The workplan structure organizes the tasks that you use to define, plan, and track all of the work in a project. Project managers and task managers can create tasks and define their attributes, such as task schedules, resource assignments, and dependencies.
A workplan structure includes the following functionality:
Workplan Versioning: You can create multiple versions of the workplan. This enables what-if analysis for project managers and a historical archive of changes to the workplan.
Examples of changes that a workplan structure can undergo are:
Addition of a task due to scope change
Change in dates for schedule slipping analysis
For more information, see Setting up Workplans, and Enabling Workplan Structure and Workplan Versioning, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
Workplan Approval and Publication: You can submit a workplan version for approval for change control purposes. You can publish the workplan after it is approved, or, if workplan approval is not required, you can publish the workplan at will. You publish workplans to communicate new tasks, dates and changes that affect the schedule of the workplan to project stakeholders.
Creating Baselines: You can designate a version of the Workplan as the baseline version.
Comparing Workplan Versions: When you compare two versions of a workplan structure for a project, you may have a task present in one workplan version that is missing in the other workplan version. Depending on which version you are viewing, different rules will apply in displaying and rolling up the task.
For example, compare workplan structure V1 and workplan structure V2 as represented in the following two tables.
The task hierarchy of workplan structure V1 is shown in the following table:
| Top Task | Subtasks | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Task 1.0 | 350 | |
| Task 1.01 | 200 | |
| Task 1.02 | 100 | |
| Task 1.03 | 50 |
As shown in the preceding table, workplan structure V1 consists of one top task, Task 1.0. This task has three subtasks, Tasks 1.01, Task 1.02, and Task 1.03 with a total of 350 hours.
The task hierarchy of workplan structure V2 is shown in the following table:
| Top Tasks | Subtasks | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Task 1.0 | 300 | |
| Task 1.01 | 200 | |
| Task 1.02 | 100 | |
| Task 2.0 | 50 | |
| Task 1.03 | 50 |
As shown in the preceding table, workplan structure V2 consists of two top tasks, Task 1.0 and Task 2.0. Task 1.0 has two subtasks, Task 1.01 and Task 1.02 with a total of 300 hours. Task 2.0 has subtask 1.03 with a total of 50 hours.
If you select workplan structure V2 and compare it to workplan structure V1, data for Task 2.0 will not roll up for workplan structure V1. You will therefore not get a correct rollup total for workplan structure V1.
The data for workplan structure V1 will be displayed as shown the following table:
| Top Tasks | Subtasks | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Task 1.0 | 300 | |
| Task 1.01 | 200 | |
| Task 1.02 | 100 | |
| Task 2.0 | ||
| Task 1.03 | 50 |
If you select workplan structure V1 and compare it to workplan structure V2, Task 2.0 is not displayed in workplan structure V2. You will therefore have a missing task.
The data for workplan structure V2 will be displayed as shown in the following table:
| Top Tasks | Subtasks | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Task 1.0 | 350 | |
| Task 1.01 | 200 | |
| Task 1.02 | 100 | |
| Task 1.03 | 50 |
Third Party Project Tool Integration: You can integrate with third-party project management and scheduling tools. When you integrate with a third-party tool, you can send and receive tasks, progress, budgets, resources and other project information.
For more information about workplan management, see Overview of Workplan and Progress Management.
Some task attributes are used only for workplan structures, or for structures that are used as both workplan and financial structures. Examples of these are:
Task Type
Critical
Milestone
Priority
Work Quantity: see Selecting Progress Options for Tasks
Planned Effort
Phase: see Assigning Lifecycle Phases to Tasks
Schedule Dates
See also: Project and Task Options.
You can use settings on the Workplan Information page to determine how your system processes the task transaction dates in a workplan structure. Task transaction dates control the various financial aspects of tasks, such as when expenditures can be charged and when budget defaults can be processed.
If the workplan structure is fully shared with a financial structure, you can select Automatically Update Task Transaction Dates. This selection causes Oracle Projects to automatically update the transaction dates of all tasks with their actual or scheduled start and finish dates, based on availability, whenever the current version of the workplan is published. For more information about sharing structures, see Integrating Workplan and Financial Structures.
Use the date adjustment buffer to adjust the transaction dates automatically generated by the system. The system subtracts a positive buffer value from newly derived transaction start dates and adds it to newly derived transaction finish dates. You can enter a negative buffer value for an opposite effect.
When you change your workplan structure by adding or deleting tasks, or rearranging the task hierarchy, you invoke the Process Updates action to synchronize the rollup of planned and actual data against the updated structure. Process updates can also synchronize task weightings with the scheduled duration of the tasks. This happens when the progress rollup method is Duration and you make changes to the scheduled duration of new or existing tasks.
In addition, process updates can enable the rollup of information from linked projects to a program. For more information on programs, see Overview of Program Management.
You can initiate a process update from any page for a working workplan version. When you do this, the system will either process the updates online or process them concurrently using the PRC: Process Structure Updates process.
For more information about the PRC: Process Structure Updates process, see Process Structure Updates.
The PA: Process Structure Updates and PA: Process Structure Updates Threshold profile options determine whether the system processes updates online or concurrently. These profile options are documented in the Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
For initiating the process updates for multiple projects at a time, you can use the PRC: Process Project Structure Updates process from the Submit Request page.
For more information about the PRC: Process Project Structure Updates process, see Process Project Structure Updates.