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This is the support Page for Project Planner (Advanced) Excel template v1. A new version of Project Planner is now available.
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Plan your projects quickly with the new Project Planner (Advanced) v1 template.
The template can help you to
The template can help you to
- Determine if and when projects will complete given each project’s tasks, task duration, resource assignment to tasks, resource availability and priorities.
- Determine if project will complete by due date
- Prepare project, resource and task schedules at daily level
- Understand resource utilization and identify opportunities for re-assignment to improve project completions.
- Determine how many hours of work are still pending so that you can request more resources.
- Estimate the cost of each project
REQUIREMENTS
You need a copy of Microsoft Excel to open this file. The product has been tested in
- Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010 and 2013 for Windows
- Microsoft Excel 2011 for Mac
FEATURES
- Can plan up to 50 projects at a time and a total of 250 tasks
- Up to 25 resources can be included in planning
- Maximum planning period is 366 days
- Planning is done at the granular unit of hours
- Instantly create resource, task and project schedules
- A project can have multiple tasks and hence multiple resources. However, each task is assigned to one and only one resource.
- Resource can be assigned to multiple tasks on the same day.
- Projects need to be prioritized and prioritization is followed when resources are assigned
- Tasks within a project can also be prioritized
- Each task can have up to two predecessors (dependencies). They can be within project or from other projects. A task can begin only the day after its predecessors have completed.
- Project Start Dates can be restricted (optional)
- Project due dates can be input (optional) to compute if projects complete on time
- Choose your company holidays
- Customize company weekends (non-working days) according to your needs
- Each resource can have different work hours for each weekday
- Each resource can have personal leave days
- Each resource can have different cost per hour
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SETTINGS
Enter the list of resources, their work hours for each weekday and their costs.
You can choose days that are considered as weekends in your company. You can also enter company holidays. The template will not allocate any work on these days.
You can enter any personal leave days for each resource. Work will not be allocated to the resource on leave days.
PROJECTS
Enter Planning Period Start and End Dates. Then, enter project details (Project ID, Name and Priority are required).
- If Project Priority is left blank, the project will not included in plan. If two projects are given equal priority value, the tasks are ordered based on task priority and then the order in which they appear in the TASKS table (explained below).
- If Preferred Start Date is left blank, Planning Period Start Date will be used. If Preferred End Date is left blank, ‘On Time calculation’ will be set to blank.
- Project Plan Status field will display error if there is any. If there are no errors, it will display ‘Planned’.
- Up to 50 projects can be entered.
TASKS
Enter Task details (Task ID, Task Name, Project Name, Resource Name and Hours Required).
‘Task In Plan?’ field will display error if there are any. If there are no errors, it will display ‘Yes’ if the task will be completed. It will display ‘No’ if the task cannot be completed.
Project Planner – Excel Template – Tasks Optional Settings
In addition, the template provides further control. You can enter a Task Preferred Start Date that can be used if a task should not begin until a certain date. Up to 2 predecessors can be assigned to a task. When a predecessor is assigned, the task can be started only the day after the predecessor has been completed. Similarly when 2 predecessors are assigned, the task can begin only the day after both predecessors are completed.In addition, the template provides further control. You can enter a Task Preferred Start Date that can be used if a task should not begin until a certain date.
You can also provide task priority (priority of a task among other tasks in a project). If task priority is not provided, all such tasks in the project will be prioritized based on the order in which they are entered in the table.
Up to 250 tasks can be entered.
PLAN SUMMARY
This sheet provides summary statistics at project level and resource level.
Project Planner – Excel Template – Plan Summary
PROJECT SUMMARY
- In Plan?: If the project does not have a priority and/or tasks, then it will not be included in plan.
- EARLIEST POSSIBLE START DATE = Earliest date when the project can begin, provided there are no resource limitations on the project. MAX(Project’s Preferred Start Date, Planning Period Start Date, Task Preferred Start Date, Predecessor 1’s Expected End Date + 1, Predecessor 2’s Expected End Date + 1).
- IF error, then Planning Period Start Date + 366. For example, if the predecessor does not have an expected end date (meaning predecessor cannot complete), then this task cannot begin. So, it will show Planning Period Start Date + 366.
- EXPECTED START DATE: Date when the project can actually begin, given resource limitations;
- DELAY IN START: Days between Earliest Possible Start and Expected Start. If there is delay in a project, you can try reducing it by changing resource assignments.
- PREFERRED END DATE: Date you would like the project to end by.
- EXPECTED END DATE: Date when the project will end based on the assignments.
- HOURS REQUIRED: Number of hours required for the project.
- HOURS ALLOCATED: Number of hours allocated in the assignments.
- HOURS PENDING: Difference between Hours Required and Hours Allocated.
- COMPLETED?: If Hours Pending is 0, the Project will be completed. If not, it will not be completed.
- ON TIME COMPLETION?: if the Expected End Date is on or before the Preferred End Date, then the project is ‘On Time’. If not, it will be ‘Not on Time’. If Preferred End Date is not set for the project, then it will be blank.
- PROJECT SPAN (DAYS): Time between Expected Start Date and Expected End Date.
- PROJECT COST: Total cost for all the tasks. For each task, it will be calculated as (Hours allocated * Cost per hour for resource assigned).
RESOURCE SUMMARY
- HOURS AVAILABLE: Number of Hours resource is available.
- HOURS ALLOCATED: Number of hours allocated to tasks for a resource.
- UTILIZATION RATE: Hours Allocated/Hours Available
- DAYS AVAILABLE: Number of days where the resource is available.
- DAYS ALLOCATED: Number of days the resource has been allocated work.
- DAYS NOT ALLOCATED: Number of days the resource has not been allocated work.
- NUMBER OF TASKS ASSIGNED: Number of tasks that a resource has been assigned to.
- COST: Cost for each resource. Hours Allocated * Cost per Hour
TASK SCHEDULES
You can view three types of task schedules. (Gantt Chart in Wikipedia) You can see tasks for one project, tasks for one resource or all tasks.
PROJECT SCHEDULE
RESOURCE SCHEDULE
Project Planner – Excel Template – Gantt Chart – Resource Schedule
You can also view the schedule visually. Work Allocated, Company Holidays, Company Weekends and ‘Resource Not Available’ days are highlighted in different colours.
RESOURCE VIEW
In this sheet, you can view the hours available and hours allocated for every day for all the resources.
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