Project Management

Project Management is a knowledge capturing application, setup to avoid having to reinvent the wheel for staff members. It exists for two reasons; to help staff plan and keep up with complex activities, such as trainings and complex litigation and to let staff learn from the experiences of others when it comes time for them to do similar activities.

When setting up a project, a person can associate a case or other service with the project. For example, a project that was used to plan a training might not have any cases associated with it. However, a major landlord tenant case would.

The Importance of Project Management

There are three things that a staff person manages when handling a major activity. These things are time, people, and money. Project management is designed to help staff control these three things.

i) Time – It manages time by setting up tasks and assigning a starting date and ending date. It can display these tasks in a GANTT chart so their proper arrangement and critical tasks become apparent. It is also possible to set calendar events for your tasks, so you are reminded by Prime when you need to accomplish them. Time keeping slips can be added to a project. Time entered directly in related cases can also be examined. However, complex tasks seldom happen without a hitch. Project management tracks problems that occur and when they occur. It then stores who solves the problem and how it was solved

ii) People – Project management manages people by allowing you to assign staff to handle a project. It lets you build a team to deal with tasks. It also allows you to see who was involved with cases and other services that are associated with your project

iii) Money – A budget is used to keep track of money related to a project. This budget tracks five types of money. Estimated income, actual income, estimated expenses, actual expenses, and donated time/in kind assets from outside agencies and people.

Types of activities project management can be used for:

i) Complex Cases

ii) Trainings

iii) Dinners

iv) Presentations

v) Fund Raising

vi) Grant Preparation

These are just some of the things that project management can be used for. Reports are available for all these activities.

Share Knowledge

If project management is designed to capture knowledge, it isn’t very useful unless you can share this knowledge. The system allows you to import tasks, budgets and problems from other projects, so you can learn from other people’s experiences. This allows you to avoid the pitfalls that caused problems in other projects

Roles of Project Management

There are two roles in project management, the User and the Application Manager

1) User – Gets benefits from the function

2) Application Manager – Insures that it is working correctly

When we look at project management, we will look at it from these two perspectives. The first is as a user, who needs project management to accomplish goals in the office. The second perspective will be as a database/application manager, who insures that the function is setup and being used correctly.

Using Project Management

To access Project Management, go to Add --> Other ==> Project Management.

This takes you to the main Project Management screen. The user now has a choice to Start a New Project, Open a Pending Project, Open a Finished Project, or Search for a Project.

We will select Search for a Project. This takes you to the Projects search screen, which operates like the other search screens in Prime. We select the project Training Session so we can explore the project management screen.

Description tab

The first thing that opens up is the Project Description page. This would be the same for a new project, only it wouldn’t be filled out. Here is the basic information about the project; project name, the date it was opened, the staff member responsible for it, starting date, estimated finish date, and the actual date the project was finished

Notes tab

Notes about the project are entered by pressing the Date Note button. This enters the date and the name of the staff member making the entry

Associations tab

Projects can stand alone, not being related to a case in the office. However, one of their uses is to capture knowledge about complex litigation. For example, it might document complex litigation about a large apartment complex and its violation of the housing code. This means that a case can be associated with one or more cases.

Projects can also be associated with Other Services. This means it could be used to set up a help desk at a courthouse or put together an ad campaign for television. Here, the training has been associated with both two cases and two other services (for example purposes).

Staff tab

There are two types of staff that can be associated with the project

Assigned Staff

Staff members who are assigned to the project and are responsible for it. These show up and are entered on the Assigned Staff tab

Associated Staff

If the project is associated with a case, it’s possible other staff members have had contact with the issues. They might have opened the Eligibility slip, interviewed the clients, put in notes, performed a case review on it, etc. These staff members automatically show up on the Associated Staff tab

Tasks tab

Some of the most important pieces of knowledge captured by the system are the tasks necessary to accomplish the goal of the project. The left side works like a table of contents. Clicking on one of the choices reveals the details of the task on the right side of the screen. If we select Draw up a budget, the right side of the screen explains the tasks and lists the milestones dealing with that task

Problems tab

Most complex projects don’t go completely smooth. A person attempting to do a similar project might learn as much or more from the problems experienced by the tasks that were necessary. Thus, there is a Problems section that works just like the Task tab, with a table of contents of problems on the left. When one is selected, details about the problem show on the right.

