Project Manager Help

	S K Enterprises' Synapsis System Help Section
	Project Manager

Welcome to the online help pages for SK Enterprises' Synapsis Project Manager. Synapsis Project Manager is a full-featured, Web-based project management application that is available on a monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription basis. You have three ways to learn more about Synapsis Project Manager: (1) read the rest of these help pages, (2) goto SK Enterprises Main Web-page, click the "Login" button on the navigation bar at the left and login with UserID=testuser and Password=test, or (3) goto SK Enterprises Main Web-page, click the "Synapsis" button and create a user account, which you can use between 30 and 60 days - if you wish to keep using Synapsis Project Manager simply pay the invoice you receive via e-mail, if not, ignore the invoice and your account will be cancelled without further obligation to you. If you have any questions, just e-mail us at info@skenterprisesinc.net.

I. Starting a project.

You access S K Enterprises' Synapsis Project Manager by pointing your Web browser to http://www.skenterprises.net. If you are not already registered, or have not been designated a project member on a particular, existing project, you must first register.

As noted in the registration instructions:

The User ID must be a valid e-mail address. You will be required to verify your registration later, which will be done via e-mail.
You also must enable cookies. Synapsis Project Manager uses session cookies to keep track of users, projects, etc.
You must also agree to the "Terms of Use" - a copy of which will be provided to you via e-mail for your records.

After completing the registration form, simply click on the Submit button. The next screen you see will be the sign-in page.

Click the Login button (as you will note, the form fields are already filled in with the User ID and password you selected when you registered) and the latest Information Screen will be displayed. This page contains any current, relevant information about Synapsis and the various modules.

Click the "Enter Synapsis" button to connect to the Synapsis System main page.

Here you have a choice of modules and access to these Help pages. Clicking on the Project Management link on the left will take you to the main page for Project Manager.

You will note that the "Project" menu tab is highlighted along the top of the screen. These tabs indicate which screen is currently active. From this "Project" screen, you can open an existing project by clicking the "Existing" radio button and using the drop-down list to select the desired project. If you are a registered user, you may enter a new project. This is done by clicking the "New" radio button and completing the form fields to define the new project. The name of the current project is provided near the top of the screen, which, upon signing-in, is "None Selected." After you have either created a new projected or selected an existing project, you can add new project "members" or edit existing members. To add members (you may add up to 10 at a time) simply click the "Add Project Members" checkbox, fill in their Member ID (their e-mail address) and a unique password, and specify whether or not each member will have full write access, or merely read access. Clicking the "Add Members" button will add the members to the current project. If you should make an error or wish to delete a member, or change a member's access, or password, you can use the "Edit Project Members" checkbox to do so.

Project "members" can be anybody you wish to have access to your project. They could be project resources, which are assigned to work on tasks, or they could be internal or external customers, clients, department heads, your boss, etc. Only the primary project manager, i.e., the person under whose User ID the project is set up, can add, delete, or edit project members. Members with write access can add or edit tasks, assign resources, enter actuals for tracking, etc. Members with read access can only examine project entries.

The main menu tabs run across the top of the screen. The selections are: Project, Calendar, Gantt, Pert, Task, Tracking, Resource, and Cost. Many of these tabs have sub-tabs, which we will view shortly. The menu items are briefly explained in the following table.

Menu Item	Types of Functions Available
Project	Open or edit an existing project; create a new project; add or edit members of an existing project.
Calendar	View tasks in a monthly calendar; click on a day to view the times tasks are assigned for that day.
Gantt	View the Gantt chart for the project; view daily, weekly, monthly or annual charts; view general task or cost information with the Gantt chart.
Pert	Use "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" to calculate and, if desired, apply task durations.
Task	Enter task information; view individual tasks; enter/edit detailed task information; assign relative task start and finish priorities; assign resources to tasks; enter task notes; e-mail task information to task members.
Tracking	Enter actual start dates, end dates and/or durations for tasks; update task projections; enter actual task costs; track actual costs versus projected costs; enter actual time spent by resources on tasks; generate project reports.
Resource	Enter resources; enter/edit resource details; enter dates when resources are unavailable or partially available; enter resource-specific schedules; enter resource fixed and variable cost information; enter resource-specific notes; e-mail project members concerning resources.
Cost	Track actual versus projected costs by task and/or resource; overwrite actual cost tracking.

