ProjectLoad Blog

The administrator controls what level of authorization is required for a user to create or edit projects, phases, and activities. Those security restrictions apply across the organization for all projects. The project and phase managers can introduce a finer level of control for each of their projects and phases on a case by case basis. This finer level cannot override the minimum task control set by the administrator, but it can further restrict who is authorized to perform certain tasks, including preventing non-authorized personnel from even seeing some projects, phases, or activities.

In the project and phase editors is a field labeled security. There are four possible values:

• Normal (low) – This level adds no additional security to the project or phase. It means the settings provided by the administrator under the minimum task control are the only restrictions on the project and its components. This setting allows personnel to assign themselves to the project as needed. This is the default for projects and phases.
• Restricted (medium) – Activities under a restricted project or phase may only be created or edited by people who are in the project manager’s reporting line. This includes up and down the reporting line and both direct and indirect relationships. This setting allows personnel in the project manager’s reporting line to assign themselves to the project or phase as needed.
• Protected (high) – This level reduces the ability to create or edit any project component (including the project itself) to the project manager and all people above him or her in the reporting line. This setting does not permit people to assign themselves to a project. If someone needs to work on a protected project, they will have to be assigned to it by the project or phase manager.
• Confidential – This level is intended for highly confidential projects such as long-term disability and sick leave. The security rules are as follows:
  1. Creating new project components has no more security than the Normal level. This means that anyone with sufficient authority based on the minimum task levels set by the administrator can create confidential projects, phases, and activities under a confidential project. Thus people can assign themselves to a confidential project as needed.
  2. Editing a confidential project or any of its phases is restricted to the project manager and everyone above him or her in the reporting line. Editing activities under a confidential project is restricted to the person assigned to the activity and the project manager and above
  3. Viewing confidential projects and phases is available to everyone. Viewing activities under a confidential project is restricted to the person assigned to the activity and the project manager and everyone above the project manager in the reporting line. This means that although everyone can see the confidential project, they can’t see who has been assigned to it, how many hours they are charging, or their estimated target dates

Most projects do not require additional security and thus fit well in the “normal” security category. However, if you have projects under tight restrictions or special circumstances, you can get finer control over the project or phase using the security level. The security level only applies to the project or phase where it is set.

Project managers may now define dependencies within their projects by setting relationships between phases and activities. This will allow you to make certain that tasks that must be completed before others can begin are monitored by ProjectLoad. The system already allows people assigned to activities within projects to revise their estimated target dates as needed and then flags potential problems such as missing a phase target date or forcing an overtime situation. ProjectLoad now also monitors whether changes in target dates may affect other downstream activities. For example, if one phase cannot be started until another phase is completed, the system will verify that all activities within the first phase have target dates that are earlier than the estimated start dates of all activities in the later phase. The system will not force this relationship to be followed, but will raise alerts with the personnel involved and with the project manager if a change in a target date in one of the activities affects something in the dependency chain.

The project manager adds new constraints using the Action lists in the project editor. He or she simply clicks on the action list of the activity or phase they want to place a constraint on and chooses “Constraints” from the list. A pop-up window permits them to select which activities or phases are dependent on this task and which activities or phases this task depends on. Clicking on “Done” in the pop-up window will close the window and refresh the project editor display to graphically show the constraint. Clicking on either end of an existing constraint line is a short cut to bring up the constraint pop-up window for that activity or phase.