Planning – Delivery Program / Operational Plan – Actions

Overview

Actions are the lower level implementation plans. They define the WHAT, WHO, WHEN the strategies in the Strategic Plan will be implemented and HOW MUCH it will cost.

What needs to be done to implement the strategy?
Who will be responsible for completion?
When will the Action be completed?
How much will it cost?

Actions are carried out at the Business Unit level.

Note: Once your Business Plan has been finalised, Business Rules that are already defined will determine under what circumstances the plan may be changed.

Go to Menu > Planning > Planning > Delivery Program / Operational Plan > Action to move to the Action area.
The initial view of the Actions form displays Actions associated with ‘ALL’ strategies. In order to add a new action, you must first select an appropriate strategy from the drop-down list.

Click on the ‘NEW’ icon in order to view the ‘DETAILS’ page of the Action.

At the top left-hand corner, you will see a drop-down list displaying your current business unit. When you are logged in, the business unit your Administrator has linked you to from the Framework area is set as the default unit. If you want to access another business unit you can select it from the drop-down list.

Note: You can select a specific strategy to restrict the visible Actions only to those that belong to that Strategy and/or to add a new Action to that strategy. You can also tick the ‘Hide Completed’ checkbox to focus your attention on the pending and/or ongoing actions in your unit.

Action Details

STEP 1: Go to Menu > Planning > Planning > Delivery Program / Operational Plan > Action or select Action from the side toolbar.
STEP 2: To insert a new Action, first select a Strategy from the drop-down list and then click on 'New' icon.

STEP 3: The following information should be specified in the 'Details' tab.

Field	Description/Instruction	Mandatory/Optional
Action	WHAT – Clearly describes the Action title. As an Action is a ‘doing thing’, the title should contain a verb to indicate what needs to be done.	Mandatory
Action Description	Specify a detailed description of an action	Optional
Department	The default setting is set to the current Department you are in although you may select a different one.	Mandatory
Services	Allows to select Services. Only the services delivered by the selected Department will be displayed.	Mandatory
Responsible Officer	WHO – Allows to select from the predefined ‘STAFF’ records in the drop-down list. The person selected here will be the one that is responsible for ensuring that the required Action is undertaken. He or she will also be required to update progress on the action. Note: If a responsible person is inactive, an inactive suffix will appear next to the staff name.	Mandatory
Related Issue (SWOT)	Allows you to associate the Action with an issue you identified when conducting the SWOT analysis for the relevant Business Unit.	Optional
Agency	Allows you to associate an external stakeholder with this Action – these entities are defined by your System Administrator within the Framework area. You can now link an Action to multiple Agencies. Please contact CAMMS Helpdesk to have this feature enabled for your environment.	Optional
Tag	Allows you to add tags to the action. Tags must be configured from the ‘Tag Configuration’ area (Strategy Navigation> Administration> Configuration> Tag Configuration) by the administrator in order to add tags here. Note: ‘Enable tags to Actions, Tasks and KPIs’ setting should be enabled to view tags here.	Optional
Start Date/End Date	WHEN – Allows to enter realistic dates in the format DD/MM/YY. Default setting of Start Date is set to the date that you are creating the Action on and the Default setting of End Date is set to the last day of the financial year. Entering unrealistic dates may set you up for failure!	Mandatory
Revised Start Date/End Date	These are optional custom fields, giving the user the ability to track any changes to the start and completion dates of actions. For example, if an action is ahead of schedule or behind schedule, you can revise these dates while still keeping the original dates. Contact CAMMS if you wish to have these fields enabled. Note: these fields can also be customised to be locked down as 'baseline dates'. Please contact CAMMS if you would like to use these as baselines as opposed to revised dates.	Optional
Budget Type	Allows to select a budget type. Reports such as the business plan report and corporate plan report can then summarise organisational financials based on budget type. The budget types available can be determined by your organisation. The default budget types are Income, Capital, Recurrent, Asset Sale, Internal Cost Allocation, Funded Reserves and Recurrent ‘One Off” items.	Mandatory

STEP 4: Select the 'Resolution' checkbox and enter a reference if the Action has come about because of a specific Resolution.

Notes:

The Confidential checkbox will only be displayed if this functionality is activated by your System Administrator through the Administration > System Settings area.
Checking this box will make the Action only visible to the Reporting and Responsible Officers, System Administrators or users with the role “Confidential”.

