Planning Dates for WBS Elements

James is a project planner at Hybrid Machinery. Linda works there as a controller. They are discussing the necessity of planning dates in projects.

Planned dates for WBS elements are called basic dates. You can enter basic dates manually in tables or graphically in a Gantt chart.

You can use the following transactions to enter basic dates:

• Project Planning Board (CJ2B)
• Project Builder (CJ20N)
• Change WBS (CJ02)
• Project Editor (PSHLP20)

In this lesson, we focus on using the Project Planning Board to plan dates for WBS elements. You can enter or change basic dates manually and maintain them directly in detail screens. To reduce the time and effort involved in planning, a range of functions is available to support WBS date planning. Basic dates, for instance, can be extrapolated from lower to higher-level WBS elements, or passed on from higher level to lower level WBS elements. You can check the consistency of date planning within the WBS structure. However, unlike networks, you cannot schedule WBS elements.

In the execution phase, you can also enter actual dates in the Project Planning Board and compare them directly with the planned basic dates. In addition to basic dates and actual dates, you can maintain forecast dates for WBS elements.

You can enter the following three sets of dates for WBS elements:

• Basic dates
• Forecast dates
• Actual dates

Besides the graphical planning board, SAP Project System (PS) offers a new SAPUI5 app for checking project schedules. With this app, you can view the hierarchy of the project objects and monitor their time lines. The chart area of the screen allows you to display different sets of dates in a Gantt representation while displaying the project tree with detailed information in the table area.

The application offers the following key features:

• Display the project tree in the table view with a configurable set of attributes.
• Specify the default hierarchy level to be exploded on opening a project.
• Choose and display date information in the chart area, such as Basic, Actual, and Forecast dates.
• Display relationships within networks or plant maintenance orders.
• Open the side panel with detailed information about the selected object.
• Apply custom coloring for shapes in the Gantt chart area (using the UI Theme Designer).
• Navigate to relevant object pages and other applications.
• Save the preferred configuration and use it for the next run.