# Administrator Guide

# Managing Projects

This chapter provides a overview of Collaboration projects and outlines the basic steps required to create and manage projects. This chapter is intended for system administrators who are responsible for creating and maintaining projects in Collaboration. It includes the following sections:

- Overview of Projects
- Overview of the Project Explorer
- Overview of the Project Application View
- Creating and Managing Projects
- Providing Access to Projects
- Working with Project Templates
- Archiving and Restoring Projects
- Exporting Projects

## Overview of Projects

Collaboration lets portal users work together by sharing documents, calendars, discussions, and task lists. These elements are combined together to form a Collaboration project, which is the main unit of Collaboration.

Collaboration lets you create multiple projects that are customized to the needs and goals of individual users. After you have set up a series of projects, users can select the projects they need to accomplish their work.

When a user selects a project, Collaboration displays information about that project and makes the project's functional areas available to the user. Functional areas are designed to facilitate teamwork among project members.

Each Collaboration project has its own set of objects and properties that are not shared with other projects. For example, documents added to Project A belong only to that project. Users in Project B have their own set of documents, and do not see those that belong to Project A. Similarly, each project has its own task lists, discussions, messages, and calendar.

## Overview of the Project Explorer

The Project Explorer lets you perform all project management activities in a single window. Based on levels of access, different project functionality is accessible within a universal toolbar. If a user does not have permissions to perform a certain task, that task is unavailable in the tool bar.

The Project Explorer contains the following areas:

Table 4-1 Project Explorer Areas
Project Explorer Area | Description
Toolbar | Provides access to all of the Project Explorer functionality
Folder Tree Window | Displays the Project Folder hierarchy within Collaboration
Details Window | Displays information about the selected Project or Project Folder
List Window | Displays the contents of the selected Project Folder

Figure 4-1 Project Explorer

The Project Explorer is accessible from the My Projects portlet. Community managers can add this portlet to a community. Users can add this portlet to their My Page.

## Overview of the Project Application View

Figure 4-2 Example of a Project's Application View

The application view can contain the following tabbed panes corresponding to the functional areas of a project:

- Overview
- Calendar
- Tasks
- Documents
- Discussions

Only the functional areas that are included in the project appear in the project's application view. For more information on setting the functional areas of a project see Selecting the Functional Areas for a Project.

## Creating and Managing Projects

This section describes the basic tasks required to create and manage Collaboration projects. It includes the following sections:

- Creating Projects
- Setting Up Projects
- Managing Projects with Project Explorer

### Creating Projects

To create a project, you should perform the following basic tasks:

1. Creating a New Project
2. Setting Roles and Permissions
3. Selecting the Functional Areas for a Project

#### Creating a New Project

To create a project, a user must be granted the Manage Collaboration Projects activity right. For general information on activity rights, see the Administrator Guide for BEA AquaLogic Interaction (Plumtree Foundation). For information on granting Collaboration activity rights, see Activity Rights.

To create a new project:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Select New | Project.
3. Click General Settings.
4. Decide if you want to base your new project on an existing Project Template.

Note: | After you have created a project, you cannot change the project template.

- If you do not, click Create empty project.
- If you do, click Create template-based project. Then click Browse. Then choose a project template. Then click Finish.

5. Enter a name for the project.
6. Choose the default language for the project.

The Search Service uses this information when indexing Collaboration objects.

7. Click Finish.

For more information on general project settings, see the Collaboration Online Help. For more information on granting and restricting access to a project and other security related topics, see Providing Access to Projects.

#### Setting Roles and Permissions

After you have created a project, you must determine who has access to it. For information on adding users to a project and setting project security, see Providing Access to Projects.

#### Selecting the Functional Areas for a Project

Collaboration lets you control which functional areas are included in a project. To choose the functional areas of a project:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the check box of the project you want to edit.
3. Select Edit | Edit Properties.
4. Click Functional Areas.
5. Choose the functional areas you want to include in the project.
6. Click Finish.

### Setting Up Projects

After you have created a project and determined who has access to it, you should add content to each of the functional areas. The types of tasks you might need to perform include:

- Adding calendars
- Adding discussions
- Uploading documents

### Managing Projects with Project Explorer

After you have created and set up projects, you can manage them using the Project Explorer. This section describes the tasks you might need to perform to manage projects.

