The Project Planning area allows you to store planned hours at project, task, and ticket level and compares them with the hours actually recorded. In addition, time recording can be configured so that bookings beyond the planned hours trigger a warning or are prevented entirely.
Product line availability
Note: Project Planning is included in ZEP Control, ZEP Operations, and ZEP Business.
Permissions
Work with the area is structured by role:
Administrators: Configure the global plan settings (plan-hours display, defaults, planned/actual comparison).
Project managers with budget responsibility: Store planned hours per project, task and employee, check planned vs. actual and adjust the planning during the project.
Controllers: See planned/actual reports across all projects, in ZEP Control, ZEP Operations, and ZEP Business including cost and revenue context.
Employees: See their planned hours per project directly in the time recording and in the personal dashboard. Who additionally sees the entire project plan including planned hours and planned amounts is set under Administration > My Company > Roles & Permissions with the permission Planning data in the Projects area. With Resource Planning, the permission is called Plan Data & Resource Planning.
Additional menu items
The area makes the following additional fields, tabs, and reports available:
Project > Data
In the project, the Plan block appears in the Data tab with the field Planned hours for the entire project and the display of the actual hours recorded so far. Overbooking prevention and a daily hour limit can optionally be enabled.
Project > Task
Separate planned hours can be stored per task within a project. The sum of task-level planned hours can be cross-checked against the project planned hours but is configured independently.
Tickets and subtasks
When the ticket module is active, planned hours can also be entered per ticket and subtask. Ticket planned hours serve as a fine-grained extension of task or project planning.
Administration > Projects > Settings
Under Administration > Projects > Settings, additional fields appear: three percentage warning thresholds for the escalation email to project managers and the display of planned and actual hours during time recording. The warning thresholds apply as the default for all projects, and individual projects can deviate from them.
Additional reports
Under Reports > Projects > Project State, the area adds two reports:
Project State Plan: planned/actual comparison per project, grouped by department, employees, activity, or task
Overall State Plan: aggregate planned/actual comparison across multiple projects
Both reports are available to everyone whose role has the permission Time & Costs under Reports in the Projects area under Administration > My Company > Roles & Permissions. Project State Plan is also directly accessible from the project detail page, Overall State Plan also from the customer detail page.
Distinction from other modules
Note: With the Resource Planning module, the actual personnel deployment per employee and time period can be planned via work packages and deployment plans — as an extension of the plan hours at project and task level. With the Proposals module, plan hours can be transferred directly from an accepted proposal into the project.