Planning with the Status and Tracking
System
Use
You execute planning with the Status and Tracking System in order to structure the planning process. The Status and Tracking System provides the following advantages:
● Possibility of iterative alignment of planning results within a subplan with the definition of different planning sessions
● Clear assignment of subtasks to the persons responsible within a planning session
● Execution of planning taking account of clear deadlines
● Regular planning workflow on the basis of a status administration system.
Prerequisites
You have completed Customizing for the Status and Tracking System for at least one subplan and planning session combination. For more information, see Customizing the Status and Tracking System.
Features
The Status and Tracking System is used as an environment in which to both carry out planning and monitor the planning process. You start a planning session by using the Send Start E-mail function, either in Customizing of the Status and Tracking System or in the planning coordinator’s overview monitor, to prompt the system to send an e-mail to all employees who are taking part in the planning session. If you choose the second option, the system automatically starts a job in the background to send the e-mail and executes this immediately. The system uses notification texts for this e-mail. These contain a link which immediately starts the data entry session you are assigned to in the Web browser.
Authorizations
Different initial screens are displayed for the person responsible and the planning coordinator according to the specific task or area of responsibility.
The person responsible sees the overview page for his or her areas of responsibility first. This is displayed as a table. You can jump to the corresponding detail pages from here using the Detail link. However, if the person responsible is only assigned to one area of responsibility, either directly or as a substitute, the corresponding detail page is displayed immediately (see below).
The planning coordinator sees the overview page first. Two views are available: The default hierarchical view and a tabular view that the planning coordinator can switch to. By using the Detail link, the planning coordinator can jump to the corresponding detail screen from either of these views.
Overview Page
Tabular View
For each area of responsibility the following information is displayed in the form of a table:
- Current status
-
Lock status (
locked/
not
locked) - Person responsible
- Current processor (bottom-up planning session)
-
Status of the completion date (
critical/ 
not critical) - Completion time
-
Comments column, from where you can jump
to the comments page (
comments available/ 
not available) - Detail column.
In the tabular view you can also filter the following fields:
- Area of responsibility
- Current status
-
Lock status ( locked/ not locked)
- Person responsible
- Current processor (with a bottom-up planning session)
-
Status of the completion date ( critical/ not critical)
- Completion time.
Hierarchical View
As well as the tabular view, the following symbols are used:
Aggregated Status Not Approved (with bottom-up planning sessions), or
Aggregated Status Not Completed and Released (with top-down planning
sessions). This means that at least one node under the node in question has
not yet been given status Approved (bottom-up planning session) or
Completed and Released (top-down planning session).
Aggregated Status Not Approved and Comment(s)
Beneath Current Node. In
addition to the information given above, comments have been maintained for at
least one of the nodes under the node in question.
Aggregated Status Approved (with bottom-up planning sessions), or
Aggregated Status Completed and Released (with top-down planning
sessions). This means that all nodes under the node in question have status
Approved.
Aggregated Status Approved and
Comment(s) (with bottom-up
planning sessions), or Aggregated Status Completed and Released (with
top-down planning sessions). In addition to the information given above,
comments have been maintained for at least one of the nodes under the node in
question.
Detail Page
In the top left-hand area of the screen you see:
- Navigation link My Area of Responsibility.
Arranged underneath this are:
- Subplan
- Planning session
- Selected area of responsibility
- Current status of selected area of responsibility with lock status, link to status history, and buttons for status change
- Due date and time (critical/ not critical)
- Person responsible with system user and contact data
- Current processor with system user and contact data (with bottom-up planning sessions)
- Send E-Mail to person responsible
Additional information for the respective planning session, if maintained. See Maintaining Text with Additional Information.
You will find a number of additional buttons below:
- Log Off
- Open Planning: Opens the planning application maintained for the selected area of responsibility
- Open Report: Opens the control report maintained for the selected area of responsibility
- Maintain Comments: Jumps to the comments page for the selected area of responsibility.
A hierarchically structured table is displayed in the bottom part of the screen. The information is structured in the same way as in the hierarchical view of the overview page. However it only refers to the lower-level areas of responsibility. By expanding the hierarchy nodes you can display overview information on those areas of responsibility that are arranged lower down in the hierarchy. From her you can navigate to the leaves of the subhierarchy.
If you have applied the appropriate settings in Customizing, the buttons for a cascading status switch appear under this table.
Comment Page
Comments can be entered for all areas of responsibility. You can also forward these comments to the areas of responsibility that lie directly below. There is a checkbox under the input field for comments for this purpose.
See also:
Planning Using the Status and Tracking System