What UltimPM needs to know ?
When you download the project portfolio template, you’ll notice there are 4 projects :
The resources and skills plan
This plan lists out the resources of the project and their corresponding set of skills (list of individual skills separated by a comma ",").
These resources are assigned to the tasks in the main project plan when UltimPM runs the automatic scheduling.
This plan has the following mandatory fields. These fields need to be present on the plan and have a value assigned:
| Field name | Mandatory field value ? |
|---|---|
| Skills |
The Unavailability plan
This plan lists out the resources and the dates each resource is unavailable.
It's important to note that if the "Exclude Weekends" checkbox was ticked, then all employees are set to be unavailable on weekends (all Saturdays and Sundays)
The main project plan
This plan lists out the tasks and the following information for each task :
- the task's name,
- the skill required to carry out the task
- the drop dead date at which the task needs to be completed by
- the priority of this task
- the estimated number of days each task will need in order to be completed
- the finish to start dependency relationships with other tasks
- Note that UltimPM only supports finish to start dependency relationships
- In addition, there must be no circular dependencies, i.e., situations where tasks depend on each other (either directly or indirectly) creating an endless loop
You can find out how these fields are leveraged by UltimPM in the following section
Once UltimPM has processed a project plan, the following 2 fields will have updated or new values for each tasks :
- the name of the ressource the task is assigned to
- the scheduled start and end dates
This plan has the following custom fields. Some of these fields need to be present on the plan when submitting for processing otherwise there will be a validation error when you launch UltimPM:
| Field name | Mandatory field value at launch time ? |
|---|---|
| Drop Dead Date | |
| Priority | |
| Skill | |
| Estimated days | |
| Assigned to |
If UltimPM is lanched on a project that doesn't have all the mandatory fields or mandatory values, an error will appear in the "Processing log" plan .
The Processing log plan
As UltimPM processes a particular plan, it will keep you informed of the progress by adding new tasks to this plan.
When a validation fails for a particular plan and therefore UltimPM can't process it, a task will also be added to this reporting plan in order to let you know to check the mandatory fields and values of each plan.
Check out the planning status section to learn more about the processing log plan.