This introduction article will help users to interact with Windows Plan Manager using the downloaded application. The user must have access to TDNext plus Projects and be a resource on a project.
Overview
Windows Plan Manager is a downloaded application that allows users to interact with, create, modify, and manage waterfall plans and tasks without needing to sign into a web interface and without having to worry about other users’ live actions affecting your view of a plan. There is a required sign-on before a project plan can be accessed, and once authenticated users can only access projects which they are a resource on or are the manager of.
Where to Find This
Windows Plan Manager can be downloaded from TDNext via the following path:
- TDNext > Apps menu > Downloads > [select the download button for Windows Plan Manager]
How Plan Manager Works
Windows Plan Manger is a client-side application, which means that all code and data required to run the application is downloaded and executed within the context of your browser. When a plan is opened within Plan Manager, it first downloads a copy of the plan to your computer's memory. There is no live sync connection between your computer and TeamDynamix, and therefore, when another person modifies a task in TeamDynamix, those changes are not immediately reflected in your computer's copy of the plan in Plan Manager.
Refreshing Data in Plan Manager
Since it is possible for the items to become out of date as others make changes to those items, TeamDynamix has created a couple of functions that help keep Plan Manager data as up-to-date as possible. First, plans must be checked out to make most changes. This ensures that only one person can make changes at a time. Second, Plan Manager checks for percent complete and remaining hours changes every 15 minutes. These changes are applied to the plan as soon as Plan Manager detects them.
Check-out
The check-out model prevents potential conflicts from more than one user making changes at the same time. This means that in order to make changes to a plan or any tasks on that plan, the user must check it out. A plan may only be checked out to a single user at a time, and that user is the only one who may make changes to that plan until they check the plan in.
When a plan is not checked out, but is viewed in Plan Manager, it is possible for changes to be made from the task edit page in TDNext. Behind the scenes, this performs a check out of the plan, makes the requested changes, then checks the plan in - all this happens automatically. However, if Plan Manager was open during this operation, the change will not be reflected in Plan Manager until an action occurs which causes a refresh of the plan. These actions are either clicking the Refresh button within Plan Manger or checking out the plan. Both of these operations first retrieve a fresh, up-to-date copy of the plan.
Automatic Refreshing of Task Percent Complete and Remaining Hours
The exception to the check-out system is percent complete and remaining hours. These fields may change regardless of whether or not a plan is checked out. Therefore, it is possible for Plan Manager to show stale percent complete or remaining hours information, even when a plan is checked out.
Plan Manager runs a background process every 15 minutes which periodically checks for these types of changes and updates the plan appropriately when it detects changes have been made. This does mean a task's percent complete or remaining hours may be up to 15 minutes out of date.
System Requirements
The following are the recommended system requirements for a computer running the Windows Plan Manager or Windows Budget and Capacity Planner applications.
- Memory: At least 8GB of RAM
- CPU: At least 2 cores at 1GHz or faster
- Hard Drive Space: 200MB of free space
- Operating System: Windows 7 or newer
- .NET Version: 4.8
- Visual C++ Redistributable
Installing Plan Manager
- Download the application first at the location mentioned above.
- Access the folder the file was downloaded to and right-click on the install file.
- Select Properties, choose the Unblock check box if it is visible near the bottom of the window.
- Apply and close the Properties window.
- Right-click once more on the install file.
- Select Run As Administrator.
Opening a Plan with Windows Plan Manager
This 1-minute video will quickly demonstrate how to open a plan using Windows Plan Manager.
About Project Plan Baselining with Windows Plan Manager
Creating a baseline of a project plan is used to track the variance of a project over its duration against the original plan - or baseline. There are three main actions available under the "Plan" sub-menu in the "Baseline" menu inside Plan Manager when you have a plan checked out: Set, Clear, and Active. These actions are used to manage baselines for a plan. Each plan can have up to ten baselines.
Set
Use the Set action to create a baseline snapshot in one of the ten available baseline slots. This action will use the current date and hours settings to apply a blanket baseline to all tasks on the plan. From this point, any changes to any of the tasks' dates and hours will show in the Baseline Variance column as a variance against the baseline. Project Managers can create several baselines throughout the plan's lifespan to track how the plan changes after certain milestones or time spans.
Clear
Use the Clear action to delete a baseline snapshot from one of the ten available baseline slots on the plan. This action will remove any stored baseline in the slot and remove it from being Active if the baseline were set to be so.
Active
Use the Active action to switch between viewing different stored baselines if more than one baseline is stored on the plan. When creating the first baseline for a plan, it is automatically selected as Active.
Tasks List
The Tasks List menu shows the Baseline options that will allow you to apply or clear a baseline to an individual task rather than the whole plan. However, if the baseline for the task is updated to be outside of the bounds of the plan baseline, the plan's baseline will also be updated accordingly.
Baselining the Project Plan
The manager may now baseline a project plan. This action will lock in the original estimates for start date, end date and estimated hours. The system will then record the actual start-dates, end-dates and actual hours to produce a variance report for improving estimating and to review performance. In order to baseline a project iteration/plan, the user must:
- Go to the task list for the appropriate plan in Windows Plan Manager. Make sure the plan is checked out to you.
- Click Baseline in the ribbon bar to access baseline options.
- To set a baseline, choose Set > Set Baseline [number]
- To delete a set baseline, choose Clear > Clear Baseline [number]
- To change the active baseline, choose Active > Base [number]. Baseline numbers will be clickable if they are set.
Use the Baseline > Active tab to view all baselines created for the plan.
Copying A Waterfall Project Plan
A user may make a copy of a waterfall plan at any time from the Windows Plan Manager application. Copying a waterfall plan places an exact copy of the plan in the current project's Plans list.
To copy a waterfall plan, the user must:
- Open the plan in the Windows Plan Manager application.
- Go to the List tab and check out the plan.
- Right click the Plan Summary row (this is the topmost row).
- Click the Copy Plan button in the popup menu.
- Enter a new name for the copied plan if desired.
- The user may shift either the start or end date of the new plan and all copied tasks within. Task durations will stay the same.
- The user may copy resources and/or alerts from the original plan by placing checks in the appropriate boxes.
- Click the OK button. The task list will refresh with the details of the newly created plan.