We are happy you chose Inspire Planner. Our aim is to simplify project management in the easiest and most intuitive way possible. Let's get started!
Once you are in Inspire Planner, navigate to the Projects tab. Here is where you create and view your projects.
By default, the page will display projects you've recently viewed. You can choose which projects to view using the drop down menu at the top of the list. If you want to view all projects, select All Projects from the list.
To create a new project, click on New.
Inspire Planner allows you to create and manage waterfall (schedule-based) projects, agile projects and task list projects. Waterfall projects are enabled by default. If you would like to be able to create and manage agile or task list projects, please see Agile Projects - Admin Guide.
If you have agile and/or task list projects enabled in your Salesforce org, then when you click on New, it will ask you to choose the type of project to create. If you only have waterfall projects enabled, when you click on New, it automatically assumes you are creating a waterfall project.
For the purpose of this help article, we are going to go through the process of creating a new waterfall project. Select "waterfall" as the project type and click on Next.
Fill in your project details such as the Project Name, Project Status, (and optionally) the project Description, and Account. Click on Save when finished.
Now you are ready to create your project plan! Familiarize yourself with the Inspire Planner user interface. You will find your Project Name in the top left-hand corner. On the left is a Project Toolbar containing icons that perform different actions.
Unsure of what the icons do? See Navigating the Inspire Planner Interface for more information.
Now that you've created a project, the next step would be to create the tasks you will need to complete as part of the project. Double-click on the first row to add your first task.
Pressing the return (enter) key will automatically move the cursor to the next row. As you populate the task subject and move to the next row, Inspire Planner automatically populates the task duration as 1 day and sets the start and finish dates to the current date.
We recommend grouping tasks together according to the different phases, features or stages of your project. Child tasks roll up to their parents. This means that the duration you see in a parent task is the total duration of all its children. The same goes for Start and Finish Dates, Planned Effort, Total Allocated Effort, Actual Effort, Budgeted Cost, Actual Cost and any custom currency or number fields. This allows you to then see the overall status of the parent based on the child tasks. List your parent and child tasks first. Then use the indent icon to indent tasks under a parent. To do so, follow the steps below.
4. To insert a new task below an existing task, click on the task and then click on the + (Insert new task) icon in the Project Toolbar. This will insert a new row under the task you selected. In the example below, if we click on the task "Prepare kick-off Deck" and then click on the + icon in the project toolbar, it will insert the new task under "Prepare kick-off Deck". Another way to create/add tasks is to right-click on a task row. This will display a context menu. Click on Add and choose where you would like to add the new task.
5. To delete a task, click on the task to select it (you can hold down your shift or CTRL keys to select multiple tasks) and then click on the X (Delete Task) icon in the Project Toolbar. Another way is to right click on the task(s) you would like to delete and click on Delete from the context menu.
Please note: You cannot edit the status, % complete, duration, start date, finish date, planned effort, total allocated effort, actual effort, budgeted cost, actual cost, currency and number fields on parent tasks as these values are an aggregate of its children. When you adjust the values of the child tasks, it automatically updates the values of the parent task.
Predecessors define the relationship between tasks. Inspire Planner supports the four (4) types of task relationships:
For more information, please see Creating Relationships with Predecessors.
Please Note:
When you define predecessors, Inspire Planner's scheduling engine will automatically adjust and re-schedule any successor (dependent tasks) based on the predecessor tasks start/finish dates and dependency type. The successor task will always plot as soon as possible following its predecessor.
Your next step is to specify the Duration and Start Date of your tasks. The Start Date is when the task is set or expected to begin and duration is the length of time for the task to finish.
When you create a task, it defaults the task duration to 1 day and sets the task start and finish date to the current date. To adjust the task duration, double-click on the cell. You can use the up and down arrows to increase or decrease duration. You can also use the up and down keys on your keyboard or type in a value.
The default duration unit used is "days". However, you can change the duration unit by entering the duration amount followed by:
So for example, if the task duration is 2 weeks, you will enter "2 w" in the cell. When you press the return (enter) key on your keyboard, you'll notice it changes the duration unit to weeks.
The task finish date will automatically be calculated based on the task duration from the task start date. Likewise, if you choose to adjust the task finish date, it will automatically calculate and adjust the task duration as the time between the task start and finish dates.
You'll notice that if you change the task duration, start or finish date of a task, and the task has successors (dependent tasks), the successor tasks will automatically recalculate and adjust according to the dependency type. Successor tasks are always plotted as soon as possible following the predecessor task.Please note the following:
You can view and adjust the project settings by clicking on the Project Settings icon in the Gantt Toolbar.
If you adjust the project settings and click on Apply, it will then recalculate and update all the tasks in the project according to the project settings.
To create milestones in the project, set the task duration to "0 days".
Tasks can then be assigned to resources who will be working on them. A resource refers to the individual responsible for completing the task. The resource could either be a Salesforce user, a contact or a queue. A task can also be assigned to multiple resources.
To assign a task, double-click on a cell under the Assigned To column and click on the Edit icon.
The task assignment dialogue will open. Enter the name of the user, contact or queue you wish to assign the task to. You can search using the resource's first name, last name or full name. If you are searching in queues, enter the name of the queue. Select where you would like to search from (in users, contacts, queues or all three) and then click on Search.
Users, contacts, or queues that match the name you entered will display. Pay attention to the "Type" column. This tells you if the resource is a user, a contact or a queue in Salesforce. Select the user(s), contact(s), or queue(s) and click on Assign Task. The resource's name will appear in the "Assigned (Salesforce Tasks)" box below. If you would like to assign the same task to more resources, you can enter another name in the search box to look for another resource. Once you've added all the resources for the task, click on OK. If the task is assigned to multiple resources, you'll see each assigned resource's name in the cell.
Review your overall project and Gantt chart, and you are ready begin! Make sure to update the status of tasks and percentage complete in order to maintain an accurate view of the project.
Ensure that the appropriate users have been given editing/viewing privileges and off you go!
Your Gantt Chart should look similar to what you see below.
Never worked with a Gantt Chart before? Check out Understanding Your Gantt Chart under the Inspire Help tab. For help with other questions, check out our Inspire Help tab in the top menu bar for more How to Guides and Community Q&A. If you still didn’t find what you were looking for, log a Help Ticket and someone from our Inspire Support Team will get back to you.
Happy project planning from the Inspire Planner Team!