The remaining checkboxes you see at the bottom of the page have been defined by your organisation at the Scoping Day along with the list of Budget types. It is possible to have up to 10 different checkboxes. They provide the ability to filter Actions for various reports.

Your administrator can also create additional custom fields for this screen via the Configuration area so your view may not be the same as depicted.

STEP 5: Click 'Save' to save details. Once saved, the remaining tabs will become active.

Note: You can change the ID of this item by using the ‘Move to’ dropdown which effectively repositions it within the hierarchy. ID numbers are automatically adjusted.

Progress

The Progress tab allows Completion Targets to be entered against the periods shown. You can also update Action progress via this page but the Quick Update method is recommended as it is far more effective.

Note: The number of periods displayed here will have been determined as per your organisation’s reporting cycle at your Scoping Day. These are most commonly set to monthly or quarterly.

STEP 1: Enter an explanatory comment about the progress of the item.
STEP 2: To view previously entered comments and changes made, click the HISTORY icon.
STEP 3: In order to track progress, choose a Status Description and enter a Percent Complete. If the Action has already started, update the status as ‘In progress’ and enter a Percent Complete.

Notes:

Setting the Status as ‘Not started’ or 'Ongoing' will automatically set the percent complete to 0%.
Setting the Status as ‘Complete’ will automatically set the percent complete to 100%. When the status is set to complete, completed date field will be enabled allowing you to enter the actual date of completion. This may be mandatory or optional depending on the configurations done by your Administrator
You will not be able to modify the Percent Complete for ‘Not started’, ‘Ongoing’ or ‘Completed’ Statuses. However, an ‘IN PROGRESS’ or ‘DEFERRED’ status will show an editable Percent Complete field. This field may have a number added between 0 and 100 only.

Where the Action has Tasks, the individual Task progress comments can be appended to the overall Action progress comments by clicking the 'Append Task Comments' button.

STEP 4: To specify targets, click the Edit button on the right of the Target grid.
STEP 5: Select the 'Reporting Year' and specify the targets.

Note: Note how the reporting year selection only provides options for those years which fall within the range of the Action’s start and end dates.

STEP 3: Then click the 'Update' button.

Notes:

Targets are cumulative. When entering individual period targets, you need to enter them as a cumulative value. All targets put in are what you would expect the total % complete to be at the end of that specific period.
Having entered a one hundred percent target for a particular period, you should make sure to enter one hundred percent for any other period that follows. This will prevent the system from comparing a zero target against a one hundred percent completion status and from displaying incorrect information in progress reports.
You must enter targets so that the Action can have a performance determined on the My Performance page gauges and throughout various progress reports. If the Action does not have any targets, a performance cannot be calculated and the Action will not have an impact on the My Performance page gauges.

STEP 4: Click 'Save' to save the information added.

Risk

The Progress tab allows Completion Targets to be entered against the periods shown. You can also update Action progress via this page but the Quick Update method is recommended as it is far more effective.

Note: The number of periods displayed here will have been determined as per your organisation’s reporting cycle at your Scoping Day. These are most commonly set to monthly or quarterly.

STEP 1: Enter an explanatory comment about the progress of the item.
STEP 2: To view previously entered comments and changes made, click the HISTORY icon.
STEP 3: In order to track progress, choose a Status Description and enter a value for the Percent Complete field. If the Action has already started, update the status as ‘In progress’ and enter a value for the Percent Complete field.

Notes:

Setting the status as ‘Not started’ or 'Ongoing' will automatically set the percentage to 0%.
Setting the status as ‘Complete’ will automatically set the percentage complete to 100%. When the status is set to complete, completed date field will be enabled allowing you to enter the actual date of completion. This may be mandatory or optional depending on the configurations done by your Administrator
You will not be able to modify the Percent Complete for ‘Not started’, ‘Ongoing’ or ‘Completed’ Statuses. However, an ‘IN PROGRESS’ or ‘DEFERRED’ status will show an editable Percent Complete field. This field may have a number added between 0 and 100 only.

If the Action has Tasks, the individual Task progress comments can be appended to the overall Action progress comments by clicking the 'Append Task Comments' button.

STEP 4: To specify targets, click the EDIT button situated on the right of the Target grid.
STEP 5: Select the 'Reporting Year' and specify the targets.

Note: Note how the reporting year selection only provides options for those years which fall within the range of the Action’s start and end dates.

STEP 3: Then click the 'Update' button.

