Project Tools

The Tools button allows you to choose Shift and Sync options that work with tasks, organizations, resources and budgets on a project. These features are also controlled by the various calendars used within the project system.

For more information about calendars, see Calendars Used in Project and Resource Scheduling.

Shift

The shift options allow you to adjust task start and finish dates and bulk adjust resource assignments.

Option	Description
Tasks	The Tasks option displays the Shift Tasks dialog box. This process allows you to shift task start and finish dates forward or backward in time.
Assignments	The Assignments option displays the Shift Assignments dialog box. This process allows you to bulk adjust resource assignments across time periods.

Sync

The sync options allow you to update project schedules for calendar changes, synchronize budgets to project control settings, recalculate estimated and scheduled resource cost and effort, and synchronize budgets to resources.

Note: An indication that budgets are out of sync is when the Project - Earned Value and Budgets tabs are disabled. Once budgets are in sync again, Budget Effort will display but Initial Budget Effort and other history will not appear until the project is processed to a Final state and then re-opened.

Option

Description

Budgets to Resources

The Budgets to Resources option allows you to synchronize the organization budgets for selected tasks with previously calculated resource values. Selecting this option displays the Sync Budgets to Resources dialog box. The dialog provides options to update budget cost, budget effort or both for labor and / or expense budget categories based on estimated or scheduled resource cost and effort. Columns display all current budgets that exist for organizations and the new budget values that will be created by the sync based on resource data.

Any current budgets will be overwritten for organizations selected in the dialog. If resource data is found above the budgeting level or for inactive budget categories it will display as Ineligible Resource Cost or Effort.

Select OK to run the sync.

Dates to Work Calendar

Task start and finish dates on a project as well as resource assignment dates must fall on a working day. Working days are identified based on a Work Calendar assigned to a project and associated exceptions in conjunction with the overall date range encompassed by the Posting Calendar and Scheduling Calendars defined in the system. The Dates to Work Calendar option allows you to update project task and resource schedules within a project to ensure working day compliance. If a Work Calendar is added or changed on a project, a banner message displays with a link to run this option.

The Sync Dates to Work Calendar process may also need to be run if Posting Calendar or Scheduling Calendar updates expand the outer boundaries of the system’s overall calendar date range.

This process examines all existing task start and finish dates and resource assignments and adjusts them to ensure that all dates fall on working days. The following rules apply.

If a task start date becomes a non-working day, it is adjusted forward to the next working day. Task duration will not change as the finish date is also adjusted forward to the next working day.
If a non-working day within a task date range becomes a working day, the task finish date is adjusted backward by one working day. There is no effect on the start date or duration.
If a task finish date becomes a non-working day, it is adjusted forward to the next working day. There is no effect on the start date or duration.
If an assignment is found on a non-working day, it is adjusted forward to the next working day. If an assignment already exists for that day, the values are summed.

Note: If a non-working day becomes a working day, there is no effect on assignments.

Project to Control Settings

The Project to Control Settings option allows you to synchronize the budgets to the variance settings. This process may be run when the Earned Value and Budgets tabs are disabled due to the following actions:

Budget Method is changed.
Variance Level is changed.
Organization Variance Responsibility is changed to One.
Budget Category Variance Responsibility is changed to One and budgets exist.

When you make a change and leave the field, a banner message displays that contains a link to run this option. Alternatively, budgets may be manually adjusted using the Project: Tasks tab Budgets split view.

Resources to Pricing Terms

The Resources to Pricing Terms option allows you to invoke a recalculation of estimated and scheduled resource cost and effort at any time for Project and Project Progress. When the option is selected, cost and effort for all estimated and scheduled assignments on the project are recalculated. This recalculation works on the current plan and updates any associated published assignments.

Note: Assignments saved to baselines are not updated.

The Resources to Pricing Terms option is disabled in the following conditions:

If Project or Project Progress is read-only, checked out to someone else or submitted but not approved
If the Currency value is blank in Project
If Project Progress has been created for a role other than Project Manager or Project Director

The Resources to Pricing Terms option can be selected before the project exists in draft. For example, if a new project is created and has never been saved to draft or a project has been opened from final and not saved to draft yet, the warning message "Must save before resources can be synced to pricing terms” displays.

If the Resources to Pricing Terms option is selected and the project exists in the draft tables, regardless of whether other changes have been made to the project since saving to draft or not, the message displays asking the user to confirm the intent to recalculate.

After the Sync Resources to Pricing Terms process completes, the screen is refreshed, and you are returned to your original tab focus.