Learning about packages is key to understanding how projects are scheduled and organized in your workspace. Let’s talk about what packages are and why they play such an important role in managing your projects.

Packages serve two primary functions:

• Prioritize tasks  – creating priority overrides for individual tasks to facilitate cross-project prioritization
• Organize projects – grouping and storing projects in the workspace

Packages are created from the Add Menu or the right-click menu on the Projects tab:

Packages can live at the root of your workspace or within other packages. To nest one package inside of another, drag and drop the intended sub-package into the intended parent package.

Using Packages to Prioritize Tasks

Watch a video demonstration of this concept here: Scheduling Multiple Projects

By default, LiquidPlanner schedules your projects in top to bottom priority order so tasks in projects listed higher up in the plan hierarchy will be scheduled before tasks in projects lower down.  Packages allow you to override that behavior, and essentially act as a “to do” list where you can place high-priority tasks from multiple concurrent projects to reflect the order in which you’ll actually complete them.

Let’s look at a simple example.  In the image below, all work is assigned to one person to emphasize the default scheduling behavior.

Plan with default scheduling:

In our starting plan above, tasks are scheduled (as always) in the order in which they’re listed.  You can see that the Brochure Project starts and finishes before the Website Project can begin.  The problem is that many people don’t have the luxury of working one project at a time (start to finish) in sequential fashion like that.  The reality is that you’re probably working on tasks from different projects all the time.

Let’s say Brian needs to start the Write site copy task from the Website Project as soon as possible. Since the Website Project sits at a lower priority position, however, he isn’t scheduled for the task until all of his higher priority work from the Brochure Project is completed. In order for the Write site copy task to schedule sooner, we’ll need to move it to a higher priority position in the plan – this is where priority packages come into play.

Plan with priority overrides:

In the plan above, the priority package being used is titled ASAP and the Write site copy task has been dragged from the Website Project and prioritized up into the ASAP package. This establishes a priority override for the task and Brian is now scheduled to start the Write site copy task first, since it’s sitting in the top priority position. You’ll notice that the task will also remain in its original position in the project folder as a placeholder. This does not mean that there are two versions of the task — just that the same task is being shown in two locations.

As more tasks are prioritized into ASAP, the package will reflect the order in which Brian plans to execute tasks from different projects:

Brian will first be scheduled for tasks that have been prioritized into the ASAP package – these tasks all have priority overrides. Then, he’ll be scheduled for tasks that do not have priority overrides (tasks that have not been moved into ASAP) – these tasks will be scheduled in the order they are listed in the project folders.

Using Packages to Organize Projects

Packages can also be used to group projects together.  If you have a list of 50 projects, it can be nice to put some organizational structure around them.  For example, you might organize projects by status with packages for Active Projects, Pending Projects, Product Backlog or Templates as shown in the example below.

Regardless of what organizational packages are added to your workspace, projects and tasks should all be listed in general priority order as best they can. For some workspaces this might mean listing projects in order of deadline date.

How to Unpackage a Task

When a task in the ASAP package is no longer high priority, you can unpackage the task so to remove the priority override. The task will revert to it’s default priority order within the project. From the Projects tab, you can unpackage a task by right clicking on the task name > select Un-package Task…

Package Structure Options

Review our Setting Up the Workspace article for recommended package structures, such as Status Model structure or Time-Based package structure. There are screenshot examples included. If you’re an Agile team, you can configure your workspace using our sprint package structure.

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Backlog packages are useful for organizing and storing items that you do not want to impact your schedule, such as your product backlog, projects awaiting approval, project templates, or ongoing tasks.  Work within a backlog package is on hold and unscheduled.
If you have a large number of plan items in your workspace, storing items in backlog packages improves workspace efficiency.

Creating a Backlog Package

Any active package that is put on hold will automatically become a backlog package. All items inside of that package will be placed on hold as well.  Taking a backlog package off hold will change it back to an active package and will also make all items inside of it active.

Backlog packages can also be created via the add menu in the Projects tab, or via the right-click menu:

Organizing a Backlog

It’s not necessary to create levels of organization for a backlog package; you can simply place projects and/or loose tasks within it.  However, if you’d like more granular organization, you can add nested backlog packages.  For instance, you might organize a product backlog by feature area, or create a general backlog for different functional areas of your organization.

Moving Items In and Out of a Backlog Package

When moving a task or project folder to a backlog package, those items will automatically inherit the on-hold status and will no longer be scheduled.  The items within a backlog package will have a light grey on-hold icon in the left margin because they’ve inherited the backlog package’s on-hold status.

When you’re ready to schedule something (whether it’s a single task or an entire project), moving it out of the backlog package will automatically take it off hold and schedule it according to its priority placement in the plan.  If you ever want to reference the previous location of an item, go to the Comments/History section of the edit panel and use the dropdown to select History Only or Comments + History.

