Understanding Work Breakdown Structures

The WBS of a project is represented by a hierarchical grid that shows project activities and their relationships. The placement of an activity on the WBS is maintained directly on the activity record. The WBS enables you to:

  • Maintain summary and detail activities on a WBS to a depth of 26 levels.

  • Roll up start and end dates to summary activities.

  • Insert multiple activities on the WBS at the same time.

  • If you use PeopleSoft Program Management, add dependency relationships between activities.

This diagram shows the activities for an implementation project in a WBS format, and it identifies the WBS levels of each activity. Summary tasks are represented as expandable rows, which have a + sign to the left of the Activity Name field:

This example illustrates the fields and controls on the WBS example. You can find definitions for the fields and controls later on this page.

 WBS example

A lower WBS level indicates a level in the WBS hierarchy that is more indented (deeper) than the current level. In the diagram, the 2.1 WBS ID is lower than the 2 WBS ID. A higher WBS level indicates a level in the WBS hierarchy that is less indented than the current level.

You manage the WBS on the Project Activities page where you can view all summary and detail activities. Additionally, you can see the structure change as you indent and outdent activities, and move them up and down on the WBS. On the Project Activities page, you can choose to display a specific WBS level or all levels. If you display a specific WBS level, the Project Activities grid collapses all summary activities at the selected display level and below. You can also expand and collapse summary activities individually.