A "shell" is where users can assemble business information in one place to make managing it easy. Significantly, a shell can contain its own suite of tools—those functions and features necessary to manage the information in that shell, such as a Cost Manager, a Document Manager, or a configurable manager.
An example of such a shell could be a "facilities" shell where you could gather all your company campuses worldwide and incorporate the Primavera Unifier features you will need to manage them, such as a Generic Cost Manager and a Schedule Manager.
In uDesigner, you will be using the Shell Manager to:
- Create shell types
- Import shells
- Manage shells
In Primavera Unifier, the shells that you create in uDesigner can be arranged in hierarchies to represent your company’s physical or organizational structure. For example, a physical location structure could be composed of shells for city, property, state, and building and be arranged in this hierarchy:
There are three default shells, with anchor tabs:
- Home
Where users can access their tasks, messages, and mail.
- Company Workspace
Where users can access the tools, managers, and functions available under the company space.
- Projects
Where users can access standard projects and the modules, managers, and functions available under the projects.
Shells will change the look of Primavera Unifier. For both the uDesigner-user and the Unifier administrator, the Shell Manager appears as a node in the navigator. Once the shell is operational in Unifier, the end-user will not see a Shell Manager node. The Primavera Unifier interface changes to a tab-based view.
The end-users in Unifier use the shell structure to move around the hierarchy and work in different shells. Each part of the hierarchy will include the features and tools they will need to accomplish their tasks in that shell.
The Shell Manager does not use business processes; rather, it uses attribute forms to create shell types and detail forms to create instances within a shell type. In Unifier, the information from the detail form becomes the General tab the administrator sees when they start a new instance.