Manage Projects Page

This page displays information relating to the projects in the system. It also shows the issue topics for which issues can be recorded.

Projects

This section shows the projects in the system. The list can be filtered to show only a subset of projects.

The start and end times in this table are recalculated at least hourly, or whenever a project (or one of its milestones) is viewed. Therefore, the information shown may be slightly out of date. To force the dates to be recalculated for a particular project, view that project or one of its milestones.

Depending on your permissions, you may be able to perform the actions below.

To show only a subset of projects:

Select one of the options (All projects, Active projects, Inactive projects or Alternative projects) in the Show drop-down.

To recalculate the start and end times of all active projects:

Click the Refresh button.

To create a new project:

Click the New... button.

To delete one or more projects:

Select the projects you wish to delete.
Click the Delete button.

Contingency planning with alternative projects

There are sometimes situations when you might wish to have a contingency plan, ready to bring into action should the primary project plan fail to come to fruition in the desired manner. Ketura caters for this by enabling alternative projects to be created. An alternative project is, as the name suggests, a contingency plan for another project in the system. If needed, the contingency plan can be brought into effect by activating the alternative project.

Alternative projects have some special features:

On the General tab of the management page for an alternative project, the primary project (for which it is an alternative) is listed in the Alternative for drop-down.
They are inactive. If activated, the alternative project effectively trades places with the primary project, such that the primary project becomes an alternative for the newly activated project.
It is not possible to allocate a user’s time to an alternative project. Instead, the system calculates the schedule of the alternative project according to the users’ time that is allocated to the primary project.
Because an alternative project is always inactive, its milestones can (but do not have to) contain issues that are in the milestones of the primary project. The system only allows a given issue to appear in one active project at a time.

Taken together, these features make it easy to create an alternative project plan, perhaps with a reduced number of issues, and track that effortlessly alongside the primary project. If necessary, such a contingency plan can be activated to replace the primary project.

When an alternative project is activated (on the General tab of the alternative project’s management page), the following occurs:

the primary project is made inactive;
the primary project becomes an alternative for the newly activated alternative project;
any users’ time allocated to the primary project is reallocated to the newly activated alternative project;
any other projects that were alternatives for the primary project become alternatives for the newly activated alternative project.

To create an alternative project:

In the table, select the project for which you wish to create an alternative.
Click the Duplicate button.
You will be asked to confirm that you wish to create a duplicate. Click the OK button.
The alternative project will be created, identified by ‘(Alternative)’ being appended to the name of the original project.

Duplicating projects

There are three possible scenarios when a project is duplicated:

An active project is duplicated. In this case, an alternative for the project is created, as discussed above.
An inactive project plan that is an alternative for an active project plan is duplicated.
An inactive project plan that is not an alternative is duplicated.

When duplicating any inactive project, the resulting project is an exact duplicate of the original, although ‘(Alternative)’ is still appended to the name. A duplicate of an alternative is therefore an alternative for the same primary project as the alternative being duplicated.

Description of table columns

Name	The project’s name. This is a link to the project.
Actual or Expected Start Date	The date on which work on the project is expected to start, calculated by Ketura based on the expected work remaining for the project. If work on any of the project’s issues has already started, the actual start date will be shown instead.
Actual or Expected End Date	The date by which work on the project is expected to end, calculated by Ketura based on the expected work remaining for the project. If work on any of the project’s issues has already been completed (that is, if there are no active issues on any project milestones), the actual end date will be shown instead.
% Complete (Expected Work)	The ratio, expressed as a percentage, of the project’s work done to the expected total work (which is sum of work done + expected work remaining). This column displays the combined estimates from all project task assignees of the progress towards completing the project.
Active	Indicates whether or not the project is active. Only tasks from current milestones of active projects are scheduled and shown in users’ In progress and Pending task lists.
Issues Complete	The number of completed issues in the project, out of the total number of issues in the project. Issues are regarded as being complete if they are in an inactive issue state.
Selection	A checkbox that, when checked, selects the project. Selected projects are highlighted with a blue background. You can select all the projects in the current table page by clicking the checkbox in the column’s heading.

For help working with tables, see Tutorial 1: The Basics of Working with Ketura.

Gantt

This chart shows the expected and planned timing and duration of the projects in the system. The chart can be filtered to show only a subset of projects.

Expected schedules are calculated based upon the expected work remaining for all the tasks in the project’s milestones’ issues. Planned schedules are based on planned work for all the tasks in the project’s milestone’s issues, taking into account work done.

Because both expected and planned schedules are shown, it is very easy to see whether each project is broadly on-track. The desired end date of each project (which is the desired end date for the last milestone in a project) is also shown, indicated by a small orange diamond.

To show only a subset of projects:

Select one of the options (All projects, Active projects, Inactive projects or Alternative projects) in the Show drop-down.

Issue topics

This tab lists the issue topics that have been created. Each issue is about a particular issue topic, so topics serve as a way to categorize issues. Because what should happen to an issue once it is created depends largely on what the issue is about (that is, its topic), issue workflow is also configured by topic. Further information on workflow can be found at Ketura Tour Step 8: Workflow.

Depending on your permissions, you may be able to perform the actions below.

To change the amount of information shown for the issue topics:

Choose Less detail or More detail from the Show drop-down list box.

To have Ketura automatically create a topic for each new project:

Check the Automatically create a new topic for each new project checkbox.
Click the Apply button.

The new topic will have its workflow configured to add new issues of that topic to the first milestone of the related project (i.e. the default ‘O1 – Review New Issues’ milestone). A new topic will not be automatically created if the new project’s name already exists as a topic name.

To view management information relating to an issue topic:

Click the name of a issue topic. This is a link to management information about the topic.

To create a new issue topic:

Click the New... button.

To delete an issue topic:

Click the selection checkbox for each issue topic that you wish to delete, then click the Delete button.

An issue topic cannot be deleted if one or more issues are currently using it.

Description of table columns

Name	The name of the issue topic. If you have permission to view management information about the topic, this will be a link to that information.
Description	A brief description of the issue topic.
Planned Work	The sum total of all planned work for all tasks belonging to issues of the issue topic.
Work Done	The sum total of the work done for all tasks belonging to issues of the issue topic.
Work Remaining	The sum total of the expected work remaining for all tasks belonging to issues of the issue topic that are in an active state.
Variance	The difference between the planned work and the expected total work (which is sum of work done + expected work remaining). The variance is shown in red if the amount of work is higher than the project manager expected, or green if it is lower or the same as expected.
% Complete (Expected Work)	The ratio, expressed as a percentage, of the work done to the expected total work (which is sum of work done + expected work remaining). This column displays the relevant task assignees’ combined estimate of the progress towards completing the tasks in the issue topic.
Selection	Depending on your permissions, the last column in the table contains checkboxes that allow you to select one or more issue topics. You can select all the issue topics by clicking the checkbox in the column’s heading.

For help working with tables, see Tutorial 1: The Basics of Working with Ketura.