Promotional Projects

When you decide to pursue a contract, you can create a promotional project as a repository of information about the business opportunity and/or to track time and expenses incurred during the pursuit process.

Definition

A promotional project is a special project that you create specifically for managing the pursuit of a new contract, for tracking labor costs and other expenses that you incur in the process of that pursuit, or for both purposes.

Using promotional projects is optional. When you decide to pursue a new contract, you have these basic options:

• Not use a promotional project, and manage the pursuit process outside of Vantagepoint. If you win the contract, create a regular project to manage the project from that point forward.
• Create a standalone promotional project to manage the pursuit process and track the related costs. If you win the contract, create a regular project to manage the project from that point forward. You can create the regular project from the promotional project to copy some of the data you entered previously for the promotional project.
• Create a regular project to manage the pursuit process, and at the same time, create a linked promotional project to track costs that you incur during the pursuit. If you win the contract, use the already created regular project to manage the work going forward.

Promotional Project Data and Structure

As with a normal project, you can set up a work breakdown structure (WBS) for a promotional project, you can set up a project plan, and you can enter time and expenses that are charged to it. However, because of the very different purposes of promotional projects and regular projects, a number of fields, and options that are available in the Projects hub for regular projects are not available for promotional projects (for example, fields and options related to contract amounts).

Options for Creating a Promotional Project and Linking It to a Regular Project

You have these options for creating a promotional project and linking it to a regular project:

• At the same time that you create the regular project, create the promotional project and link the two.

  When you add a new regular project, you can, at the same time, add a promotional project that is automatically linked to that new regular project. To do that, select the Create Linked Promotional Project to Track Pursuit Costs check box on the New Project form and enter a project number and name for the promotional project.

• Create the regular project first, and later create the promotional project and link the two.

  If you create a new project without also adding a linked promotional project for it and later decide to add one, you can do that using the Create Linked Promotional Project dialog box. To display that dialog box, click Other Actions on the Actions bar and click Create Linked Promotional Project. You can also click next to the project name, and click + Create a Linked Promotional Project on the Project Structure dialog box.

• Create the regular project and the promotional project separately, and link them later.

  If you add a regular project and a promotional project without linking them in one of the ways described above, and later you decide to link them, you can do that using the Linked Project field on the Overview tab of the Projects form. Display the regular project on the Projects form, and select the promotional project in the Linked Project field. You can link to a promotional project in this way even if that promotional project is currently linked to different regular project. After you confirm that is what you want to do, Vantagepoint removes the current link and creates the new one.

What Happens When You Link Projects

When you link a regular project to a promotional project, the name of the promotional project displays in the Linked Project field on the Overview tab of the Projects form for the regular project. Likewise, if you display the promotional project, the name of the regular project for which it is tracking pursuit costs displays in the Linked Project field. In addition, if you display one of a pair of linked projects on the Project Structure dialog box or on the Edit Project Structure form, the WBS for the other project also displays.

When you link projects, the promotional project record is updated to include some default data copied from the regular project. You should review the promotional project data after you link projects. In most cases, you can change the default data if you want it to be different for the promotional project. However, if you make changes to some selected key information in either the regular project or its linked promotional project, those changes are automatically made to the other project as well. Examples of data that are linked in this way are the primary client and other fields directly related to the primary client.

Security

Options on the Record Access tab of the Roles form (Settings > Security > Roles) control the ability to create unlinked and linked promotional projects:

• If Promotional is selected in Allow Charge Types for New Projects for your role, you can create promotional projects that are not linked to regular projects.
• If the Allow Creation for Linked Promotional Projects check box is selected for your role, you can also create and link a promotional project to a regular project either when creating a new regular project or later using the Create Linked Promotional Project option on the Actions bar or on the Project Structure dialog box.

Regardless of how these two options are set, you can link an existing promotional project to a regular project as long as your security role has the necessary access to modify both projects.

Changing or Removing the Link Between Projects

If you link a regular project to the wrong promotional project by mistake, or for some other reason you want to link it to a different promotional project, display the regular project, and select that promotional project in the Linked Project field.

Vantagepoint removes the existing link, creates the new link, and updates some field values in the promotional project to match the corresponding field values for the regular project to which it is now linked. Note, however, that no data is changed for the previously linked promotional project. Field values for that project that were set to match values for the regular project when the two were linked will remain the same after the link is removed. If that is not what you want, select that promotional project and make the necessary changes.

If you link two projects by mistake and want to remove the link but you do not want to create a link to a different promotional project, you can do so by clicking in the Linked Project field to clear the promotional project name from the field.

Deleting Linked Projects

If you delete a regular project that is linked to a promotional project or a promotional project that is linked to a regular project, the other project in the linked pair is not automatically deleted. To remove both projects, you must delete them individually.