Admin Categories

What a planner means

Admin Categories is the standard-categories dialog. Oracle Admin Menu: "Opens the Admin Categories dialog box. Use the Admin Categories dialog box to define standard categories and values that you can apply to all projects." Enabled when "All." Corresponding toolbar: Administrator Toolbar. How-to pages: Admin, Admin Categories.

Oracle Admin Categories dialog (P6 Professional Only): "Use the Admin Categories dialog box to define standard categories and values that you can apply to all projects."

Oracle Administrative categories: "Your organization can define a series of application-wide parameters and values that apply to all projects." "While all users can view these settings, a user must have the have Add/Edit/Delete Categories global privilege to edit them." (Oracle's "the have" as printed.) "Use the Admin Categories dialog box to define standard categories and values you can apply across all projects, including custom categories and category values for projects, resources, and WBS elements."

Oracle Administrative preferences: "There are two types of settings: Administrative Preferences and Administrative Categories." This dialog is the second type. It is application-wide category dictionaries. It is not Admin > Admin Preferences (enterprise defaults: Hours per Time Period, ID lengths, data limits, EV technique defaults). See Admin Preferences. It is not Edit > User Preferences (per-user display and session). See User Preferences. It is not EPPM Enterprise Data (a different admin surface; see below).

The dialog is the holder. Existing object notes are the data on each tab. Do not treat this note as a second field catalog for those dictionaries.

Professional dialog tabs Oracle names

Oracle Admin Categories dialog box lists these tabs (quote Oracle's printed names):

• Baseline Types tab
• Expense Categories tab
• WBS Category tab
• Document Categories tab
• Document Status tab
• Notebook tab
• Risk Categories tab
• Units of Measure tab

Oracle Administrative categories names the same eight as Baseline Types, Expense Categories, WBS Category, Document Categories, Document Status, Risk Categories, Notebook Topics, Units of Measure. Defining Administrative Categories also prints a Document Statuses section. Quote both Document Status (dialog / overview) and Document Statuses (section list). Do not collapse them.

Oracle names the notebook surface Notebook tab on the dialog list and Notebook Topics tab on the tab page and the how-to. Quote both. Do not collapse them.

Oracle Baseline Types tab page: "Use the Baselines Types tab" (Oracle's printed "Baselines"). Dialog list / how-to: Baseline Types. Quote both.

Dialog note: "The Shift Up and Shift Down buttons are available only with the manual display order. An outline symbol in the category column title indicates a manual display order."

Baseline Types — Oracle Administrative categories: "Create, edit, and delete baseline types. Use these categories to standardize and categorize baselines, and to help benchmark performance across projects." Tab page: "Baseline types allow you to categorize project baselines, standardize baselines, and help benchmark performance across projects." How-to Create a baseline type: when connected to a P6 Professional database, create types here ("Choose Admin, Admin Categories" → Baseline Types tab); when connected to a P6 EPPM database, "you can use P6 to create baseline types." There is no baseline-types.md. The baseline snapshot is baselines.md. PROJECT.base_type_id is labeled Baseline Type — a pointer, not this dialog.

Expense Categories — Oracle Administrative categories: "Create, edit, and delete expense categories. Use these categories to standardize and categorize project expenses, and organize and maintain expense information." Tab page: "Use the Expense Categories tab to create, edit, and delete expense categories. Expense categories enable you to organize and standardize project expenses." The dictionary is Expense Categories Label Expenses, Not Cost Accounts. The expense item is Expenses and Accrual (PROJCOST) — Not Resource Units. Do not re-list COSTTYPE columns here.

WBS Category — Oracle Administrative categories: "Create a WBS category and create, edit, and delete WBS category values. Use this category to standardize and categorize WBS elements." Tab page: "Use the WBS Category tab to define a custom work breakdown structure (WBS) category and category values. The WBS Category tab displays the current name of the custom WBS category." Fields Oracle named on that page: WBS Category ("The name of the current work breakdown structure (WBS) category. You can type a new name."); Category Value. One enterprise category, not a list of category types. See WBS Category. WBS structure is P6 WBS.