All information is entered into Project Manager via familiar Web forms. Many forms are in tabular format and most offer a combination of text input and drop-down box selections.

So, let's get started with our new project. Examine the Project tab illustrated above: to create a new project, you will need some basic information. You need a name for your project as well as the start and end dates for the project. These dates may be more important to some people than to others, but as far as Project Manager is concerned, these dates merely bound when tasks can start and finish and the time period over which information is displayed. In any event, first click the "Create New Project" radio button and then enter a project name and the start and end dates (*note: dates should always be entered in the YYYY-MM-DD format, e.g., 2004-01-01). After you've entered that information you will notice that Project Manager next requires you to set up a "work calendar." The work calendar describes the normal work week for the average worker (e.g., Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm). An important note must be made here - Project Manager does not account for break times, especially a lunch hour, so if the normal work schedule is Mon-Fri from 8am-5pm with 1 hour for lunch, you must account for that non-work time lunch hour by, say, setting the workday from 9am-5pm, or 8:30am-4:30pm. If you do not account for this, your costs will include the paid hour for lunch for each resource assigned for each day assigned. Currently Project Manager does not use the fiscal year information, but future plans include reports covering specific fiscal years for tax purposes. After you have entered all required information, click the "Enter Project" button.

Now that we've created the project, we need to add project members. Project Manager lets you add as many members as you wish, but you can only add ten members at a time. Because all of the project members can use Project Manager's e-mail feature, all of the Member ID's should be their valid e-mail addresses. As noted previously, members can be resources that are assigned to work on projects, or anyone else you, as the project manager, feel should be allowed access to your project. Although there are several canned reports available, sometimes it's nice for some people to just be able to click through the project to check on its status. To add project members, simply enter their e-mail address, a password, and specify the member's access permission (write, or read-only). Only the project manager can add, edit or delete members and create and edit main project-specific information, but members with write access can add or modify tasks and resources, change costs, etc.

Make sure you've checked the "Add Project Members" checkbox. When you've listed all your project members, or the current ten, just click the "Add Members" button. After you click "Add Members," scroll down the page and you will see your project members listed in the "Edit Project Members" section.

You use this section to either edit (change password or access level) or delete a project member. You can do all of your edits at once, just check the checkbox next to the Member ID of each resource you wish to modify, or click the "Delete Record?" checkbox for each member you wish to delete, make the desired changes and click the "Edit Members" button.

Thus far you have created a new project and added project members. You next need to start fleshing out the documentation for the project.

II Creating Tasks(top)

The first thing to do to get your project documentation rolling in Project Manager is to enter tasks. "Tasks" are merely important pieces of work that are completed in a more-or-less stepwise fashion that, when put all together, comprise the work needed to complete the project. When defining tasks, you should think through all of the steps, in as much detail as possible, necessary to complete the project. The most effective way to insure that your project will finish on-time is to list all of the steps needed to complete it. Enumerating these tasks, or project steps, can be an iterative process. Tasks are entered into Project Manager through the "Task" tab. Click on the "Task" tab.

As you can see from the image above, tasks are entered and numbered sequentially. Usually tasks are entered in chronological order, although this is not absolutley necessary, but sometimes it makes viewing the tasks a little easier. As you can see from above, the next sequential "Task No." is automatically provided. You can, however, change the "Task No." Changing the "Task No." to a smaller number will cause that task to be placed in that spot and all tasks with the same or larger "Task No." to be shifted to the next higher "Task No." (inserting, say, a "Task No." as 4 at the point above will result in Task D receiving "Task No." 5, task E "Task No." 6, and task F "Task No." 7). You will also notice the "Sub-Task" drop-down box. While Project Manager does not explicitly use, nor allow, task groupings, you can designate a task as a sub-task and it will appear indented under the "Task" tab view. To enter a new task, you just provide the "Task No." a "Task" name, and designate the task as a sub-task or not. To enter the task, click the "enter" button.