Notes:

Targets are cumulative. When entering individual period targets, you need to enter them as a cumulative value. All targets put in are what you would expect the total percent complete to be at the end of the specific period.
Having entered a one hundred percent target for a particular period make sure you enter one hundred percent for any period that follows. This will prevent the system from comparing a zero target against a one hundred percent completion status and from displaying incorrect information in progress reports.
You must enter targets so that the Action can have a performance determined on the gauges in the My Performance page, and throughout various progress reports. If the Action does not have any targets, a performance cannot be calculated and the Action will not have an impact on gauges in the My Performance page.

STEP 4: Click 'Save' to save details.

Related Plans

Related plans are any internal and external plans normally found in an organisation such as the Human Resources Plan, Occupational Health and Safety Plan, Risk Management Plan and others.

Your system administrator manages this list of plans via the Framework > Related Plans area.

STEP 1: To link an action with a Related or Specialist Plan, click the 'Related Plans' tab.
STEP 2: Tick one or more of the predefined ‘Related Plans’.

This will associate the current record with the plan.

You can view the associated document or hyperlink from this page as well. A new window will open if you click the underlined text.

Any Actions linked to a Related Plan will appear when you run an Actions by Related Plan Report.

STEP 3: Click 'Save' to save details.

Budget

STEP 1: To associate specific income and expenditure details with an action, click the Budgets tab.

This gives us the ‘HOW MUCH’ it will cost information for the Action.

Notes:

If your organisation has opted to integrate with an external finance system, you will not be able to edit the budget or actual values on this page. The information displayed will have been sourced from your financial software.
Number of decimal places to be shown can be configured from the ‘Limit Decimal Places in Budget’ setting.

STEP 2: To enter a budget, select the applicable year.

The default year shown will be the first year for that particular action and is linked to the action start and end dates you selected in the Details tab. In other words, only years inside the action date range you selected will be shown here.

STEP 3: Enter the budget values in the relevant columns.

As you enter budget information in the relevant columns keep in mind that income figures should be entered as a negative value.

STEP 4: Click 'Add' to save the entry.

Notes:

Use the Edit or Delete buttons to edit or delete a saved record.
A spell check button is also available at the top right corner.

Where the action is externally funded, you can enter the incoming funds on a per agency basis by clicking on the ‘Show Sources’ button.

STEP 5: Select the relevant reporting year and agency from the drop-down list.

STEP 6: Specify the amount and click the 'Add' button.
STEP 7: Click 'Save' button to save details.

Notes:

Multiple agencies can be added with corresponding values.
If no Agencies are available for selection, ensure your system administrator has added them via the Framework > Agencies area.

Budget information entered here manually is not available via EIS and through most of the system reports. A few exceptions to this are the Annual Business Plan Report and The Action and Task Progress Report.

Documents

This tab allows you to link single or multiple documents to the specific action. Also, you can add URL link through this page. If you are using the document management system, you would be able to add the trim links using this tab.

To add documents to the action:

STEP 1: Click on the 'Select' button to browse through and select the document. Provide a description for the document, in the space given.

STEP 2: Click on the 'Add' button, and you would be able to select the next document. You can follow the same process to add multiple documents if necessary.
STEP 3: After you have selected the document/documents, click on the 'Upload' button to upload the documents under the relevant action.

Note: You can use the 'Remove' button to delete any document which is no longer required.

To add a URL to the action:

STEP 1: Define a title for the URL link which you are adding to the action.
STEP 2: Include the URL path against the 'Other Link' field and type the description according to your requirement.
STEP 3: You can add the URL to the action by clicking on the 'Add' button.

Note: If you are using a Document Management System you will have the option of adding a 'DMS reference' under this tab.

Task Planning

Overview

Tasks are the steps or milestones within an Action or project to add detail and rigor and allocation of appropriate resources

What are the key milestones or steps to achieve the project or Action?
Who will be responsible for completion?
When will the task be completed?

Task planning is carried out at the Business Unit level

Strategy is the “Plan of Attack” to ensure successful achievement of your Service Plan
Action is something that an individual person can do
A Task is a step or milestone to implement the Action

To complete a full Business Plan, tasks should be defined for:

Implementation of Service strategies and Actions
Addressing internal critical issues that may have been identified through a SWOT
Carrying out the day to day operations of the Business Unit

Tasks can be accessed through the relevant parent Action. Go to Planning > Corporate Business Planning > Actions and click on the action which you would like to view or enter tasks for.