Document Categories — Oracle Administrative categories: "Create, edit, and delete categories for work products and documents. Use these categories to standardize and categorize work products and documents, and organize and maintain work product and document information." Tab page: "Use the Document Categories tab to create, edit, and delete document categories. Document categories enable you to organize and standardize different types of work products and documents." Category "Lists different types of document categories, such as purchase orders or project specifications." See Document Categories and Statuses Are Labels, Not Files. The file / assignment is Documents and Work Products Are Files, Not Notebooks.

Document Status — Oracle Administrative categories: "Create, edit, and delete document status types. Use these status types to identify the current status of work products and documents within a project." Tab page: "Use the Document Status tab to create, edit, and delete document status types. Use document statuses to identify and track the current status of work products and documents within a project." Status Code "Lists document status types." Same Document Categories and Statuses Are Labels, Not Files note (DOCCATG and DOCSTAT). Not deliv_flag / wp_flag.

Notebook / Notebook Topics — Oracle Administrative categories: "Create, edit, and delete notebook topics. Use notebook topics to organize related notes about an activity." Tab page (title Notebook tab): "Use the Notebook Topics tab to create, edit, and delete notebook topics. You can assign notebook topics to EPS nodes, projects, WBS elements, and activities. Notebooks are typically instructions or descriptions for performing an activity. Examples of notebook topics are Purpose, Entry Criteria, Tools & Techniques, and Exit Criteria." Notebook Topics table: "Lists notebooks and enables you to specify at which level of the EPS each notebook can be assigned. To enable notebook assignment at a specific level, mark the checkbox in the corresponding column." How-to Create notebooks: "Click the Notebook Topics tab"; mark EPS / Project / WBS / Activity. See Notebooks (MEMOTYPE / TASKMEMO / WBSMEMO) — Not Schedule Logic. Do not re-list MEMOTYPE flags here.

Risk Categories — Oracle Administrative categories: "Create, edit, and delete risk categories. Use these categories to classify risk types and to organize risks." How-to Create risk categories: "You can create hierarchical risk categories of possible risks that you can assign to risks. Risk categories are a classification of risk types customized to your specific project or business that are used to categorize and organize risks." "Choose Admin, Admin Categories." "Click the Risk Categories tab." Hierarchy: "Shift up, Shift down, Shift Right, or Shift Left." Delete: "Deleting a risk category deletes all children and their assignments." Edit: "If you change a risk category, your change applies to all risk assignments." The dedicated tab-page slug used by other tabs 404'd on the collections fetched; quote the overview and how-to, not an invented tab-page sentence. The dictionary is RISKTYPE in Risks Are Uncertain Events, Not Issues or Thresholds. Not the risk register (PRORISK). Not project thresholds.

Units of Measure — Oracle Administrative categories: "Add, delete, and organize units of measure." Tab page: "Use the Units of Measure tab to define the units of measure for material resources." Units of Measure table: "Lists units of measure abbreviations and descriptions." How-to Define units of measure: when connected to a P6 Professional database, define them on this tab; when connected to a P6 EPPM database, "You can define a unit of measure for material resources using P6." See Units of Measure Label Material, Not Labor Time. Tab Shift Up/Down sentence Oracle printed: order "when you assign a unit of measure to an activity." The cited project map has RSRC.unit_id, not a TASK unit-of-measure column. Do not invent a TASK unit_id from that Shift sentence.

EPPM — Enterprise Data, not Admin > Admin Categories

Oracle About Enterprise Data: "Enterprise data is a defined series of application-wide parameters and values that apply to all projects." "The P6 Administrator uses enterprise data to define standard categories and values you can apply across all projects, including custom categories and category values for projects, resources, and WBS elements."

Oracle Working with Enterprise Data: "Use the Enterprise Data page to configure various types of data settings commonly used by other features in the application." Groups Oracle named (quote Oracle; do not copy the Professional tab list onto them):

• Global — "For example, currencies, financial periods, and timesheet periods."
• Projects — "For example, codes, user defined fields, baseline types, funding sources, project calendars, and WBS categories."
• Activities — "For example, codes, user defined fields, cost accounts, and step templates."
• Resources — "For example, codes, user defined fields, rate types, resource calendars, and units of measure."
• Risks — "For example, risk categories, scoring matrices, and user defined fields."
• Issues — "For example, codes and user defined fields."
• Documents — "For example, document categories, statuses, and user defined fields."