Here "Task" G has just been entered. As you can see, there is no duration, Start Date, nor End Date for Task G. To provide more specific, detailed information for a task, click the "view" button to the left of the desired task.

This is the "Main" sub-tab of the "Task" tab. There are three additional sub-tabs to the "Task" tab: "Pre-", "Resource", and "Notes". The "Main" sub-tab is where you enter the task duration, start date-time, end date-time, priority, and task type. "Priority" is numerical from 1 to 10., with 1 being the lowest priority and 10 beng the highest. As far as Project Manager is concerned, at this point "Priority" is for your information and is not used within the module. "Task Type" is a drop-down box with two choices: "Fixed Duration" and "Variable Duration." "Fixed Duration" is just that -fixed. No matter how many resources you throw at a fixed duration task, it still takes the same amont of time. "Variable Duration" tasks will become shorter the more resources that are assigned. Project Manager checks the resources assigned to variable duration tasks and when just enough resources are assigned to completely cover the work hours required, any additional resources assigned will reduce the duration of the task by an hour for hour basis (e.g., you have a task that will take 10 hours, but it's variable duration. After you have assigned 10 hours of resources, if you assign, say, 4 more hours of resources, the task duration will drop to 6 hours). This requires that enough resources have been assigned to cover the intial project duration, more than one resource be assigned, and more than one resource be assigned during the same times. For example, you have a task that is set to run Mon, Tue, and Wed from 9am-5pm, or for 24 work hours. It is a variable duration task. You assign Ed to work all 24 hours. Then you assign Brenda to work with Ed for 8 hours on Mon. The task end date would be adjusted to Tue and Ed would be free to work another task on Wed. The task would still take 24 work hours.

Project Manager provides several ways to enter your task Duration and Finish Date. The "Set Task Length Using" radio buttons "Duration" and "Finish Date" allow you to specify only a duration and starting date-time, and let Project Manager calculate the Finish Date-Time. Or, you can specify a Start Date-Time and a Finish Date-Time and Project Manager will calculate the duration. The "Calendar Type" radio buttons ("Work" and "24-hr") lett you choose whether Project Manager calculates durations or finish dates based on your work calendar, or using 24-hrs. Thus, for our "Task: G", we can specify "Select Task Length Using:" "Duration" by clicking the "Duration" radio button, and "Calendar Type:" of "Work" by clicing the "Work" radio button.

We then enter the "Start Date (yyyy-mm-dd):" of 2003-04-25 and the "Start Time (hh:mm:ss):" of 13:00:00, and click the "Enter/Update" button.

Project Manager calculates the Finish Date-Time as 2003-04-25 17:00:00. We could also have chosen the "Finish Date" radio button from the "Set Task Length Using:" and the "Work Days" radio button from the "Calendar Type:" and entered a "Finish Date (yyyy-mm-dd):" of 2003-04-25 and a "Finish Time (hh:mm:ss):" of 17:00:00 and Project Manager would have calculated the "Work-day Duration" as "4 h". The "Pct. FInished" field is an approximation of how much time has elapsed between the current date-time and the task-start realtive to the task-end. Here this field is shown as 100 since the current date is later than 2003-04-25.

The "Pre-" sub-tab allows you to choose how the start and or finish dates of a task are related to the start or finish dates of other tasks.

The "Pre-" sub-tab shows all other tasks and lets you specify task-to-task start and finish relationships. The relationships are "Finish-to-Start" (means that the current task cannot start until the selected task has finished; "Start-to-Start" (the current task cannot start until/unless the selected task has started); "Finish-to-Finish" (the current task cannot finish until/unless the selected task has finished); and "Start-to-Finish" (the current task cannot finish until/unless the selectd task has started. To set a "Pre-" task, click the "Select" checkbox for the desired task, choose a "Dep. Type" (dependency type), choose a lag amount and Duration (hour, day, week, month, or year), and click "OK". The "Lag" and "Duration" will create an increment between the dependency relationships. For example, let's say that task G, our current task, cannot start until task F finishes, and, furthermore, task G can't start until 1 hour after task F finishes. To set this up, we would select the following:

After clicking OK, we can navigate back to the "Main" sub-tab for task G and examine the Start Date-Time and Finish Date-Time.

