Project Scheduling
Using OpenProj
Project Portfolio Management
• PPM – Project Portfolio Management
• Every company executes a set of tasks, that can be
grouped together, utilizing a group of human resources
and machinery/hardware – this is termed as project
• In every project, we need to track resources, time and
cost
• In every project we need to plan, track and analyze the
status
• Usually a team reports to a project manager
• OpenProj by Serena Software, helps to track projects
• The competing tools for OpenProj are Microsoft Project
Plan, Open Workbench etc.
Tasks
• Tasks are the building blocks of project
management
• A task must have a definitive start date and
definitive end date
• A task can be assigned to one or more people
• A task can have a predecessor and/or
successor. This creates a dependency between
tasks
• We can have a detailed notes for every task
Resources
• A resource can be a human resource or
machinery
• Resources will be associated with regular
time rate and overtime rate
• Resources will be tied to the tasks for
tracking purposes
• Resources are not shared between
projects. Each project is treated as a
separate entity
Project Calendar
• For scheduling a project, a base calendar is
required
• In the calendar we specify the regular work time,
holidays, etc
• We can use 24 hour calendar or a regular time
calendar
• If required, we can also specify any
unconventional work times
• Number of hours per day, number of days per
week, number of days per month can be
configured
Task Tracking
• Gantt chart is used to see a pictorial view of the
task dependencies
• Gantt chart uses timeline as X axis and tasks on
the Y axis, one below the other
• To create subtasks, use indentation feature
• We can define a task as milestone task as well
to indicate a logical end point
• We can specify the percentage completion for
every task
• When percentage completion is 100%, the task
will be indicated with a tick mark
Baselines
• When tracking the tasks and the progress, it is
imperative to save a baseline
• Baseline is a snapshot of the plan at a given point of
time.
• After many updations to the plan, during the tracking
phase, we can compare that with baseline dates
• This will tell us whether we are in line with or deviating
from the original plans
• 11 baselines can be stored for every project
• Usually we suggest to have a weekly baseline of the
plans
• If more baselines are required, we can clear some of the
previously defined baselines
Task View
• The task grid can have many more columns
• We can hide an existing column or add a new
column.
• There are many predefined columns such as
priority etc.
• We can add our own text, number and date
columns and rename them as well, as required
• Any column can be resized and the order of the
columns can be rearranged
• When you double click on a task, you can see
details of that particular task
Constraints
• The tasks do have dependencies as Finish to
start, Finish to finish, Start to start, Start to finish.
• Depending on predecessors start and finish
dates, and the dependency, the next task will be
scheduled
• Apart from this we can specify constraints like,
Start no earlier than, must start on, must end on
etc.
• These constraints put additional stress on
ensuring the tracking is done correctly
Work and Cost
• When we include the work column, based on the
number of hours configured per day, the effort is
calculated
• We can use the work part to calculate the
planned and the actual efforts
• When we associate cost to resources and tasks
to resources, the cost of the resources are used
to calculate the cost of the task.
• The cost calculation is based on the work hours