Below is a compilation of answers to frequently asked questions around the topic of program and project management. These questions were collected from client interactions, partner meetings and our online user communities.
The nature of a FAQ is such that it is constantly evolving. We will enrich this page as more questions come in and updates become available. Please continue to check back and provide your feedback.
Program and Project Management FAQ
Q) Can I re-use an existing project that was completed last year? It took lots of thinking and fine-tuning to shape up that project. We do not want to repeat the mistakes that we made initially.
Absolutely! It is a great practice to create templates from past projects and initiate new projects from those templates. This makes the process of starting new projects very efficient based on past lessons learned.
Q) For my new project, I know the date when it has to be completed. Can I create scheduling backwards to meet this target end date?
Yes. Project Manager lets you schedule all tasks based on either the starting date or the end date.
Q) Our company has at least a dozen parallel projects at any time. Most of these projects have inter-dependent tasks, or even identical tasks. How can your platform make this more efficient for us?
This is a perfect opportunity for your company to leverage the power of the Project Manager tool. With this tool, you can create dependencies between tasks within a project, or dependencies between tasks that belong to different projects. You also can create a hierarchical structure that contains many projects within a top project.
It is common for multiple projects to have identical tasks. Many times, projects that are done by different teams across an organization are identical as well. In these cases, companies can save tremendous amounts of repetitive work by grouping identical tasks or projects into common ‘buckets’ so that they can all be handled in one instance.
Q) When a project is imported from Microsoft Project into the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, does it lose any data?
A vast majority of tasks and dependency links are imported. However, there are some objects that need to be fixed. A few of those are listed below. This is not an exhaustive list.
- Resources – A resource that is defined in Microsoft Project may not be defined on the platform. In such cases, it is not possible to import those resources.
- Special characters – Microsoft Projects lets users create objects with special characters such as “ ; , - ETC. They cannot be imported.
- Task Summaries – These are groups of tasks under an umbrella. They are similar to Phases in the Project in DPM. These task summaries cannot be imported as is.
- Custom Fields – Any custom field that has been defined in Microsoft project cannot be imported.
- Task Colors – When MS projects are imported, they will not retain the colors that differentiated them.
Q) In regards to creating a Project Template from an Excel file (or other acceptable file formats which can be imported in the platform to create a new project) – what should the Excel file look like?
A sample CSV file is attached that can be used to import a project into the platform (electrical car.csv). Once a project is imported, it’s very easy to create a project template from that.
Q) What is the unique differentiator for managing Projects in 3DEXPERIENCE platform?
When discussing project management best practices, we often talk about the concept of linking product development data to project execution. In effect, project management becomes data-driven by linking it with the product portfolio. When the two processes are disconnected with different technologies, there are multiple projects being defined and tracked, but they are not grounded in the reality of the product data that is being created as part of the project. As a result, it is difficult to understand execution issues related to product planning decisions or portfolio issues related to execution problems.
Suppose a single technology is used to permanently associate the definition and development of the product portfolio with the tracking of the projects used to govern it. The implications of portfolio decisions can be quickly assessed against project schedule. As a result, a project manager is taking action to resolve issues with a full understanding of the impact to the product portfolio. Project Manager in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform delivers this unified approach to product development, fully linking product deliverables to the project schedule.
Q) If there are 500 people who are working on different aspects of a project, do they all need individual Project Manager licenses?
Only those who are project leaders or resource managers need to have a Project Manager license. All other project stakeholders can leverage the power of the Industry Innovator (CSV)role to work on tasks assigned to them.
