Project Planning Board - Add items

Add items to the Project Planning Board to schedule what date and time a work breakdown item will be competed. This topic outlines step by step how to schedule the tasks by dragging and dropping the work breakdown items onto the Planning Board. NEW 4.8

*Synergy Enterprise Feature* 

ClosedGetting Started

Setup required before use

 Who can use it? Where is it?

Rates

Staff

Timesheet Tasks

Sub Projects

Work Breakdown

Assistant Project Manager

Project Manager

Director

Administrator

System Administrator

 Projects > Project Plan > Schedule > Planning Board tab

Tips:

Why use the Project Planning Board?

Schedule budget items created in the Work Breakdown within the Project Planning Board. This is done by dragging and dropping an item onto a particular date and time using a day, week or month calendar view to create an appointment.

Assign a staff member to the planned item, and it will then appear in the users My Schedule panel on the My Synergy dashboard. Items assigned to staff will also appear as History rows in their timesheets.

Select the data to be shown for each appointment using the Sub Project, Task, Rate and Staff display options.

How to add items to the Project Planning Board

Work Breakdown items are scheduled in the planning board, by dragging and dropping the work breakdown item from the 'Projects to Schedule' panel, onto the MS Outlook® calendar style planning board. Each item added to the planning board is called an appointment, as it is scheduling the work breakdown task to be completed at a certain date/time, and allows the option of assigning which staff member will complete the work.

ClosedHow to schedule the items for a project in the Planning Board
  1. Select a view for the planning board in by using the toolbar buttons. Choose either month, week, or day view.
  2. Toggle between seeing Sub Project or Task information for each planned item, using the Display options in the toolbar. Display options are:
    1. Sub ProjectClosedThe sub project name is shown in the planning board.
    2. TaskClosedThe task name is shown in the planning board.
    3. RateClosedThe rate name is shown in the planning board.
    4. StaffClosedThe staff members name is shown in the planning board.
  3. Select the date from the Calendar that you want to schedule the item.

Click the image above to see where the calendar drop down button is located.

  1. Highlight a row in the Projects to Schedule panel. Either a Sub Project or Task row to be scheduled.
  2. Drag and drop the item onto the board to the date/time the task will be completed.
  3. Extend the task days/hours in the Planning Board to run for a longer period. Each item defaults to be 4 hours in length.
    1. Month and Week ViewsClosedHover the mouse over the task, and drag to the right, or downwards. Drag the task in the planning board until the task is shown as planned for all required dates and times.
    2. Day viewClosedHover the mouse over the task, and drag the task upwards or downwards. This will extend the number of hours the task is scheduled for.
    3. Manual edit (All views)ClosedDouble click the item to open the edit window. Adjust the Start and End Time of the task. Click OK to save the change.
  4. (Optional) Click the split appointment button in the toolbar. This will split the planning item into a separate appointment for each date, if the task is scheduled across multiple dates. Use this feature to assign different staff members to each day to complete the tasks.
  5. Click the refresh button to update the Schedule hours shown in the Planning board.
  6. Repeat this process until all the project tasks have been scheduled.

Tip: Check if the staff member is available to complete the work using the Project Capacity Report. Learn more about the Project Capacity Board.

A completed project schedule shown in month view, with the task details displayed in the planning board.

Tips:

Other Information

ClosedCheck if an item is marked as 'complete ' before adding it to the planning board

Before updating the project schedule in the planning board, it is important to check the 'Complete' indicator in the 'Projects to Schedule' panel. The indicator is shown in the 'Budgeted' column in the Projects to Schedule panel.

The complete indicator is set in the work breakdown structure to show that all work on the item has been completed. Once an item is complete, it can no longer be used by staff for timesheet entries. Learn more about setting the complete indicator in the work breakdown tab.

Click the image above and see the marked as complete indicator on the Planning Board.

