Naomi Ambrose - Comms and Engagement Advisor for the Forward Works Viewer programme, explains below some of the mysterious ways in which the Forward Works Viewer works. If you still have questions - feel free to drop her an email - [email protected]
What's the relationship between your FWV user account, your organisation and your projects? Why can't I edit projects sometimes?
For security purposes, users can only edit projects for the organisation they selected when first creating an account. For example if you signed up for an account under "Company NZ" but all of the projects in your company are linked to the organisation "Company.inc", you won't be able to edit those projects. If you need your organisation changed, or you need a project changing to a new organisation, please contact [email protected] and we'll swap things over for you.
If you are a contractor working on behalf of another organisation and you want to add or edit projects for them, you will need to either:
To edit a project, you'll need to have signed up for 'project planner' access - this gives you the ability to add and edit projects for your organisation. If you've signed up for the wrong type of access, that's OK - just contact Support and we'll change it for you.
BUT - it's important to note that different organisations supply data in different ways, and sometimes you shouldn't be editing your projects in the Forward Works Viewer - which leads us nicely onto...
How does project data get into the Forward Works Viewer, and how do I keep it up to date?
As mentioned above, different organisations supply data differently. Some organisations add it directly into the Forward Works Viewer using the 'add new project' button, some organisations have their projects in another system and the FWV extracts the data directly from that system, and some organisations will put together a spreadsheet of all their projects and supply it with shape files which we bulk upload on a regular basis. Our job is to sort through the data (which is provided in lots of different formats with different fields) and publish it in the FWV as one standard format.
Where data is provided by an organisation and bulk uploaded or extracted from their system of record, it's important that projects ARE NOT edited in the Forward Works Viewer, and are instead edited in the source data record. This is because it's easier to keep one system updated rather than two, and also because there's the risk that next time the data is supplied to us, it may overwrite any changes to the project you made in the FWV - so all your hard work is undone.
If you're not sure how your project data gets into the FWV, and how you should be updating it, please drop us an email and we can tell you. Also, if you currently manually add projects to the system but would like to look into a more automated process, just let us know and we can explore options.
For security purposes, users can only edit projects for the organisation they selected when first creating an account. For example if you signed up for an account under "Company NZ" but all of the projects in your company are linked to the organisation "Company.inc", you won't be able to edit those projects. If you need your organisation changed, or you need a project changing to a new organisation, please contact [email protected] and we'll swap things over for you.
If you are a contractor working on behalf of another organisation and you want to add or edit projects for them, you will need to either:
- sign up for an account and select the organisation's name as your organisation. For security purposes, we will need approval from someone in that organisation for this to happen
- if the project exists in the system already, we can move a project from one organisation to another - but if the project data is coming from a data source, this will break that connection (see the next section below)
To edit a project, you'll need to have signed up for 'project planner' access - this gives you the ability to add and edit projects for your organisation. If you've signed up for the wrong type of access, that's OK - just contact Support and we'll change it for you.
BUT - it's important to note that different organisations supply data in different ways, and sometimes you shouldn't be editing your projects in the Forward Works Viewer - which leads us nicely onto...
How does project data get into the Forward Works Viewer, and how do I keep it up to date?
As mentioned above, different organisations supply data differently. Some organisations add it directly into the Forward Works Viewer using the 'add new project' button, some organisations have their projects in another system and the FWV extracts the data directly from that system, and some organisations will put together a spreadsheet of all their projects and supply it with shape files which we bulk upload on a regular basis. Our job is to sort through the data (which is provided in lots of different formats with different fields) and publish it in the FWV as one standard format.
Where data is provided by an organisation and bulk uploaded or extracted from their system of record, it's important that projects ARE NOT edited in the Forward Works Viewer, and are instead edited in the source data record. This is because it's easier to keep one system updated rather than two, and also because there's the risk that next time the data is supplied to us, it may overwrite any changes to the project you made in the FWV - so all your hard work is undone.
If you're not sure how your project data gets into the FWV, and how you should be updating it, please drop us an email and we can tell you. Also, if you currently manually add projects to the system but would like to look into a more automated process, just let us know and we can explore options.
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What does the project state mean, where it says 'In Progress' or 'Planned'? My project has finished, but it's still saying 'In Progress'?
The project state is a system generated state, based on the project start and end dates that have been provided. Anything 'planned' means that the start date is in the future (relative to today's date), and shows up on the map with no coloured outline. Anything 'in progress' means that according to the project start and end date, the project is currently happening and shows up on the map with a black outline. A project which goes beyond its end date will remain on the FWV map for up to 14 days, then it will drop off the map - so it's important to keep the start and end dates up-to-date. The search function will also search for completed projects, so if you can no longer find the project on the map, you can find it by searching for it, and editing it that way if you need to change the date to make it show on the map. |
A note on completed projects - we will be building a 'completed projects' layer as part of our next tranche of development work. This means that projects which go 14 days beyond their end date will drop from the map, but will be viewable on a different map layer which can be turned on and off.
Is there an easy way to see a list of my projects in the Forward Works Viewer? What about the clashes and opportunities?
Project List
We're developing dashboards to help with this, but these are a little way off release. In the meantime, we do a monthly extract of the project data in the Forward Works Viewer. If you'd like to receive this for your organisation, or if you're a subscribing council and want to receive all organisations projects for your jurisdiction, please drop me an email - [email protected].
Gantt chart
We have also developed Gantt charts for each subscribing council which allows you to select your project and see the clashes and opportunities with this project in a Gantt chart. If you'd like to receive this on a monthly basis, please reply to this email. These are currently in prototype mode - eventually Gantt charts will be available within the FWV itself.
I signed up for the Forward Works Viewer, but I don't actually know what it does or how to use it?
No problem, we're more than happy to provide demos to organisations on the tool. If you'd like to book one, or just have questions on how your organisation uses it, or you want to start using it, just let us know and we'll do what we can to help.
This was a lot of information, but hopefully it was useful and has helped your understanding of how the system works - but please, if you have any questions don't hesitate to get in touch. It's what we're here for :)
Project List
We're developing dashboards to help with this, but these are a little way off release. In the meantime, we do a monthly extract of the project data in the Forward Works Viewer. If you'd like to receive this for your organisation, or if you're a subscribing council and want to receive all organisations projects for your jurisdiction, please drop me an email - [email protected].
Gantt chart
We have also developed Gantt charts for each subscribing council which allows you to select your project and see the clashes and opportunities with this project in a Gantt chart. If you'd like to receive this on a monthly basis, please reply to this email. These are currently in prototype mode - eventually Gantt charts will be available within the FWV itself.
I signed up for the Forward Works Viewer, but I don't actually know what it does or how to use it?
No problem, we're more than happy to provide demos to organisations on the tool. If you'd like to book one, or just have questions on how your organisation uses it, or you want to start using it, just let us know and we'll do what we can to help.
This was a lot of information, but hopefully it was useful and has helped your understanding of how the system works - but please, if you have any questions don't hesitate to get in touch. It's what we're here for :)