Oracle About Managing Enterprise Data lists usage-analysis pages that include "Risk, WBS, expense, and document categories," Baseline types, and Notebook topics. Oracle About Baseline Types (EPPM): "Baseline types enable you to categorize and standardize baselines across projects." "The P6 Administrator defines the available baseline types."

Do not copy Professional Admin > Admin Categories, Administrator Toolbar, or the eight-tab dialog onto EPPM Enterprise Data. Do not copy EPPM group pages (scoring matrices, funding sources, calendars, codes, UDFs) onto this Professional dialog. When Professional is connected to an EPPM database, Oracle's how-to pages send baseline types and units of measure to P6, not to Admin Categories.

XER

Admin Categories is an enterprise / database dialog. It is not an XER table.

Oracle's project XER data map TOC lists no ADMINCAT, ADMINCATEGORIES, ADMIN_CAT, or CATEGORIES table. Do not invent an ADMINCAT / ADMINCATEGORIES %T or columns for the dialog itself.

Category dictionaries Oracle does name on the project map (the data on the tabs, not the dialog):

Do not invent BASETYPE / BASELINETYPE / ADMINCAT. PROJECT.base_type_id is labeled Baseline Type. That is a pointer on PROJECT, not a dictionary table. Oracle did not say a project XER carries the Baseline Types list.

RISKTYPE is labeled Risk Types on the TOC and "available in P6 Professional only" on the RISKTYPE page. UI name is Risk Categories. Quote both. Do not collapse them.

A Viewer parse of one project XER can see the named dictionary tables if they were exported with that project. It cannot reconstruct Admin Categories as a single table, and it cannot recover Baseline Types as a dictionary Oracle did not put on the map.

Microsoft Project

Desktop Project has no Admin Categories dialog and no shared category-dictionary admin surface.

Microsoft Notes is one comments field on a task, resource, or assignment. No topic dictionary, no EPS/WBS/activity flags. See Notebooks (MEMOTYPE / TASKMEMO / WBSMEMO) — Not Schedule Logic.

Microsoft Material Label is a string on the material resource ("tons, boxes, or cubic yards"), not a shared UMEASURE dictionary. See Units of Measure Label Material, Not Labor Time.

Microsoft baseline is fields on the task (Baseline plus Baseline1–10; about 20 reference points in five categories). No baseline-type dictionary. See baselines.md.

Microsoft Fixed Cost is one number on the task. No expense-category dictionary. See Expense Categories Label Expenses, Not Cost Accounts.

MSP tasks can have hyperlinks and notes. No document-category or document-status dictionary. No WBS Category. No risk-category dictionary.

They are not the same dialog. Do not map Admin Categories to File > Options, to Outline Codes, or to a custom-field list. Do not claim MPXJ can write a real MPP.

Don't

• Treat Admin Categories as Admin Preferences, as User Preferences, as EPPM Enterprise Data, or as a single project-XER table.
• Invent an ADMINCAT / ADMINCATEGORIES / BASETYPE / BASELINETYPE XER table, or treat PROJECT.base_type_id as "the Admin Categories dialog."
• Claim a Viewer reconstructed Admin Categories from a project XER as one table.
• Re-document COSTTYPE / DOCCATG / DOCSTAT / MEMOTYPE / PHASE / RISKTYPE / UMEASURE field lists here, or treat those dictionaries as the dialog.
• Collapse Oracle's Notebook (dialog list) and Notebook Topics (tab page / how-to), Document Status and Document Statuses, Baseline Types and Baselines Types, or Risk Categories (UI) and Risk Types (XER TOC).
• Copy Professional Admin > Admin Categories / eight-tab list / Administrator Toolbar onto EPPM Enterprise Data, or copy EPPM scoring matrices / funding sources / calendars / codes onto this dialog.
• Map P6 Admin Categories to MSP File > Options, Notes, Material Label, Set Baseline, Fixed Cost, or Outline Codes as the same object.
• Claim MPXJ writes a real MPP.