Structuring Projects

Working with and defining the OBS

Organizational breakdown structure (OBS) overview

The organizational breakdown structure (OBS) is a global hierarchy that represents the managers responsible for the projects in your enterprise. The OBS usually reflects the management structure of your organization, from top-level personnel down through the various levels constituting your business. You can associate the responsible managers with their areas of the EPS (Enterprise Project Structure) — either nodes or individual projects. When you associate a responsible manager with an EPS node, any projects you add to that branch of the EPS are assigned that manager element by default.

The OBS hierarchy is also used to grant users specific access privileges to projects and the WBS (work breakdown structure) levels within projects.

Setting up the OBS

Because the OBS is maintained as a separate, global hierarchy, you have flexibility in making your OBS assignments as responsibilities change throughout a project life cycle.

You might choose to create your OBS to match each EPS node and project set up in the EPS. You could initially match OBS names to the EPS node and project names. You could then assign users, by their login names, to the OBS elements to grant access to the corresponding EPS nodes or projects.

The type of access granted to a user is determined by the project security profile assigned to the user.

View the OBS

You can view an organizational breakdown structure (OBS) in two ways. You can use the OBS chart to view a graphical display of information, and you can use the OBS table to view information in a column format.

1)Choose Enterprise, OBS.

2)If the Organizational Breakdown Structure dialog box currently displays the Chart View, click the Display Options bar and choose Table View.

To view the OBS hierarchy, click the OBS Name column label.

To list and sort OBS elements, click the OBS Name column label again.

Add an OBS element

1)Choose Enterprise, OBS.

A root OBS element is automatically assigned to the root EPS node so that a default OBS element can be assigned to each project you add to the EPS root.

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2)Click the OBS Name column label to display the OBS hierarchy.

The outline symbol in the OBS Name column label indicates a hierarchy display.

3)Select the OBS element immediately above and at the same hierarchy level as the element you want to add, then click Add.

4)Click the General tab, type the OBS Name, then click Modify to type a description of the OBS element in an HTML editor.

In the editor, you can format text, insert pictures and tables, copy and paste information from other document files (while retaining formatting), and add hyperlinks.

5)Click the Users tab to view the users and corresponding security profiles associated with an OBS element. You can also assign users from this tab, if you have appropriate access rights.

6)Click the Responsibility tab to quickly see where responsible managers (OBS elements) are assigned across the enterprise. Select the OBS name for whom you want to see assignments.

Tip

To change the element's position in the OBS hierarchy, click the appropriate arrow buttons.

Assign an OBS element to a WBS element

1)Choose Project, WBS.

2)Select the WBS element to which you want to assign an OBS element.

3)Click the General tab, then click in the Responsible Manager field.

4)Select the OBS element you want to assign, then click the Select button.

Edit an OBS element

1)Choose Enterprise, OBS.

2)Click the OBS Name column label to display the OBS hierarchy.

The outline symbol in the OBS Name column label indicates a hierarchy display.

3)Select the OBS element you want to edit.

4)To change the element's information, click the General tab and enter new information.

5)To change the element's position in the OBS, click the appropriate arrow buttons.

Delete an OBS element

1)Choose Enterprise, OBS.

2)Click the OBS Name column label to display the OBS hierarchy.

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