How to make a plan in P2ware Planner using product-based planning (video)

P2ware published a video to YouTube on how to make a plan in P2ware Planner using product-based planning technique. It's a great introduction to creating projects plans in P2ware Planner useful not only for PRINCE2 users.
It presents how a product-based planning can be applied in practice in any project.

Watch it in 1080p or 720p and full screen.

How to create multilingual projects plans in P2ware Planner?

P2ware Planner is a project management tool used in various industries, by individual PMs, large organizations, on small and large projects and in many countries. Planner user interface (butons, windows, captions) is English however plan description (field names) can be easily translated into any language! It means that you can create plan template that is 100% in your language.

You can: translate field names, default values, perspectives names (the most important and difficult names)

You can't: translate names of buttons.... but is really a problem? These are really simple words such as 'add', 'delete', etc. :-)

Spanish, German, Chinese, Russian or Arabic template?
No problem!
In a couple of minutes I created Spanish and German plan template. Of course I did translate only selected product properties but it's really fast and simple.

(sorry for any errors in this translation - I did it without consulting project management dictionary)

Spanish product description

 
German field names in the same template. I only changed Planner language in Options.

German product description

Translation is done only once! When you create localized plan template you can save it and reuse by other persons and in other projects countless times!      

How to localize plan template for your team?
You can localize your plan template only in Planner Premium or Planner for PSO applications. These applications have Properties view that is essential for translation. Other users can use any of P2ware Planner versions.


Step A: translate properties names
Properties are the field names visible in every table that describe each plan element (object) such as Product, Activity, Risk, Issue, etc.

To translate a properties:
1. Select Product or other plan object.
2. Double click selected property.
3. Other Languages.
4. Add desired language and translate property name.

Step A: translate properties names

Step B: translate categories
Properties are grouped into categories that describe various plan elements.

To translate categories:
1. Click Translate Categories in Properties view.
2. Add Language.
3. Eneter your categories names.


Step B: translate categories

Step C: (optional) translate perspectives names
Perspectives are configurations of tables and properties in a view. You can translate perspectives names when adding them.

To translate perspective name:
1. When adding a perspective click ... and enter names in other languages.

Step C: translate perspectives names

Step D: click 'Save as Template' and enter its description, name.

Step D: save as a template

You can download the plan template I created in this article.

How to use your template?
No you can create plans based on your template and share the template in your organization.

To use your plan saved as a template you should only change Planner language (in Options):


Change programme language to Spanish

and create new plan using your template:



Create a new plan from your template

To make this template available to other team members:

1. Go to My Documents folder
2. Open My Plans folder
3. Enter My Templates folder
4. Copy your template file and send to other users. They have to copy this template to their Documents -> My Plans -> My Templates folders 

My templates folder

If you have any questions please let me know. My e-mail is available on the right side of this blog.

1 year Planner Standard 2011 license

1 year Planner Standard 2011 license is now available! This is fully functional Planner Standard software that expires in 1 year after the activation. Pricing is really attractive and you can buy this PM software online from P2ware site.

The license is intended for anyone who wants to learn professional project management tool and not spend a fortune on it, so it's an excellent choice for PM novices, home users (yes! that's great tool for planning own projects), students, other managers using only subset of project management tools.

Planner Standard is the most basic version of Planner Suite applications, however it offers many useful functionalities such as: product and activity based planning, Gantt chart, critical path, PERT, earned value, critical chain, risk register, quality register, issue register, resource and resource load, costs (the most basic modules), cost chart, progress tracking, schedule and of course very intuitive user interface.

P2ware Planner Premium 2011

P2ware Planner Premium is one of the most advanced project management applications in Planner Suite 2011. It offers all Planner Professional functionalities plus all desktop customization options. This means that Planner Premium

• includes all planning, controlling and monitoring features,
• has all reporting functionalities (creating reports, creating reports templates),
• has virtually all project management views,
• makes it possible to customize plan template and adjust it to your requirements.

In my opinion Planner Premium is the best application for users in project management environment that does not use Planner Server. It simply offers the best functionalities-to-money ratio because you have all important project management features and customization options.

Planner Professional + customization options = Planner Premium

Why customization options are so important?

The major benefits of customization of plans templates are easier and better description of your projects, better reuse of your current work, some adjustment of user interface and avoidance of data overload. In other words you may add properties that describe your plan as you would add columns in a table/document and at the same time you may hide not used functionalities.

