Congratulations on your recent Project Management App in your instance! Through Pericror’s service, you’re quickly on your way to maximizing your ServiceNow Express investment. In this blog, we cover the two key components of your new project management application: Administration & Utilization.

I. As The Administrator
As the administrator of the project management application, there are a few key areas to validate:
1. Application & Table Access. By default, users with the project manager or itil roles will be able to see the new project management application. If you want to edit which roles can see the project management application, or its modules, please see this blog. The blog also outlines how to secure the Create/Read/Write/Delete operations on the new project tables. Maintaining which users have the project manager role is done though the Project Manager group which will be in your instance. Add all project managers who should create and work on projects to this group. If you want to change where the application is located in the navigator, type sys_app_application.list into your navigator. Then, add the order field to the list view if not already there by pressing the cog. Change the order of the Project Management application to adjust where it is located in the navigator.
2. Forms & Lists. We’ve optimized and provided key project management fields on the project records, such as common project portfolios. You can easily add new portfolios by right clicking the project portfolio field and selecting the ‘Configure Choices’ option. You can easily edit the project or project task forms by going to Design Form -> Project / Project Task. When it comes to lists, head to an list of projects or project tasks (such as from an ‘All’ module), and simply right click one of the column headers. After doing so, select the Configure List Layout option. This will let you set the columns that should appear in that given view. Keep in mind you can also configure the list layout of the project task related list on the project form, if you are interested in adding or removing any columns.
3. Email Notifications. The configurations will include automated email notifications for record updates, and closures, however you may want to edit the contents of the messages to include any additional information you desire. Simply navigate to the Notification module, and search for notifications containing the name ‘Project’.
4. Visual Taskboard. As the admin user provided to Pericror, add any other users you want to access to Projects by State visual taskboard through the Taskboard module in the app. To do this, go the the right panel on the visual taskboard and select the members icon, then press the plus and add additional members.

In summary, this video highlights the basic changes to double check prior to formally going live with your new custom application.

II. As The Project Manager
The Project Manager is responsible for defining the main project timeline and scope. In summary, there are three key things the project manager should do, when assigned to a project:
1. Define the initial Project record’s Project Portfolio, Project Size, Planned Start, Planned End, and Descriptions. If a budget is involved, the Estimated Cost should also be entered. They should enter comprehensive short description and description information to easily distinguish the outcome of the project. If a CI such as a business service is being affected, it should be defined as well in the Configuration Item field.
2. Next, the Project Manager should create child project tasks linked to the project by pressing ‘New’ on the project’s project task related list. For each of these tasks, the project manager should assign the assignment groups/users required to complete the project tasks. The planned start and end dates should also be entered.
3. Finally, the Project Manager should define the Preceding Task on the project tasks, if there are any tasks that have dependencies. The Preceding Task is the task that must be completed before work on the current task can begin. If a Preceding Task is defined, the configurations automatically prevent users from working on the current task if the preceding task is still active.

Let’s take a look at a quick example project to create a corporate overview video, which will include the need to record video / create animations to reflect company/product, conduct post-production, and publishing the video online:

Whenever a project or project task’s state moves to work in progress, the work start date automatically becomes set to the current time. On record closure, the project or project task’s work end date is also automatically set. This logic, along with the preceding task enforcement, is defined in the Business Rules section.
The Project Managers can track the status of their projects and project tasks through the ‘Overview’ modules. As milestones are completed, they should ensure the update the State of their project. A easy way to do this is using the ‘Taskboard’ module!

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