Work Plan Templates

A work plan template is standard set of project tasks and resource assignments. They enable project managers to standardize project creation across teams and act as an efficient starting point for creating task structures.

You can use work plan templates to add tasks and resources during project creation and to existing projects.

Advantages of using work plan templates:

• Quickly build task structures by using standard task structures.

• Save time in assigning resources by using generic resources and later replacing these resources with actual named-persons.

• Save standard task structures and share them with other project managers.

Note: You can't use work plan templates when using Microsoft Project Integration.

Work Plan Template Creation

To create a work plan template, you must be the Project Manager or have the required privileges. To create a work plan template from a project, open the project and select Save as Work Plan Template from the Actions drop-down list on the Manage Project Plan page.

When you create a work plan template, it contains the following values from the project:

• Financial and nonfinancial tasks along with their attributes including:

  • Task Number, Task Code, Description, Priority, Billable, Chargeable, Schedule Mode, Schedule Type, Work Type

  • Planned Effort, Planned Allocation, Planned Duration

  • Labor Resources and Expense Resources

  • Planned Labor Cost, Planned Labor Bill Amount, Planned Expense Amount, Total Planned Cost

  • Dependencies

• Gates

• Gate approvers as team members

• Milestones

• Approvers from the Gate Approvers table

  Note: Approvers are saved as team members. Approvals and comments aren't copied.

• All resources except project-specific resources

• Expense resources on tasks

• Deliverable types associated with tasks

• Project resources as planned resources

• Resources along with roles if same resource with multiple roles exists

• Resource assignments for each task

The application sets the tasks progress to zero and sets the following values to blank:

• Start and Finish

• Progress

• Constraint type and date

• Sprint and requirement

• Actual expense amounts

• Actual hours

• Actual amounts for expense resources

Note: The application doesn't copy project information such as project codes, project dates, project status, and project hierarchy elements to the work plan template.

How You Add Tasks During Project Creation

Project managers can select a work plan template in the Create Project window when creating a project to add tasks from a work plan template.

When you add tasks from a work plan template, all the values in the work plan template are copied to the project. Refer to the Work Plan Template Creation section to learn about values contained in work plan templates.

Considerations for Editing Work Plan Templates

Project managers can edit work plan templates from the Edit Work Plan Template page. To navigate to the page, open Manage Project Plan page > click Manage Work Plan Template from the Actions panel tab > click the work plan template.

When you edit a work plan template, the existing projects based on the work plan template aren't updated. These changes are included only in the projects that are created after making these changes.

Considerations for Adding Tasks from a Work Plan Template

When you create tasks from a work plan template, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• The tasks inherit the schedule type of the project.

• Summary tasks in the work plan template are added as peers to the selected task in the project plan. If the selected task is at a project level, summary tasks in the work plan template are created as subtasks.

How You Share Work Plan Templates

Project managers can share work plan templates with other project managers in two ways:

• Enable the Public check box when you use the Save as Work Plan Template action in your project plan.

• Enable the Public check box for a work plan template in the Manage Work Plan Templates window.