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Projects and plans
In Perspective, the work and the way you do the work are kept apart. The project is the work. A plan is one way of doing it. This page explains why, and what it means for capacity and cost.
A project is the work
A project describes something you want done: its name, description, status, type, priority, budget, client, tags and any custom fields your company uses. It answers the question "what is this, and why are we doing it?"
A project on its own does not say who will do the work or when. That is the plan's job.
A plan is a way of doing it
A plan says how the project will be delivered:
- Dates. A start date and a duration.
- Teams. The teams doing the work. Teams are attached to the plan, not the project, so two plans for the same project can be staffed by different teams.
- Roles. The kinds of work needed, such as two Developers and a Business Analyst.
- People. Who fills each role, and how many hours they give in each period. You enter these in the planning grid, where rows are roles and people and columns are periods of time.
- Resources. Anything else the work uses, such as licences or equipment.
You can create a plan in the project wizard, or later from the Plans card on the project page with Add plan or Planning wizard.
One plan is active
A project can have several plans, but only one is active at a time. The active plan is the one Perspective treats as real: it is what counts toward people's capacity, what feeds the capacity Forecast, and what the project is costed from.
The first plan you create for a project becomes its active plan. To switch, find the plan on the project's Plans card and select Set active. The plan that was active before stays on the list, it just stops counting.
The other plans are alternatives
Any plan that is not active is an alternative you can keep alongside the active one. Use them to try a different approach: a faster version with more people, a cheaper one over a longer period, or a version staffed by another team.
Select Clone on any plan to copy it as a starting point, then change what you want to test. When an alternative turns out to be the better way, make it the active plan.
TIP
The Plans item in the left menu is something different: portfolio plans, which are what-if versions of your whole portfolio. The plans on this page belong to a single project.
Tentative plans
Sometimes you want to sketch out staffing before anyone is committed. Mark the plan as tentative.
A tentative plan is a soft booking. Its hours show in the planning grid, but they do not use up anyone's committed capacity on other work. The capacity forecast shows them separately as Soft bookings, which you can switch off. People can still be booked elsewhere as if the tentative hours were not there.
On the plan's page, select Mark tentative to make it a soft booking. A Tentative badge shows next to its name. When the plan is real, select Commit plan.
How capacity is counted
When you staff someone on a plan, Perspective works out how much time they really have. It starts from their working schedule, then takes away company holidays, their own time off, and hours already committed on other active plans. What is left is what the grid offers you.
A cell showing a dash is a day or period when that person is not working at all. Totals turn red when someone is booked beyond what they have.
How cost comes from the active plan
A project's cost comes from its active plan. For each person on the plan, Perspective multiplies the hours they are booked by their pay rate for those dates. Hourly staff can attract overtime, following your company's overtime rules. Salaried staff are costed at their rate without overtime. The cost of any resources on the plan is added on top.
You see this on the project's Cost & forecast card, which compares the active plan's cost with approved actual time and gives an estimate at completion.
If someone on the plan has no pay rate recorded, their hours are not costed, and the card tells you who is missing one.
WARNING
Changing which plan is active changes the project's cost, the capacity it uses and the forecast straight away. Check the plan before you select Set active.