Working with Calendars, Resources, and Codes
Although Open Plan allows you to plan your project as you go along, you will frequently find that by planning your project at the outset, you gain a clearer perspective of the project as a whole.
Open Plan allows you to create three types of ancillary files that you can assign to a project:
- Calendar files: These files can contain any number of individual calendars that you can assign to activities, relationship lags, and resources. You can assign only one calendar file to a project at any one time.
- Resource files: These files contain all the information about resources, their availabilities, and their costs. You can assign only one resource file to a project at any one time.
- Code files: These files allow for the collecting and reporting of project information in a variety of formats ranging from high-level summaries to activity-level detail. With the appropriate coding system in place, even the largest networks can provide clear, concise pictures of vital project information. You can assign up to 90 code files to each project.
Setting Up of Ancillary Files
While you can wait to enter information on ancillary data files until after the project is set up, you may prefer to set up the ancillary files first. This allows Open Plan to verify whether resource codes and calendars are valid when you enter activity information. It is particularly useful to have your calendars set up at an early stage of project development since Open Plan refers to this information when performing time analysis and resource scheduling.
While not providing the extensive cost control and reporting features of Cobra (Deltek's sophisticated cost management software), Open Plan allows you to use your resource tracking system for capturing cost information about your project.
You can also attach notes to projects, activities, resources, and codes. These notes can be included in reports based on many of the standard project views.
Refreshing Contents of Ancillary Files
To refresh the contents of the ancillary files assigned to your project from the database, click
on the Open Plan Explorer.
Moreover, you can refresh code data in code files opened in Shared or Read Only mode on a project opened in Shared mode.
- When you open the code files in Shared mode and another user updates or adds code values, Open Plan allows all users who are working on a project simultaneously to see the updated code values. You can only view the updated values, however, when you refresh the project data.
- When you open the code files in Read Only mode and another user makes changes to the code file, you can still refresh the project data. Open Plan refreshes the read only code data as well.