This tutorial guides you through the steps to use the Project Designer tool to create a new project template.

The Project Designer tool is where you create and edit project templates.

A project template is like a blueprint for a program workflow and can be used to define a standard configuration including the phases, tasks, milestones, task outputs and dependencies for a program.  When you create a new program, you select the project template that it should be based on. Using project templates allows you to maintain standard workflows and removes a lot of manual work that would otherwise be needed to setup new programs.

In this tutorial, we will walk through the steps to create a simple project template for three phases of a Program.  The template will allow for engineering deliverables in the form of files and direct user input using forms.

By the end of this tutorial, you will have a project template that can be used to create new programs based on a standard workflow.

Before you start, log into the Program Management application and navigate to the Project Designer tool.

Step 1: Create a project template

  • Click the CREATE TEMPLATE button in the top navigation bar.
  • The Create Project Template dialog appears. Enter "Tutorial" as the name and "Create Project Tutorial template" as the description.
  • Click CREATE.
  • Well done, you just created a new template! You should see the template editor page showing the name, description, version and last updated time of your project template at the top of the page:

Step 2: Create phases

The main purpose of the project template is to define a standard workflow consisting of phases, tasks and task outputs. Let's start by creating three phases for our new project template.

  • Click the NEW PHASE button.
  • In the dialog, enter "Program Planning" as the first phase name.
  • Following the same steps, create two additional phases called "Product Design & Development" and "Process Design & Development".
  • The project editor page should look like this:

Step 3: Create tasks

You may have noticed a default Task was created for each of the new phases we made in the preceding step. Now we are going to rename the default Task and add some additional tasks under each Phase.

  • Click the phase 1 heading (Program Planning) to expand the phase and show the tasks.
  • Click the Task 1 (Project Task 1) to select it. 

  • The task's outputs and dependencies are displayed to the right, with the task name above. Click on the task name shown above the Task outputs to edit it. 

  • Enter the new task name "Program Kickoff" then click SAVE. 

  • Click the NEW TASK button to open the new task dialog.
  • In the dialog, enter the task name "Phase Review" and click SAVE.

  • Click the phase 2 heading (Product Design & Development) to expand the phase.
  • Click on Task 1 (Project Task 2) to select it.
  • Edit the task title by clicking it, enter the name "Receive OEM Design" then click SAVE.
  • Click the NEW TASK to open the new task dialog.
  • Enter the name "Add Material Specification".
  • Add a task named "Phase review" following the same steps as above.
  • Click the phase 3 heading (Process Design & Development) top expand the phase.
  • Change the default task name to "Create Control Plan" and add additional tasks named "Plant Floor Layout", "Tooling Complete" and "Ready for Production Review".

You have now defined the tasks for three phases! The phase 3 task list should look like this: 

Step 4: Create task outputs

Each Task in a workflow has at least one Task output. You may have noticed a default output was created for each of the tasks we made in the last step. Now you will edit the default outputs and configure some new task outputs for the Tasks in your workflow.

  • Click the phase 1 heading to expand the phase.
  • Click the Task named "Add Material Specification".
  • Click on the default output, named "Add Material Specification Data Item 1", to open the Task output edit dialog.
  • Change the name to "Material Specification".

Note: To complete the following instructions, you should have already completed the tutorial "Create a Form Configuration in the Form Builder tool".

  • Change the Type input to select "Form". A new input appears below, labelled "Form".
  • Pick the "Material Specification" form configuration from the list. 

  • Click OK.
  • Click the phase 2 heading to expand the phase.
  • Click the task named "EBOM".
  • Click on the Task Output named "EBOM Data Item 1" to open the output editor dialog.
  • Change the Name of the output to "EBOM".
  • Change the Type of the output to "Files".
  • Click OK.

You have now configured a Form Task Output and a Files Task Output in your workflow template.

Step 5: Create task dependencies

You might have noticed that each phase we have created has an Entry Gate and an Exit Gate task. These tasks allow us to control the criteria that allow moving from one phase to the next phase in a program. Each task in a phase automatically has a dependency on the phase Entry Gate. A dependency is a special type of relationship that indicates a task depends on the output of another task for its completion.

Dependencies can also be created manually between any task and the output of another task. When a dependency exists in a workflow, we use that information to alert users about changes to dependency data in the system by sending notifications or highlighting the status of tasks in the Program Management application.

In this step we will setup a dependency relationship between the "Create Control Plan" task and the "EBOM" task output from the preceding phase.

  • Click on the phase 3 heading to expand the phase.
  • Click on the task named "Create Control Plane".
  • Click on the "link" icon button to add a new Dependency.
  • Choose the Task output named "EBOM" from the dropdown list.
  • Click OK.

You have now added a dependency from the Create Control Plan task onto the EBOM task output. In Step 7, we will look at the Network View and see what the dependency looks like there.

Step 6: Designate milestone tasks

Certain tasks in the workflow can be designated as milestones. This information is used to provide a summarized view of progress in the Program Management application.

In this step we will designate two tasks as milestone tasks.

  • Open the milestones tab by clicking the Milestones tab heading.
  • Click the MILESTONES ONLY switch to toggle it.
  • Click the checkbox next to "Program Kickoff" to select it.
  • Use the pagination controls below the table to go to the next page of tasks.
  • Click the checkbox next to "Tooling Complete" to select it.
  • Click the MILESTONES ONLY switch again to toggle it.
  • You should see the two selected milestones tasks are displayed.

Step 7: Review the project workflow in the network view

The project template network view provides a graphical overview of the template to help understand the flow of phases, tasks, outputs and dependencies.

  • Open the network view by clicking the Network View tab heading.
  • Click and drag the network view background area to pan. Scroll the mousewheel to zoom.
  • Click and drag any node in the diagram to reposition it.
  • Notice the dependencies and outputs relationships (blue and orange lines) flow through the phase gates.
  • Notice the dependency (orange line) that exists between the "Create Control Plan" task and the "EBOM" output. 

  • Click the RESET LAYOUT button to return the to automatically generated layout.

Step 8: Publish your project template

Changes to a project template do not become available in the Program Management application until they are published.

  • To publish the first version of your template, click the PUBLISH button.
  • Notice the version displayed at the top of the template editor view now reads "v1".



Congratulations! You have created and published a new project template. Your template can now be used to create new programs in the Program Management application.

Next up: 

3. Creating and Setting up a Program