Microsoft Project and the R/3 Project System do not contain the same objects. For instance, in the Project System there are two structures for planning projects, work breakdown structures and networks. In Microsoft Project there is only one structure. It does not recognize work breakdown structures as independent objects. In order to provide a hierarchical structure to projects, Microsoft Project uses Summary Tasks. Similarly there is no such object as a network in Microsoft Project.

As a result of these differences, it is necessary to translate project objects from one program to the other. This is referred to as mapping.

There is no object in Microsoft Project that corresponds to the project definition in the R/3 Project System. It is required to identify the project in Open PS, in particular on the Project Configuration Parameters screen of the Open PS Wizard.

Consequently the project definition does not appear in the Gantt chart or on any other MS Project screen.

The project information in Microsoft Project that you enter when you create a project is the nearest equivalent to a project definition.

As mentioned above, Microsoft Project does not have WBS elements. They are mapped as summary tasks in Microsoft Project. If a WBS element does not have any subordinate objects, for example activities or subordinate WBS elements, it becomes a task in Microsoft Project. (A summary task must have subordinate tasks.). However Open PS enters the object type in the Text16 field in the task or summary task. Here it defines the object as a WBS element (Object name: WBS_element).

As a summary task in Microsoft Project, a WBS element only summarizes its subordinate tasks. It cannot have dates of its own. The dates that appear on the summary task bar are the overall dates of the subordinate tasks. This means that the start date of the summary task is the earliest start date of the subordinate tasks and the finish date is the latest finish date.

Since Microsoft Project does not distinguish between work breakdown structures and networks, there is no such object as a network in Microsoft Project. Consequently the network header does not appear in Microsoft Project. The network number is used to identify individual network activities.

Activities are mapped directly as tasks in Microsoft Project. Although Microsoft Project itself does not differentiate between different types of activity, Open PS uses the Text17 field to display the activity type. It also uses different colored shapes at the start and finish of the task bar in the graphic area to distinguish between activity types. For instance, internal activities do not have end shapes, but external activities have red squares at the start and finish.

Microsoft Project does not use these two objects as in R/3. However it does have resources for a project, which can be planned. At present it is not possible to transfer details from capacity planning between the two programs. The plant is transferred to the Text20 field and the work center to the Text21 field in the task. These two values are combined to depict the resource.

Microsoft Project itself does not have any objects that are hierarchically subordinate to tasks. You can only represent activity elements in Microsoft Project as different resources for a task. This means that only activity elements that have a different work center to the superior activity are transferred to Microsoft Project. They do not appear on the Gantt chart. There is no way of differentiating between the different activity element types. Open PS does not transfer the work from individual activity elements to the corresponding resources. The work is distributed equally between all resources.

Since relationships are common to both the R/3 Project System and Microsoft Project, there are no difficulties mapping them. The four types of relationship (Finish-Start (FS), Start-Start (SS), Finish-Finish (FF), and Start-Finish (SF))are used in both programs. You can also transfer time intervals. In MSP these intervals are only expressed in absolute units, that is days or weeks etc.

You can use the Predecessors and Successors fields in Microsoft Project to display the task to which a task is linked. If the relationship is not a FS relationship (default value), the relationship type is displayed. Any time interval between the two tasks is also displayed. Here the tasks are referred to by their ID, which is the line number in the project.

In Microsoft Project a task that must start or finish before another task can begin is called a predecessor task. A task that depends on the start or finish of a preceding task is called a successor task.

Open PS supports both WBS element milestones and activity milestones. They are both represented as milestone tasks in Microsoft Project.

This is shown as a task with duration 0 days for which the Mark task as milestone indicator is set. It appears in the Gantt chart as a black rhombus (in the standard settings). It is distinguished from an activity milestone by the entry in the Text17 field - WBS Element. WBS element milestones appear in the Gantt chart immediately under the summary task that corresponds to the WBS element.

This is shown as a task with duration 0 days for which the Mark task as milestone indicator is set. It appears in the Gantt chart as a black rhombus (in the standard settings). It is distinguished from a WBS element milestone by the entry in the Text17 field - NetworkActivity. Activity milestones appear in the Gantt chart immediately under the task that corresponds to the activity.

At the present point of time (Release 1.0) the following objects in R/3 PS are not mapped to Microsoft Project:

• PS texts
• Documents
• Material components