Scheduling Tasks from a Backlogged Project

Projects within a backlog package are not yet ready to be scheduled, however, you might have some preliminary planning work to do before you make a project active. LiquidPlanner allows you to schedule tasks from a project that is within a backlog package by creating a priority override.

In the edit panel of the task you want scheduled, simply click into the Package field and choose the active package where the task should be scheduled.  The task will retain its association with the project in the backlog, but it will have a priority override that will cause it to be scheduled according to its new priority position in the plan.

In the example below, you’ll see that the “Sitemap and wireframes” task is the only task within the “Website Project” project that is scheduled. That’s because it was added to the “ASAP TASKS” package, which is an active package.

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Setting up an archive to organize a large number of completed projects not only helps keep your workspace clean, but also makes reporting on finished work a breeze. Having a defined archive package means your workspace is easier to navigate so you and your team can quickly locate and reference past projects. Your older projects from quarters or years past will be separated from your most recently completed work.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When moving completed work to a distinct Archive package, the work will lose its association with its prior location. This means that logged hours will no longer roll-up to that prior location. It also means that Trend reports and Baseline data for a prior location will no longer reflect those hours.  For this reason, it’s best to establish a process for moving work to the archive on a quarterly or annual basis, after portfolio-level reporting is complete.

When to Create an Archive

A formal archive may not be necessary for every workspace as LiquidPlanner already has built-in functionality for organizing your workspace into active and completed work. By marking items done and using the status filter to group Active, Done, or All Items, your projects are being archived automatically. For many workspaces, this built-in method of filtering to “done” work is sufficient for organizing and viewing past projects. If this sounds like your workspace, no need to add an additional administrative process for archiving work – you’re already doing it!

That being said, as a workspace matures, and for workspaces with a higher volume of projects, the number of items revealed when filtering to “All Items” or “Done” increases. That’s a good thing because it means your team is making progress! Still, surfacing all these items at once can make it difficult to focus on just the most relevant information. If you frequently look back to done work, it’s time to consider a more formal archiving approach to organize that growing heap of completed work.

Understanding Status

Before we look at how to set up your archive, you’ll want to be familiar with Filtering by Status.

When an item is marked done in LiquidPlanner, it is considered archived. If your Projects view is filtered to Active Items (default filter), items that are marked done will fall out of view when the schedule is refreshed.

To see these done items again, change the status filter to either All Items or Done.

Filtering to All Items provides a view that includes active items, along with those that are marked done. This is helpful when reviewing project status, as it provides a view of the entire project scope – past and future, as illustrated below.

Setting the status filter to Done reveals only those items that have been marked done. Active items drop from view. This image provides a comparison view of the same project, filtered to Active Items on the left, and Done items on the right.

Keeping that status filter in mind, now let’s begin creating the archive.

Choosing an Archive Package

To set up an archive in your workpsace, we recommend adding a package called “Archive” and moving it to the bottom of the workspace. This could be a backlog package or a “done” package. Below we’ll discuss why you might choose to use one type of package over the other.

Option 1: Backlog Package

Backlog packages are visually different than active packages, so they signal to workspace members that the items contained aren’t part of the active portfolio. The backlog package itself is always visible with the Projects tab default filter, Active Items, while the completed projects within it are hidden since they have been marked done. This makes the archive easy to find and reminds people where old work is kept.

Use a backlog package if you prefer its visual cue and would like the archive to be visible from the Projects tab default filter. This works great when archiving is everyone’s responsibility or if past projects are referenced regularly by workspace members. 

Option 2: Done Package

The main benefit here is that a “done” package and its contents stay out of view. To see this package’s contents, you’ll need to change the status filter to Done which will surface the Archive package at the bottom of the workspace.  Then, you can drill in further to view done items.

Use a Done package when archiving is the responsibility of just a few workspace members. Having a package that’s out of the active view eliminates distractions for other members.

After deciding which package type to use, you’ll want to decide how to structure the archive.

Organizing the Archive

Within your Archive package, you could simply keep your projects in a flat list, or you could add additional hierarchy by adding another layer of packages to group and categorize your projects. Some workspaces like to set up the archive to mirror the structure of active work in the workspace since members are already familiar with that structure. How you structure the archive will depend on what grouping makes the most sense for your projects and how they will be reported on in the future.

Here are a few ideas for organizing your projects within the Archive package:

• By Month, Quarter, Year
• By Department
• By Product or Project Type
• By Project Manager
• By Client
• By Date Done

Here is one example that uses backlog packages for their archive and structures it by department:

Managing the Archive

We recommend outlining when work should be archived and who is responsible for archiving it. Add this information about maintaining the archive in your team playbook so workspace members can easily learn the process of how work is archived. Below are a few questions to consider when developing this process:

When should work be archived?

