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WBS Modeler
A Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Add-In
Implementation
Documentation for Visio WBS Modeler
Contents
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Purpose ......................................................................................... 3
2 Installation 4
2.1 Pre-requisites .................................................................................. 4
2.2 Installation procedure ........................................................................ 4
3 Getting Started 9
3.1 Selecting/Opening the WBS Modeler Template .......................................... 9
5 Modeling Process 15
5.1 Icons ............................................................................................ 15
5.2 Functions / Menus............................................................................ 16
5.3 Custom Properties ........................................................................... 22
5.4 Process ......................................................................................... 23
5.4.1 Creating elements ........................................................................ 23
5.4.2 Linking elements .......................................................................... 26
5.4.3 Arranging elements ....................................................................... 28
5.4.4 Hiding elements ........................................................................... 31
5.4.5 Renaming elements....................................................................... 32
5.4.6 Moving elements .......................................................................... 33
5.4.7 Deleting elements ........................................................................ 34
6 Reporting 35
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Documentation for Visio WBS Modeler
1 Introduction
1.1 Purpose
The Visio WBS Modeler (WBS Modeler in the following) is intended to improve the project
planning process by giving the opportunity to generate Project Plans from a Work Break-
down Structure (WBS) using a graphical representation of elements.
A WBS structure is a hierarchical representation of the elements and sub-elements in a
project (see Figure 1).
Level 1
Level 2
The WBS Modeler can either be used to visualize and edit an existing project plan or to cre-
ate a new project plan in Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Professional and then export it to Mi-
crosoft Office Project (2003+) to carry out the next planning steps.
The Application enables effective integration of Visio with Microsoft Office Project. It pro-
vides an approach to visually and graphically create, edit and modify project plans using
Visio.
The WBS Modeler offers the ability to manage project elements in a graphical view, as well
as offering functionality to layout a WBS in Visio. The WBS can be exported back to Micro-
soft Office Project into a new project plan. It is also possible to update an existing plan.
However this update process is limited to deleting, renaming or adding elements. Moving
elements is not supported at the current stage.
To organize the structure within a WBS Modeler the outline code from Microsoft Office Pro-
ject is utilised.
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2 Installation
2.1 Pre-requisites
Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Professional
Microsoft Office Project 2003 SP1 or later
.NET Framework 2.0
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-
AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en
The License Agreement screen appears. If you accept the terms, click I Agree, and then
click Next.
Documentation for Visio WBS Modeler
The Setup Installation Path and Disk Space Information screen appears.
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Click Next, for the default path or click Browse to select the destina-
tion folder path.
Click Next on figure 4 to continue. The Confirm Installation screen appears. Click Next to
begin installation or Cancel to exit the setup wizard.
Note: If you want make any changes to the installation settings or go back to the previous
pages, click Back.
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The following window will provide progress information of the setup process.
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Note: Please wait while the setup wizard installs the WBS Modeler Add-in. This may take a
few minutes.
To cancel the installation click Cancel.
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3 Getting Started
2. Select WBS from the Template Categories list in the left pane.
3. Select WBS Modeler from the All Templates group.
4. Click on the Create button.
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5. A new menu WBS Modeler is added as the template opens a new document.
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The import process might take some time depending on system performance. A window will
indicate the progress (see Figure 13).
After the process has finished the Project Element Selector window will automatically be
displayed (see Figure 14).
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In this window you will be able to choose the elements or sub-elements to be drawn in Vi-
sio. If you select a sub-element and then click on Draw, this sub-element and all of its
children will be drawn as a WBS (see Figure 15).
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The same applies if you choose to import the project summary element; the resulting WBS
will in most cases be considerably bigger and due to limitations in the layout process not
aligned as in the previous example. However, the layout can easily be improved using the
functionality provided by WBS Modeler as described in the Modeling section later in this
document.
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5 Modeling Process
The Modeling process in WBS Modeler offers a wide variety of options to manipulate the
WBS data and layout.
