By Diego Pino García. NavalPlan is a free software web application for project planning. It is written in Java and licensed under AGPL license. It is one of the main free software alternatives to Ms Project with tha advantages of being web. Main features are: * Multiproject management. It offers a global vision of the company managing several projects sharing resources. * Group resource allocations: dynamic groups based on criteria. * Flexible calendars. * Configurable Gantt chart from Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). * Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) chart. * Overload resource allocation control. * Earned Value Management. * Cost analysis based on work reports. * Integration with other NavalPlan instances and third-parties. * Other features: Materials, quality forms, project templates, planning scenarios, multiple task progress measurement ... Since NavalPlan contains naval references in its name, it is important to stress that it is a general web application useful for any organization/person who wants to plan several projects and resources. NavalPlan was developed in Java using: * ZK as UI framework. * Spring as dependency injection framework. * Hibernate as object relational mapper. * Other frameworks: Jasper Reports, JFreeChart, Maven2, etc.

1. NavalPlan: Open Web Planning
Diego Pino García
dpino@igalia.com
LinuxTag 2011, 12th May

2. NavalPlan: Open Web Plannig
Contents index
Summary:
–
Introduction.
–
General overview.
–
Main features.
–
Technology.
–
Community.
–
Q & A.
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3. NavalPlan: Open Web Planning
What's NavalPlan?
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4. NavalPlan: Open Web Planning
NavalPlan is a project management
tool that helps you to plan, monitor
and control any kind of project
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5. NavalPlan: Open Web Planning
Commissioned by Xunta de Galicia (regional
administration body).
●
Goal: provide the Galician shipyards a tool that could
help them to manage their production processes.
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Scenario: Lots of open projects, interdependency of
resources between projects. What's your status? How
can you make the best of your resources?
●
The solution proposed was NavalPlan, a Gantt planning
tool similar to MS Project, but that also helps you to
monitor and control the status of your company.
●
●
Developers: Igalia & Wireless Galicia.
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6. NavalPlan: Open Web Planning
Two key ideas:
Web: Runs on the browser. Based on
HTML/CSS/Javascript. No plugins required.
●
●
Open: Free Software. AGPL.
In the coming months NavalPlan will be renamed to LibrePlan.
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7. NavalPlan: Open Web Planning
General Overview
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8. Main screens
Divided in 5 main screens:
Company view. Global view with all the scheduled
projects.
●
Project scheduling (Gantt view). Create dependencies,
allocate resources, define progress, etc.
●
Project details (WBS, Work Breakdown Structure).
Create projects, add tasks, decorate tasks with criteria,
labels, progress, etc.
●
Resources load. Graph with load per resource
(underused, fully loaded, overloaded).
●
Advance allocation. Fine-grained allocation for every
task.
●
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9. Navigation menus
Main menu:
•
Scheduling
•
Resources
•
Administration/Management
•
Reports
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10. Navigation menus
Left-side menu:
•
Project scheduling (Gantt)
•
Project details (WBS)
•
Resources load
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11. Company view
Resources load
There's overloading of resources
among projects
View of all scheduled projects
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12. Project Scheduling – Gantt view
Menu:
•
Save
•
Zoom (year, month, week, etc)
•
Critical Path
•
Expand/collapse tasks
•
Filter tasks
•
...
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13. Project Scheduling – Gantt view
Gantt diagram
List of tasks on the left
Dependencies: S-S, E-E, E-S
Constraints: ASAP, No later than, etc
Task, Task groups, Milestones
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14. Project Scheduling – Gantt view
Graphics:
•
Load
•
Earned value
•
Progress
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15. Project Details - Work Breakdown Structure
Menu:
•
Save
•
Filter tasks
•
Tabs: wbs, general data, progress,
criteria, labels, etc
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16. Project Details - Work Breakdown Structure
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WBS tab:
•
Add new tasks
•
Structure in form of tree
•
Tasks can be nested: task elements
and task groups
•
This structure will appear later in the Gantt view

17. Resources Load
Shows load per resource:
•
Green: under 100%
•
Yellow: 100%
•
Red: above 100% (overloaded)
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18. Resources Load
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Resource is overloaded
Allocated to two tasks that happen simultaneously
100% loaded

