The Copy Project functionality has been enhanced with the option to reschedule the project and specify the data to use.
As well as setting the project start date, you can set the duration of the project. You can also specify to copy Finances, Resources and Benefits data as well as the source Project’s Parent Plan. A scale factor has been added, which is applied to the copied values.
We define some terms to help with understanding the new fields: (Source refers to the original plan you are copying from).
Source plan start: ActualStart if present else PlannedStart
Source plan end: RevisedEnd if present else PlannedEnd if present else OriginalPlannedEnd Source duration: 1+ (source plan end – source plan start)
Duration: if the original plan was, say, 12 months but you specify a duration of 24 months for the new plan, each value in Finance, Benefit, Resource in the old plan, will be spread proportionally across 2 months in the new plan.
Scale: Factor by which Finance, Benefit, Resource quantities will be multiplied. It does not refer to duration.
You can mix Scale and Duration settings. For example, say the Duration of the new plan is twice that of the old. You may wish to incur the same overall costs over that longer period, by spending proportionately less per month in the new plan (Duration = 24 months - if original was 12 months, Scale=100%). Or alternatively, you may need to keep the same rate
of investment despite the longer duration in the new plan. (Duration = 24 months - if original was 12 months, Scale=200% - you are spending double overall).
The copy mechanism works in a similar way if your system uses Custom Periods instead of Calendar months for Finance, Benefit, Resources (as set in Admin > General).