#### Editing Project Properties

Once a project has been created, you can edit the following project properties:

Table 4-2 Descriptions of Project Properties
General Setting | Allows you to modify basic project settings.
Roles and Permissions | Allows you to: add and delete portal users, groups, and community members to and from the project set default access levels and permissions for the roles: Project Members and Project Guests manually synchronize the project's user information keep it current with the portal database By default, Collaboration synchronizes user information with the portal once a day.
Functional Areas | Allows you to customize what functional areas are used in the project.

To edit project properties:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the check box of the project you want to edit.
3. Select Edit | Edit Properties.
4. Click General Settings.
5. Decide if you want to base your new project on an existing one.

- If you do not, Choose Create empty project.
- If you do, click Create template-based project. Then click Browse. Then choose the project template you want to use. Then click Finish.

6. Enter a name for the project.
7. Choose the default language for the project.

The Search Service uses this information when indexing Collaboration objects.

8. Click Finish.

#### Creating Project Folders

Collaboration lets you organize projects in a hierarchical series of folders and subfolders. To create a new project folder:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Select New | Project Folder.
3. Enter the name of the new project folder.
4. Click Finish.

#### Moving Projects to Project Folders

To move a project to a project folder:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the check box of the project you want to edit.
3. Select Edit | Move.
4. Click Browse.
5. Choose a project folder.
6. Click Finish.
7. Click Finish.

You can use the same procedure to move a project folder to another project folder.

#### Deleting Projects and Project Folders

To delete a project or a project folder:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the check box of the project that you want to delete.
3. Click Delete.
4. Click OK.

Collaboration places deleted projects in the Recycle Bin System Folder, which you use to remove and undelete projects that have been deleted.

If you want to disable a project that you might need to access later, you should archive the project instead of delete it. For more information on archiving projects, see Archiving and Restoring Projects.

#### Removing and Undeleting Projects from the Recycle Bin System Folder

Collaboration stores deleted projects in the Recycle Bin System Folder, This folder lets you remove and undelete projects that have been deleted. Only users with the Manage Collaboration Projects activity right can remove or undelete projects from the Recycle Bin System Folder.

Projects that are removed from the Recycle Bin System Folder are permanently removed from the system. Projects that are undeleted from the Recycle Bin System Folder are made available to users.

Note: | Collaboration contains two types of recycle bins. Project Leaders use the Project Recycle Bin to remove and restore specific items that were deleted from projects, rather than specific projects.

To remove and restore deleted projects from the Recycle Bin System Folder:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the Recycle Bin button in the navigation pane of Project Explorer.
3. Choose one or more projects in the table pane.
4. Perform one of the following:

- Click Delete
- Click Undelete

## Providing Access to Projects

This section outlines the procedures required to provide access to a Collaboration project. For general security information about Collaboration see Working with Collaboration Security

### Adding Users to Projects

This section describes the procedures to control who has access to a project. Collaboration lets you assign users to each of the security roles. Each role has its own set of Edit permissions. User types are portal users, groups, and community members.

To allow access to a project:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the check box of the project you want to edit.
3. Click Edit | Edit Properties.
4. Click Roles and Permissions.
5. Determine the security role where you want to add users.

For more information on security roles, see Working with Collaboration Security

6. Click the appropriate button for the type of user you want to add. You can choose one of the following:

- Add Users
- Add Groups
- Add Community Members

7. Choose the users you want to add.
8. Click OK.

### Changing Default Permissions for Roles

Collaboration lets you change the default security settings for Project Members and Project Guests.

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the check box of the project you want to edit.
3. Choose Edit | Edit Properties.
4. Click Roles and Permissions.
5. Click Edit Permissions.
6. Select the desired security settings.

For information on how these settings affect each functional area of the project, see Providing Access to Projects.

7. Click Finish.

#### Removing Users From Projects

To remove a portal user, group, or community member:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the check box of the project you want to edit.
3. Choose Edit | Edit Properties.
4. Click Roles and Permissions.
5. Click Delete next to the user, group, or community member you want to remove.
6. Click OK.
7. Click Finish.