• As soon as the project is marked done
• At the end of the month or quarter
• At another reporting milestone

Who is responsible for archiving work?

• Project Owner assigned to each project
• Last person to mark an item done in the project
• A single or few Project Managers of multiple projects
• Someone designated as responsible for maintaining the archive

Moving Projects into the Archive

1. Start by filtering the workspace to Done or All Items to view completed projects.
2. Expose any columns that will help to organize projects into the archive. For example, if the archive is structured by year, expose the Date Done column to easily see when each project was completed without needing to open each edit panel.
3. Drag and drop them into their designated new archive package (or change the package field in the project edit panel).

Now, admire how clean and organized your workspace is and enjoy the ease of locating and reporting on finished work!

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• Do you need to create reports or executive dashboards that are segmented by specific projects?
• Do you need to view all of the projects for a specific client you work with?
• Do you want to see what type of work your team spends most of their time on?
• Do you want to analyze resource workload by different teams in your workspace?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you’ll want to start thinking about how set up your project data now. This is the final major step of setting up your new workspace, so that you can include these data points in your reports, Dashboards and project planning.

Custom Fields

Custom fields can be configured on projects or tasks. Custom field types include: pick list, free text, date, numeric, and currency. Here are some common ways Custom Fields are used:

To get a side-by-side view of the Department that owns each project using a pick-list Custom Field:

To filter reports and Dashboards by pick-list fields such as Project Type:

Create an Executive Dashboard with a custom field for Project Risk (with a risk color). This also includes a free-text custom field for Risk Reason:

Activities

If you want insight into what type of work your team members spend their time on, then you should set up Activities. 

You can create Activity names to represent the major segments of work across teams. And if you work with clients, you can also mark specific Activities billable or non-billable.

Here is an example of a donut chart in a Dashboard that visualizes the amount of time team members spent on various Activities over the last week.

Clients

If you are delivering your projects to an internal or external Client, you can populate the Client field within the Project to show this information in reports and Dashboards.

For example, here is a Dashboard that is filtered to all projects for a specific Client. You can share this dashboard with others, such as the Account Manager, or the client themselves:

Teams

The Teams feature allows you to assign workspace members to a Team so that you can easily filter or report on all of the members within that team, rather than selecting individuals.

For example, a manager could create a Dashboard to view work by his Team:

You can also segment resource workload reports by filtering to a specific team:

Tags

Tags are a free-text value that can be assigned to any type of plan-item. Unlike Custom Fields, which are limited to projects or tasks, you can assign a Tag to packages, projects, sub-folders, etc.

Tags are beneficial for assigning a common theme(s) to many different items, and then being able to search by that tag or filter reports and Dashboards by that tag.

Here is an example finding projects tagged with a company’s strategic initiative labeled “2020 Growth”:

« 2. Prioritize Projects

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Custom project and task fields are part of our data customization feature set. They are located on the Edit Panel for Tasks and Projects, and can be included in plan and time tracking exports, custom reports and dashboards.

They are great for capturing attributes that you can use to convey information about your projects’ status, risk, process, phase, or classification. They can also be used to report on metrics that are unique to your company or workflow.

Creating custom fields in the workspace allows you to take advantage of Card View. Using custom fields in conjunction with Tags adds another powerful dimension to plan filtering, reporting, and analysis.

Custom field types include Pick List, Text, Date, Numeric, and Currency fields. Only workspace administrators can create custom fields, but all workspace members can set and update custom field values on the Edit Panel. As a best practice, we recommend creating business rules around updating Custom Field values.

Creating Custom Project and Task Fields

Custom Fields can be added by workspace administrators only.

Under the Custom Fields sub-section of the edit panel, click on the link Manage Custom Fields or go to your User Menu > Settings > Data Customization  > Custom Fields.

1. Click the blue Add Fields + button and enter the field name to create a new custom field. Designate the type as Pick List, Text, Date, Numeric, or Currency.

2. When creating a Pick List custom field, click Add Values to enter the list values. After a value is added, a designated color can be associated with it.

3. Values for Text, Date, Numeric, or Currency fields are added directly to plan items on the task or project edit panel, under the Custom Field sub-section.

4. Reorder custom fields and custom field values by hovering over an item and clicking on the grey bars to drag and drop them into your preferred order – this is the order they’ll appear in on the edit panel. Custom field values can also be ordered alphabetically by clicking Sort A-Z.

Set a Custom Field Value On the Edit Panel

Custom Fields are located in the Planning section of a project or task edit panel.

Once your fields have been created, you’ll see them in the Custom Fields sub-section of the edit panel:

Pick List custom fields have a drop-down arrow. To set a value on a Pick List custom field, click on the field and select the appropriate value. Clear a value by clicking Clear or the X.

Text, Numeric, and Currency field values are entered directly into the field. There is a limit of 255 characters. Click enter to save your text value.

