User Guide
Project Management
A project is a multidisciplinary planned, interrelated activities designed to achieve defined objectives within a given budget and a specified period of time. A project needs to be well planned, documented and executed successfully.
A project can be created using the New Project action in the Projects tab. Only Admin and Project Manager can create a new project. The following fields needs to be entered to create a new project (see Figure: 3.1) :
- Name of the project (has to be unique).
-
Status of the Project (has to be selected from the drop down box). Project status can
be any one of the following: -
The Status is Draft, when the project is scheduled for a future date and the
work has not been started yet, the status of the project can be selected as Draft. The
Project Owner can only perform this feature. - The Status is Active, when the project is ready to be started or in progress.
-
Inactive is selected when the work of the project is suspended. Inactive
projects are visible only to the Project Owner and the Admin. -
The Status is Archived when the project is completed and the Project Manager
wants to lock the project, the status of the project can be selected as Archived.
Once the project is Archived none of the tasks, issues, messages etc., of the archived
projects cannot be edited anymore, however the archived (locked) project settings can be
edited only by the Admin.
the Project is ACTIVE. If the status of the project is Draft, Archived or Inactive, only
Project Manager or Administrator have visibility into the project.
Server.
Server. Publishing a project with external linked tasks will result in the published project
loosing the linking. The project listed in the ValleySpeak Project Server will loose the task
linking and will behave as an ordinary project.
Figure: 3.1 New project page with Status drop down.
After creating new project you will get a page Project has been created successfully If you
want to add resources to the project, Click here to Build Team. If you do not wish to do a Build
Team at this time, you can build team at any later point of time. Click here to open the project
in Microsoft Project. (see Figure: 3.2). If you click the link Click here to Build
TeamIf you want to add resources to the project, then Click here to Build Team. it will
take you to the Build Team page of Resources tab. Alternatively you can click on
Project.
be open in Microsoft Project Application.
ValleySpeak Project Server Web Interface. This will result in an application setup.exe
to be downloaded. This executable has to be successfully run for the environment to be setup.
2007 on either Windows XP or on Windows Vista
- Click Projects tab.
- Click New Project action.
- Fill in the Name field, the project name should be unique.
- Select project status from the Status drop down (see admin-1.jpg).
- Click Cancel button to cancel the creation of new project.
- Click Reset button to clear the all fields.
-
If you click the link “Click here to Build Team” in the above message then it will
take you to the Build Team page of Resources tab. -
If the Status is Archived or Deleted you will get a message,
“Resources cannot be added/removed for an Archived/Deleted project.”. -
If the Status is not Archived or Deleted then you will get
Build Team page with Global Resource Pool list and Resources in Project
list. Select the required Members for your project from Global Resource
Pool list and then click Add button to add that particular Member
to Resources in Project list. If you do not want the Member you selected
then select that Member in the Resources in Project list and then click
Remove button to remove that Member from Resources in Project
list, then again he is available to you at Global Resource Pool list. -
Click Cancel button to cancel the selection of Members to your project,
you can add Members later. - Click Reset button to clear the selection.
- Click Save & Close button to add selected Members to your project
Figure: 3.3 Open project in Microsoft project
Figure: 3.2 New project page with Status drop down.
For the first time, before importing any project, you should set up your environment in your local
machine with Microsoft project installed. Only Admin or Project Managers can do this
setup, because only Admin or Project Managers can import any project. To set up your
local environment go through the following steps
- Open IE browser and login into ValleySpeak Project Server
-
Login to ValleySpeak Project Server as Admin or Project Manager or
Executive. - Click Setup icon, on the top right corner.
-
A pop-up window appears with Run and Save buttons
(see Figure: 3.3). - Click Run button, which runs the setup file.
-
A Dos window will pop-up, wait until the Dos window is closed automatically
(see Figure: 3.4). -
A Microsoft Project (setup) application will open and configure the application to work
with ValleySpeak Project Server and close automatically
Figure: 3.3 Environment setup
Figure: 3.4 Success message.
This completes the initial setup before importing or opening any project in Microsoft project.
This setup is also required to upload and downloading of documents in Documents tab.
Internet Explorer and install ValleySpeak Project Server Menu item in Microsoft Project
application as part of the setup.
The Import project feature is used to import Microsoft Project files (.mpp) into
ValleySpeak Project Server. The Import Project feature helps the Project Manager
to import the projects which are created in Microsoft project into ValleySpeak Project
Server. This feature is very helpful for those Project Managers who already have projects
in Microsoft Project and needs to switch to ValleySpeak Project Server. Import feature will work
only in windows environment where Microsoft project is installed. To import any project for the
first time in your local machine, you should setup your local environment. Only Admin and
Project Manager can import any Microsoft Project file (.mpp files).
environment section of this chapter.
- Click Projects tab.
- Click Import Project action available in action bar.
