Projects

A Project is a way of organising and navigating Activities. It is also one of the main dimensions on which multiple Activities are summarised and reported.

• Activities are assigned to the Project they deliver on

Themes

A Theme is a way of organising Activities. Themes are used to represent the types of Activities that are undertaken, thus making them a useful dimension for reporting.

• Activities are assigned to most suitable Theme
• Activities within a Project often go across multiple different Themes
• Each Theme has a colour that is used when representing Work throughout the system

Activities

An Activity is the main content type for strategic planning. It subsequently provides the structure for all operational planning (i.e. Works) as well. It also provides the most useful basis for reports and summaries.

• A Group is assigned to the Activity and is responsible for completing it
• A Project, Theme and Location is assigned to help organise the Activity on different dimensions
• Expected Outputs can be set for an Activity to express the outputs that are expected from doing it
• Works are based on an Activity when they get created in operational Plans
• The status of an Activity is determined from the most recent Report on it.
• Progress on an Activity can also be inferred from:
  • The % completeness, as set manually (by a user with Manager Role)
  • The details of each Report, as created manually by a user with Manager Role
  • The completeness of Works
  • The completeness of Expected Outputs (i.e. whether the actual outputs match the expected)

Expected Outputs

An Expected Output is used to set what outputs are expected from People doing Work on an Activity.

• A Metric is chosen to base the Expected Output on
• A numeric value is defined stating the expected output value
• Actual Outputs produced from Work are aggregated to assess performance against the Expected Output

People

A Person is used only within operational planning to assign Work to. This differs from a User account, which controls access to the system and its content.

• The Main Group for a Person designates who they typically do Work for and who manages their Resources
• Other Groups can be associated with a Person if they commonly do Work in them
• Schedules get created for a Person on particular Work within a Plan

Resources

A Resource is the number of hours a Person can work on a specific date. These can be adjusted to best represent the work habits of People within Work Planner (e.g. full-time, part-time).

• Editing the Resources for a Person is only possible by Users who can manage the Main Group
• Bulk changes to Resources (e.g. new Work pattern) can be applied
• Resources are compared against Schedules to evaluate what time is free for a Person on a specific date

Plans

A Plan is a way of organising Work on a set of Activities that need to be done by a Group. It is the way to operationalise some Activities (e.g. a Project) for a specific purpose and over a specific period (i.e. date range).

• A Group is responsible for the Plan and can only add Activities they are responsible for
• Any Person can be put to Work on a Plan
• The date range for the Plan influences what Activities are available
• Works within a Plan are used to provide a summary of progress/status

Works

An item of Work is the main content type for operational planning.

• A specific Activity gets 'worked on' by an item of Work
• A Plan has multiple Works in it, all to be completed by People in the Group
• Schedules are added to the Work to assign People to do it on specific dates
• Outputs produced by doing the Work should be added to show how it is meeting the expectations (defined in the Activity)
• The status/progress of an item of Work is represented in multiple ways:
  • The % completeness, as set manually (by a User with Editor Role)
  • The status report, as set manually (by a user with Editor Role)
  • The aggregate value of the actual Outputs

Outputs

Outputs are used to record progress made against the key performance indicators relevant to the Work (i.e. via the Activity).

• The Expected Outputs define what Outputs are expected on an Activity
• A numeric value, date and comment are added to describe the Output
• Expected Outputs are assessed by comparing the actual Outputs against the expected value

Schedules

A Schedule is the number of hours a Person will do specific Work on a specific date. These can be continually manipulate via the user interface to find a balance between the hours available (Resources) and the Work that needs doing.

• Work within a Plan may have multiple Schedules (e.g. the same Work is done every Friday)
• Changes to Schedules are made via a calendar view
• When editing Schedules, the available Resources are displayed so that People do not end up over-scheduled
• A warning message comes up when a Person is over-scheduled

Reports

A Report is a short summary about the Activity that is written for a specific audience (e.g. funding organisation).