Plan in P2ware Planner is a set of various plan objects, e.g. product, activity, risk, issue, resource that have various connections. P2ware Planner plan template comes with a predefined set of properties that describe them. For example let's take a look at a predefined product properties below.

Predefined product properties

The most basic form of customization is adding new properties to plan objects. There is a special view called Properties where you can add new properties. Newly added properties can be used in your plan and also reports.

Properties view

Another form of customization available on this view is adding formulas. Formulas are computed automatically by P2ware Planner and are defined in a programming language.

Third customization functionality makes it possible to hide Planner ... functionalities. This is called Interface Customization view. You may hide

• Objects
• Object Properties
• Views
• Perspectives
• Related Objects

On this view you may decide what plan objects, views, properties etc. to hide. You may later decide to make them visible in the same or different plan template.

Interface Customization view

There are several other valuable options, e.g. you may change layout of editors in Planner, localize your plan templates (adding support for multiple languages).

For more about plan templates please take a look at

• How to create a plan template and use it in other projects
• How to import and export plan settings

What is missing in Planner Premium?

Planner Premium is not an application for users of enterprise project management systems or any other project management systems with Planner Server. Planner Premium cannot connect to Planner Server and because of that it lacks many functionalities related to server environment.

For more please visit comparison of functionalities of project management software - P2ware Planner.

Enterprise Project Management

In previous years we observed a shift from managing single projects as separate entities within organizations to more centralized, enterprise-wide approach where projects are managed within programmes and portfolios. In latter case projects are usually assessed and compared using same performance indicators regardless of used methodology (e.g. PRINCE2, PMI PMBOK approach or IPMA recommendations). Project management standards are maintained by Project Management Office/Project Support Office or some entity that defines, shares and maintains methodological project management. This is, in short, what we call Enterprise Project Management. In this short article I am focusing on software side of EPM.


Enterprise Project Management and IT
EPM and IT - the connection is not a coincidence. Recent developments in computer networks and computer software contributed substantially to modern Enterprise Project Management. Prior to intranet networks, computer servers and server applications that enable users to share data in real time and in proper format it was virtually impossible to create systems that facilitate efficient management of projects applying same methodology.


Current EPM and enterprise solutions that can be called as Enterprise Project Management systems share following features

• Centralized project, programme and portfolio management
• Centralized pool of projects resources
• Set of various reports generated instantly (based on data from projects)
• Many others such as: access control (security), user pages etc.

Recent developments in computer software programming (again) and wealth of enterprise systems (e.g. ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning, financial systems, document management systems, wikis, etc.) are leading towards the need of integration of project management systems with other IT systems. This leads to another feature that EPM systems should have in common

• They can be integrated with other IT systems

Chapters below present selected views, reports and data from sample P2ware Planner Server system that can be used to build Enterprise Project Management system.

Centralized project, programme and portfolio management

Projects can be listed all in a customizable report with key performance indicators, traffic lights and other vital data.

Projects status overview in P2ware Planner Server - report

Various projects on the server that are in portfolio can be viewed on Portfolio Dashboard. This report (again) is fully customizable.

Sample Portfolio Dashboard

Centralized pool of projects resources

Resources in a real enterprise environment are shared  across projects. If I were to select only one problem with resources I would say it's assigning more work than it is possible to be done in a period of time. It is easy to control resource load in one project but it is virtually impossible (without proper tool) to maintain reasonable resource load across multiple projects for multiple resources. Of course Planner Server reports come with help.

Resource Load report

Set of various reports generated instantly (based on data from projects)

Of course the software has to provide interfaces that enable Project Support Office to customize and/or create new set of reports for various levels of management, e.g. top management, directors, project managers, team leaders, project members, etc.

Sample Project Dashboard in Planner Server 

Risks report in Planner Enterprise

Integration with ERP and other systems

Integration with other systems (e.g. ERP) can be done using some built-in or installed connectors that  "know" how to read data from and write data to some specific system. The other approach (we do have this in P2ware Planner Server) is to create additional simple integration component that is responsible for data transfer between Planner Server and other systems. The component is really simple and uses web services. The major benefit of such approach is ability to connect Planner Server with other systems in a way that is required and not only possible. The custom system can be well know application or something that was created as a custom solution - in this approach there is little difference and Planner Server can be integrated also with custom or in-house applications.

Sample integration component - shared resources integration