Creating and Administering a Project

Overview

A Project is a workplace for yourself or with others to organise and structure work in a SMART fashion with a pragmatic approach to project management. You can assure delivery by certain dates and show results visually with evidence of outcomes and enjoy automated reporting. Projects could be one off or repeated using pre-built frameworks.

Instructions

Navigating to Projects

Find Projects on the Initiatives menu on your main navigation bar

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Creating a new Project

Get to the Projects listing page as shown above by hovering over Initiatives on the main navigation bar and clicking ‘Projects’. Then click ‘Create new Project.

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Frameworks and cloning existing Projects

Frameworks are pre-configured Projects allowing you to run though a standard set of Phases, Deliverables and Activities. They can be used to quickly create a Project where you are performing a repeatable action, such as employee induction, working to the Police National Decision Model or the steps for the Domestic Abuse Disclosure Scheme. You’ll find a list of the frameworks available to you displayed when you create a new Project.

Alternatively you can chose to clone an existing Project. This will allow you to copy a Project you already are a member of allowing you quickly create the same set of phases, deliverables and activities in the same way a pre-configured framework allows.

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Configuring your Project

Step 1

Here you will be asked for a Name for your Project. You can also choose to add a description, a start and end date and assign a category (either organisational or personal). Once you’ve added the information, click Next.

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Step 2

Here you will be asked to select which Team members you want on the Project. At this step, add your chosen team members and assign their relevant permissions (see later section Team membership and permissions for more detail).

You can also activate some settings for the Project from here:

  • Project Approval – Do completed activities need to be approved by the Project board
  • Dependencies – prevents activities start until their dependencies are complete

Step 3

This step allows you to define the structure of your Project using Phases, Deliverables and Activities. If you have chosen a Project framework or to clone an existing Project that pre-defined structure will be loaded for you to use or customise as needed.

Populating the Project Structure

If you have chosen a blank template you will be presented with an empty Project Structure.

Adding a Phase

Click on the Add Phase button to create your first Phase.

Here you can enter a name and description for your Phase, as well as add in any tools that you have access to. Click ‘Add tools’ to show the tool section menu.

Once you are happy click ‘Create Phase’.

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Adding a Deliverable

Hover over your new phase and Click the pencil icon to reveal the ‘Add deliverable’ button. Creating a deliverable is as simple as naming it, and clicking ‘Create Deliverable’.
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Adding an Activity

Click the ‘Add Activity’ button to create a new Activity.

Activities represent units of work that need to get done, as such they have more options than Phases and Deliverables. The only mandatory piece of information an Activity needs is a name, but it is also possible to set:

  • Assigned To – the person who will do, or oversee, this work
  • Your Reference – That will be displayed as a prefix to the activity name
  • Start date – This will plot the activity on the Gantt Chart
  • End date – As above
  • Estimated days – a view on how much effort is needed to complete this activity
  • Dependencies – set which activities this one is dependent on
  • Add Tools – associate a tool with this activity

Once you are happy with your choices click ‘Create Activity’.

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Editing a Phase, Deliverable or Activity

You can amend the details of a phase, deliverable or activity by clicking the pencil icon next to it

  • Delete: This will delete that item from the Project Structure
  • Edit: This will allow you to change the options you set when creating that item (eg: name, description, start date ect)
  • Sort: Sorting allows you to set the order of items of the same type, such as the order of Phases, or the order of Deliverable within a single Phase, or the order of Activities within a Deliverable. To change a sort order, click the pencil icon next to the item you want to re-order and choose ‘Sort’. You can then drag and drop items up and down into your preferred order. Once finished, click ‘Stop sorting’.
  • Move: Deliverables can be moved between Phases, and Activities can be moved between Deliverables. If you wish to move a Deliverable or Activity click the pencil icon next to the item you want to change and select move. The drag and drop the item to its new parent.

Using Project dependencies

Creating a dependency for an activity will mean that the activity can’t be marked as complete until the activity it’s dependant on has been completed. You can do this by clicking the pencil icon then edit next to the chosen activity, choose the activity you want it to be dependant on and click ‘Create dependency’.

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Starting your Project

Once you feel your Project is set up and you’re ready to start using it, click the green Start Project button in the bottom right hand corner of your screen.

Archive a Project

Should you wish to archive your Project, go to Settings and click ‘Advanced Project Settings’, there you’ll find the ‘Archive Project’ button at the bottom of the settings page.

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Need further help? Get in touch...

Message us via pam, email us at support@pam-it.com or call 01273 041 042.
  • Sam Peters
  • Roy Crombleholme
  • Stuart Johnson