Schedule maintenance also has the ability to define a Task as a Sub Task of a major Task. For example; prepare artwork briefs, or perhaps a Sub Task of Illustrations. Each Task can contain various Actions which, when a Task is started or finished, trigger a change in task status.
The flexibility of this program allows the Tasks to be set up and organized in a method to suit the company. The Tasks can be maintained and deleted as required. As many Tasks can be similar, templates can be defined, to be used as a starting point for a new Project.
Either ALL book specifications for a project have their own schedules OR one overall schedule for the project. If having individual schedules there MUST be a schedule for each book ID. Publication dates are updated via the schedules (actions) at different stages of the project. Hence instead of updating the publication date whenever the schedule is changed, the update is only triggered at various milestones.
Production Controllers, Project Managers and Editors can schedule and actual dates can be changed by all resources. IP1 now links to both internal and external resources for each task within the book production schedule.
The scheduling option may be accessed from the first selection screen or from within the book specification from the Work with screen.
If a separate ISBN for each book spec is to be transferred to the Title masterfile then a separate schedule must be used for each book spec with the action to transfer to the title masterfile. Otherwise if an overall schedule is used it will transfer all ISBNs when the action is activated.
When updating the publication date from the schedule allow either of the following depending on the set up in TMSBP/PJ-PUBDH:
- No update of the publication date from the specifications
- Pick up from the earliest publication date from the specifications
- Pick up the latest publication date from the specifications
Actual Start and Finish dates:
The scheduling system allows a user to enter actual start and finish dates manually into a specific column. This allows the schedule dates to remain as is without it being altered by the actual dates. If the user wants to alter the scheduled dates, it is a matter of changing the start or finish date and proceeding with the rescheduling. The rescheduling process does not alter the actual start or finish dates. Scheduled dates cannot be changed once actual dates are entered. Schedule dates are shown next to actual dates in an additional view.
The actual start and finish date are maintainable fields, which allow the scheduler to update the actual start and finish dates. Actual dates display next to the schedule dates. The user enters actual dates into the actual start and finish columns. Once the start or finish dates are entered, activities or actions that are dependent are activated. An example of this would be updating the ISBN in the Title Masterfile. The actual dates do not automatically affect the schedule. Controllers adjusting the schedule’s start or finish date manually activate rescheduling. A comment field displays next to each task for text on that task.
The preferred schedule layout is established in TMSBP/EV-LYOUT.
Update Sales Brief, Marketing and Program Meeting dates
The scheduling system handles the updates of the Sales Brief, Marketing and Program Meeting dates into the schedule, as long as tasks are tagged the applicable task type. These are setup in TMSBP/EV-EVTT. When the external flag is flagged, the resource selection then points to the A/P creditors, rather than the users in the employment file in BP.
TMSBP/PJ-PUBMT (Pub months) drives the automatic update of the above mentioned dates. This Control File contains all dates for the publish cut-off date and the appropriate publish month. The schedule picks the right dates based on the pub date on the schedule and determines the start date of these activities. These tasks are automatically locked by the system. If the dates in the Control File are changed, schedules in the system are affected only if the schedules are reactivated. Generally, these tasks are held in a template and when applied to a schedule, use the new pub date to determine the Pub month, Sales Brief date, marketing meeting and Program meeting dates.
The Task Maintenance program within the Scheduling option allows a scheduling method for backward scheduling. The system schedule backwards from the date entered and aligns the schedule backwards.
TMSBP/EV-RULE1 controls who can maintain a schedule.
The Predecessor Project ID and Book ID displays on the screen.
Inquiry on consolidated schedules by project and a facility to schedule dependency other project and/or book is available.
The schedule START date defaults to today’s date. Or, if there are predecessors entered the system picks its FINISH date + 1. The start/finish date defaults from TMSBP/PUBMT.
- An option is provided to maintain multiple predecessors per task.
- Updates the actual start/finish date for actual date (instead of update schedule start/finish date).
- Will highlight the task if any comment/text exists
The schedule can be re-scheduled after the actual schedule has been applied.
The Update Publication Date from Schedule program checks applicable specifications and decides whether to update the overseas publication date in the item masterfile. This program uses TMSBP/EV-EVTT to identify the task to be used to update the publication date instead of searching the entire schedule to find the last completion date on the Project header and Book Spec.
The Task Actioner program calls the Email Notification program to handle e-mail notification when tasks are complete in the schedule.
Note: There are 2 types of email notification.
Type 1= Notify next dependent when task is complete
Type 2= Notify Project manager when milestones changed
The Email Notification program sends E-mail notification to users who are dependant on the completion of tasks and is setup in TMSBP/EV-EMAIL.
The Task Re-scheduling program and Apply Schedule program include backward scheduling. The system schedule backwards from the date entered and aligns the schedule backwards.
A facility to schedule dependency other than project and/or book is available.
The Task Checker is called when starting/finishing a task.
Task Actioner
Task Actioner carries out any actions required for a task stage in a project. Stages are added to schedule the program to control the number of times the Release Date of a book is changed when the schedule is changed. When each one of these stages is reached, this program will update the Publication date in the Book Specification.
