Using Open Plan Professional

Open Plan Professional Version 1.2

Project Gateway interacts with Open Plan using OLE Automation. This
means that Project Gateway will actually launch and operate Open Plan
automatically to retrieve or update project data. When the process is
complete, Project Gateway will shut down Open Plan. The activation of
Open Plan will happen twice during a synchronize command. All this
will occur on your screen and may be quite surprising if you have not
used an automation enabled application before!
The time required to import a project is a function of the size of the
project and the speed of your computer. OLE Automation is very
processor intensive. On a 133Mhz Pentium, the time required to open
and retrieve the contents of a 75 task plan is about 30 seconds. So
please be patient when Open Plan loads and then just sits there for a
while with no apparent activity. The OLE data transfer process is going
as fast as the Windows operating system will support it.
Note: Make sure that Open Plan is not running when you use the Project
Gateway commands, Create or Synchronize. If Open Plan is already
running, you may experience system hangs when you go to exit it.
Note: Whenever Project Gateway has activated Open Plan, please resist
the temptation to click on it. Open Plan will respond to the mouse even
though Project Gateway is operating it. Entering user commands could
cause problems that might lead to system hangs or incorrect data.

Preparing the Project

Project Gateway uses the Open Plan Activity ID codes to maintain
synchronization between the Notes database and the Open Plan
database. Therefore, you should not change Activity ID codes on
existing tasks after you have published the project in Notes. Adding
new tasks with new codes is fine at any time, but changing the codes on
existing tasks will prevent synchronization of those tasks. It is probably
best if the plan is well defined before it is first published.
Project Gateway does not deal with Open Plan subprojects. If a
subproject item is encountered, it will be treated as a single task.
Reporting status on these items will not be useful.

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 Resources should be set up as Labor type with options checked as
shown.

If the resource has a non-blank Description, the resource name used in

Notes will be the Description for the resource rather than the Resource
ID. All resources must have unique descriptions or error messages will
appear during import.
Checking "Actual Cost based on Progressed Quantity" is recommended
so that Actual Hours reported in Notes can be posted back to the
assignments in Open Plan. If the "Progress Based on Activity Progress"
option is checked, then the actuals reported from Notes would be
overridden during recalculation.
Your should run Time Analysis before publishing the plan into Notes so
that all activities have current schedules.
WBS Codes are used to setup the project outline in Notes. Only the
lowest level tasks will have assignment documents created. All higher
level tasks will appear as outline headings.
The start and finish dates shown in Notes will be the early start and
early finish dates calculated by Open Plan.
User_char09 is used to set the Tasknote field in the Notes assignment
documents. User_char10 will be set from the "Note to Project Manager"
field in Notes during synchronization. Since both of these fields are
limited to 40 characters, you must keep messages very short.
The contents of the 10 character fields User_char01..User_char10 can be
directly imported by adding the Aux1/Text1..Aux10/Text10 fields to the
field map using the Advanced Options/Field dialog when the database is
constructed. These may be used to provide additional codes for
customizing the Notes database.
The Open Plan project is recorded in a .OPP file. This file is selected by
using the Create Notes Database... command with the browse file
selector set for "Open Plan".

Synchronize Update Project

In order to minimize the time required to update the Open Plan
database, Project Gateway only updates records which contain data

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 changes. For this reason, the time for update may vary depending upon
how may of the Notes assignments have new status information.
New Tasks, Resources, and Assignments
When new assignments have been composed in Notes, these will be
added to the Open Plan project. If these are assignment on existing
tasks, they will appear in the appropriate details dialog. If they are new
tasks, they will appear at the end of the activity list. Each new task is
assigned a task id of the form "NTxxx" when xxx is a number assigned
by Project Gateway. If you would like a different ID for the task, change
it immediately before synchronizing back to Notes. Once a new task has
been synchronized back to Notes, the Activity ID must not be changed.
When a task is created, it will be assigned a target start date based upon
its Notes start date and a duration based upon the Notes specified end
date. When time analysis is done, Open Plan may change these dates.
Resources are also created when required. These will be preset as labor
resources. The ID and description will both be set to the Notes
Participant name. You may change the Resource ID to fit your resource
hierarchy, but you must not change the resource description.

Two Way Planning

Project Gateway supports Two Way planning with Open Plan projects.
This feature allows participants using Notes to set new start and finish
dates for planned tasks. These user entered dates are then used by
Project Gateway during the Update Project process to set target start
dates and to revise durations on existing tasks. In this way a project
manager can obtain schedule adjustments from the participants.
In order to allow Project Gateway to implement these data changes in
your project, you must set "Enable Two Way Planning" to Yes in the
Project Profile document in the Notes database before doing
Synchronization Update Project. You can use the view, 'Outline with
User Revision and Notes" to see which assignments have had changes
before implementing them.

