User Guide AlineaSol Project Management 2.x v1

User_Guide_AlineaSol_Project_Management_2.x_v1

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User Guide

AlineaSol

Project Management 2.x v1

Version: 1 Date: 29/03/2014



Contents

1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 3

2 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................... 4

3 Community and Enterprise versions ................................................................... 5

4 Installation ........................................................................................................ 6

4.1 First time install .......................................................................................... 6

4.2 Install new version ...................................................................................... 6

4.3 Activation ................................................................................................... 7

5 Creating a Project .............................................................................................. 8

5.1 My first Gantt ........................................................................................... 10

6 Menus ............................................................................................................. 12

6.1 Main menu ............................................................................................... 12

6.2 Edit Menu ................................................................................................. 12

6.3 Status menu ............................................................................................. 14

6.4 “Graphical menu” ..................................................................................... 15

7 Baselines ......................................................................................................... 16

8 Rules ............................................................................................................... 17

9 Reports ............................................................................................................ 18

10 Publishing and workflows ............................................................................. 19



1 Introduction

This document is a quick user guide to AlineaSol´s Project Management module for SugarCRM. The guide covers release 2.X. AlineaSol Project Management (Asol PM from now on) is part of a family of modules that AlineaSol has developed on top of the SugaCRM base. These modules include:

Module Community Enterprise

AlineaSol Project Management V V

AlineaSol Reports V V

AlineaSol Work Flow Manager V V

AlineaSol Blue Theme V

AlineaSol Projects V V

AlineaSol Publish Home Page V

Both community and enterprise editions have regular new releases. The enterprise versions include direct support from AlineaSol. Asol PM have been tested and run on both CE and Professional versions of SugarCRM. As with all AlineaSol modules, MySQL is required as database. Asol PM Enterprise supports baselines of projects and comes bundled with Reports (using AlineaSol Reports) and workflows (using AlineaSol WFM) This User guide covers both versions. Note that this is not an administration guide. See currently “Readme” notes in package for administration, configuration and a considerable number of advanced options.



2 Acknowledgements

A big thank you to Roberto Bicchierai, from Open Lab in Italy for the TWproject Gantt editor that has been integrated into this package.



3 Community and Enterprise versions

**To be filed in.



4 Installation

Asol PM, community edition, can be downloaded at: http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/solcrm/ Requirements:

Use MySQL as database For enterprise editions you can contact us at: [email protected]

4.1 First time install

Follow the standard way to load a module in SugarCRM:

Download Asol PM

Login as a SugarCRM admin user

Goto “Admin”

Select “Module Loader”

Select the module, and upload

Install the module You should have now a new module “AsolProjects” that you can assign to your users.

4.2 Install new version

Recommended procedure:

Uninstall older version but KEEP DATABASE

Install new version of module



4.3 Activation

Asol PM should be ready to run now. Make sure that the roles you want to use have the proper assignments (under SugarCRM roles management).



5 Creating a Project

Note: all screenshots are using AlineaSol Blue Theme.

Select AsolProjects: Create AsolProject.

And now Create:

Fill in: o Name o If you are using a Wiki (or other CMS), you can include here the URL and

alias o Status: Fill in the corresponding status. o Priority: use as you prefer.



o Description: You have a html editor at your disposal to make it as nice as you want.

o For the time being forget about the rest.

And click “Save”.

You have just created your first, alas empty, project.

You will see in the second half of your screen the nice looking Gantt editor. Before starting to add tasks, there are a number of things to take into account:

Editions are only possible by the owner and explicitly assigned editor.

Only one user can edit the gantt at the same time (taken care of by the system)

You can ONLY edit the “Working Version” (link in the upper half, to the right)



The Gantt you will see in the detailed view of the project is the last published version. Note that this Gantt may not be the same as the one you are working on! (this is a feature, NOT a but ;-)).

So let´s start with our first Gantt.

5.1 My first Gantt

Click on the Working version link. You can now start editing:

Click on the pencil icon (icon will become more colourful)

And then the expand button to make it easier to work

More colours and more room:

The Gantt editor is split up in two areas: the task definition area to the left, and the graphical representation to the right.



