Getting Started with Project Management

This concepts article will help Technicians to become acquainted with using a Project application. The user must have access to the specific Project application within Work Management.

Overview

As in most systems, in TeamDynamix, a project is a unit of tasks, resources, and information that produces a unique product, service, or result, marked by a beginning and an end. A project contains a collection of project plans that can be tabular (waterfall plans) or board-based (card wall plans), used to break down the project into a series of steps. It contains various sections, such as risks, benefits, and time types, that allow the project manager to integrate the project details with the rest of the information in the system.

In Portfolio Planning, projects are proposed, evaluated, and compared. Accepted proposals become projects, allowing project work to be implemented and managed. Additional information can be found in our knowledge base article, Getting Started with Portfolio Planning.

In TeamDynamix, project management is done in the Project applications. A project in this space has many manageable facets, such as Calendar, Briefcase, and project Plans. These features give people different views into the data from the Project application.

Organizations can define multiple project applications, with separate visibility, security roles, configurations, and administration. Areas of the system in the Projects, Project Templates, and Portfolio Planning standard applications can be administered inside the segmented Project application. 

All Project applications share configurations and information about resources and their schedules, enabling resource planning without overlapping requests across separate applications.

Features

• Project team members can use My Work to understand what they need to do across all projects.
• Create and apply reusable project templates.
• Track availability for project members.
• Create Document Workflows for routing.
• Store project files in the Briefcase.
• Manage project-related issues in a single location.
• Manage a project Calendar and sync it with other calendar feeds.

Where to Find This

The Project application appears in the Work Management interface. Here, project managers and coordinators work on projects in the Projects application and/or in the My Work application.

Project apps are configured within the Project application admin interface. Projects can also be viewed in Work Management and the Client Portal.

Navigate to Projects by following these paths:

• Work Management > View Applications > [Project application name)

Access the Project Admin Settings

There are different access paths for Global Admins versus Project application admins.

To access the Project application settings:

• Project Application Admins: In Work Management > View Applications > select the Project Application > click the gear icon in the top-right corner > select Admin from the menu
• Global Admins: In TDAdmin, go to Applications > select the Project Application

Where to Start

Terminology

• Project Management Sections: the parts of a project record that you see under the "Manage" or "Details" component, e.g. General, Resources.
• Project Management Components: the parts of a project record that show up under the project when you view it in Projects, e.g. "Feed," "Contacts," "Links."
• Resource/Project Team Member: people who can see a project in the Work Management Projects application. If you need to see all projects including projects for which you're not a resource, you need to use the Analysis application.

Setting Up a Project

• Learn how to create and configure a new project.
• Add resources
• Activate a project.

Managing a Project

• Updating the Status of a Project
• Make changes to a project’s settings.
• Closing, deactivating, or deleting a project.

Viewing the Project List

1. In the admin interface for the Project application​​​​​​, select Projects in the left navigation.
2. Use the filters at the top of the page to search for projects based on Acct/Dept, Project Type, Project Manager, and more.

Exporting the Project List to Excel

1. In the admin interface for the Project application​​​​​, select Projects in the left navigation.
2. Optionally, use the filters at the top of the page to filter the project list.
3. At the top of the page, click To Excel.

Printing the Project List

1. In the admin interface for the Project application​​​​​, select Projects in the left navigation.
2. Optionally, use the filters at the top of the page to filter the project list.
3. At the top of the page, click Print.

Viewing the Project Status History

The project manager can view a project's status history. In order to view the project status history, the project manager must:

1. In Work Management, open the Project application.
2. Click the Projects folder link in the left navigation.
3. In the Projects window, select the appropriate project.
4. Click on the Status Chart in the left nav to review your project’s charted status changes.

Gotchas & Pitfalls

• If project management is new to your organization or there are no current standards for it, this module can take much longer to complete.
• Converting existing project records, especially project plans, can make this module take much longer.
• "Top line" project management (tracking just the project name, owner, start & end dates, and updates) is extremely fast. The more you expect out of a given project record, the longer the configuration will take.

Examples

• Some organizations use a project record to track how many projects they are working on and who is managing each one.
• Some organizations track very detailed task and issue information so that project team members can use My Work and other TeamDynamix components to understand what they need to do across all projects.