Setup Considerations: Project Hierarchies

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of project hierarchies. It explains:

Why to set them up.

How they fit into the rest of Workday.

Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.

Security requirements and business process configurations.

Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.

Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What They Are

Project hierarchies define the parent and child relationships between hierarchies and also categorize projects.

Workday has 2 types of project hierarchies:

Hierarchy Type	Definition
Primary	Required for project creation. Child hierarchies and projects inherit their configuration from the primary parent hierarchy.
Optional	Optional for project creation. Child hierarchies and projects don't inherit configuration options. Use optional hierarchies to add more categories to your projects for increased granularity in your roll-up reports.

Business Benefits

Project hierarchies simplify the process of creating projects and reporting on them. You can use project hierarchies to:

Streamline project creation. Configure the options for the projects on the same primary project hierarchy. Configuring options at the hierarchy level prevents manually repeating the same configuration steps for each of the individual projects.

Create detailed reports to compare the costs, revenue, time, and progress of the projects at your organization.

Use Cases

With project hierarchies, you can:

Add a resource plan to a project hierarchy so that the projects in the hierarchy use the same plan.

Assign roles to workers at the hierarchy level for projects to inherit.

Categorize projects with primary and optional project hierarchies for detailed roll-up reporting.

Create budget and worktag rules at the hierarchy level for projects to inherit.

Configure business processes so that projects in the same hierarchy use the same approval types.

Prevent project workers from logging time for future dates on the projects in a hierarchy.

Restrict project plan tasks and project roles to specific primary project hierarchies for streamlined data entry.

Questions to Consider

Questions	Considerations
How can you use hierarchies to group your projects?	You can use primary project hierarchies to group similar types of projects to: Apply common configuration options. Configure a roll-up security structure for who can view and report on a set of projects. Create roll-up reports. Simplify selection prompts when searching for projects.
Do you need to group your projects into different functional or logical categories?	You can use optional project hierarchies to add more categories to projects for granular reporting. Example: Group projects by region in 1 optional hierarchy and by product line in another.
When should you create resource plans for project hierarchies?	You can create a resource plan for a primary project hierarchy, enabling all of the projects that share the same hierarchy to inherit the same resource plan. Use this method to save time for your users if the projects within a hierarchy always use the same resource plan.
Which project tasks should you restrict to specific project hierarchies?	You can restrict the availability of project tasks to primary project hierarchies. This restriction simplifies task selection and reduces data entry errors. Child hierarchies inherit task restrictions from their parent hierarchies. Restrict project tasks using the Maintain Project Tasks task.
Which project roles should you restrict to specific project hierarchies?	You can restrict the availability of project roles to primary project hierarchies. This restriction simplifies role selection and reduces data entry errors. Child hierarchies inherit role restrictions from their parent hierarchies. Restrict project roles using the Maintain Project Roles task.

Recommendations

To reduce data entry:

Configure primary project hierarchies so that the associated projects inherit shared settings.

Create resource plans at the project-hierarchy level when the associated projects can share the same resource plan.

Restrict project tasks and roles to the relevant primary project hierarchies.

For Worktags that you plan to use in derived Worktag rules, access the

Maintain Worktag Usage

report and allow your Worktags to be used on customer contracts and customer invoices.

To increase report detail, create optional project hierarchies to further group your projects.

Only associate 1 project hierarchy that has a custom business process with a project. If a project belongs to multiple hierarchies, each with its own business process, Workday randomly selects 1 business process for the project.

Requirements

Create at least 1 primary project hierarchy so that users can create projects.

Limitations

You can't use optional project hierarchies with account posting rules.

Tenant Setup

No impact.

Security

Domains	Considerations
Business Process Administration in the System functional area	Users secured to this domain can edit the Create Project Hierarchy business process.
Manage: Business Process Definitions in the System functional area	Users secured to this domain can manage the Create Project Hierarchy business process.
Set Up: Project Hierarchy in the Project Tracking functional area	Users secured to this domain can manage project hierarchies and resource plans on project hierarchies.

To ensure proper access, review these team member roles and activities:

Domain Security Roles	Considerations
Project administrator	Edits the Create Project Hierarchy business process. Creates and configures project hierarchies. Approves new project hierarchies routed by the Create Project Hierarchy business process. Uses web services. Runs reports. Creates custom reports.
Project hierarchy manager	Owns and is responsible for the projects within a project hierarchy. Approves new project hierarchies routed by the Create Project Hierarchy business process. Views reports.

Business Processes

The Create Project Hierarchy
business process enables you to create, review, and approve new project hierarchies.

Reporting

Reports	Considerations
Navigate Project Hierarchy	Provides a high-level view of project hierarchies, including subordinate hierarchies and projects. You can also view worker information and edit: Project hierarchies Projects
View Project Hierarchy	Use as a central access point for viewing and editing information on existing project hierarchies.
View Project Hierarchy Setup Objects Configuration	Use to view the direct, inherited, and unrestricted project tasks and roles. These roles and tasks are eligible for the projects associated with the primary project hierarchy. You can access the report from the related actions menu of a project hierarchy.

You can also use primary and optional project hierarchies to create custom reports to review project:

Time

Revenue

Cost

Expense

Custom reports enable you to group multiple projects for security reasons or for summary reporting.

You can use these report data sources to create custom reports:

Project Hierarchies
on the Project Hierarchy business object.

Project Task
on the Project Task business object.

Project Timesheet Lines by Project and Project Hierarchy
on the Project Timesheet Line business object.

Timesheet Day for Project Hierarchies and Timesheet Periods
on the Timesheet Day business object.

Top Level Project Hierarchies
on the Project Hierarchy business object.

Integrations

Web Services	Considerations
Get Workday Project Hierarchies	Retrieves project hierarchies and subordinate hierarchies.
Submit Workday Project Hierarchy	Creates a project hierarchy event and submits it through the Create Project Hierarchy business process for approval. Workday then creates the new project hierarchy.
Get Workday Project Hierarchies without Dependencies	Retrieves project hierarchies only. Doesn't include the parent and child relationships of the hierarchies.
Get Resource Plans	Retrieves data on resource plans and resource plan lines on project hierarchies and projects.

Connections and Touchpoints

Features	Considerations
Expenses	The worktag rules on a project hierarchy enable you to configure how Workday calculates expenses.
Revenue	The worktag rules on a project hierarchy enable you to configure how Workday calculates revenue.
Time Tracking	The time entry rules on a project hierarchy prevent project workers from logging future time on a project.

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.

Concept: Project Hierarchies

Concept: Resource Plans on Projects and Project Hierarchies

Create Project Hierarchies

Steps: Set Up Projects Infrastructure

Create Project Roles

Reference: Project Management Reports

Example: Simplify the Selection of Project Tasks on Project Plans