Just start filling in your project plan tasks:

At the highest level, you will have the main project. Note that this is the only item at this level. In the future we want to include the possibility to merge projects into larger collaborative projects.

Name: name of the task

Start: by default it starts with tomorrow. Just click to change the date

End: is automatically calculated based on duration

Dur(d): duration in days.

Dep.: dependency. You have two formats: x,y (eg. 4,5) which means that tasts X and Y must be finished before starting this project (“FS” relationship), or x:d,y (e.g. 4:3,5) which means d days after finishing x (and finishing y). You will see the appropriate arrows appearing to the right.

And there you have your first project (if you don´t forget to hit “save”…). Now, once you have saved your project, and you go to the detail view of the project, you will still see an empty Gantt….because you have not published it yet! More of this later.



6 Menus

6.1 Main menu

At the top of the Gantt you will see the main menu. Going from left to right.

Name of the project and version

Edit icon

Undo

Redo

Insert task above

Insert task below

Indent

Remove indent

Move up

Move down

Zoom out

Zoom in

Delete taks (and children)

Print

Show critical path: this shows what tasks determine the longest path in your project.

File options: o Save o Create baseline (only for enterprise) o Publish: to show to the public o Export (JSON format) o Import (only export format allowed) o Clear (bye-bye gantt)

Implode/explode button

6.2 Edit Menu



If you click on the pencil next to the task number, you will see the Edit menu.

You can include here task specific data. Main components:

Progress: if you want to entertain, you can put here a value between 0 and 100. Looks good on the graph part as you will see the box filling up with a green colour.

Description

Assignments: We currently allow you to add the owner and previously assigned participants (in main detail view of the project) with one of the two roles:

o Responsible (should be only 1) o Participant



6.3 Status menu

If you click on the traffic-light icons, the status menu will appear.

The following color-scheme is used:

Green: active

Blue: finished

“Darkish”: failed (we recommend to use for automated processes: currently not supported)

Orange: on hold

White: not defined. Note that the status of a parent will impact the status of the children. Also, note that an action cannot be finished if it depends on another task that is not finished…



6.4 “Graphical menu”

You will notice that you can actually do a lot of things in the right part of the Gantt:

Drag and drop (horizontally)

Click on a task and then expand.

Hover over a task, click on one on the appearing circles and drop it in the middle of another task to create a dependency.



7 Baselines

Only for Enterprise version. You can define multiple baselines to reflect different views on the project execution. Typical baselines are:

Project agreed

Project revisited due to new circumstance

Status-update phase X

…

Final project Note that the last published version will be one that will appear in the detail-view of the project. In the future we will



8 Rules

You will notice that a number of things may behave slight different than you may expect:

You can give a duration to a parent. If you add children, the length of the parent will be adapted to the length of the children when you define that length (will not happen immediately)

You may not be able to change the status of a task due to dependencies.

You may not be able to change the start of a task due to dependencies.



9 Reports

If you are looking for Report facilities for a project or additional export facilities in e.g. csv format, just think AlineaSol Reports. Along with the enterprise version we provide:

Representation of any project in table view (that can be exported to html, etc)

Tasks that are delayed in my projects.

“My tasks” that are not finished

Open tasks in my projects Of course some of these you really want on your dashboard, so consider AlineaSol Publish Home Page. Note though remarks about publishing and workflow: you can only create reports about published versions



10 Publishing and workflows

Note that until you actually publish a Gantt, it will not be “integrated” into Sugar, i.e. no entries in task modules, etc. will be created. This is relevant for Reports, Workflows, etc. If you are using AlineaSol WFM, and you are using larger projects (50? Tasks) we do not recommend to have AsolProjectTasks associated with the WFM. This is due to a bug in some underlying technology that will add a 1s delay every time you change some data in a task. So if you add e.g. a new task at the beginning, there will be a lot of changes that will have to be processed. We recommend instead that you use a scheduled workflow to check on changes, etc.

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User Guide AlineaSol Project Management 2.x v1

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