AM 7. Project Plan

Introduction “Progress tracking” based on a Project Plan and Assignments and Progress is an improved feature in Paratext 9.1 that impacts the day-to-day work of translation teams.

Before you start Before you can add the plan, the project must have been created/or migrated.

Why is this Important There are many tasks to be done in a translation project. It is important to have a system to ensure that all of these are done. It is also good to have an easy way to generate reports for supervisors and funders (see PP2: Project Plan Report).

Setting up a project plan from scratch is daunting. Various Bible translation organizations (UBS/ABU, SIL and The Seed Company) include "basic" plans that can be applied to projects. Teams need only customize these plans within the limits set by their organizations.

Typically, organizations want conformity at the “Stage” level in order to facilitate meaningful tracking of the progress of project across the entire organization. However, every plan will need to be customized at the task level.

If a task is important to you and your team and you want to track its progress, then it can be included in the project plan (even if it doesn't require Paratext to do the task).

What are you going to do? You will use a combination of two features: the settings of the Project Plan and the Assignments and Progress (sometimes referred to as “progress tracking”) to manage the plan by assigning team members to tasks, and tracking their progress in completing those tasks.

• Add the organizational base plan to the project (remove an old plan if necessary)
• Customize the plan for the team by adding/deleting and moving tasks
• Assign the tasks to the various team members.
• Update the base plan whenever there is a new version.

7.1 Add the organisational base plan

caution

If you have an existing plan, you need to remove that plan before you can add another plan. (See below for instructions.)

1. ≡ Tab, under Project > Project settings choose Project plan
2. Click Manage plans
3. Click on the drop down arrow below Show Base Plan
4. Choose your organisational base plan
5. Click the Copy Plan arrow.
6. Click OK twice.
   • The plan and its tasks are added to the project, and the blue Assignments and Progress button appears.

Remove an old plan

tip

If the project has an old plan, you need to delete each of the current stages before adding a new base plan.

1. ≡ Tab, under Project Project plan settings
2. Click Manage plans
3. Click in a stage
4. Click the Remove Stage button
5. Click Yes (twice) once to confirm you want to modify the plan, and again to confirm you want to delete the tasks in the stage.
6. Repeat for remaining stages
7. Add the new plan (see above)

7.2 Configure the plan

Confirm — Books to include

1. Check that the plan is closed. Then ≡ Tab under Project choose Project settings Project properties
2. Click the Books tab
3. Choose the books that you want to track progress.
4. Click OK

Configure — Assigning checks to a stage

1. ≡ Tab menu, under Project, choose Project properties then Project Plan
2. Click on the Checks tab
   • Two columns are displayed: Optional stage and Required stage.
3. For the desired check, drop down the list for the Required stage [12]
4. Choose the new stage or never required
5. Then set the Notify only (optional) to an earlier stage if any.
6. Continue for each check
7. Click OK

Configure — Reorder tasks / Move to another stage

tip

It is possible to reorder tasks and even move tasks to another stage. However, not all organisations permit this.

1. From the ≡ Project menu, under Project, choose Project Properties, then Project Plan
2. Click the Stages/Tasks tab.
3. Select the task you want to move.
4. Click the up arrow or the down arrow to move the task to a different point with respect to the other tasks, or to move it to a different stage.
   • You may get a message asking to confirm.
5. Click OK.

Configure — Add tasks

1. Click on the task that is above the new task.
2. Click on the Add task
3. Type the name for the task and a description.

• If desired, you can complete the configuration now following 7.3

1. Click OK

Configure — Delete tasks

1. Click on the Stage/Tasks tab
2. Click on the task to delete
3. Click the Remove Task button
4. Click OK.

Rename or edit tasks

1. Click on the task (in the list on the left)
2. Click on the name box (in the pane on the right)
3. Type a new name for the task
4. If necessary, edit the description.

Copy a task from one plan to your project

tip

Follow the steps below to copy a task from the base project plan of one project to the project plan for your project.

1. Open your project, ≡ Paratext under Paratext select Open.
2. ≡ Tab, under Project select Project Settings, Project plan
3. Click Manage plans
4. From the "Show Base Plan" drop-down, select the project plan that contains the desired task.
5. On the Current Plan side of the dialog, click the row that has the task that should precede the new task.
   • If you want the new task to be the first task in the stage, select the stage name instead.
6. On the Base Plan side of the dialog, hover over the task you want to add and click the solid blue arrow that appears.
   • The task is copied to your project plan and cannot be copied again into this project.
7. Optional: To move the task, click the up arrow or the down arrow that appears when you hover over a task on the Current Plan side of the dialog.
8. Click OK to close the "Manage Plans" dialog.
9. Click OK to close the "Project Plan" dialog.
   • The copied task has the same name and progress rate as it had in the project plan for project ORIG. The short name of the project is added to the plan name.

