Managing Program and Project Issues

This chapter provides an overview of issues and discusses how to:

Enter issues.
Review, update, and resolve issues.
Generate issue reports.
Send emails.

Understanding Issues

This section provides and overview of program and project issues and discusses:

Prerequisites
Issue management workflow

During project delivery, a critical factor in determining success is the reporting, escalation, management, and resolution of issues. To ensure a high probability for customer satisfaction and a successful project, issues must be documented, communicated, and prioritized.

Prerequisites

You must define issue priorities, statuses, and types before you can create a program or project issue.

See Setting Up General Control Data.

Issue Management Workflow

Project managers, resources, and other users become involved entering, assigning, updating, and resolving issues. You can enable workflow to keep all parties notified throughout the lifecycle of an issue. You specify issue management workflow options on the Installation Options - Program Management page during implementation. The three types of issue management workflow are:

Create Issue Notification workflow
Assign Issue Notification workflow
Update Issue Notification workflow

Create Issue Notification Workflow

If a user submits an issue, the system creates a worklist item and sends an email notification to the issue owner indicating that an issue has been raised. Typically, the issue owner is responsible for assigning the issue to a resource.

Note. If there is no issue owner, the system cannot trigger workflow and a warning message appears.

Assign Issue Notification Workflow

When you assign an issue to a resource, a message box gives you an option to trigger Assign Issue Notification workflow. If you select Yes, the system creates a worklist item and sends an email notification to the assigned resource. You can trigger Assign Issue Notification workflow every time you change the assigned resource. The system creates worklist entries and sends email notifications to both the previous and newly assigned resources.

Update Issue Notification Workflow

During installation, you can select the fields on an issue that, if changed, trigger a notification workflow to all interested parties. For example, you can activate Update Issue Notification workflow for issue status, but not for issue priority. The interested parties are notified if the status of an issue changes for any reason; however, they are not notified if the issue priority changes.

You can select any of these fields to trigger Update Issue Notification workflow to interested parties:

Issue Summary
Issue Description
Issue Priority
Issue Status
Resolution Description
Actual Resolution Date
Issue Notes
Issue Attachments

See Defining Program Management Installation Options.

Entering Issues

This section discusses how to:

Create project issues.
Work with issue notes and attachments.
Work with interested parties.
View issue history.

Pages Used to Enter Issues

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Issue	PC_IM_ISSUE	Program Management, Project Management, Add/Update Issues, Issue	Create, review, or edit issue information.
Issue - Notes and Attachments	PC_IM_NOTES	Program Management, Project Management, Add/Update Issues, Notes and Attachments	View and edit file attachments or comments that are relevant to an issue.
Issue - Interested Parties	PC_IM_INT_PRTY	Program Management, Project Management, Add/Update Issues, Interested Parties	Add or delete the names of people who want to be informed about changes to a particular issue.
Issue - History	PC_IM_HISTORY	Program Management, Project Management, Add/Update Issues, History	View the record of updates that are made to a particular issue.

Creating Program and Project Issues

Access the Issue page.

You define values for issue priority, type, and status during implementation.

See Setting Up General Control Data.

Issue Owner	Displays the issue owner. The default value is the activity owner, project manager, or program manager. If the issue is for an activity and there is no activity owner, the issue owner is the project manager. If there is no project manager for that project, the issue owner is the program manager. If there is no activity owner, project manager, or program manager, the issue owner is blank.
Activity	Enter the project activity for which you are entering the issue. Note. This fields does not appear if you are entering an issue for a program.
Assigned To	Select an employee ID or enter a name. For project issues, you can assign the issue only to employees who are members of the project team. For program issues, you can assign the issue only to employees who are team members of the projects under the program.
Email Address	Displays the email address for the assigned resource. The system obtains the email address from the Resource Detail page for that employee. If there is no email address for the employee on the Resource Detail page, the email address of the user ID that is associated with the employee appears in the field. If there is no email address available, you must enter an email address before you can save the issue.
Target Resolution Date	Enter the target date for resolving the issue.
Actual Resolution Date	Enter the date that the issue is resolved.
Additional Fields	Click to access the Issue Additional Fields page and enter additional information. The fields on the Issue Additional Fields page are user-defined fields for informational purposes only.
Send Email	Click to access the Issue Management - Send Email page, where you can compose and send emails that pertain to this specific issue.
Save	Click to save the issue and add the issue originator and assigned resource to the Interested Parties page. If you assigned a resource to the issue, and Enable Issue Management Workflow option is activated on the Installation Options - Program Management page, a message box appears to verify that you want to trigger workflow to notify the assigned resource. Click Yes to trigger workflow and return to the Issue page.
Submit	Click to add the issue owner to the Interested Parties page, and trigger the system to create a worklist item and send an email to the issue owner. The system uses the email address of the owner's user ID from the Operator Definition table (PSOPRDEFN). The Submit button appears when you save the issue if the Enable Issue Management Workflow option is activated on the Installation Options - Program Management page. The button disappears after you submit the issue and trigger workflow. If the issue owner creates the issue, the Submit button does not appear.