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Common Project Fields - Open Plan Professional Version 1.2
C - Create Notes Database and Synchronize Update Notes
SP - Synchronize, Update Project

Common Project Format Notes C S Corresponding Open

Data Name Field P Plan Field
Format
1 "Task Name" text y n "Task Description"
(ACT_DESC)for detail
tasks, project
description for top level
summary
2 "Task Scheduled Start Date" date y y ESDate
3 "Task Scheduled Finish Date" date y y EFDate
4 "Task Baseline Start Date" date BSTART
5 "Task Base Line Finish Date" date y n BFINISH
6 "Task Baseline Cost" number y n BAC
7 "Task Baseline Work Hours" number y n
8 "Task Actual Start Date" date y y ASDATE
9 "Task Actual Finish Date" date y y AFDATE
10 "Task Actual Cost" number y n CUM_ACWP
11 "Task Actual Work Hours" number n n
12 "Task Actual Percent Complete" number y y PPC

13 "Task Additional Cost" number y n N/A

14 "Task Total Cost" number y n N/A
15 "Task Priority" number n n
(0-
9999)
16 "Task WBS Code" text y n ID field
17 "Task OBS Code" text y n
18 "Task Notes" text y n from USR_CHR10
19 "Task Responsible Manager" text y n N/A
20 "Task Keyword" text y n N/A
21 "Project As Of Date" date n n N/A
22 "Project Task Count" number y n N/A (computed)

23 "Project Start Date" date y n project start date

24 "Assignment Resource Name" text y n uses resource
description if available
else RES_ID
25 "Assignment Resource Index" number y N/A (computed)
26 "Assignment Work Rate Percent" number n n N/A

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 27 "Assignment Total Work Hours" number y y LEVEL if total amount
else
LEVEL*TASK_DUR
28 "Assignment Baseline Work number y n N/A
Hours"
29 "Assignment Actual Work number y y ACTUAL_QTY (from
Hours" cost table)
30 "Assignment Scheduled number y n N/A
Overtime Work"
31 "Assignment Actual Overtime number y n N/A
Work"
32 "Assignment Total Cost" number y n N/A
33 "Assignment Baseline Cost" number y n N/A
34 "Assignment Actual Cost" number y n ACTUAL_CST
35 "Assignment Start Date" date y n from task start
36 "Assignment Finish Date" date y n from task finish
37 "Assignment Duration" number y n N/A
(hours)
38 "Assignment Work Rate" number y n N/A
(0-100)
39 "Assignment Percent Complete" number y n from task PPC, used to
(0-100) set task PPC
40 "Assignment Actual Start Date" date y n N/A Used to set Task
Actual Start
41 "Assignment Actual Finish Date" date y n N/A Used to set Task
Actual Finish
42 "Assignment History" text y n N/A Used to set Actual
Hours
43 "Resource Name" text y n Description
(this name is the result of the (RES_DESC) if
Edit Resource Selection available else RES_ID
renaming option if that is used)
44 "Resource Standard Cost" number y n UNIT_COST
45 "Resource Overtime Cost" number y n N/A
46 "Resource Cost Per Use" number y n N/A
47 "Resource Capacity" number y n 1
48 "Resource Special Units" text y n N/A or "units"
49 "Resource Initials" text y n N/A
50 "Resource Notes" text y n N/A
51 "Resource Code" text y n N/A
52 "Resource Group Code" text y n constructed from
descriptions of
resources used in the
hierarchy structure of
the resource ID

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 53 "Resource Original Name" (this text y n Resource Description
name is used during Make or Resource ID if
Project and Synchronize if the description is blank
Resource Name has been
adjusted using Edit Resource
Selection Renaming)
54 "Resource Index" number y n N/A (computed)
55 "Task Index" number y n N/A
(computed)
56 "Task Hierarchy" text y n Derived from task
names and outline
structure
57 "Assignment Work Remaining" number y y REMAINING
58 "Task AUX1/TEXT1" text y y USER_CHR01
59 "Task AUX2/TEXT2" text y y USER_CHR02
60 "Task AUX3/TEXT3" text y y USER_CHR03
61 "Task AUX4/TEXT4" text y y USER_CHR04
62 "Task AUX5/TEXT5" text y y USER_CHR05
63 "Task AUX6/TEXT6" text y y USER_CHR06
64 "Task AUX7/TEXT7" text y y USER_CHR07
65 "Task AUX8/TEXT8" text y y USER_CHR08
66 "Task AUX9/TEXT9" text y y USER_CHR09, used as
the source for tasks
notes.
69 "Task AUX10/TEXT10" text y y USER_CHR10, used as
the assignment level
notes field for update
1. Task will be marked as a milestone if activity type is Start
Milestone or Finish Milestone
2. Remaining duration comes from REM_DUR if task is duration
based.
3. ID is imported automatically into all assignment documents

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