7.3 Check the settings for a task

1. There are three settings for each task
   • how do you mark the task as complete (once for each chapter, book or project)
   • when can the task begin (anytime, or wait for another task ...)
   • do you need editing permission (if so, which project)
2. ≡ Tab menu, under Project select Project Settings > Project plan
3. Click the task
   • The settings are shown at the bottom right
4. Make any changes as needed.
5. Repeat for any other task.
6. Click OK.

7.4 Priority Groups

Priority groups are a way to let Paratext know the order in which books or chapters will be worked on.

Using preselected set

1. Choose Project settings and go to Define priorities
2. Click Select Priority Definition button
3. Select a set (e.g. SIL Easy to Difficult set)
   • a pre-selected set of books is presented.
4. Click OK

Setting up priorities

1. Click the ≡ Project menu, choose Project settings and go to Define priorities
2. Select the desired books, then click Right arrow button
3. Hover the mouse over the title or the book name in right column
4. Click the three dots, choose Edit
5. Rearrange the books as needed by clicking on a book name and moving it up or down using the arrows buttons.
6. Rename the group (e.g. Gospels).

To set specific chapters,

1. Select a book name link
2. Choose which chapters
3. Click OK
   • If you add a book that already has chapters defined, it will only add the remaining chapters.
4. Change the order of priorities using the up arrow.

Using the priorities

Once priorities have been created, they can be used anywhere you would normally choose books. For instance,

1. Find dialog (Ctrl+F)
   • Click on choose
   • Select the Priority tab.
2. Assignments and Progress (blue button), book selection can be set to a priority.
3. (Project menu ) Export PDF__, click Choose button, then Priority tab.
4. Any window with a filter (e.g. Wordlist, Biblical terms ...)

caution

PTXprint does not accept priorities yet.

You can also define or redefine your priorities if you need to.

7.5 Assign tasks to team members

Tasks can either be assigned individually or in bulk.

Assign tasks individually

1. ≡ Tab, under Project, choose Assignments and Progress
2. For the task to assign, click the dropdown menu and choose the team member to do the task
3. Repeat as necessary
4. Click OK.

Bulk assign tasks

1. Click the Blue Assignments and Progress button
2. Choose Tasks Table
3. Use the verses filter to select books
4. Below the task, click Assign tasks
   • Incomplete chapters can be reassigned but not completed chapters.
   • A warning message will appear with options to overwrite all assignments or only those chapters that have not yet been assigned.

Assign Stage or book

1. Go to the Tasks table
2. Click the Assign stage button (at the top of each stage).
3. Change assignments for certain tasks as needed.

tip

Once you have completed the bulk assignment process, you can fine-tune the assignments in the All Tasks view

7.6 Updating the progress (for a migrated project)

tip

For projects that have already completed a number of stages at the time of switching to Paratext 9 the Tasks table view and/or the Stage table view of Assignments and Progress can help mark multiple books, stages or tasks, as complete.

1. Click on your project.
2. Click the Blue Assignments and Progress button
3. Choose Stages Table
4. Click the ≡ Tab and choose Bulk Progress Mode.
   • Checks are temporarily turned off.
5. Click All stages button
   • All of the stages are approved.

tip

When you finish doing all the approvals, go back and uncheck bulk progress mode.

7.7 Saving a modified plan as a new base plan

Changes you made to your plan will be sent to the members of your project when you send/receive. If you want to share the revised plan with other teams you can save it as a new base plan.

1. Open your project.

2. ≡ Tab, under Project select Project Settings Project plan

3. Hold shift key and click Manage plans

   • The manage plans dialog appears with a save as base plan button at bottom right.

     

4. Click on the Save as a base plan button

   • A dialog box is displayed. The file will be saved to \My Paratext 8 Projects_StandardPlans.

5. Choose as appropriate, then click OK

6. Share the file from \My Paratext 9 Projects_StandardPlans with the other teams.

7.8 Updating a project with a new version of the base plan

Occasionally the base plan upon which that project plan has been built will be modified. There are two ways to update the base plan.

Method 1

1. ≡ Tab, under project
2. Choose Project Settings then Project plan.
   • A warning is displayed that there is a new version of the plan and I can migrate.
3. Click the link Migrate to a new version of the project plan.
4. Choose either:
   • Keep the tasks that are not in the new version
   • Remove all the tasks that are not in the new version
   • Keep tasks that had progress.
5. Click OK
   • Paratext warns that you must do a send/receive,
6. Click OK to clear the message
   • The plan has been updated.

What next?

1. A green message bar at the top gives you three options:
   • Close the message
   • View progress in the previous plan,
   • Undo the base Plan update.
   • Note the version number has been updated.
2. Click OK.

Method 2

1. Click on assignments and progress.
   • If the base plan has been updated, then a message will appear showing that you can update.
2. Click on Update to new version of project plan.
3. Choose to keep or remove the tasks.
   • When you update it will do a send receive.
4. Choose one of the three options in the green message bar at the top:
   • Close the message
   • View progress in the previous plan,
   • Undo the base Plan update.