In the following section the basic elements of the WBS Modeler are presented and ex-
plained. Based on this introduction, the process to create and modify a WBS from scratch is
explained.
The modification of an imported WBS will not be explained separately as it is basically the
same as creating and modifying a newly created WBS. The only difference is that the im-
port process has to be completed beforehand.
5.1 Icons
Icon Description
The WBS Modeler Shape repository contains
one shape to represent elements and sub-
elements.
To add a shape to the plan you can simply
drag and drop the shape to the drawing pane.
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Menu Description
The context menu for the This Document tab
in the WBS Explorer offers several options to
manipulate a WBS.
Rename can be used to rename ele-
ments in the WBS.
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Menu Description
the child elements as well or not. If
the child elements are kept they will
be connected to the parent element of
the deleted element if present.
Move Down / Move Up can be used to
move an element up or down within
the currently selected WBS level.
The Selected Project tab in the WBS Element
Explorer is designed to show differences be-
tween an imported WBS structure and the
original project plan. The differences are not
maintained automatically.
Compare with Project is to be used to
update the outline structure displayed
in the Selected Project tab.
The Review Differences function can
be used to review the differences be-
tween the plan in Microsoft Office Pro-
ject and the current WBS structure.
The option Add child elements provides the
function to add sub-elements to the currently
selected element.
Add sibling elements option is designed to
create a new sibling element. The newly cre-
ated element will automatically be connected
to the common parent element.
Add a space is used to add a space to the left
of the selected element between two sibling
elements.
The same applies to Remove a space which
removes one space from the left of the cur-
rently selected element.
The option Remove all spaces will remove all
spaces for the current element.
The Properties menu can be used to modify
and monitor information for each individual
element.
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Menu Description
The Move Up/Left function moves a element
in the current outline level to the left or up a
level, e.g. move element 1.5.8 to 1.5.7. Move
Down/Right moves a element down a level,
e.g. move element 1.5.7 to 1.5.8.
Arrange elements vertically/horizontally can
be used to arrange sub-elements of the cur-
rent selected element vertically or horizon-
tally. Sometimes this is needed to do a proper
layout or to fit the WBS on one screen.
The option Hide Children can be used to hide
children of the currently selected element.
This option might be useful to enhance read-
ability.
If you right-click on an element a menu will be
shown that aggregates most of the above men-
tioned options and menu items.
The option Create off-page reference is de-
signed to create a reference to a subset of
sub-elements. If you select this option on a
sub-element this element and its sub-elements
will be drawn on a new page. They will be
linked against the original element. If you
double-click the element the system will jump
back to the original WBS. In the original WBS
the off-page-reference is indicated by a trian-
gle.
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Menu Description
On the Shape Data page you can view and edit
the properties for each element.
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Menu Description
dow:
Cost
Estimated
% Complete
Duration
Resource
ID
Unique ID
Milestone
Start
Finish
Predecessor
If Hide Element layout properties is set to
FALSE (default setting) the following addi-
tional information will be displayed in the
Shape Data window for elements:
Vertical Spacing
Horizontal Spacing
Hide Children
Spaces
If Hide read only properties is set to FALSE
(default is TRUE) the following additional
properties will be displayed in the Shape Data
window for elements:
Page Name
Page Number
File Name
Label Name
Label WBS
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Menu Description
The Keep focus on parent is set to TRUE by
default. If this option is set to FALSE the se-
lection will be moved to the child elements
instead of the parent element when connect-
ing elements.
Element Project This field is designed to store information about the project an
element belongs to.
Vertical Sub Elements Child elements associated with this element will be arranged
vertically if set to TRUE (default). If set to FALSE child ele-
ments will be arranged horizontally.
Vertical Spacing This option will affect all direct child elements of the currently
selected element. The options available are:
Ti g h te s t, tig h t , no rm a l, lo o s e,
lo o s es t .
Horizontal Spacing This option will affect all direct child elements of the currently
selected element. The options available are:
ti g h te s t, tig h t , no rm a l, lo o s e,
lo o s es t .