## Working with Project Templates

Project templates lets users create projects that are similar. Project managers and system administrators can use project templates to maintain consistency among the projects used within an organization.

### Creating Project Templates

To create a project template:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Choose the Template Project Folder.
3. Choose New | Project Template.
4. Click General Settings.
5. Decide if you want to base your new project template on an existing one.

- If you do not, click Create empty project.
- If you do, click Create template-based project. Then click Browse.Then choose the project template you want to use. Then click Finish.

6. Enter a name for the project template.
7. Choose the default language for the project template.

The Search Service uses this information when indexing Collaboration objects.

8. Select the date-shifting method you want to use.
9. Enter the template base day.

For more information on date-shifting methods and template base dates, see Setting Project Template Base Dates.

10. Click Finish.

### Setting Project Template Base Dates

The dates of tasks, milestones, and events in a project template are not significant on their own; their importance is based on the relative position between the dates in template and the base date.

When a new project is created from a project template, you specify a project start date. When the tasks, milestones, and events from the project template are copied to the new project, their dates are set relative to the project start date. This process is called date-shifting.

Collaboration lets you specify the following types of date-shifting when creating a project template:

Table 4-3 Types of Date Shifting Methods
Date Shifting Method | Description
--- | ---
Copy dates directly from the project template | This method copies the dates directly from the project template into the new project.
Specify project start day: skip weekends and holidays | This method is used when the number of working days from the start of the project is important.
Specify project start week: preserve day of the week | This method is used when the number of weeks from the start of the project and the day of the week is important.
Specify project start month: preserve working day of the month | This method is used when the number of months from the start of the project and the working day of the month is important.

### Defining Security for Project Templates

You can assign the following access levels to project templates to control who has access to projects created from project templates:

Table 4-4 Types of Access Levels
Access Level | Description
Project Leader | Projects created using project templates with this access level are accessible only by Project Leaders.
Project Member | Projects created using project templates with this access level are accessible only by Project Members and Project Leaders.
Project Guest | Projects created using project templates with this access level are accessible to all users.

It is also possible to control access to the project template itself. The Project Leader role can be used to:

- Specify access control on projects created from a project template
- Control access to the project template itself

Users assigned to the Project Leader role have full access to all parts of the project template. Users not assigned to the Project Leader role do not have access to any parts of the project template.

## Archiving and Restoring Projects

A Project Leader or system administrator can archive a project to make it inaccessible to project users. When a project is archived, it cannot be searched and notifications referencing it cannot be sent.

Archiving a project lets you remove inactive or completed projects without losing project data. When a project is archived, it is not removed from the Collaboration database. You can restore projects from the Archived Project folder to make them accessible to users.

Only users with the Manage Collaboration Projects activity right can archive projects or restore projects from the Archived Project folder.

### Archiving Projects

To archive a project:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the check box of the project you want to archive.
3. Click Archive.
4. Click OK.

The project is moved to the Archived Project folder.

### Restoring Projects from the Archived Project Folder

To restore a project from the Archived Project folder:

1. Go to the Project Explorer.
2. Click the Archived Project folder.
3. Click the checkbox of the project you want to restore.
4. Click Restore.
5. Click OK.

The project is restored to top level of the Collaboration folder hierarchy.

## Exporting Projects

The Collaboration Resources page lets you choose the projects that you want to export, and whether to export either all of their content (including their metadata) or their metadata only. Metadata includes the project's security information and other data such as the project's name, description, date created, and so on.

After you have configured this page and clicked Finish, the system generates .pte and .zip files of the projects. After this process has completed, a dialog box appears that contains a link to the .pte file, which contains portal and Collaboration objects. Click on this link to download the .pte file to your computer. The .zip file contains only Collaboration objects. You can access the .zip file in: <collab install>/migration/export

To access the Collaboration Resources page:

1. Click Administration.
2. From the Select Utility drop-down list, choose Migration - Export.
3. Under Resources on the left, click Collaboration Resources.

Note: | You cannot use the ptmigration command line tool to create migration packages that contain Collaboration objects.