Capital Projects / Projects

Planning Projects (Process Overview)

In the Planning phase of a project, the facilities manager works with approved projects, adding or editing actions for the project, assigning a project team, creating work packages for vendors to bid on, and estimating design schedules and design costs for actions. Design estimates are based on detailed projections that have been obtained from architects, designers, and other consultants who have analyzed a project's requirements. The facilities manager then compares the design estimates to the baseline costs that were estimated prior to approving the project.

For a description of the entire project management workflow, see Projects Application Overview.

The Plan Process includes the following tasks:

• Review Project Profiles: Use this task to review and update project information with the latest project information. Using this task, you can review or edit projects with any status. See Review Project Profiles.
• Adding Project Actions: You can add or edit actions for an approved project. For example, you can add design costs and design schedule estimates for actions, update action status, and assign actions to work packages. You can also apply a project template of actions to a project. See Adding and Editing Actions for Approved Projects.or Applying Templates of Project Actions.
• View Actions with Documents and Drawings: You can view actions that have associated documents and drawings and can open and review the associated files. See View Actions with Documents and Drawings.
• Assign Team: You can set up a project team by selecting from employees, vendors and craftspeople. This team executes the project. See Assigning Team Members.
• Estimate Design Schedule and Durations: If you are planning on using the Design Gantt chart to estimate design schedules, you should enter approximate values for the Date to Perform and Duration - Est. Design fields for each action in the Plan/Add or Edit Actions task. You can then use the Gantt chart to view actions on a timeline and to refine the schedules by editing action dates and durations. See Estimating Design Schedules and Costs.
• Estimate Design Costs: Adjust design costs for actions and then refresh the view to see the total design cost for the project. See Estimating Design Schedules and Costs topic.
• Create Work Packages: Create work packages of actions for a project so that vendors can bid on these actions. You can create work packages and add new or existing actions to the work packages. See Creating Work Packages.
• Review Variances - Design to Baseline: If you have added baseline cost and baseline schedule estimates during the Request phase, and design costs and design schedule estimated for approved projects, you can review the variances between the design and baseline estimates. See Reviewing Design to Baseline Variance.
• Management Console - Plan: The Plan tab of the Management Console provides an alternate way to access tasks for the Plan process. See Management Console Plan Overview.