Business Process Types

These forms track and manage cost information and interact with the project or shell cost sheet. Examples include base contracts or purchase orders, change orders, budget change requests, invoices, fund appropriations, and leases. Additional cost-related functionality includes schedule of values and payment applications.

Cost business processes have several sub-types that are used to perform specific cost-type functions in Primavera Unifier. The cost business process subtypes are:

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Commit at company level (also known as Blanket Purchase Order): This sub-type allows tracking and control of costs at the company level above the WBS level. It is independent of a budget or cost sheet and is used for tracking non-WBS expenses across projects or shells. Project or shell level commit BPs can be set up to reference a company commit.

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Line items with WBS code: These business processes directly relate to the project or shell cost sheet. BPs that use a WBS picker to reference WBS codes must use this subtype. These BP transactions can directly affect the budget. Examples include base commits, change commits, general spends, and payment applications.

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Line items with fund code: This sub-type is used for fund appropriation at the project or shell level. Business processes can be created to automatically allocate or consume funding source funds, which are chosen using a Fund picker. These transactions are for fund management and do not necessarily affect the budget. Transactions on this type of BP roll up to the Fund Manager.

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Line items with both WBS and fund code: This sub-type is used during fund appropriation at the WBS level. These transactions are for fund management and do not necessarily affect the budget. Transactions on this type of BP roll up to the Fund Manager and Cost Manager.

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Line items with company accounts code: This is a company-level business process that can be used to roll up transaction data to the company accounts sheet.

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Line items with asset code: This is a company-level business process that can be used to roll up transaction data to asset sheets.

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Line items with multiple codes: This sub-type is for business processes that can be used with a generic (non-WBS) cost manager.

You use this form as an “envelope” to package a set of files, such as spreadsheets, drawings, and design documentation, that flow from one group to another. Advanced functionality allows documents to be attached to the form as line items, with line item status control. This allows the ability to change the status (for example, approve or reject) for each attached document. Examples are submittals and transmittals. There are two subtypes:

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With folder structure: Both documents and folders can be uploaded to the BP. The folder navigator in the lower left of the form displays the folder structure.

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Without folder structure: The folder structure will be ignored, and documents are attached in a flat list. The contents of selected folders and sub-folders are attached.

This type lends itself well to business processes that involve miscellaneous information you want to document for a company or project; for example, a vendor contact list. Or, they are useful for project-specific information that only needs to be documented on a single form, such as the overall project scope, or meeting minutes.

Line item BPs are also useful for collecting data that other, more restricted types of BPs cannot. For example, while a simple-type BP can be used to collect basic vendor information, a company-level line item BP can collect additional vendor information, such as multiple business addresses. At the project level, you can use a line item BP to filter large numbers of company records into smaller lists of records that are more appropriate for a specific project.

Line item BPs use a separate detail form to enter line items, which then appear on a line item list at the bottom of the form. Or, for short line items, Primavera Unifier users can enter information directly into the line item list using a “grid view” of the list.

You can design these BPs to accommodate line item status, so you can control modifications to individual line items based on their status.

There are two sub-types of this BP:

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Generic: Use this sub-type for all line item BPs unless you want to filter BP records. To filter BP records, use the sub-type explained below.

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Line items to filter business process records: Use this sub-type to filter company records into smaller lists of records for your projects. This BP is particularly suited for selecting specific vendors from a company’s master vendor list to create a sub-set of the master list that contains vendors who are appropriate for a particular project. Used for this purpose, this BP type can be linked (as a reference process) to an RFB to supply a project-specific vendor list for bid invitations.

The Project / Shell Creation type of business process creates new standard projects and shells from the upper form of the BP or from line items. The data necessary to create projects/shells is provided by this BP. In addition to creating a new shell, this type of business process can also be designed so that you can choose the managers and employees who should be automatically assigned to the shell when it is created.

This BP creates projects and shells using the templates that have been designed in Primavera Unifier.

Project / Shell Creation type business process can also work with the Planning Manager by automatically linking new projects/shells with planning items. Instead of linking a planning item to a project in the Planning Manager, this BP can be designed to automatically create the link when the project/shell is created, and roll up data to the Planning Sheet from the business processes in that project/shell.

Unifier also has the ability to define the integration interface for Project/Shell creation of business processes (simple only) through importing a CSV. See Importing Business Processes.

The RFB module allows companies to invite project- or shell-related bids from different vendors. There is a BP form for requestors (Primavera Unifier user requesting the bids) and for bidders (bidders do not need to be existing Primavera Unifier users and are provided with a simple interface that does not require special training to use).

Resource business processes work with the Resource Manager. There are two subtypes:

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Resource booking: This is a project-level business process. In the upper form, you pick a date range to book resources. The line item list displays a summary of booking rows. You can one resource booking BP per project.

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Time sheet: The time sheet business process can be designed to roll up hours and costs from the time sheet to cost sheets. There is one per company, but there can be multiple schemas.

These BPs consist of an upper form only (like a line-item-type BP without the line items). It is a way to add company or project or shell information that does not require line items. Simple BPs can be a company-level, non-workflow, single or multi-record, or s project- or shell-level, workflow or non-workflow, multi-record. An example is a project information form to capture basic reference information.

This form’s content is typically a text comment in the lower portion of the form. Examples of text type BPs include RFIs (Request for Information) and action items, which track issue resolution.