Budget tab

Managing a project also means managing the money necessary to accomplish it. There are six types of money necessary to be tracked. Budgeted Income and Actual Income track the amount of money brought into use in the project. Expenses, both budgeted and actual, track what staff thought the project would cost and what it actually cost. Last, there is a value of Donated Property or Time that an office may wish to track. Each record, shown by the arrow selector, can track actual amounts, projected amounts or both

Project Income

The first tab tracks the Budgeted Income and Actual Income, depending what field is filled. A running total is kept at the bottom of the form. This shows both what the Budgeted Balance and Actual Balance is.

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Project Expenses

The next tab shows the Budgeted and Actual Expenses

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Donated Time

The last tab tracks the value of donated time or other in kind contributions. Actual money that was donated would be put under Project Income.

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Time tab

– Project time can take two forms, much like the staff that are related to a project. There is time that is put directly into a project and there is time that is a result of entries put on cases that are related to the project. The Time tab gives you both and a total.

Calendar tab

– The Calendar works the same as Time. It shows dates set for the project directly and it also shows dates that were entered directly in the cases related to the project.

Reports tab

– Project reports are extremely important. They are available here and on the Report Selector.

i) Here, we generated a report summary for the Training Session project. This shows part of the first page.

ii) One of the most useful reports is a GANTT chart. This chart shows when tasks are scheduled and how long they are projected to take. This can show problems and needed rescheduling. For example, you could easily see that you couldn’t move training materials to the training site until one had been selected.

12) Not only can you do a chart based upon tasks, but you can do one that utilizes the calendar events in the system. When these two charts are viewed together, you should get a pretty good idea of when things are scheduled and any conflict.

Import tab

– Gathering knowledge is only profitable if it can be used later. This is the purpose of the Import tab, which allows you to benefit from the knowledge and experiences of others. You can find a project similar to the one you are starting and import Tasks, Problems and the Budget from this similar project. These can then be modified to fit your project. This allows you to learn what needs to be done, what to avoid, and how much your project could cost. This avoids recreating the wheel.

If you don’t want to import a full project (or parts of one) you can choose to import Canned Tasks. This is a list of common tasks that the office might use on a regular basis for projects. For example, you might have a task that is Get board approval. This could apply to many different projects, such as fund raisers, meetings, etc.

Help tab

– This tab gives you a brief overview on how to use project management

Joining a case to a Project

It is possible to join a case to an existing Project directly from the intake sheet. Just go to the intake Page 3 and press the Project Mgt. button. From the screen that opens you can choose from Pending and Completed projects to join. You can also see if you are already joined to any projects.

Administration

We will now ‘switch hats’ and look at project management from a database/application administrator’s viewpoint. You need Admin’s rights to access this section, which is located by going to Admin Setup Functions Project Management.

i) This takes you to the Managing Project Management screen. Here we can look at Reports, Error Reports, Canned Tasks, Deleting a Project, and Generating Gantt Charts.

ii) Reports – This button generates reports that pertain to projects in general, such as a list of active projects.

(a) This is a report on the Active Projects

iii) Error Reports – In order to keep any system running correctly, it is important to identify and weed out any errors that might occur. There are a series of reports on the Project Management Error Checking Reports page that do this.

(a) Some of the reports may not reveal errors, but may merely point out different types of projects. For example, if we used project management to implement a training, it’s possible there would be no related case (although there could be if the training was on handling a specific type of complex litigation).

iv) Here we run the report Projects with No Budget. Although this might not be an error, it would be prudent to review these to see if there should be a budget. If so, we might assist the person setting up the project with putting in a budget.

17) Canned Tasks – Add Existing Tasks to Canned Tasks Table allows us to manage the list of canned tasks that people can choose to import into their project. You can also look at tasks from other projects and import them to the list of canned tasks for use in future projects.

18) Search for a Project – The Projects Search screen is also available from the management screen. This functions the same as other search screens

19) Delete a Project – In some instances, you may want to clean out a project that was entered in error, etc. The deletion screen gives you a choice of what you can delete from the system. For example, you may wish to leave the Time records and Calendar events in place

20) Generate Gantt Charts – The management screen also allows you to generate GANTT charts on the projects in the system, described earlier