Basic definition of PPM & PM, plus limitations and subjection of customization

georgimavrodiev · ‎05-12-2017

Hello all,

I may say that I am new to ServiceNow Project and Portfolio Management.
Today is the first day I am looking into this area of ServiceNow Platform.

I read a lot of materials on the matter (wiki, docs, Kelly Kaufmann's blogs) so far. I guess the amount of information entered my head was significant enough to confuse me.
So, from what I understood, in order to have PPM activated in my DEV ServiceNow instance, I need to activate the Project Portfolio Suite with Financials. To do so, I need to activate Timeline Visualization Plugin first. Well, I did it. As of now, I have Project Portfolio Suite and Project Portfolio Suite with Financials activated in my instance. Yet, I noticed that the Project Management plugin was activated by default (my instance is running on Istanbul Release).
Speaking of the Project Management, I would like to ask you for some elaboration on the following questions of mine, which I am struggling to answer at the moment:

- Why many of the threads in the Community speak for PPM Plugin, when such plugin actually does not exist in the Plugins list.
Instead, the PPS with Financials need to be activated, which actually leads to the activation of the whole Project Portfolio Suite?

- Is Project Portfolio Management equal to Project Management or in other words: aren't they both the same?
Or Project Portfolio Management contains Project Management along with other small tools, such as: Program Management, Portfolio Management and etc.?
- Is Project Portfolio Management subjective to any kind of customization (modifications via scripts or etc.)?
- What are its limitations? Is there any official documentation which "speaks" in that direction? (a lot of different things can be understand under 'limitations')

I will appreciate if any of you who has a lot of experience with ServiceNow Project Portfolio Management shares any thoughts from own experience here.
I really would like to clear the picture in my mind about the differences between PPM & PM, and the exact capabilities of this option, to say so.
I already started think of taking the official PPM course: Project Portfolio Management , yet, I will be really grateful if someone may help me out to have a better view in my mind.

Thank you in advance!

Best Regards,
Georgi

sachin_namjoshi · ‎05-12-2017

Hi Georgi,

Following are my answers after my expeirnece with PPM implementations.

I hope you find them useful.

- Why many of the threads in the Community speak for PPM Plugin, when such plugin actually does not exist in the Plugins list.
Instead, the PPS with Financials need to be activated, which actually leads to the activation of the whole Project Portfolio Suite?

--> There is plugins called as PPM plugin in list of plugin.Only following plugins related to PPS, project management are available in Instanbul.

- Is Project Portfolio Management equal to Project Management or in other words: aren't they both the same?
Or Project Portfolio Management contains Project Management along with other small tools, such as: Program Management, Portfolio Management and etc.?

--> Project Management is part PPS ( project portfolio suite). PPS Suite consists of project management, demand management, resource management, SDLC and Test management.

- Is Project Portfolio Management subjective to any kind of customization (modifications via scripts or etc.)?

--> Yes, you can customize PPS Suite applications with configurations, scripting, integrations....I did lot of them with cost plan, expense line, cost plan breakdowns, budget items ......

Regards,

Sachin

View solution in original post

raj1989 · ‎08-14-2017

Hello Sachin,

I am implementing the Project Management in Service Now. Before that I have few questions, 1)What are the requirements or Information should we collected before implementing the PM ?

2) How to load the live running projects in to the PM?

3) What kind of data should we collect to implement the PM?

I need your help for basic understanding of it. Thanks in advance.

sachin_namjoshi · ‎08-15-2017

Hi Raja,

Please find possible answers below

1)What are the requirements or Information should we collected before implementing the PM ?

--> Are they migrating from existing PM tool to service now? If yes, then you need to work on collecting requirements about field mapping, data migration of existing open projects, portfolios, programms etc to SN PPM objects.

--> How are they storing financial information for projects> Like opex and capex data, budget data

--> What are reports, dashboards implemented in existing PM tool which need to be migrated?

2) How to load the live running projects in to the PM?

--> As best practice, work in progress projects in existing PM tool should be closed. You should notify cut off date to migrated existing PM tool to SN PPS so that all new projects will be created in SN PPS tool. If you have to migrate live projects, then you can use easy import or transform map to migrated data to SN PPS.

3) What kind of data should we collect to implement the PM?

--> Following data need to be collected to implement PM

--> Is there existing tool used for PM ? If yes, then you will need to collect field mapping data

--> What validations they want on different PPS objects ( project, programm etc)

--> How actual cost is mapped to projects? You may need to create import routine for expense line import?

--> Do they want to import estimated capex and opex cost for projects ? or it will be entered manually project manager?

You can start with this information.

Regards,

Sachin