Chapter 8. The Example: Accounting Software


/*
 * This file contains an example project. It is part of the
 * TaskJuggler project management tool. It uses a made up software
 * development project to demonstrate some of the basic features of
 * TaskJuggler. Please see the TaskJuggler manual for a more detailed
 * description of the various syntax elements.
 */
project acso "Accounting Software" "1.0" 2002-01-16 - 2002-04-28 {
  # Pick a day during the project that will be reported as 'today' in
  # the project reports. If not specified, the current day will be
  # used, but this will likely be outside of the project range, so it
  # can't be seen in the reports.
  now 2002-03-05-13:00
  # Hide the clock time. Only show the date.
  timeformat "%Y-%m-%d"
  # The currency for all money values is the Euro.
  currency "EUR"

  # We want to compare the baseline scenario to one with a slightly
  # delayed start.
  scenario plan "Plan" {
    # Mark all paths as critical that have less than 10% slack time.
    minslackrate 10.0
    scenario delayed "Delayed"
  }
}

# This is not a real copyright for this file. It's just used as an example.
copyright "© 2002 Crappy Software, Inc."

# The daily default rate of all resources. This can be overridden for each
# resource. We specify this, so that we can do a good calculation of
# the costs of the project.
rate 310.0

# Register Good Friday as a global holiday for all resources.
vacation "Good Friday" 2002-03-29

# This is one way to form teams
macro allocate_developers [
  allocate dev1
  allocate dev2 { limits { dailymax 4h } }
  allocate dev3
]

flags team

resource dev "Developers" {
  resource dev1 "Paul Smith" { rate 330.0 }
  resource dev2 "Sébastien Bono"
  resource dev3 "Klaus Müller" { vacation 2002-02-01 - 2002-02-05 }

  flags team
}
resource misc "The Others" {
  resource test "Peter Murphy" { limits { dailymax 6.4h } rate 240.0 }
  resource doc "Dim Sung" { rate 280.0 vacation 2002-03-11 - 2002-03-16 }

  flags team
}

# In order to do a simple profit and loss analysis of the project we
# specify accounts. One for the development costs, one for the
# documentation costs, and one account to credit the customer payments
# to.
account dev "Development" cost
account doc "Documentation" cost
account rev "Payments" revenue

# Now we specify the work packages. The whole project is described as
# a task that contains subtasks. These subtasks are then broken down
# into smaller tasks and so on. The innermost tasks describe the real
# work and have resources allocated to them. Many attributes of tasks
# are inherited from the enclosing task. This saves you a lot of typing.
task AcSo "Accounting Software" {

  # All work-related costs will be booked to this account unless the
  # subtasks specify something different.
  account dev

  task spec "Specification" {
    # The effort to finish this task is 20 man-days.
    effort 20d
    # Now we use the macro declared above to allocate the resources
    # for this task. Because they can work in parallel, they may finish this
    # task earlier than in 20 working-days.
    ${allocate_developers}
    # Each task without subtasks must have a start or an end
    # criterion and a duration. For this task we use a reference to a
    # milestone defined further below as the start criterion. So this task
    # can not start before the specified milestone has been reached.
    # References to other tasks may be relative. Each exclamation mark (!)
    # means 'in the scope of the enclosing task'. To descent into a task, the
    # fullstop (.) together with the id of the tasks have to be specified.
    depends !deliveries.start
  }

  task software "Software Development" {

    # The software is the most critical task of the project. So we set
    # the priority of this task (and all its subtasks) to 1000, the top
    # priority. The higher the priority, the more likely the task will
    # get the requested resources.
    priority 1000

    # All subtasks depend on the specification task.
    depends !spec

    task database "Database coupling" {
      effort 20d
      allocate dev1, dev2
    }

    task gui "Graphical User Interface" {
      effort 35d
      # This task has taken 5 man-days more than originally planned.
      # We record this as well, so that we can generate reports that
      # compare the delayed schedule of the project to the original plan.
      delayed:effort 40d
      depends !database, !backend
      allocate dev2, dev3
    }

    task backend "Back-End Functions" {
      effort 30d
      # This task is behind schedule, because it should have been
      # finished already. To document this, we specify that the task
      # is 95% completed. If nothing is specified, TaskJuggler assumes
      # that the task is on schedule and computes the completion rate
      # according to the current day and the plan data.
      complete 95
      depends !database
      allocate dev1, dev2
    }
  }