To set a value for a Date custom field, click on the value field. You can select a date from the pop-up calendar or enter it underneath the calendar. Date custom field values are displayed based on the date locale selected in your Personal Profile Settings.

Filtering Custom Field Values

You can filter by Pick List Custom Field values by using the Filter by Custom Field option under the Filter Menu.

If you select two values from the same Pick List custom field, any plan items matching either of the values will be returned. If you select two values from different Pick List custom fields, any plan items matching both the values will be returned.

To filter by Date, Text, Numeric, or Currency custom field, you can create a Custom Status Filter by selecting the name of the Date or Text and one or more of the available rules. For example: is set, is not set, etc.

Custom Field Limits

Enterprise workspaces can create up to 25 custom project fields and 25 custom task fields.
Professional workspaces can create up to 10 custom project fields and 10 custom task fields.

Pick List fields accommodate fixed values only, in a single-selection format. Workspace members make a single selection from pre-set values.

Text custom fields hold up to 255 characters.

Colors for Pick List custom fields are not shown on the Intake Dashboard Widget when adding a new project or task.

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Associating projects to clients allows you to filter work by client and also do project and timesheet analysis by client. If you don’t do work for actual clients, you might choose to create clients to represent an internal department or some other grouping that would provide you with useful project rollup metrics.

Adding a Client

Clients are created via the Add Menu or via the right-click menu in the Projects tab:

To bulk add Clients, click the “Use expanded Add form” link in the Add Clients window.

When adding a new client, click Add and View to be toggled to Client View where you can view the actual client object, or simply click Add to stay in your current view. To exit Client View and return to the normal projects mode, click the white briefcase icon.

Once you have created a client, you can then associate it with a project by selecting the name from the client pick-list in the project’s edit panel.

In your plan hierarchy, the client association will then show up in the project breadcrumb:

Since clients are set at the project level, items within a project will inherit that project’s client association. This also means if an item is moved outside of that project folder, it will no longer be associated to that client.

Editing a Client

To edit an existing client, switch to Client View and double-click the client that you wish to edit. This will open the client’s edit panel where you can add or edit information about your existing client. For example, you can add contact information, notes about the client, or links to the client’s website.

Marking a Client Done

If you are no longer working with a particular client, mark the client done from the client’s edit panel. This will remove the client from active view, while preserving the client’s information and project associations for reporting.

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• You can filter your plan and timesheets by team.
• The team association is captured in plan exports and timesheet exports.
• You can create custom reports by team.
• You can view resource workload by team.
• You can address a comment to a team, and each team member will receive an email notification in accordance with their notification preferences.
• You can create bill and pay rules by team.

Creating Teams

Workspace owners and Administrators can add Teams to the workspace from the User Menu > Settings. Under Data Customization, select Teams > Add Team > enter the team name > click OK. Now you’re ready to add workspace members to these teams via the member profile.

Adding Workspace Members to a Team

Go to the People tab > Member List > select a member to open their Profile > choose the appropriate team under the Team field. Members can also update their own team assignments from their User Menu > My Profile.

Workspace members can only be added to one team. If you need to filter the plan or report by a set of people that aren’t part of a single team, create a Saved Person Filter.

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The post Adding Members to Teams appeared first on LiquidPlanner.

Create an Activity

Workspace administrators can create and update activities for the workspace.

1. Go to User Menu > Settings > Data Customization > Activities.
2. Billable: Check the Billable box if this is a billable activity.
3. Shared: Uncheck the Shared box if this activity should not be enabled for all projects.
4. Click OK
   

   

Associate a Default Activity to a Task

To set the Default Activity on a task:

1. Open the task Edit Panel
2. In the Item Details section, assign the Default Activity for the task
   

   

Set Different Activities for Multiple Task Owners

If there are multiple owners on a task, you have the option to assign different activities to each task owner. This is done on the Expected Activity field, which appears on the assignment row in the Edit Panel.

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Workspace administrators can define a full set of activity codes for the workspace. They can be added individually, or in bulk.

Go to User Menu > Settings > Data Customization  > Activities.

Let’s look at an example using activities to facilitate billing. On the activities page in this workspace, there is a billable activity called “Designing.”

To associate this activity with a set of tasks, they are multi-selected on the Projects tab, and the Default Activity is set on the Edit Panel. Update the Activity field in the People section when the value is “mixed” or if an Activity is set there already. If a member has a Personal Default Activity set in the workspace, update the Activity field.

When working with activities, you might like to expose that column in the plan for easy reference. This column displays the default activity for each plan item.

When you track time against a task, the time entry will be associated to the activity that has been set on the task.  All this encoding flows out through timesheet exports.

Rate Sheets can be used to calculate dollar values for your billable or payable tracked time.  Your timesheet export will include these dollar calculations.

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