19. Resources Load
Graph showing total capacity,
assigned load and overloading
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20. Allocate hours to a resource manually or
using a function: plain, polynomic, sigmoid
Zoom level: year, month, week
Advance allocation
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21. NavalPlan: Open Web Planning
Main Features
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22. Main Features
Allocation of resources based on dynamic roles
(criteria).
●
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Powerful management of calendars.
Company view: projects and resources are not
something isolated.
●
●
Resource balancing.
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Monitor and control.
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Integration with third-parties.
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23. Dynamic roles
Roles: a need that a resource satisfies. For instance:
Work category: plumber, programmer; Location: Madrid,
Berlin.
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Roles are dynamic. A person can stay half of the year
in Madrid and the other half in Berlin.
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Tasks can expressed in terms of roles: “To complete this
task I need a plumber and a carpenter”.
●
●
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Generic allocation vs specific allocation
Specific. A specific resource is allocated to a task.
Generic. Resources that satisfy roles are allocated to
a task (1 plumber and 1 painter).
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24. Dynamic roles – Basic use case
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Project:
Task 1: Fix bidet (Needs a plumber)
Task 1.1: Unblock pipes
Task 1.2: Repair handles
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Resource:
Joe (Role: plumber)
Tasks inherit roles from their parents. Task 1 (needs a
plumber) => Task 1.1 and Task 1.2 (needs a plumber).
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Devote 1 resource per day to 'Fix bidet'. As Joe is the only
plumber he will be completely devoted to this task
(resource load 100%).
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25. Powerful management of calendars
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Calendars are highly customizable:
–Derive
calendars (Spain → Galicia).
–Define
number of working hours per day in a week.
–Define
exceptions (public holidays, holidays, etc).
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Resources have calendars. Tasks have calendars.
Calendars play an important role when allocating
resources to a task.
●
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Example:
–Resource
–Allocate
“Peter” has Spain calendar (16-20 May bank holidays).
“Peter” to task “Paint walls”.
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26. Company view
●
A global view of the status of the company
–Resources
–A
are shared among projects.
resource can be overloaded due to another project (external overload).
–Apart
from detecting overload it's possible to know what project is causing
external overload (via 'Resource usage' view).
●
Example:
–A
construction company which builds houses.
–Projects
–Joe
overlap in time.
and Peter are also employees there.
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27. Resource balancing
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NavalPlan is good at spoting overloading of resources.
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Ways to solve overloading:
Manually (assign another resource, shift task so
resource is no longer overloaded).
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Global reassignment:
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Recalculate resource allocations.
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Useful when adding new resources.
Generic allocation: Distributes allocation among all
workers that have less hours.
●
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28. Progress, costs control and integration
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Progress:
–Progress
tracking (percentage, units, subcontracted)
–Progress
graphs (compared different types of progress)
–Deviations
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Control of costs and reports:
–Work
–Cost
●
and delay summary view.
reports: real imputed hours.
associated to worker.
Integration:
–Integration
with third parties via web-services (RESTful API)
–Integration
with other NavalPlan instances.
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29. Technology & Architecture
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3-tier application: UI, Business logic, Persistence.
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UI: ZK 3.6.X & YUI. Plan to migrate to ZK5 CE soon.
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Business logic: Java 1.6/Spring (MVC pattern).
Persistence: Hibernate. PostgreSQL & MySQL
throughly tested.
●
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Web-services layer: Apache CXF.
Other technologies: Jasper Reports, Timeplot,
JfreeChart, Jgraph.
●
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30. Community
Completely developed in the open (wiki, git, mailinglists, bugzilla, etc).
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In the process of establishing an association for
governing the project.
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Association will be initially composed of representatives
of public administration and current developing
companies, but it'll be open to everyone.
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Training courses from user perspective and developing
perspective.
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Some public administration bodies and private
companies are joining.
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31. Community
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Website: www.navalplan.org
SourceForge: www.sourceforge.net/projects/navalplan
(git, mailing-lists)
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Wiki: http://wiki.navalplan.org/
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Bugzilla: http://bugs.navalplan.org
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IRC: freenode/#navalplan (6-8 people)
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Social channels:
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Identi.ca: http://identi.ca/navalplan
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Twitter: www.twitter.com/navalplan
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32. NavalPlan: Open Web Planning
Q&A
Thanks!
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