Project and Activity Planning

Projects can be planned in two ways:

• By transferring from Project Template
• By defining activities and related records individually in the Project

Projects can be planned both prospectively and retrospectively, meaning that they can be planned starting from a Start Date for following days or from an End date for past days.
Regardless of how it will be conducted, there are basic elements for planning a project.

• Personnel, their calendar and shifts
• Resources, calendar and shifts of resources' organizational units
• Activity's previous activity relations
• Activity's calendar and shifts
• Project's calendar and shifts

Personnel and resources are significant elements because they act as the determinants of planning. Therefore, when defining related resources and employees for activities, it is also specified whether they are determinants of planning.

Other resources and personnel are included in planning provided they comply with working hours of employees or resources that are set as determinants.

Forward Planning
According to data provided in work parameters, planning activity duration is calculated in Hour. Total activity hour is divided by the number of resources that are specified as "Decreases Activity Duration."
In order to check whether planned activity start date and hour are applicable, certain controls must be conducted. The latest date, which is calculated by adding "delay" durations to the planned end dates of the previous activities, indicates the first start date that is possible for the activity. It is determined whether the planned start date is earlier than this date. If it is, the next appropriate date is found. If it is a later date or is equal, it is checked whether there are resources specified as the determinant of planning. If there are no resources specified as the determinant of planning, all resources are scheduled in their own calendars for a time calculated by dividing the number of resources specified as "Decreases Activity Duration" by Total Activity Hour provided it is applicable to the activity calendar and shifts.
If no shift and/or calendar is specified for the activity, the calendar of the parent activity or the project or the organizational unit conducting the project is used hierarchically. If there are resources specified as the determinants of planning, activity calendar and shifts are compared to the calendar and shift information of determinant resources, and provided they comply with the related activity's calendar and shifts, the first date and hour is calculated for when determinant resources can start to work together. In order to do so, the applicable dates of determinant resources are determined individually, common denominator of these time ranges and activity's applicable working hours is calculated. According to this denominator, determinant resources are scheduled for a time calculated by dividing the number of resources specified as "Decreases Activity Duration" by Total Activity Hour. Other resources also work to the extent permitted by their own shifts and calendar in times when resources that are determinants of planning do not work.
Certain data must be taken into consideration to determine available hours individually.
Calendar, shift package and exception records are checked for employees. If employee has no calendar information, shift and calendar information of activity, parent activity, project and organizational unit that is conducting the Project are checked respectively until the required data is acquired. Employee's shift package and start date are determined based on employee's available days and time for work. The assignment record of which past start date is closest to the current date is found. After figuring out which day is the related date by counting as of the assignment date, the related day's shift of the shift package is set to be used.

Let's assume that an employee has been assigned two shift packages as in below.

VP1 consists of two-day period. V1 and V2 shifts will be checked on the first day and the second day respectively. If the day of which availability we check is 21.01.2011, then time difference between two days is 21 days. Since Mod (21;2) equals 1, the first day's shift will be VP1.
As for the assets, the calendar of their organizational unit and shift packages that are assigned to them are checked. If the asset has no calendar information, shift and calendar information of the activity, parent activity, project and the organizational unit conducting the project is checked respectively until the required data is acquired. System takes into account the value of "Resource Usages: Control / Do not control" parameter in System Settings module > Defaults and Parameters > General menu. If the parameter is set to "Control", system controls whether there are other planned or estimated resource usage records in available working periods appointed for both resources and personnel.
See. System Settings Project Management Parameters
There are three versions of resource usage records:

• It may be possible that usage is planned, and the related work is not started yet. In such cases, resource usage records are taken into consideration.
• In regard to the planned usage, work may have been started and is not finished yet. In this case, system generates estimated resource usage records in place of the planned resource usage record; so system takes into account the estimated resource usages instead of the planned usages.
• If the related resource usage started and finished, system takes into account the actual resource usages.

System calculates the maximum working hours of each work day between the planned start and end dates and it updates the total activity duration accordingly.
The total of all resources' working hours is set as the work duration and is assigned to the activity.