Project Planning Overview

Project Planning allows you to develop full plans for opportunities or projects, create new plans, copy and modify existing plans, and run hypothetical project scenarios.

A plan can serve as an outline for a project or opportunity. A plan can also function as a "what-if?" scenario or as the basis for a detail-driven cost proposal. Or, it could be a template for others in your firm to use when preparing plans for opportunities or projects.

When you create a plan, you can enter enough information to get an idea of how long the project will take, how much it will cost, and how much revenue it's likely to bring in. You can also assign generic resources to develop a better understanding of the work elements. If your plan is to serve as a cost proposal, however, you can develop a more detailed plan that proves to a potential client your understanding of the project's scope of work and costing requirements.

Work Breakdown Structure

A plan is an outline for organizing work and associated costs. Typically, you use a plan to map out a project, but Vision Planning is flexible and supports a wide range of plans.

One of the key pieces of your plan is the work breakdown structure. A work breakdown structure (WBS) is an organization and numbering tool that provides a structure or framework. Vision has two different types of work breakdown structures, the Project Info Center WBS and an individual plan's WBS.

Plan Contents

Your plans can include the following:

  • Work breakdown structure elements — The WBS for a plan consists of whatever elements you need to plan your work. These elements may be projects, phases, and tasks. You use the Labor tab to identify the pieces of work to be completed.

  • Schedule — You use the Labor tab to establish the anticipated life cycle for the plan, from start date to end date.

  • Resource assignments and budgeted costs — On the Labor tab you can also assign resources to the work elements for your plan. When developing high-level plans or what-if scenarios, you can use "generic," or placeholder, resources, which are established in the Labor Category tables in Billing. For more detailed plans, you would be more likely to use named resources. You use the Expenses and Consultants tabs to specify the planned costs, beyond labor, for completing the work.

  • Gantt — Refer to this time-based bar chart to view the time frame of effort of the corresponding project, phase, task, or resource assignment.

  • Analysis — Use this tab to view a summary of the plan's financial performance.

Reporting Actuals - Mapping to the Project Info Center WBS

You can also decide whether or not your plan's data is going to "map" to the Vision Accounting and Info Center applications. When you map a plan, you integrate its elements with your Project Info Center’s WBS records to support reporting actual hours and actual costs in your plan.

Cost Rates and Billing Rates

You can use cost rates, billing rates, or both in your plans:

  • Cost amounts, whether budgeted or actual, refer to your firm's cost to produce a service. The cost rates are the rates at which you want to distribute those costs — such as the cost of employee labor hours — to projects.

  • Billing rates are the rates at which you bill services to your clients. Typically, billing rates are based upon cost rates but also include markups to cover overhead costs.

  • You may find that including both cost and billing budgets with certain plans is a good approach, since doing so makes it possible to use the budgets for different purposes, some internal to your firm and some specific to client presentations or communications.

Related Topics:

  • Labor Costs and Rates in Planning
    Labor costs are computed based on the estimated number of labor hours to complete work on the WBS element, multiplied by the "per hour cost rate" of resources assigned to the WBS element.
  • Cost Rates in Planning
    Cost rates are your firm's cost to produce a service. You specify the cost rates and/or billing rates on a plan-by-plan basis.
  • Billing Rates in Planning
    Billing rates are what the client will pay for the services your firm provides. You specify billing rates on a plan-by-plan basis.
  • Date Based Rates and Planning
    Vision's effective dates feature allows you to specify when a change will occur in the cost/pay rate associated with a specified labor rate, labor category, labor code, or labor override table. The date that a change is scheduled to occur is the "effective date" of the change, or the "date-based rate." Here is an example of how it works.
  • Comparing Compensation to Contracts
    The Compare Compensation to Contracts option on the Project Planning toolbar works in conjunction with the Plan Compensation Values by Row & Period option in Planning Configuration.
  • How Planning Calculates ETC
    Estimate-to-completion (ETC) amounts are estimates of the total additional cost or hours, beyond the actual cost or hours, that are required to complete the work. The ETC is calculated based on the application, Vision or iAccess for Vision, in which the plan was created.
  • How Planning Calculates Working Time and Dates
    Planning follows certain guidelines when it calculates working times and dates.
  • Plan Road Map
    Each organization has their own process for tracking an opportunity from its earliest stages until it becomes a completed project.
  • Creating and Scheduling Plans
    You can create a new plan in different ways. For example, you can create a new plan from scratch or you can copy and modify an existing plan. You can also base a new plan on a project or opportunity, or a plan created in iAccess for Vision.
  • Budgeting Plans
    To budget a plan, you assign resources, expenses, consultants, and units to the lowest-level elements in the plan's WBS. You can also budget a plan without making any assignments. For example, you can run a what-if scenario and enter budgeting numbers without assigning resources, expenses, or consultants. If you do so, you must specify cost rates or billing rates for any elements included at the lowest level of your plan.
  • Top-Down Plans and Project Plans
    You can create top-down plans for what-if scenarios, in which an estimated amount is distributed across a plan. You create these plans on the Top-Down Planning tab of the Project Planning form.
  • When You Win the Contract - Mapping the Plan
    When the client signs the contract agreeing to the work laid out in a plan, you must check the plan settings to make sure that they are still valid. You can also add new elements to the plan's Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), change generic resources to named resources, and so on.
  • Importing and Exporting Data Between Microsoft Project and Vision Planning
    You can import and export data between Vision and Microsoft Project. Vision 7.3 works with Microsoft Project 2007 and Vision 7.4 works with Microsoft Project 2010 and later versions.
  • Project Planning Resource Searches
    Use the Project Planning Resource Search feature to help you plan and manage employee resources and labor functions.
  • Screens
    Use the screens in Project Planning to create and modify plans and, optionally, set dependencies between plan elements.
  • Examples
    If you are new to Project Planning, you may find it helpful to review examples before you create plans.
Parent Topic: Planning Overview