See Also

Setting Up General Control Data

Working with Issue Notes and Attachments

Access the Issue - Notes and Attachments page.

Description and Notes	Enter the description and notes for the issue.
Add Attachment	Click the button beneath the Attachments grid to add an attachment. Note. You must have the File Attachment option set on the Installation Options - Project Costing page for attachments to work. See PeopleSoft Enterprise Asset Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Service Automation, Financial Management, Staffing Front Office, and Supply Chain Management 8.9 Product-Specific Installation Instructions located on the PeopleSoft Customer Connection website.
File Name	Displays the name of the file that you upload.
Added By, Name, and Date/Time Stamp	Displays information about the user who adds the attachment, and the date and time that the upload occurred.

Working with Interested Parties

Access the Issue - Interested Parties page.

The system populates the Interested Parties grid with the email addresses for the employee that opened the issue and the employee to which the issue is assigned.

Interested Party

Select an employee ID from the list of employees.

Email Address

Displays the email address from the for the employee ID that is specified as the interested party. When you select an interested party from the employee list, the system automatically populates this field with the email address from the Resource Detail page. If no email address is defined on the Resource Detail page, the system uses the email address from the Operator Definition table (PSOPRDEFN) of the user ID that is associated with the employee. If an email address is not available, you must enter an email address before you can save the issue.

If the assigned resource's employee ID is associated with more than one user ID in PeopleTools Security, the system populates the Interested Parties Email Address field with the first user ID in alphabetic order. This is relevant only if you define more than one user ID to employee ID.

Note. The system automatically populates the issue originator and assigned resource as interested parties. If workflow is enabled, the system automatically populates the issue owner as an interested party when the issue is submitted.

See Also

Sending Emails

Viewing Issue History

Access the Issue - History page.

Use this page to review actions that are performed on the issue and the user ID that performs the update. The most recent action appears at the top of the History grid. These actions appear:

Issue created
Priority changed
Status changed
Type changed
Activity changed
Assignment changed
Notes added
Attachments added

Click the Detail icon to access the page where the action occurred.

Reviewing, Updating, and Resolving Issues

This section discusses how to:

Review issues
Update and resolve issues

Pages Used to Review, Update, and Resolve Issues

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Review Issues	PGM_ISSUES_LIST	Program Management, Project Management, Review Issues, Review Issues	Search for project issues by using a configurable search page.
Issue	PC_IM_ISSUE	Program Management, Project Management, Add/Update Issues, Issue	Review and update issue information.
Notes and Attachments	PC_IM_NOTES	Program Management, Project Management, Add/Update Issues, Notes and Attachments	View and edit file attachments or comments that are relevant to an issue.
Interested Parties	PC_IM_INT_PRTY	Program Management, Project Management, Add/Update Issues, Interested Parties	Add or delete the names of people who want to be informed and updated about a particular issue.

Reviewing Issues

Access the Review Issues page.

In the Selection Parameters group box, specify the search options to filter your search results to the issues that you want to view.

Business Unit	Enter a business unit. The business unit default value is based on user preferences.
Search	Click to display all projects issues that satisfy the search criteria in the Issue Incidents List group box. To iteratively narrow your search results, enter additional search criteria and click the Search button again.
Reset	Click to clear all optional fields in the Selection Parameters group box, and to clear the search results in the Issue Incidents List group box.
Issue ID	Click the Issue ID link to access the Issue page, on which you can view and edit data for the selected issue.
Add Issue Incidents	Click to access the Add/Update Issues search dialog page to view an existing issue or create a new issue.

