Often an Organization would be executing projects that are very similar in nature. In such cases, we recommend that you create a template of such a project with all the tasks, including dates, dependencies and resource allocations as if it were a real project. When you need to start a new project, use the Clone feature to make a copy of this project template. Make necessary modifications such as resource assignments and your project plan is ready.
Cloning saves you invaluable time and effort. During cloning you can specify a start date for the new project and Celoxis will automatically schedule all the tasks as per the new start date, task duration, vacations and holidays. For example, let us consider the start date of the existing project is June 1, 2010 and the task starts on June 9, 2010 and if the start date of the cloned project is August 15, 2010, then the start of the same task will be August 24, 2010 because it started 7 days after the original project. While cloning the projects, the system also takes into account the holidays and user vacation in that calendar month. You can also store documents in your template and they will be copied over to the new project. Only task constraints are not copied over since the dates will depend on the start date of the new project.
Cloning a project creates a new project based on an existing project. This operation does not affect the original project in any way. Cloning a project copies custom field data,documents, estimated material cost attached to a project/task rather than referring to them.
To clone an existing project
- On the main menu, click Projects, point to New Project, and then select Clone Project.
- You can select your project from Recent Project or Other option.
- If you select Other, you can type keywords in the Project field. As you type, project names matching the keywords are displayed.
- Select the project that you want to clone.
- Click Next.
- Under the Basic tab, define the following project attributes for your cloned copy
- Project Name
- Project Manager
- Client
- Start Date
- Phase
- Under the Custom Fields tab, enter data for your custom fields.
Click Clone. The cloned project is displayed.
A user needs to have 'View Project', 'View Financials' and 'Add Project' privilege to be able to clone projects.