Project Development and Progress SharpFlow, besides providing all features to manage individually the tasks of a project, it can also be used to control the flow and evolution of a project through time, managing its planning, development and support phases, using what is knowd by the Project Progress Issue. For this purpouse, SharpFlow has a built­in workflow called “Project Progress”, that represents a project development phases, according to what is defined in the Product development procedures of the Quality procedures. This document may be used as a guide through the steps, given the particular workflow, from project configuration with the creation of the Project Progress Issue, passing by the phase shifts, tasks registration in each phase and the project follow­up using diverse reports and graphs. Workflow This workflow is an initial workbase, included with SharpFlow, that can be changed and tailored to adjust exactly to the client’s certification needs. To be able to use a workflow for a Project Progress Issue the workflow has to be, in its properties, activated for “Requires Project Progress Issue”: Create a Project with a Progress Issue A project is created with the option ​
Create Project​
on the chosen Entity in the projects and entities list: Defining the project’s initial properties Establishing initial time estimates for duration and realization dates: By activating the ​
Create Progress Issue Now​
under the Management tab, the Progress Issue entry is automatically created while creating the project. This Progress Issue will follow the workflow above and allows a project follow­up according to the company’s quality objectives. Project Email It is also useful to associate an email account exclusively for the project: This allows an easy association of evidences to every phase of the project by sending an email (with attached documents, if applied) to the project’s email. After the initial configuration, click on the ​
Create Project​
button. Other settings After creating the project, we reopen its properties so we can complete the project configuration: The ​
Manage Project​
dialog has now some extra tabs. The ​
Members​
tab can be accessed to configure the users associated with the project: We conclude the configurations by clicking the ​
Save​
button.. Project Progress Issue After all these steps, we have the ​
Project Progress Issue This issue is unique for each project and differs from others issues because it has a color; this color is defined when designing the workflow and corresponds to the color of the current phase. The progress issue is always open during the project life cycle and supported by some specific reports, allowing for a global overview along all phases of its life cycle. When a project has a progress issue created, all other issues and tasks created for that project will become automatically associated to the current project’s phase. Including issues created from emails received by the project’s email (if defined), By opening the Project Progress issue, We can move forward in the Project Progress workflow, editing the initial state text and passing it to the next phase, by using the ​
Change Phase​
button. We get the following dialog: By shifting to the next phase we have to estimate the duration in hours that the phase will consume and a estimated conclusion date. This information is important because it will allow the Project manager to easily verify the efficiency goals or control possible delays. It’s also possible to add a comment to be displayed in the next phase, allowing a communication between the current issue’s owner and the next owner, even when the next participant has no view permissions of any previous phases (for example, clients, that were only granted access to certain project’s phases for validation) In this next phase (Requirements Specification) we can launch separate tasks that will be automatically attached to the project’s phase. By using Add Task button, we have a similar dialog to create a new task. So now we can create all tasks that are needed to develop/implement the current phase. It is important to fill in a task’s estimated hours and estimated due date. The Project Manager may, naturally, follow up on all the launched tasks and continue to control the project’s flow. Gantt Charts and Assorted Graphs Related to each project, but particularly relevant to projects with Progress issues, we have graphs to visualize all the logged information or data. A Gantt chart, showing us a vision through time about the project’s progress, can be accessed by clicking the icon, in the Issues tab, at the far right of the project’s name. We get the following chart: To close the Gantt chart just click the X at the right top corner. By clicking the icon, we obtain the following screen: Here we have a series of charts that show us a global view of the project, according to the number and type of all the registered tasks and events. Graphical comparison between projects Sharpflow allows the comparison between projects, according to certain parameters. For that purpose we access the ​
View Charts between Projects ​
interface, by clicking the i​
con: We get the following screen: The chart to show is chosen from the first option, and in the Projects box we write, one by one, the projects we want to compare. As we write some part of the project’s name, the box suggests a list of all projects that contains the typed text: We click on the project and it will be placed in the text box like this: Do the same for all the projects you wish to compare. In the end, click on the ​
View Charts​
button: Reports It is possible, in any of the project’s phases, to access the Project Information Report, in the reports tab. Just select the relevant project from the project’s list and open the chosen report: This report contains all the needed information to evaluate the project’s progress from a quick glance.