Install PMX
The best way to understand how to configure PMX is to work through an example. This example assumes that you have installed PMX as described in Module installation and connection, and that you are going to create a simple programme/project management structure described in How PMX works.
If you follow these instructions, within the process client, you should see the PMX connection group with the Modules group, something like this:
Within the installed instance of PMX, you should see
If you click on the Library link, you should see the module definition and the default group profile.
Create group profiles
To configure for programme/project management, we first need two define profile for the two group types we are going to create, the Programme and the Project.
From the New menu, select the Group Profile option. Fill this in with details of the progamme group.
Give the profile a suitable name and description. Set its reference to programme.
Click on the New group options tab. You can set initial values for group attributes, such as a description that will appear on the group in the process client, the group icon and colour, and so on. Importantly, for the programme, near the bottom of the page, make sure the Copy config option is selected. This means that programme groups will link directly to the process module, which will allow you to move programmes around your process client group structure.
Use Save to return to the list.
Create a project group profile in the same way, with a reference of project. You don't need to set the Copy config option in projects because projects are always inside programmes and there is no need to move them around, but there is no harm if the option is set.
Create recipes to create new groups
Next, we need to create components that allow for the creation of these two group types. We need three components:
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A component to create a project inside a programme.
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A component to create a sub-project inside a project.
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A component to create a programme from the default group profile, to allows you to create multiple programmes within the process client.
Looking at the first of these, from the New menu in the library, select the New Group Recipe option. A recipe is a type of component used to create groups or worker processes.
The name of this recipe component will be used as the name of the menu item, so give the new component a name of "New project". Enter a suitable description, and provide a reference for this component. Leave the User role as "user" for now. In the group profiles section, navigate to and select your project group profile (you may find it easier to Apply firsrt, which will navigate the selector to the library).
Click on Save to save your component.
Create two new New Group Recipes. Create a "New programme" recipe that links to the programme group profile. Create a "New sub project" recipe that also inks to the Project Group Profile. Make sure that each of the recipes has a different reference.
Link the recipes to the group profiles
We now need to link the recipes to the group profiles that will use them, i.e. link the new programme recipe into the default group profile, the new project recipe into the programme group profile, and the new sub project recipe into the project profile.
Let's start with the the programme group profile. Open it in edit mode, and go to the Components tab. Use the Process components selector to link to the New project recipe. Also link the standard Edit group (metrici.products.pmx.library.EditGroupProcessComponent) and Delete group components (metrici.products.pmx.library.DeleteGroupProcessComponent). You can find links to these on the Default group profile.
Use Save to return the library.
Make the same changes to the Project Group Profile, linking to the New sub project recipe.
Modify the default group profile and process module definition
There are two more things you need to do to complete the structure:
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Modify the Default group profile to include the New programme recipe.
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Modify the Process module definition, Profiles tab, to include the programme and project group profiles.
Create recipe to start a process
We've now defined the structure of programmes, projects and sub-projects. Now we need to add the ability to create work items within it. For this, we'll use the Start Process Recipe. PMX comes with some pre-built processes, and for this we will use a simple task process.
In the library, create a new Start Process Recipe.
Give the recipe a suitable Name and Reference – New work item and new_work_item. In the Worker templates link to metrici.products.pmx.library.SimpleTaskTemplate, which provides a template for creating a simple task process. Leave other fields to default and use Save to save the form.
In the Project Group Profile, on the Components tab, link to the New work item recipe. Order the list so that this item comes before the group components.
Try out the configuration
Follow the instructions in Create an application group to create an new programme as an application group. When you've done, you should have a programme in which you can create a new project.
You should be able to create a New project, and then from inside that create a new work item.
The simple task process allows you to set a work item description and update the status, and creates events to track status changes.
Note: Configurations are applied to the process client through background activities that can take a little while to pick up changes. If things seem to have got stuck, you can push them along by using the Recalculate option (under the More menu) on the Client group recalculation trigger which is available at https://embed.metrici.com/yourcompany/pmx/advanced_settings/client_group_recalculation_trigger, and then using the refresh icon on the group itself.
Summary
This section has shown how to use components to build menu items for different types of groups, including menu items to create sub groups and start processes. The configuration of these components provide the basic structure that the user of the module sees.