We note that the "Start Time:" has been adjusted to 10:00:00 from 13:00:00, while the "Finish Time (hh:mm:ss):" has been adjusted to 14:00:00 to reflect that task G starts 1 hour after the finish of task F (09:00:00).

The "Resource" sub-tab is where we assign resources to work on the current task. Before we can assign resources tasks, we have to add resources to the project, which will be the next step. Thus, we will return to the "Resource" sub-tab of the "Task" tab.

The are two parts to the "Notes" sub-tab. The first is a message board, where all project members can leave notes for each other. The notes can be arranged in any fashion the members choose, but it is recommended that a standard format be outlined ahead of time and followed during the course of the project.

Just enter a note and click the "OK" button. The second part of the "Notes" sub-tab is an e-mail function, which allows project members to send e-mails to other project members.

This e-mail feature allows you to personally address up to six recipients, or send to all project members by checking the "Send to All Members?" checkbox. You can also send a copy to yourself by checking the "Send Copy to Self?" checkbox. The e-mail feature also allows you send attachments up to 512kb in size. Just type the body of your message in the "Message:" box and click the "Send Mail" button.

III. Assigning resources.(top)

As we noted earlier, you must first enter available resources before you can assign resources to work on tasks. The first step in assigning resources is to click on the "Resource" tab in the main menu.

This is the main screen for entering resources for your project. As noted by the horizontal scroll bar, this screen extends to the right, so it is important to scroll over in order to enter all necessary information for the resource.

As you can see, resources are added to your project one at a time.

Here we have already added Ann, Bill, Carly, David, Ed, and Fran and are in the process of adding Greg. All of these resources are persons, therefore they do not require a unit of measure. We've given each one a simple "Alias", but have specified no "Group" for any. If you have a project with a natural grouping of resources, say electricians, programmers, writers, graphic artists, etc., you could assign each to a group name. Currently Project Manager doesn't use the "Group" field, but future enhancements will make use of this field for tracking and reporting. The "Resource Amount" is, for persons, what fraction of their time is devoted to this project. In our case, each of these resources is fully devoted to this project, so the "Resource Amount" is 1. Anything less than 1, would be part time. FOr "Type" of material, you might have finite resources, e.g., gasoline, where your project might require 2000 gallons of gasoline with a "Unit of Measure" of gallons and "Resource Amount" of 2000.

All of our resources, including Greg, have a standard variabel cost of $45 per hour and an overtime cost of $75 per hour. The "Resource Cost" is any fixed cost associated with the resource (like a signing bonus for persons, or a one-time cost for a material resource). You will learn shortly that resources can have multiple "cost schedules" which can be used to account for raises and other cost changes. The "Cost Period" defines when the resource cost is charged to the project. The choices are "Start," "End," and "Prorated." Start means the cost of the resource is charged when the project starts; End means the resource is charged to the project when the project is finished; Prorated means the cost of the resource is charged to the project as the resource cost accrues, which is probably the most usual accrual for people resources. Material resources, on the other hand, often are paid for up front. The "Availability Schedule" is how Project Manager knows whether or not the resource is available 24 hours a day (24-hr), or works the normal work day (Standard). The "Internal Code" is used for things like cost centers, where your company may use different accounting codes for different resources. The current version of Project Manager does not make use of the "Internal Code" but enahncements will include support for tracking by "Internal Code."

Once you have entered all relevant information for the resource, just click the "enter" button to add the resource to your project. Should you wish, you can delete a resource by clicking on the "Remove" button. Next we'll take a little more detailed look at particular resources. First, we click on the "view" button for the resource we've labeled as "Ann."