-
Click Browse button of Project file to import field. A pop-up
will appear, where you can choose Microsoft Project file (.mpp file) (see Figure: 3.5) and
click Open button. -
Enter the unique project name in Project Name field. The project name must be
unique from other project names. - Select the project status from the Status drop down.
-
Click Cancel button to cancel the importing of Microsoft Project file
(.mpp file) to ValleySpeak Project Server. -
Click Reset button to clear the values in all fields and to make a new
entry. -
Click Save & Close to import Microsoft Project file (.mpp file) to
ValleySpeak Project Server.
Figure: 3.5 Import project into valleyspeak server
Project Server.
The Members of project can create tasks and assign to others, but only Project Manager,
Admin and the Member to whom the task is assigned can edit that task. A task can be
created and assigned to other Team Members by clicking New Task action tab.
chapter on “Task Management”.
View project means view all the tasks in that project. So to view the tasks you should go to
project list page and then select the project to view the tasks in that project. The visibility
of projects is different from one Member to another.
-
Admin can view all the projects in the server. What ever the status of the
projects, all projects are visible to Admin. -
Project Owner can view all the projects to which he is a Member. Project Owner
cannot see projects whose Status is Deleted and also the projects to which he
is not a Member. -
Team Member can see only active projects to which he is a Member. So Team
Member cannot see projects whose Status is other than Active and projects
to which he is not a Member.
List Projects is the default view when you go to Projects tab. The
List Projects lists all the projects to which you are a Member. If you are a
Team Member you can see only active projects. If you are a Project Manager you can see
all projects you own except the projects whose Status is Deleted. Admin can
see all the projects in List Projects regardless of Status. You can limit the
number of projects to be listed per page by editing Num of records per page field in
Global Settings action of Preferences tab. In project list page you can
navigate from one page to another by selecting the page number from the Page drop down
(see Figure: 3.6) available in filter bar and as you select a page number a project list in
that page will be displayed (see Figure: 3.7). Following are the fields which describes projects
in List Projects (see Figure: 3.7)
-
The first column is the serial numbers for the list of projects. The second column has 2
icons. The first icon in the second column is Promote to Dashboard or Demote to
Dashboard icon. If the arrow color is green then that project is not promoted to
dashboard you can promote that by clicking that icon. If the arrow color is red that means
project is already visible in dashboard. The second icon is to Open the project in Microsoft
Project. - The second column has the MSP icon to open the project in Microsoft Project.
-
Project Name is the name of the project. The Project Name is unique. So you
can differentiate between projects by their names. - Start is the start date of the project i.e the date when the project was created.
-
Finish is the end date of the project. The Finish date depends on the finish
date of tasks in that project. So the project Finish date is same as the finish date of the
task, which will be finished at last or at the end, after the completion of all other tasks. -
Owner is the one who created that project or imported that. Owner may be Admin
or a Project Manager. -
Status may be Active, Inactive, Draft, Archived and Deleted. If the
Status is Active then the project is visible to all including the Team
Members of that project. If the Status is Inactive, Draft or Archived
only Admin and Project Owner can see those projects. If the Status
is Deleted only Admin can see that project. -
% Work Done is the percentage of work completed in that project. It is calculated by
adding percentage done of all tasks in that project and divide that by number of tasks in
that project.
Figure: 3.6 Select page number.
Figure: 3.7 List project.
Promote a project to Dashboard means show that project in Project Status
Overview block of dashboard, this can be done by clicking the green colored arrow icon shown
in project list page (see Figure: 3.7). Once a project is promoted to dashboard it is visible in
the Project Status Overview block of dashboard. Demote from dashboard means the project
which is demoted will not be shown in Project Status Overview block of Dashboard
. You can demote a project from dashboard either by clicking the red colored arrow icon
available in list page (see Figure: 3.7) or by clicking the red colored arrow icon available
in Project Status Overview block of Dashboard and this project will not be
shown in dashboard in future. Every user can promote projects to his dashboard to view the
required projects in their dashboard.
If you want to open a project in Microsoft Project you can click Open Project in Microsoft
Project icon available in the second column of project list page (see Figure: 3.8). Only
projects whose status is Active, Inactive or Draft can be opened in
Microsoft Project. You can open a project in Microsoft Project on windows environment where
Microsoft Project is installed.
Figure: 3.8 Open existing project in Microsoft Project.
Only the Project Owner who owns a project is authorized to open the project in Microsoft
Project. This means that the Open Project in Microsoft Project icon in list page will be
available only for a Project Owner. If a Member or Admin who is not the
Owner of the project then Open Project in Microsoft Project icon is not available.
Once the project is opened in Microsoft Project then that project becomes read only to other
Members in ValleySpeak Project Server.
Note :
To open a project in Microsoft Project you need to set up your local
environment. For more information about environment set up, see “Setting Up Environment”
section of this chapter.
