Project Manager

The Project Manager is a tool to manage the projects in a Cradle system. It provides access to all Cradle systems that are accessible to the user (normally only one) and all projects defined in the project register(s) of these Cradle system(s).

Project Manager may therefore be used as the entry point to all of Cradle.

Project Manager allows a project hierarchy to be defined for each Cradle system that has some or all of the projects defined in the project register of that system, grouped into any tree structure that is meaningful to end users.

To create, modify or delete the project hierarchy for a Cradle system, a user must be logged in to their machine with a UNIX or Windows username that appears in the system users file: $CRADLEHOME/admin/system_users.

The project hierarchy groups and sub-groups projects in any desired manner. The top of the hierarchy is the Cradle system. As the names in the hierarchy are user-definable, a Cradle project could appear more than once in a project hierarchy, each instance having the same or a different name.

The hierarchy provides a simple method for users to locate the project in which they want to work. Having located the project, a user logs-in by selecting the project and either right-clicking and choosing Open → Toolset / WorkBench, or by selecting Project → Open → Toolset / WorkBench. This avoids the need for users to remember projects’ project codes.

Project Manager allows any number of project attributes to be defined. These are used to record characteristics of the project that are meaningful to the users, such as the name of the customer, or cost charge numbers. Any project in the project hierarchy can be given a value for any or all of these project attributes. A default set of project attributes is provided that can be deleted or extended if required:

• Alias, an alias ID for the project, such as an alternative project ID number
• Division, the company division doing the project
• Branch, the company branch doing the project
• Customer, the name of the customer of the project
• Reference, the RFP or ITT reference number for the project
• Inception Date, the start date for the project
• Purpose, the purpose or intent of the project
• Summary, a summary of the project
• Description, a brief description of the project

Users do not have to use any of these attributes; they are simply suggestions for ways to describe projects so that a specific project can easily be found.

Project Manager can search the project hierarchy to find projects based on the values of any project attributes. Select System → Find and enter the value(s) to be found in whichever of the project attributes are relevant. Project Manager will list all projects that match the user’s values for the attributes that the user has chosen to search. The user can then login to any of these projects.