Clicking the "view" button for a particular resource reveals the "Main" sub-tab of the "Resource" tab. First note that there are three other sub-tabs in addition to the "Main" sub-tab. These are "Sched," "Cost," and "Notes." We will discuss each of these in-turn, but first we'll examine the "Main" sub-tab. Notice that much of the information is a copy of information previously entered for the resource. The only difference in the general information is the "E-mail:" field. Because we have made each of the resources a project member, we can fill in the e-mail address for "Ann," which is ann@skent.net. The bottom part of the "Main" sub-tab is labeled "Resource Unavailable Dates." This section is used to record dates when the resource will be only partially available, or unavailable. Notice that these dates can be single days, or consecutive days. To record partial availablility, simply enter a number greater than 0, but less than 1 under "Partial Resource(s)." If the resource is completely unavailable, enter a 0 under "Partial Resource(s)." Now is a good time to mention how Project Manager handles partially available resources. Project Manager will always assign a partially available resource to work from the normal work start time to an early work end time. Thus, if a resource normally works from 9am-5pm, but is 0.5 partially available for a particular day, Project Manager will record the resource as available and working from 9am-1pm, not any other combination - irregardless of when the resource realy works. This could obviously cause some quirks if, say, a task is scheduled to end on Mon at 13:00:00, but the partially available resource is assigned to the task on Mon for 4 hours, but really works from 13:00:00 to 17:00:00. Project Manager will not be able to project this, but you would be able to record the actual task finish time as 17:00:00 and note why the task finished late.

After entering the e-mail and resource unavailability information:

we see that Ann is 25% available on April 14th and 15th. Note that it is possible to delete any "Resource Unavailable Dates" by clicking the "Delete Entry" checkbox and clicking "OK."

The next sub-tab is "Sched." This sub-tab is used to assign a non-standard work calendar to the resource.

This screen allows you to set the resource's work calendar to be anything you wish. This is primarily used for resources whose work schedule differs from the normal company-wide work schedule. However, this can alos be used to make special assignments. For example, suppose you want to assign a resource to work on a Saturday and Sunday for a particular task. Normally this would not be possible because Project Manager will not count hours for non-work days. However, if you create a new resource, perhaps with the same name as the actual resource with a "2" appended, and set that resource's work schedule to be Saturday and Sunday from 9am-5pm. Then when you assign that resource, Project Manager will count the Saturday and Sunday work times. You may also have to set the standard rate of the resource as the resource's original overtime rate.

The next sub-tab is "Cost." This screen is used to alter the costs incurred by resources.

First note that the initial cost schedule is already recorded. To add another, different cost schedule, just enter the date when the new costs begin, the standard and overtime rates, any fixed cost ("Resource Cost"), when the cost begins to accrue ("Cost Period"), and a number for the "Resource Rate Schedule" (currently Project Manager does not use this field, but future enhancements are planned that allow the project manager to make use of it). To record the new cost schedule, simply click "OK". If desired, you may delete a cost schedule by clicking the "Delete" checkbox and clicking "OK."

The "Notes" sub-tab is exactly the same as the "Notes" sub-tab of the "Task" tab, which we discussed earlier. It is a good place to make resource-specific notes and also allows you to e-mail other project members.

Now that we have added our project resources, we can proceed to assign those resources to the tasks that we previously defined. To assign resources to tasks, click the "Task" tab, choose a task and click the "view" button under "Edit Details." Next click the "Resource" sub-tab.

The "Resource" sub-tab of the "Task" tab lists all available resources. To assign a resource click the "Assign" checkbox next to the "Resource Name", enter the desired "Resource Amount" (for persons, these should be numbers greater than 0 and less than or equal to 1), enter the "Assignment Length," which is essentially the number of work hours the resource is assigned to work on the project, enter the "Work Load Schedule," we will talk more about this shortly, enter the "Assignment Start Date" and the "Assignment End Date" and choose a "Resource Rate Schedule."