When you click particular project in List Projects or if you click List Tasks
in action tab, you can see a list of tasks in that project. In List Tasks
page you can see the tasks in other projects by selecting project in the Project
drop down list. If you click any tasks it will take you to the edit mode of that task. You can
edit and save your changes.
Tasks” sections of chapter on “Task Management”.
when you click a task row in task list page you can view the details of that task.
“Task Management”
For every change made in Project Settings, a log will be generated and it is
displayed under Project History section when you click Project Settings
action. The following fields describes the changes to the project in Project History
(see Figure: 3.9).
- Log Date-Time is the date and time when the Project Settings changed.
- User Name is the name of the user who made changes in Project Settings.
- Field Name is the name of the field which is altered.
-
Change is the type of change done to a particular field. The changes will be shown as
“Old value” => “New Value” format. For example if the Field Name Status is changed
from Draft to Active then Change field contains Draft=>Active (see Figure: 3.9).
Figure: 3.9 Project history.
For every changes made to tasks a log will be generated and it is displayed in Task History
when you click a particular task row in task list page(For further details please referr to
Tasks page).
“Task Management”.
Editing project means editing the tasks, issues, documents etc. in that project. A project is
editable by all Members of that project when its Status is Active. Only
Project Managers and Admin can edit projects whose Status is Inactive or
Draft. Only Admin can edit projects whose Status is Archived or
Deleted.
Once the project is created, Admin and Project Owner can edit the settings of that
project. In edit mode of the project you can edit Project Name, Status and Owner
fields of that project
-
Project Owner can edit the project owned by him, when the project Status is
Draft, Active and Inactive. -
If the project Status is Archived then Project Owner can only
view the settings of that project but he cannot edit any fields. Only Admin is
authorized to to edit the settings of that project and Admin can change the status of
an archived project. -
If the project Status is Deleted, then that project is invisible to all
Members of that project except Admin. Admin can edit the settings of that
project. Also Admin can purge that project, if he wants to permanently delete that
project from the database.
- Click Projectstab.
- Click List Projects action.
- Click the project you want to edit the settings.
- Click Project Settings action.
-
Edit Project Name, change the Status to Draft, Active, Inactive,
Archived or Deleted and edit the Owner field (see Figure: 3.9). If the
Status is Draft, Active or Inactive, then both Project Owner
and Admin can edit the settings of that project. If the Status is set
to Archived, then Project Owner cannot edit the settings of that project,
only Admin can edit that project’s settings (see Figure: 3.10). -
If Status is set to Deleted, the Project Owner or the Team Members
cannot view that project in List Projects. A project whose Status
is Deleted is visible only to the Admin. - Click Save & Close button to save your changes.
- Click Cancel button to cancel the edit procedures.
- Click Reset button to get the old values
Figure: 3.10 No permission.
If the ValleySpeak Project Server is accessed through IE browser then a Project Owner can edit the
projects by opening them in Microsoft Project. They can open projects in Microsoft Project by
clicking the open project in Microsoft project icon in project list page . After editing the
project, the changes have to be published to ValleySpeak Project Server. To do this, click on the
ValleySpeak menu item in Microsoft Project and select Publish to Server menu
item. On successful publish of the project, Project Successfully published to ValleySpeak
Project Server message is displayed.
Project Owner, Admin and the Team Member to whom the task is assigned can edit that
task. Other Team Members can view the task details but they cannot edit that task.
“Task Management”.
Once the Status of the project is set to Deleted, then that project will become
invisible to Project Manager and Team Members. Only Admin can see that
project (see Figure: 3.10). Admin can change the Status or he can Purge that
project to permanently delete from the ValleySpeak Project Server.
Only Admin can Purge Project. Purge Project deletes the project from the
database, so that project is no longer available. Only projects whose Status is Deleted
can be purged.
- Click Projects tab.
- Click List Projects action available in action bar.
-
Click the project whose Status is Deleted. Purge project
action will be visible for an Admin. -
Click Purge Project action to delete the project permanently an alert
message will be displayed (see Figure: 3P.11).
Figure: 3.11 Purge project.
You can delete a task by opening the project of ValleySpeak Project Server in Microsoft Project.
“Task Management”.
Filters are help full to see a particular list of projects with same characteristics. You can see
the filters when ever you visit the project list page. There are two filters available for
projects.
-
you can list projects based on the status selected in status filter drop down. The status
can be Draft, Active, Inactive, Archived and Deleted. -
You can list the projects by selecting All Associated, Owned by Me or Member of
in the second filter drop down.
To view a particular list of projects you need to select the filter options (described above) and
click Apply Filter button to list the projects based on the filters selected. For
example if you have selected Owned by Me filter option from All Associated filter
drop down (see Figure: 3.12), then a project list that is displayed after clicking Apply
Filter button will have all the projects owned by you.
Figure: 3.12 Project filters.