Tips:

  • As staff can no longer enter timesheet transactions for a completed item, it is important that you don't schedule anymore hours on the planning board for that item.
  • If the task 'Design' appear multiple times, it needs to be marked complete on all entries before is it excluded from use within staff timesheet entry.
ClosedScheduled hours shown for each planned appointment

After an appointment is added to the planning board, the number of scheduled hours for the task item is shown in the appointment bar. If the display option (Sub Project, task, rate, or staff) is too wide for the appointment bar, then not all information is shown. In this case hover the mouse over the appointment to view the number of hours scheduled in the planning board for that particular appointment.

The scheduled hours shown is the number of hours the project task is expected to take to complete. If a staff member is assigned to the task, this is the number of hours expected to be entered in the timesheets when the staff member completes the work for the task.

Tip: If you extend the item to run for multiple dates or times, the scheduled hours is updated after the refresh button is pressed.

To image above displays the number of scheduled hours for the appointment on the planning board.

ClosedHow Office calendars effect the scheduled hours

Each office location can have a calendar setup to define the default days of the week and the number of hours available to work. This is the default setting applied to all staff linked to that office for use in the Resource and Capacity Management feature.

Example

The office calendar is used to define how a project task scheduled over a weekend is handled. In the image below the office is setup to only work on weekdays, and the standard number of hours worked is 8.

Click the image above to view an office calendar.

ClosedExamples of the office calendar settings in the Project Planning Board

Office Days Setting

If a task is scheduled across the weekend, the scheduled hours shown for this work breakdown item will not include the weekend dates.

For example if the task is scheduled on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then the scheduled hours for the task will be shown as 8. As the weekends are marked as non working days for the office, the hours for the weekend are not included in the scheduled hours total. When multiple office exists, the office used is the office selected for the project.

Click the image above to view a task for this office scheduled over a weekend.

Office Hours Setting

The scheduled hours shown for the task are the default working hours for the office the project has been created for.

For example if a task has been scheduled across an entire day, the maximum number of scheduled hours shown for the task is 8. If the task is schedule across multiple dates, then the scheduled hours will be 8 hours for each of the dates the task is listed on.

Click the image above to view the default scheduled hours for a office task.

ClosedHow Staff calendars effect the scheduled hours

Use the staff calendar to override the office calendar. When a staff member is assigned to a task in the planning board, the scheduled hours shown will update to take into account the staff calendar. If a staff member has not been assigned to a task, the office calendar settings are used.

Click the image above to view the staff calendar for the user 'Jill Lockhart'.

ClosedExample of the Staff Calendar settings in the Project Planning Board

The user Jill Lockhart works part-time. Her standard work days are Monday to Thursday, and she works 7 hours per day. Jill has been assigned to a task on Thursday and Friday. The task is scheduled to run for the entire day. After Jill is assigned to the task in the planning board, the scheduled hours for the appointment are shown as 7 hours per day (not the office default hours of 8 per day).

As Jill is setup to not work on Friday's in her staff calendar, then 0 scheduled hours are counted for the Friday scheduled appointment. The total number of scheduled hours for the task across the two days is shown as 7 hours, once Jill has been allocated to complete the work.

Click the image above to view Jill Lockhart's appointment on the planning board.

If split appointment was used in the above example, only one appointment for the Thursday would be shown in the planning board. Split appointment will remove the appointment for the Friday, as the staff calendar Jill is setup to not work on this date.

Tips:

  • If a staff member will always work weekends, update their staff calendar to reflect this. The staff calendar overrides the office calendar settings, and will show the time as scheduled if the staff member has been assigned to the project task.
  • If the staff member works more than 8 hours per day, update their staff calendar to reflect this. The staff calendar setting will override the office calendar in the planning grid.
  • Learn more about setting up the office calendar.
  • Learn more about setting up the staff calendars.

Want to learn more?

Looking for more help? Try reviewing the following Resource and Capacity Management topics: Concept Link IconView Topics

 

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