Enterprise Assets

Project Proposal Console: Overview

Planners need to track a large number of projects and proposals, their differences, and their cost / benefit summaries before choosing one for execution. The Project Proposal Console enables you to manage and develop your proposals, compare them to successful projects from the past, and export the project to PowerPoint to present the project to stakeholders.

The Project Proposals Console is used to define the space, assets, and facility management services required for a project when the project has the status of Proposed or Requested. A proposed project is evaluated along with other alternative projects before choosing one that will be approved and implemented. For these proposed projects, as the planner, you start with summary detail -- a rough summary of the spaces required and types of assets needed. Next, you perform successive rounds of refinement, adding specific equipment specifications, and project tasks that must be performed to evaluate the proposed project.

Before working with the Project Proposal Console, you must first create your project. See Create or Edit My Projects task.

Creating, Proposing, and Requesting Projects

It is typical for large projects to require a lot of data at each step; thus, between each step many people may be updating the project with data over many weeks, months, or years.

The basic work flow is:

Create a new project with the Assets / Enterprise Assets / Facilities Asset Manager / Create or Edit My Projects task, completing as much data as you can at this point. The project has a status of Created.
- In order to propose the project, it must have at least one work package. Use the Add New button above the list of projects to add a work package to the project.
- When you are satisfied with the data you have entered, click the Propose button to set the status to Proposed.
From the Assets / Enterprise Assets / <your role> / Project Proposal Console task, filter to proposed projects, and complete additional data in the console's various tabs.
- Essentially, a proposed project is used to get stakeholder “pre-approval” before requesting the project.
- A project can stay in Proposed status for months or years as you research and gather the details of the project.
- For details on working with the Project Proposal Console, see General Procedure for Working with Project Proposal Console, later in this topic.
When satisfied with the project, return to the Create or Edit My Projects task and click the Request button to request the proposed project. This sets the status to Requested.
- You can still continue to work on the requested project in the Project Proposal Console and complete additional data using its various tabs.
- If you decide not to implement the proposed project, you can use the Create or Edit My Projects task's Withdraw button. The project will no longer appear in the list of proposed and created projects when you view them in the Project Proposal Console.
Use the Console's reports (described below) to evaluate projects.
When satisfied with the content of the project, you can route the project for approval by clicking the Route for Approval button of the Create or Edit My Projects task .
Once your project is approved, you continue work on the project using the Execute process of the Projects application. You need a license for the Projects application to further develop the project. See Projects: Explore the Management Console.

Proposed Project Reports

From the Project Proposal Console's Select Projects tab, you can use the Reports button to generate comparison reports to help you evaluate projects. When generating reports, you can select projects that have different statuses, such as Closed. This enables you to analyze your proposals by comparing them to past projects that were successfully completed, had the same location; were the same type of project, or had the same departments involved, or the same kinds of assets were included.

The following are examples of some of the reports you can generate:

Compare building performance when selecting a potential building for a proposed project via View Building Performance Analysis
Compare property financial performance with All Properties Yearly Financial Summary by Country
Compare equipment performance by reviewing the Equipment Maintenance History, Equipment Failure Analysis, and Equipment Replacement Analysis reports
Using the Project Location tab, compare floor plans and site maps of various projects or potential locations.
Compare Project financial performance using the Compare Annual Project Costs to Budgets – this may be helpful in evaluating similar projects or project locations

See Reports for the Enterprise Assets and Assets Applications.

General Procedure for Working with the Project Proposal Console

The following are some suggested steps for getting started with the Project Proposal Console.

Step 1: Create the proposed project

From the Project Proposal Console, you work with only projects that have the status of Proposed or Requested. These are projects that you are developing, evaluating, and presenting to management to determine which Proposed projects will eventually be implemented. You create these projects using the Create and Edit My Projects task. See Create and Edit My Projects.

Tip: When creating a proposed project, consider associating the project with a program. This can be a good way to organize competing proposals. The Project Locations tab includes a drill-down list of projects that is organized by program. If you do not enter a program for a project, you will find it under the No Program heading.