Now click on the Tasks tab. Any available tasks will be displayed here according to the order in which they were created.

Task Creation

STEP 1: Click on the 'Tasks' tab.

Business Rules

The Start and End date of the Task must be within the Action Start and End date or the system will not allow you to save the record.
The Responsible Officer is automatically set to the person logged in by default. For example, if you have logged in as Sally Johns, the responsible officer of the new task will automatically set to Sally Johns.

STEP 2: To add a new task, you must fill in the mandatory fields which include Task Name, Responsible Officer, Status, Percent Complete, and a Start and End date and click the 'Add' button. Make sure the Start and End date of the Task is within the Action Start and End date or the system will not allow you to save the record.

Note: The Responsible Officer is automatically set to the person logged in by default. For example, if you have logged in as Sally Johns, the responsible officer of the new task will automatically set to Sally Johns.

Notes:

Setting the Status as ‘Not started’ or 'Ongoing' will automatically set the percentage to 0%.
Setting the Status as ‘Complete’ will automatically set the percentage complete to 100%. When the status is set to complete, completed date field will be enabled allowing you to enter the actual date of completion. This may be mandatory/optional depending on the configurations done by your Administrator
You will not be able to modify the Percent Complete for ‘Not started’, ‘Ongoing’ or ‘Completed’ Statuses. However, an ‘IN PROGRESS’ or ‘DEFERRED’ status will show a % complete that is editable. This field may have a number added between 0 and 100 only.

STEP 3: When there is more than one task under an action, you can assign weightings to the tasks to determine the calculation for action completion. This allows the task % complete to automatically calculate the Action % complete, based on the weightings. The total Task weighting of one Action must add up to 100.

To include task weightings, click the task weighting link.

Note: Task Weightings is not activated by default. However, please contact CAMMS if you would like to use this feature.

When Tasks have weightings, then the action % complete (which the tasks lie underneath) is calculated based on that particular task’s weighting and the task % complete. Therefore, the action % complete is non-editable as it is an automatic calculation.

However, if a user decides not to add task weightings (Then the weightings on all tasks within the action = 0), then the action status and % complete will be editable.

Hence, if a user adds weightings to tasks, the action progress status and percentage complete is greyed out. So it becomes dependent on task progress updates. If a user chooses not to add weightings to tasks (all tasks = 0 within the action), the action status and percentage complete can be updated at action level in the usual way i.e. not greyed out.

STEP 4: A popup window will be displayed and you can specify the weighting and click Save.

STEP 5: Click on the plus sign adjacent to the main task to add subtasks up to the level determined by your administrator (This can vary from a minimum of two to a maximum of ten).

Notes:

Standard system reports such as the Action and Task Progress report can only display up to a maximum of 5 subtask levels even if you have entered data for up to 10.
If you require reports to display more levels, please contact CAMMS Helpdesk for a quotation on custom report design.

You can view a graphical representation of Tasks under an Action and their duration by switching to the Gantt Chart View.

Task Details

You may add more details to the task by clicking on the corresponding task title from the Task Grid View.

Enter the following details and click Save.

Field	Description/Instruction	Mandatory/Optional
Action	Denotes the action the task has been created for - you can use this drop-down list to move this task to another action if needed. The Action's start and end dates along with current status is displayed beneath for reference.	-
Start Date	Start date of the task
Task Ref*	Free optional add-on. Contact CAMMS Helpdesk to have this activated. This functionality enables a new entry field to be visible within this page titled “Task Ref” for inputting either a numeric or alphanumeric code as determined by your organisation.	Optional when activated
Task	Denotes the task title	Mandatory
Responsible Officer	Displays the staff member who is responsible for carrying out this task Note: If a Staff in inactive, an 'Inactive' suffix will appear next to Staff name.	Mandatory
Tag	Allows you to add tags to the Task. Tags must be configured from the ‘Tag Configuration’ area (Strategy Navigation> Administration> Configuration> Tag Configuration) by the administrator in order to add tags here. Note: ‘Enable tags to Actions, Tasks and KPIs’ setting should be enabled to view tags here.	Optional
Start Date/End Date	Start Date and end date of the task.	Mandatory
Revised Start Date/End Date	Allows you to define the revised start/end date.	Optional
Completion Date	Actual date the task has been completed. Your Administrator can make Task completion date mandatory/optional via Planning settings> Make Task Completion Date Mandatory	Optional (However, this becomes mandatory when you complete the task)
Duration	Allows to enter the duration of the task (in days), calculated based on the start/end date.	Optional
Progress Comment	Allows to specify a progress comment.	Optional
Status	Allows to define the status of the task	Mandatory
Percent Complete	Allows to specify a task completed percentage	Optional
Project Status	Displays the status of the project
Milestone Comment	Allows to specify a milestone comment.	Optional

Task Ordering

The following rules apply to the task sorting within the task grid.