Updating and Resolving Issues

Access the Issue page.

Select the resolution status to indicate that this issue is closed. In the Resolution Information scroll area, enter the actual resolution date and a resolution description.

Note. Regardless of the issue's status, an issue is considered open until a value is entered in the Actual Resolution Date field. For example, if the issue status is closed, the issue is still considered open in management reports if there is no actual resolution date. Open issues appear in management reports as project indicators, so it is important to enter a resolution date when an issue is resolved.

See Also

Entering Issues

Generating Issue Reports

This section lists pages used to generate the issue reports that Program Management delivers.

See Also

Program Management Reports

Pages Used to Generate Issue Reports

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Issues by Assigned To	RUN_PCY5065	Program Management, Reports, Issue, By Assigned To	Define the parameters for the Issues by Assigned To report (PCY5065). Use the report to list issues by the person to whom they are assigned.
Issues by Priority	RUN_PCY5070	Program Management, Reports, Issue, By Priority	Define the parameters for the Issues by Priority report (PCY5070). Use the report to list issues by priority.
Issues by Type	RUN_PCY5075	Program Management, Reports, Issue, By Type	Define the parameters for the Issues by Type report (PCY5075). Use the report to list issues by type.
Issues by Status	RUN_PCY5080	Program Management, Reports, Issue, By Status	Define the parameters for the Issues by Status report (PCY5080). Use the report to list issues by status.
Issues by Project/Activity	RUN_PCY5085	Program Management, Reports, Issue, By Project/Activity	Define the parameters for the Issues by Project/Activity report (PCY5085). Use the report to list issues by project and activity.
Issue Details	RUN_PCY5090	Program Management, Reports, Issue, Details	Define the parameters for the Issue Details report (PCY5090). Use the report to list details for an issue.

Sending Emails

This section discusses how to send an email about a specific issue.

Page Used to Send Emails

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Send Email	PC_IM_EMAIL	Click the Send Email button on the Issue Management component pages.	Send an email that is prepopulated with data about a specific issue.

Sending an Email About an Issue

Access the Send Email page.

To and CC

Enter one or more email addresses. Separate multiple addresses by using semicolons.

Interested Parties

Select to populate the To or CC fields with email addresses from the Interested Parties page. Click the Refresh button to display the email addresses.

Clear the check box and click Refresh to remove interested party addresses from the To or CC fields.

Assigned

Select to populate the To or CC fields with the email address of the assigned resource from the Issue page. This check box functions in the same way as the Interested Parties check box.

Subject

Displays the issue ID and summary. The system populates this field automatically, but you can override it.

Email Text

The system populates this field with the following data:

Project business unit

Project ID

Issue ID

Issue summary

Issue description

Entered by

Date entered

Activity ID

Issue priority

Issue type

Issue status

Assigned resource

Assignee's email address

Target resolution date

Actual resolution date

Resolution description

Attach Notes

Select to include notes in the email if there are notes for the issue. The system populates this field with the note text.

Attach URL

Select to include a uniform resource locator (URL) to the issue in the email. The system populates this field with the URL that links to the issue.

To and CC	Enter one or more email addresses. Separate multiple addresses by using semicolons.
Interested Parties	Select to populate the To or CC fields with email addresses from the Interested Parties page. Click the Refresh button to display the email addresses. Clear the check box and click Refresh to remove interested party addresses from the To or CC fields.
Assigned	Select to populate the To or CC fields with the email address of the assigned resource from the Issue page. This check box functions in the same way as the Interested Parties check box.
Subject	Displays the issue ID and summary. The system populates this field automatically, but you can override it.
Email Text	The system populates this field with the following data: Project business unit Project ID Issue ID Issue summary Issue description Entered by Date entered Activity ID Issue priority Issue type Issue status Assigned resource Assignee's email address Target resolution date Actual resolution date Resolution description
Attach Notes	Select to include notes in the email if there are notes for the issue. The system populates this field with the note text.
Attach URL	Select to include a uniform resource locator (URL) to the issue in the email. The system populates this field with the URL that links to the issue.