Once you have created the project, you can develop project data, as described in the following sections. When working from the Project Proposal Console, the first step is to select a project, after which you can navigate to any tab to work.

Step 2: Select a project

Working from the Project Proposal Console's Select Projects tab, you can select proposed or requested projects to view the projects on a map once you have added locations for the project. You can review a scorecard for a project if one has been developed. You can generate reports for one or more projects, and can select projects of any status for reporting. This means that you can base your analysis on a comparison of project proposals to successful projects, either current or closed. See:

Step 3: Add project locations and actions

Working from the from the Project Proposal Console's Project Locations tab, you can add locations for the project. This enables you to visualize your project locations on a map or a floor plan drawing, and view project statistics. When you add project locations - either proposed locations, or from your current inventory - you add an action with the action type of Project Location enabling you to track this location. You can also add actions of any types to existing work packages. Project locations are the basis o creating project requirements, as it is the space and furniture and equipment for these locations that the application uses to generate requirements. You can export the data to a PowerPoint presentation that you can use as a basis for a presentation to management.

Note: To view a building on the map, it must be geocoded, that is, it must have its latitude and longitude calculated based on its address. Your business process owner can geocode buildings when the buildings are entered. See Entering Locations (Step 2: Develop Buildings.)

You can select one or multiple projects from the Select Project tab, and review them on the Project Locations tab. See Reviewing and Managing Project Locations.

Step 4: Add team members to the project

The Proposed Project Console enables you to give access to the project data to all team members. To access a project from the Project Proposal Console, you must have created the project, or be entered as a team member. For this reason, you should add the employees, vendors, contacts, or craftspersons who will be working on the project as team members. You add team members from the Project Dashboard. See Assigning Team Members.

Step 5: Create space and asset requirements for proposed projects

Working from the Project Proposal Console, you can create space and equipment and furniture requirements for your capital projects based on locations you select for the project. The requirements include cost information that you can use for planning and budgeting. Space, equipment, and furniture asset requirements are part of the same requirement, and can be generated at the same time or separately. See Getting Started with Space Requirements and Getting Started with Asset Requirements.

Step 6: Review and develop additional project data, such as work packages and action items, from the Project Dashboard

Working from the Project Dashboard, you can review and update the project profile, add team members, new work packages, actions, and communications logs. You can upload supporting documents for your project proposal. See Managing Proposed Projects from the Project Dashboard

Step 7: Schedule and review project actions using a Gantt chart

From the Gantt tab, you can review a Gantt chart for the proposed project. The Gantt chart provides a quick and easy visual representation of how project action items are proceeding, and enables you to find critical dependencies that need to be expedited so that the schedule is not adversely affected. To use the Gantt Chart from the Project Proposal Console, you must select only one project. See Estimating Design Schedules.

Step 8: Review proposed moves and optionally generate a group move order

If your project is linked to a Portfolio Scenario, then you review proposed moves from the Proposed Moves tab. This is a detailed report that shows you, as the planner, the proposed moves that each portfolio scenario assumes after the stacking exercise completes. This information can be very useful in setting the next stage, which would involve move execution for any approved scenario. See Reviewing Proposed Moves.

Step 9: Compare portfolio scenarios

If your project is linked to a portfolio scenario, from the Scenario tab, you can access the Portfolio Scenario Comparison report. This report enables space planners and others to compare the various portfolio scenarios they created. You can export the charts for up to two scenarios to a PowerPoint presentation. See Comparing Portfolio Scenarios.

Step 10: Evaluate equipment systems

The Project Proposal Console includes the Asset Relationship Analysis tab, which is also found on the Equipment Systems Console. Use this tab to track your assets and their interdependencies, so that you can evaluate the effects that one asset has on another during renovations, moves, or maintenance. For example, when planning a project, having defined equipment systems enables you to analyze what are the "hidden" costs and risks associated with all the related components, assemblies, and systems. You can review the equipment on a floor plan to review the spaces served by the equipment and to trace its dependencies. You can also review the support team that services this equipment. See: