About Projects

A project is a process for attaining a specified goal or objective. This section describes how to create and work with projects, including working with project concepts, dashboards, and project visibility.

About Project Security

There are various levels of security associated with projects and their WBS tasks that determine who can view project and task information.

Program Central controls security at the project level. When Project Leads create a project, they use the Project Visibility setting to define whether the project should be visible to all employees of their company or only to project members.

The next level of security is Project Membership security. The person who creates the project is the project owner. The project can be owned by only one user. The project owner has all access, including the ability to delete the project and reassign ownership to another user.

The project owner has the ability to assign other project members as leads. Project Leads have the same access as the project owner with two exceptions: a Project Lead cannot change the owner or delete the project.

Project Membership is the next level of security. A user can only see project information if:


  1. they are project member (for projects with Member project visibility)
  2. the project is visible to all
  3. they are assigned to a task (If not Members of the project, they can view the project by searching.)

Projects will only appear on a user' s Project summary page if they are a member of the project. A project with company visibility will not appear on the Project summary page for all users, but all users can see the project in search results.

A task can be assigned to a non-member of the project or to any member of the project. A task assignee has the following access:


  • Task assignees can view their task and the task parent (project).
  • The assignee of the Task can add and remove subtasks. (The assignee may or may not be the owner of the task.)
  • The assignee can create ad-hoc routes on their tasks.
  • The assignee can delegate their assignment to someone else on the project membership or in the
  • The assignee cannot delete the top level task assigned to them.

About Project Scheduling

A project may be scheduled either by estimated or actual dates. For information about this setting for a project, see Setting Project Preferences.

Additionally, when you create a project, you can choose to schedule it based on the start or finish date. For most projects, you know that you will start it on a specific date, and based on the WBS, Program Centralcalculates the finish date.

Some projects may require a specific finish date that cannot slip without serious implications. For example, in the apparel industry, cloths must be available in retail stores on pre-determined dates that cannot be missed without financial implications.

Both methods of scheduling are supported.

About Project Importing

You can import a file from another program when creating a project.

Project Import File Format

When creating a project, you can import the following types of files:


  • Microsoft Excel (saved as tab delimited .txt or comma delimited .csv)
  • Microsoft Project (saved as tab delimited or comma delimited with only the columns)
  • ASCII file (tab or comma delimited)

Minimally, the import file must contain the 8 columns listed below and in the order specified below. If there are no values for some fields, the file must still contain the column. For example, if the tasks have no dependencies defined, there must still be a column for dependency information, even if the entire column is blank. Blank lines are acceptable if they are completely blank. Otherwise, the file is not recognized as valid and the project is not created.


  • Task level. Level number in the task hierarchy. The first column determines the indenture level of the project. The column must contain numeric values in an outline format. (This is the same format used by MS Project to identify the order and hierarchy of project steps). For example, the first seven tasks might have the WBS numbers 1, 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.2, 1.2.1, and 1.2.2. Task 1 consists of two sub-tasks: 1.1 and 1.2. Each of the sub-tasks consists of two more sub-tasks: 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 for the first and 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 for the second.

When modifying an exported project plan, Excel rounds WBS numbers down. For example, 10.20 becomes 10.2. The Project Import wizard tests for this and rejects the import if this has happened.

If the file contains basic project information in the row above the task information, the task level should be 0 for that row.


  • Task name. The name of the task. The name will be truncated to 128 characters.

If the file contains basic project information in the row above the task information, the project name should be entered in the task name column.


  • Task type. Task, Phase, Gate, or Milestone. By default, there is only one task type called "Task". Your system may be set up with additional types and subtypes. For more information, see Task Types.

If the file contains basic project information in the row above the task information, the task type cell should be empty for that row.


  • Estimated duration. The import supports the following duration units of measure: hr, hrs, day, days, wk, wks.
  • Estimated start date. Must be in the format mm/dd/yy.
  • Estimated finish date. Must be in the format mm/dd/yy.

During import, you can choose to omit the dates, however, the file must specify the dates.


  • Dependencies. Slip days must be in integers and not real. Any decimals will be truncated. You can enter more than one task separated by commas. If the file is comma delimited, enclose this column in quotes. See About Task Dependencies for details on the syntax. When entering the ID number in the dependency, the ID numbers start with the first task. So if your file contains headers and then project information, the third row would have ID 1.
  • Username of assignee. Must be valid usernames. If you enter more than one assignee, separate them with commas. If the file is comma delimited, enclose this column in quotes.

Optionally, the import file can contain the following information:


  • Column headers in the first row. The headings will not be imported and therefore can contain any labels (for example, either Estimated Finish or Finish is okay).
  • Basic project information in the row above the task information. The basic project information includes:
  • Project name. Enter in the task name column.
  • Estimated duration for project. Enter in the estimated duration column.
  • Estimated start and finish dates. Enter in the corresponding columns for the task finish and start dates.

The type, dependency, and resource name cells should be empty for the project information row.

The following graphic shows an example of a correctly-formatted import file.

All imported WBS tasks have the following attributes, which can be edited in the WBS as needed:


  • The state is Create.
  • The owner is the person who imports the file.
  • The task required field is Optional.

The file will not be imported if it contains any of the following errors:


  • Invalid file format.
  • The WBS column is not numeric.
  • The Type column does not contain a valid task type or does not follow the type hierarchy.
  • The start and end date columns contain invalid date formats.
  • The duration column is not numeric.
  • The dependency column is not enclosed in quotes.All dependency numbers must refer to a valid task ID.
  • The resource list contains invalid user names.

Task Types

By default, Program Central ships with these task types:


  • Task
  • Phase
  • Gate
  • Milestone

Your system may be configured with additional task types and subtypes. The project import process verifies that the task type entered for each task is valid. The default policy for the task type is used when the task is created.

When importing a project from an ASCII file, only the ENOVIA defined task types (Task, Phase, Gate, Milestone) can be used. The ASCII import does not currently recognize additional task types.

When building a project in the Edit WBS page, the options you see for the task type depend on the task hierarchy structure created for your system. For example, consider the following two examples of task hierarchies:

If you create a task under the project node with Structure 1, the task types you have available include Task and Phase. If you create a child of Phase, SubPhase1 and SubPhase?2 appear. If, however, you create a child of SubPhase 2, which does not have any children, the system lets you select from a list of SubPhase 3 and any of its siblings that also include SubPhase 1.

If you created a task under the project node with Structure 2, the task types available include Task, SubTask1, Phase, SubPhase1, SubPhase 1.1 and SubPhase 2. When you create a child of any of these tasks, since they do not have children, the parent and all its siblings are displayed.

Microsoft Project

If you are importing a project from Microsoft Project, you must first export it from within Microsoft Project and map the correct fields, as described in Exporting from Microsoft Project. Before saving the file, make sure the fields are in the correct order and format as described in Project Import File Format.

For instructions on exporting a project from within Microsoft Project, see Exporting from Microsoft Project.