Introduction

In HORIZON PPM the definition of Actions are unscheduled or low-level detailed tasks required to support the project plan, (whereas Scheduled Activities are the components added to the project plan). 


Examples Actions listed for the example Oracle Financials Migration project include getting permission for a Pen Test; ensuring stakeholders are engaged; and determining a Go Live plan.


The definition is left open for you, your PMO and your stakeholder group to decide if something should be tracked as a planned item or an ad hoc Action.


Accessing Actions

Actions can be accessed from 4 locations in HORIZON PPM ...


Portfolio Actions

A consolidated view of all Actions across the portfolio is available on the Portfolio Home. The table displays all open actions across all active projects within the portfolio. The dashboard widgets displaying counts of "Open Actions", "Overdue Actions" and "My Actions" are clickable and filter the table below.

Filters on this table can further change the views or be used to reset to the defaults.


Project Home Counter

A count of the open actions is also displayed on the Project Home. Clicking this widget redirects the user to the Actions Dashoard.


Actionable Intelligence

The 4-dimension Actionable Intelligence also on the Project Home is one of the smart features of Horizon PPM helping project teams to not only understand and focus on the important and urgent, but also get a view of scale and complexity in the same view.


Note: To save space the AI Map is a hidden by default. Click anywhere on the title bar to show/hide the details.


Actions are identified on the AI Map by the initials "Ac". [A single A indicates an Assumption].

Hovering the mouse cursor over an item on the AI Map displays a summary tooltip.


Clicking on the item on the AI Map opens the editor displaying all the action details.

See Project Priorities for more details on Actionable Intelligence.


Navigation

Actions are also accessible from the left-hand side navigation bar...


The Actions Dashboard

The Actions Dashboard provides a table of all actions related to a project - complete and incomplete - along with an overall pie chart displaying the number of open actions - highlighting those that have a target date in the past or don't have a target date set.

The example in this screen shot shows that 3 of the 6 actions have dates in the future, 2 don't have a target date set, and the target date for 1 action has already passed.


This page has three tabs allowing a user to toggle between Actions, Priorities Map and Priorities Table

See the Project Priorities help page for more information.


Viewing/Managing an Action

Select any action to enter the editor... 


Selecting an action opens a form which can be updated...

These form fields are...

  • Status. HORIZON PPM provides the following options to track the overall status of an objective... 
    • Open
    • On Hold
    • Closed - Complete
    • Closed - Cancelled

Note: All new actions have a default status of Open.

  • RAG Status. HORIZON PPM also provides the Red/Amber/Green (RAG) traffic light (with an additional blue representing complete or cancelled) to indicate the health of an action.
  • Action. The title of the action.
  • Date Raised. The date the action was first raised. (Sometimes actions are not recorded retrospectively. The history  log also tracks the immutable date the action is created).
  • Raised By. Tracking the person that asked for the action to be raised - potentially on behalf of someone else. 
  • Assigned To. The owner of the action responsible for its progression and completion..
  • AI Scores: These scores appear in the Project Priorities views that provide clarity to project teams in their prioritisation of the work.
    • Urgency. An indication of the urgency associated with completing the action. This is a time based metric.
    • Scale. An indication of the scale and effort involved in completing the action.
    • Impact. The material impact of completing the action - typically in support of the project business case. 
    • Complexity. An indication of the relative ease or complexity involved in delivering the action. 

Note: All are scored from Very Low to Very High. The default for all AI Scores is Medium.

  • Target Date. The target date for completing the action.
  • Comments. Comments relating to the status/plans of the action.
  • Tags. An optional field to add tags to an action. To add a tag type the word or words and press the return key (this may be a go button or similar in the virtual keyboard on a mobile device). The system then highlights the new tag in blue but doesn't submit the form allowing additional tags to be added.

Note: Tags are a powerful feature allowing easy identification and access to common items across the projects and portfolios. See the Tag Search page for more details.

  • Closed Date. The date/time this action was closed.
  • Last Updated. An automatically updated field displaying the last date/time this action was updated


Adding a new Action

To add a new action select the Add button at the top right of the table.

Adding a new action opens the same form as described in Viewing/Managing an Action. See above for details.

Once the form is submitted and the new action is created and the user will be redirected back to the Actions Dashboard with the table refreshed to display the new action.


Deleting an Action

To delete an action enter the specific action (see Viewing/Managing an Action above) and then select the Delete button at the bottom left of the form.

HOIZON PPM will prompt for confirmation of the deletion before proceeding.


Once the user confirms the deletion by selecting OK to proceed HORIZON PPM will provide confirmation of the action then return the user to the Actions Dashboard.