Hide Children If set to TRUE all children of the currently selected element
will be hidden. If set to FALSE hidden elements will be visible
again.
Spaces Determines the spaces left to or above the currently selected
element depending on the parent element’s Vertical Sub Ele-
ment setting.
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Page Name Read-Only field for the name of the page the element is cur-
rently being displayed in.
Page Number Read-Only field for the number of the page the element is cur-
rently being displayed in.
File Name Read-only field to display the Visio file name.
Label Name Read-only field for the element name as the display area length
is limited to 24 characters.
Label WBS Read-only field to display the element label for the WBS Code.
If the WBS code is different from the Outline number it will be
displayed as: “1.2.5 [1.2.6]” where the first number represents
the Outline Number and the number in brackets represents the
WBS Code as originally read from Microsoft Office Project.
5.4 Process
This chapter covers the functionality of the WBS Modeler and how the functions and menu
items briefly described in the previous two sections can be used.
5.4.1 Creating elements
5.4.1.1 Drag and drop
To create a new element simply drag and drop an element shape from the Shapes con-
tainer to the drawing area (see Figure 16).
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The prompt for the Element Name and Outline Number will open automatically after the
element has been dropped to drawing area. The Outline Number will be recalculated once
the element has been connected to another element to achieve consistency.
5.4.1.2 Add child element / add sibling element
Another possible option to add child / sibling elements to another element is to select the
parent/sibling element the new elements should be connected to and choose to add child
elements or select sibling elements from the context menu (right-click on a element; see
Figure 17).
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The result if two child elements have been created will look like shown in Figure 19.
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Figure 25: Error message - Task can only have one parent
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If Arrange child elements vertically option is selected, the child elements for the selected
element will be arranged vertically instead of horizontally (see Figure 27).
To add a space between two children elements on the same level simply click on the
sign and select Add a space (see Figure 29). If the arrangement is set to horizontally the
space will be added on the same WBS level and it will be added to the left of the currently
selected element or sub-element. If the arrangement is set to vertically the space will be
added directly above the currently selected element.
The removal of spaces can be done accordingly. If the arrangement is horizontal the right
element where the space(s) should be removed has to be selected, for vertical spacing the
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elements directly below the spaces have to be selected. If Remove a space is selected one
space will be removed at a time. The Remove all spaces option can be used to remove
more than one space between two elements.
By combining vertical and horizontal arrangement and by adding or removing spaces it is
possible to achieve a noticeably good layout even for rather large work breakdown struc-
tures. Sometimes it might be necessary to hide a set of child elements to achieve a good
and printable layout. When importing a plan, the WBS Modeler will try to automatically
layout the plan and hide child elements above a certain level (see Figure 30).
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6 Reporting
The WBS Modeler also contains some templates to generate Reports for a WBS structure. To
trigger a report in Visio choose Data/Reports (see Figure 39).
On the following dialogue one of the default templates delivered with WBS Modeler can be
selected or a new one can be created (see Figure 40). The process of creating a new tem-
plate is not specific to WBS Modeler and is thus not covered in this document.
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Figure 43: Compare with Microsoft Office Project (WBS Modeler menu)
Afterwards just click Compare (see Figure 44). If you have more than one project open, i.e.
different versions of the same plan you can choose another version to compare with the
current WBS structure in Visio. The project plan which has been selected here will be
linked to the WBS structure afterwards.
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which the WBS is currently being linked to and therefore no Project Element Selector win-
dow will be shown.
Figure 46: Compare with Microsoft Office Project (W BS Element Explorer context menu)
The Review Differences windows can be used to check which changes have been made to
the WBS in comparison to the plan still in Microsoft Office Project. The Copy button can be
used to copy the results to the clipboard (see Figure 48).
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In the Programs and Features screen select the entry WBS Modeler and click on Uninstall.
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In the following screen click on Yes to confirm that you really want to remove the WBS
Modeler.
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