The actual daily hours the resource is assigned are governed by the interaction of the "Assignment Length," the "Work Load Schedule," the "Assignment Start Date" and the "Assignment End Date."

We have assigned Ann to work on task A for 80 hours beginning March 25, 2003 and ending April 7, 2003 using "Resource Rate Schedule" of 1. We now need to choose a "Work Load Schedule" and note that the choices are "Flat," "Back Loaded," "Front Loaded," "Early Peak," and "Late Peak." These schedules define how the resource assigned hours are allocated over the assigned dates. "Flat" takes the hours, divides them by the number of work days and assigns the resource the average number of hours each work day. "Back Loaded" starts allocating hours from the "Assignment End Date" and fills up each work day until it reaches the "Assignment Start Date" or allocates all of the assigned hours. "Front Loaded" does the opposite of "Back Loaded" and starts from the "Assignment Start Date" and allocates the hours to each successive work day until it allocates all of the hours or until the "Assignment End Date" is reached. "Early Peak" combines "Front Loaded" and "Flat" by front loading 75 percent of the assigned hours and then applying "Flat" to the remainng 25 percent. "Late Peak" back loads 75 percent of the assigned hours and then applies "Flat" to the remaining 25 percent of the assigned hours. A note about "Flat." If the "Assignment Start Date" and/or "Assignment End Date" are the same as the Task Start Date and/or Task End Date, the "Flat" schedule will start with the next work day and/or end with the next to the last work day. Because we are assigning Ann all of the hours for task A, we don't need to worry too much about which work schedule to use, so we'll choose "Front Loaded."

Also, at this point, you should take note of the "Check this box to verify overtime:" checkbox. This is where you instruct Project Manager to compute any overtime caused by the current task assignment(s). Project Manager calculates overtime on a daily basis as assigned hours greater than workday hours. The two ways to get overtime assignments (other than to create a "new" resource with non-standard work calendar) is to use the "Flat" work schedule, or assign multiple tasks to the same day, whose total assigned hours are greater than the daily work hours for that day. Future enhancements will allow the project manager to specify when overtime is assigned, but for now, you can decide whether or not to allow Project Manager to calculate overtime for a particular task assignment. We don't have to worry about overtime for this task assignment because we are assigning the resource, Ann, to work 10 eight hour days on task A. However, we could check Ann's work schedule prior to making the task Assignment by looking at the "Check a resource availability ..." below. To do this, simply use the drop-down selector to choose the desired resource and click the "OK" button net to "Click to check resource availability."

A new window opens with a monthly calendar where the month is the month of the assignment start month. Simply click "Prior Month" or "Next Month" to view a different month. Each day shown displays the day of the month, the "availability code," and the number of non-overtime work hours the resource is available to work that day. For example, "25 PA 0" indicates the day is the 25th of the month, the resource is "Partially Available" and the resource has 0 available normal work hours. "UA" or "Resource Unavailable" denotes a day when the resource is not scheduled to work. "A" denotes a day when the resource has no tasks scheduled and is scheduled to work a normal work day. "OA" denotes a day when the resource is "Over Allocated" meaning that the resource has been assigned more task hours that day than there are normal work hours. To view a particular day, just click the day.

After clicking on the 25th, the task assignments for Ann appear below the monthly calendar. Ann is available from 09:00 until 17:00 and is assigned to task A for each of the half-hour increments shown. Any other tasks for that day would appear to the right of the task A column.

Here we see that we have overallocated Ann on March 25, 2003. Ann has been assigned 8 hours on task A and 8 hours on task E. If we have made either assignment by checking the "Check this box to verify overtime:" checkbox, 8 hours of overtime would have been recorded for Ann on March 25, 2003 under task E. Note that it doesn't matter if you re-execute the task A assignment with the "Check this box to verify overtime:" checkbox selected because Project Manager will take into account that the task E hours are already overtime hours and won't count any corresponding task A hours as overtime.

We have thus far created a project, entered tasks, entered resources and assigned resources to tasks. Next we examine costs.

S K Enterprises' Synapsis System Help Section

Project Manager