours for duration : estimates in Epic do not have the concept of elapsed time - they record how many manhours a task might take but not how many men will work on it. Hence Epic cannot tell the planning tool how long a task will take (that is after all the point of the plan!). However as a first step, Epic can calculate the task duration based on a single person working on the task, and pass this value to the plan (note that tasks without estimated hours will have a zero duration so will appear as milestones). If you choose not to use this option all tasks are created with an elapsed time of a single day.
5. Click 'Finish' and the plan will be created and opened within the planning tool. This can be quite a long process - see handling timeouts below.
6. Close the planning tool and switch to the 'Project' tab of the project editor. In the 'Documents' section you will see the project plan:

   

7. See planning data for what information is passed to the planning tool when a plan is created.

View / Update the Plan

Once a plan has been created it can be accessed from the project editor by anyone with access to the project and the planning activity. The plan can be accessed from the 'Documents' section as illustrated above or from the 'Planning' option on the right-click menu of the 'Tasks' tab - as explained in the next section.

Note that Epic cannot control what happens to the plan within the planning tool. You may wish to set up complimentary security settings within the tool.

Synchronise the Plan

With most planning tools you can synchronise the plan with the latest data within Epic.

1. If a plan has already been created for the project, when you click the 'Planning' option on the right-click menu of the 'Tasks' tab you will see this screen (note that if you have read-only planning permissions the plan will open instead):

   

2. Clicking 'Finish' from here will simply open the plan. If you instead click the 'synchronise project plan with Epic' option the 'Next' button will be enabled. Click this and the available synchronisation options will be displayed:

   

3. Your options are:
   • add unauthorised tasks : as with creating a plan;
   • use estimate manhours for duration : as with creating a plan;
   • update projected dates in Epic - see planning data below.
4. Click 'Finish' . The Epic and plan data will be synchronised. Note this may take some time and be subject to timeouts - see handling timeouts below.

Planning Data and Synchronisation Constraints

When creating a project plan Epic passes the following data to the planning tool [values in square brackets indicate the Microsoft Project fields used when it is the selected planning tool]:

• code [text1]
• customer code [text2]
• status [text3]
• description [notes]
• actual start date [start start]
• actual end date [actual finish]
• percentage complete [percentage complete]
• it also passes an id number that must be stored by the tool [number20]

By default this is done for all tasks that are authorised, or if you choose the 'include unauthorised tasks' options, for all tasks.

If you do not wish to synchronise the plan at a later date, you can do anything you want with the plan. However if you wish synchronise later you must not add non-summary tasks directly to the plan. All tasks that can have costs assigned to them must come from Epic.

On synchronisation all the data listed above will be updated with the latest values from Epic - including new tasks that have appeared either as emergent work or as newly authorised. Optionally the following data can flow the other way from the plan to Epic:

• projected start date
• projected end date

Delete the Plan

A project can only have a single plan associated with it at any one time. If you wish to start again you must delete the existing plan first. You do this via the 'Planning' option on the right-click menu of the 'Tasks' tab, and then selecting the 'delete project plan' option.

Handling Timeouts

Planning tools can be quite slow generating plans - particularly during the synchronisation process. Epic waits for a certain length of time for the planning tool to report that it has completed. If this does not occur Epic then time out and reports an error. Frequently the wait is due to the planning tool loading up for the first time and simply repeating the action immediately will work. Try these steps if Epic reports a time out:

1. Try again immediately;
2. Open the planning tool without any plan and then try again;
3. Increase the 'document timeout' in your preferences ( 'System Settings / Document Generation / Timeout(seconds)' );
4. If all of the above fail, or you get an error message form the planning tool, contact your system administrator.

See also:

• activity
• custom plug-in
• document repository
• editor
• estimate
• expandable section
• plan
• preferences
• project
• tasks

How To's:

• add emergent work
• change a user's preferences
• import tasks from an estimate
• open a project