Overview

A project can be marked as a parent, child or an independent project in the project details area and thereby building a project hierarchy between all the projects in the system. In addition, projects can be linked as ‘Child’ projects to a Parent project through the “Reference” object.

When a parent child relationship exists between projects, the following project attributes will be rolled up from the child project(s) to the parent project.

·         %Complete

·         Project Status

·         Project Duration (project start and end date)

When determining the child projects linked to a particular parent project, all child projects linked to the parent through “Project Details” object> “Project Group” field and child projects linked through “Reference” objects in the project workflow have to be considered. 

 

Rollup of details between Parent and Child Projects

Rollup of Project Status

The project status of child projects will be rolled up to the parent level only when the setting “Allow Calculated Project Progress” is turned on. The project status of the parent project will be determined based on the project status of child projects which are linked to the parent project, as given below.

  • If the ‘Status’ of All Tasks of the parent project is ‘Not Started’ : ‘Status’ of the parent project will be ‘Not started’
  • If the ‘Status’ of All Tasks of the parent project is ‘Completed’ : ‘Status’ of the parent project will be ‘Completed’
  • If the ‘Status’ of at least One Task of parent project is ‘In Progress’ : ‘Status’ of the parent project will be ‘In Progress’
  • If the ‘Status’ of at least One Task of parent project is ‘Differed’: ‘Status’ of the parent project will be determined based on the ‘Status’ of the remaining tasks.
  • If the ‘Status’ of at least One Task of parent project is ‘Ongoing’: ‘Status’ of the parent project will be determined based on the ‘Status’ of the remaining child tasks.

Important Notes:

o   Tasks = All Child Projects linked to Parent Project + All Tasks directly linked to Parent Project.

o   When the setting “Allow Calculated Project Progress” is turned off, the project Status will not be rolled up. The project Status of the parent project will always be the status of the respective parent project.

 

Rollup of Project %Complete

The project %Complete of child projects will be rolled up to the parent level only when the setting “Allow Calculated Project Progress” is turned on. The project %complete of the parent project will be determined according to the below given formula.

Important Notes:

o   When the setting “Allow Calculated Project Progress” is turned off, the project %Complete will not be rolled up. The %Complete of the parent project will always be the %Complete of the respective parent project.

 

Rollup of Project Duration (Start and End Date)

The project duration (start and end date) of child projects will be rolled up to the parent level only when the setting “Is Project Duration Based On Gantt” is turned on.

The start and end date of the parent project will be determined based on the start and end dates of the child projects linked to the parent project, as given below.

Start date of the parent project – Earliest start date of the Tasks linked to parent project.

End date of the parent project – Latest finish date of the Tasks linked to parent project.

Important Notes:

o Tasks = All Child Projects linked to Parent Project + All Tasks directly linked to Parent Project

o  If a Task is linked to Parent Project or the timeframe of an already linked task is changed, the above mentioned logics will be applicable.

When the setting “Is Project Duration Based On Gantt” is turned off, the project duration of child project will not be rolled up to parent level except for following scenarios:

· When linking Child Project to Parent

If Start Date or End Date of child project falls outside the parent project duration, then the start and end dates parent project will be changed in such a way that child project is within the parent project timeframe.

For Example:

Project A (Parent) Duration: 12/05/2016 – 31/12/2017.

Project B (Child) Duration: 12/06/2016 – 12/06/2018.

When Project B is linked to Project A as a Child Project, the End Date of Parent Project: Project A will change to 12/06/2018.

Hence, the new duration of Parent Project: Project A will be 12/05/2016 – 12/06/2018.

However, when the setting “Is Project Duration Based On Gantt” is turned off and you try to change the timeframe of an already linked Child Project, then the system will consider child project’s timeframe. The updated Child Project’s duration should fall within Parent Project’s duration. (Refer below figure).

If the project duration of the child project falls outside the parent project’s duration, then the system will not allow you to change Child Project’s duration.

Client Admin Setting to Manage Rollup Functionality

A new external setting is introduced in Settings page in order to allow the administrator to enable the rolling up functionality.

When the setting is turned on, project ‘Status’, ‘%Complete’ and ‘Duration’ (Start and End Date) will be rolled up from child projects to the parent as given above. The details of the setting will be as follows.

  • Area: Project
  • Title: Roll up project Status, Percent Complete and Duration from child to parent
  • Description: If selected, the project Status, Percent Complete and Duration (Start and End Date) will be rolled up from the child project to the parent project.
  • Value: A tick box. Unticked by default.