  task test "Software testing" {

    task alpha "Alpha Test" {
      # Efforts can not only be specified as man-days, but also as
      # man-weeks, man-hours, etc. By default, TaskJuggler assumes
      # that a man-week is 5 man-days or 40 man-hours. These values
      # can be changed, of course.
      effort 1w
      # This task depends on a task in the scope of the enclosing
      # task's enclosing task. So we need two exclamation marks (!!)
      # to get there.
      depends !!software
      allocate test, dev2
      note "Hopefully most bugs will be found and fixed here."
    }

    task beta "Beta Test" {
      effort 4w
      depends !alpha
      allocate test, dev1
    }
  }

  task manual "Manual" {
    effort 10w
    depends !deliveries.start
    allocate doc, dev3
    account doc
  }

  task deliveries "Milestones" {

    # Some milestones have customer payments associated with them. We
    # credit these payments to the 'rev' account.
    account rev

    task start "Project start" {
      # A task that has no duration is a milestone. It only needs a
      # start or end criterion. All other tasks depend on this task.
      milestone
      start 2002-01-16
      # For some reason the actual start of the project got delayed.
      # We record this, so that we can compare the planned run to the
      # delayed run of the project.
      delayed:start 2002-01-20
      # At the beginning of this task we receive a payment from the
      # customer. This is credited to the account associated with this
      # task when the task starts.
      startcredit 33000.0
    }

    task prev "Technology Preview" {
      milestone
      depends !!software.backend
      startcredit 13000.0
    }

    task beta "Beta version" {
      milestone
      depends !!test.alpha
      startcredit 13000.0
    }

    task done "Ship Product to Customer" {
      milestone
      # The next line can be uncommented to trigger a warning about
      # the project being late. For all tasks, limits for the start and
      # end values can be specified. Those limits are checked after the
      # project has been scheduled. For all violated limits a warning
      # is issued.
      # maxend 2002-04-17
      depends !!test.beta, !!manual
      startcredit 14000.0
    }
  }
}

# Now the project has been specified completely. Stopping here would
# result in a valid TaskJuggler file that could be processed and
# scheduled. But no reports would be generated to visualize the
# results.

# A traditional Gantt Chart for the TaskJugglerUI
taskreport "Gantt Chart" {
  headline "Project Gantt Chart"
  columns hierarchindex, name, start, end, effort, duration, chart
  # For this report we like to have the abbreviated weekday in front
  # of the date. %a is the tag for this.
  timeformat "%a %Y-%m-%d"
  loadunit days
  hideresource 1
}

# A list of tasks showing the resources assigned to each task.
taskreport "Task Usage" {
  headline "Task Usage Report"
  columns hierarchindex, name, start, end, effort { title "Work" }, duration,
    cost, revenue
  timeformat "%Y-%m-%d"
  loadunit days
  hideresource ~isLeaf()
  sortresources nameup
}

# A list of all tasks with the percentage completed for each task
taskreport "Tracking Gantt" {
  headline "Tracking Gantt Chart"
  columns hierarchindex, name, start, end, effort { title "Work" }, duration,
    completed, chart
  timeformat "%a %Y-%m-%d"
  loadunit days
  hideresource 1
}

# A graph showing resource allocation. It identifies whether each
# resource is under- or over-allocated for.
resourcereport "Resource Graph" {
  headline "Resource Allocation Graph"
  columns no, name, rate, utilization, freeload, chart
  loadunit days
  hidetask 1
}

# A list of all project resources, both human and material resources,
# together with the associated costs.
resourcereport "Resource Sheet" {
  headline "Resource Sheet"
  columns no, name, efficiency, id, maxeffort, rate
  loadunit days
  hidetask 1
}

# A list of resources and each task associated with each resource.
resourcereport "Resource Usage" {
  headline "Resource Usage Report"
  columns no, name, utilization, freeload, cost, chart
  loadunit days
  hidetask 0
}

# This report looks like a regular calendar that shows the tasks by
# their dates.
htmlweeklycalendar "Calendar.html" {
  # Only show work days in the calendar.
  weekdays mon - fri
}

# This report is a status report for the current week. It also
# provides an outlook for the next week.
htmlstatusreport "Status-Report.html" {
}

# A P&L report for the project.
htmlaccountreport "Accounting.html" {
  # Besides the number of the account and the name we have a column
  # with the total values (at the end of the project) and the values
  # for each month of the project.
  columns no, name, scenario, total, monthly
  headline "P&L for the Project"
  caption "The table shows the profit and loss analysis as well as
           the cashflow situation of the Accounting Software Project."
  # Since this is a cashflow calculation, we show accumulated values
  # for each account.
  accumulate
  scenarios plan, delayed
}

xmlreport "XML-Report.tjx" {
  version 2
  hidetask 0
  hideresource 0
  scenarios plan, delayed
}

icalreport "Calendar.ics"