Action Plans have many useful capabilities and are being extended throughout. This section is intended to introduce you to the technical side of action plans.

Action Plans

Action Plans are made of a series of steps (activities) and each step can provide a particular type of action that a user can perform while working on that particular step. Action Steps can be further configured to enforce certain behaviour when the user is working on it. Action Plans can be a useful tool in preparing a business plan and tie it with existing objects in Centric. Today Action Plans can be tied with 'Accounts' or 'Tickets', but can easily be extended to associate with other objects in Centric.

The "User Guide" is a good source of information on how to setup Action Plan Templates as an Administrator, so that Users can work thorough an Action Plan. The following pointers briefly introduce the way Action Plans work

• An Action Plan is made of one or more Action Phases
• An Action Phase has one or more Action Steps
• An Action Plan Template can be setup by the Admin and is associated with a particular module For e.g. 'Accounts'
• Every Account can now have one or more Account Action Plans
• When an Account Action Plan is created, a copy of the Action Plan Template is created and linked with the Account for the user to work through the plan
• An Action Step can be configured during setup to specify its behaviour (type of action, required etc) and ultimately the way the user would interact with the Step.

Action Plan Database Schema

The Action Plan schema comprises of the following main database relations:

• action_plan (ActionPlan) -- represents an Action Plan Template
• action_phase (ActionPhase) -- represents an Action Phase Template
• action_step (ActionStep) -- represents an Action Step Template

• action_plan_work (ActionPlanWork) -- copy of the Action Plan Template for the user to work with
• action_phase_work (ActionPhaseWork) -- copy of the Action Phase Template for the user to work with
• action_item_work (ActionItemWork) -- copy of the Action Step Template for the user to work with

Action Plan Module Constants

There are several constants that are defined in Action Plans (ActionPlan) that allow the developer to associate the plan with certain modules and to enforce certain behaviour. All of the Action Plan Module Constants are available in the the database relation action_plan_constants. Each Constant refers to a particular module.

• action_plan_editor_lookup refers to a particular constant that makes the Editor available under that module
• action_plan refers to a particular constant that makes the Action Plan available under that module
• step_action_map refers to a particular constant that makes this Step Action available under the module's Action Plan

Action Plan UI

The Action Plan User Inteface is made of various sections with varying complexity. Several JSPs & Custom Taglib Handlers are used to deliver the content and user interaction. Each section is briefly explained below.

• Phase Indicator section displays all the phases that make up the plan in a row format. The current phase in the plan is highlighted.
• Plan Details displays information about the Plan itself. Information displayed here includes Manager, Assignee, Prospect Name, Date the plan became active on etc.
• Plan Activities section displays each Phase and all the steps that make up the phase. The current phase and the current step that the user needs to work on is highlighted. User interacts with the plan by checking off a step if it is complete. Each step might have a particular action that the user needs to do before he can mark a step as complete. The JSP ensures that the current step in the plan is written out in such a way that appropriate

Additional items:

• Developing Action Plan Steps
• Building Action Plan Reports