Tasks are ordered in the following order:

Task Start Date (Ascending), then
Ordered by Task Title (Alphabetical)

Note: If the action is linked to a Camms.Project® Project, and that particular project already has tasks, then the tasks will appear in the order as they appear within the task planning object/schedule within cammsproject®.

This ordering applies to all sub-tasks as well.

Related Plans

Related plans are any internal and external plans normally found in an organisation such as the Human Resources Plan, Occupational Health and Safety Plan, Risk Management Plan and others.

You can link a task with an existing plan in the same way you linked an action with them.

Links

You can link tasks to existing projects or use them to create new projects in the same way as for actions.

Task Document

You can add documents and URL to the relevant task through the Documents tab. This tab functions similar to the Documents tab under Actions. Please refer to the Action documents in order to understand how the options can be used to add documents and URLs to the tasks.

Action Grouping

Action grouping is a tree type hierarchy of groups that provides you with greater flexibility for grouping of actions according to different categories or hierarchies.

Your System Administrator manages these groupings via the Framework > Action Grouping area.

STEP 1: To allocate an action to a group, click the 'Action Grouping' tab.

STEP 2: You can expand the action grouping tree which is on the left side of the action grouping tab and Select the Action Group that needs to be linked to this action by ticking the checkbox. Multiple selections can be made.
If you want to associate this Action with another Action Group, remember to save the current selection before you navigate to the next.
Any Actions linked to Action Groupings will appear when you run an Action Groupings Report for a particular grouping.
STEP 3: Click the Save button to save details.

The following rules will apply to access within the Action Grouping and Action areas:

Action Groupings can only be added, edited and deleted by the Strategic Planner or Administrator
Linkages to Action Grouping can be made either by the Action’s Responsible Person, Business Unit Manager, Business Planner, Strategic Planner or Administrator
Actions can be linked at all levels of the Action Grouping tree except at the topmost level (i.e.; there is no linkage tick box for ‘Performance Excellence’ above)
Actions can be linked to one or many Action Groups

Links

You can link actions to;

Custom Hierarchies (Contact CAMMS if you wish to have this functionality enabled)
Existing projects or new projects

Other 'links' which will be identified if or when trying to delete actions, which are not shown within the links tab are:

Action Filter - Action Details Tick boxes
Action Groupings - Action Groupings tab

See 'Deleting' for more information.

Linking Custom Hierarchy Nodes

STEP 1: Click Add and a new popup window will open, from which you can select a hierarchy.
STEP 2: Select the hierarchy you want to link the action to from the Hierarchy drop-down list. The hierarchy will be populated below the drop-down list. You may need to expand the hierarchy up to the node that you wish to link.
STEP 3: Click on the hierarchy node that you wish to link and click Select. The hierarchy link will be displayed in the list.

Note: An Action can only be linked to the lowest level of the hierarchy. Hierarchy levels are defined by your Administrator within Custom Hierarchies > Hierarchy Configuration.

Linking a new project within the Integration Project Manager (Camms.Project®)

STEP 1: Click the ‘New Project’ button to link the selected action to project.
STEP 2: Specify the following to create a new project.

Field	Description/Instruction	Mandatory/Optional
Project Ref	Displays the project code	Mandatory
Project Title	Displays the title of the project. This can be modified.	Mandatory
Short Title	Displays the short title of the project	Mandatory
Description	Displays the project description	-
Project Type	Allows to select the project type from the drop-down list. The project types defined in Project Management are listed here.	Mandatory

Linking an existing project

STEP 1: Click the ‘Existing Project’ button to link the selected action to an existing project.
STEP 2: Select the ‘Project’ from the drop-down list. The projects that are created within Project Management will be listed.

Note: Only Projects which have the 'Planning link' object within the Project workflow will be shown within the drop-down list of available projects to choose from.

Once you save the information, selected action will be linked to a project.

Business Rule

Once an action is linked to Projects, Planning and Projects areas will be synchronised. The changes that have been made either in Project or in Action will be updated accordingly. This rule is applicable only for a few fields.