Data Management Capabilities > Managing Projects > Projects and Programs > Plan Schedule > Automatic Execution
  
Automatic Execution
When the plan is in automatic execution mode, activities start and finish based on their schedule and start constraints, prompting automatic task notifications to team members. The state of the project, plan, and activity determines what actions you can perform on plan objects. For more information, see Plans.
Project States
Plan, Subplan and Activity States
Defined
Scheduled
Running
In Process
Suspended
Suspended
Canceled
Canceled
Completed
Completed
* 
To see the states of individual activities, you can create a custom view in the Schedule table to add a column for the State attribute. For more information, see Creating and Editing New Table Views.
Unlike project status, automatic execution states are determined hierarchically from the top down. The project state determines the plan state, which in turn determines the activity state. In the case of automatic execution, you cannot start a child plan unless the parent plan is started.
For more information, see Project States, Phases, and Status.
Auto-Execution Controls
Once started, plan execution is entirely automatic based on start and finish dates and predecessor relationships. However, project managers and activity owners can use additional actions from the Schedule table to control execution.
Plan execution controls are only available if the project or program is in the Running state. Activity execution controls are only available if the plan is in the In Process state:
Use the Actions menu on the Schedule table to start, stop, and resume execution of the plan. Use the right-click actions menu to start, stop, or resume execution of an activity:
Action
Description
Start Execution
Initiate automatic execution of the plan.
* 
A user with administrator role can start an automatic plan.
When you create a new project, you must manually start the plan. Once the plan is started, the first scheduled activity changes from Scheduled to In Process and a notification is sent to the activity owner.
* 
All the parent plans should be started to start a child plan
Start
Manually start an activity or milestone before its scheduled start date.
The Actual Start date is set and any predecessor relationships are removed.
* 
Once manually started, a milestone does not automatically complete. You must manually complete the milestone when finished.
You can set the start of a subplan, only when the referenced plan or activity is started.
Suspend
Pause execution of the plan or activity.
• No activities can be completed and delivery of subsequent tasks is prevented until planning or resource issues are resolved.
• When the plan is suspended, activities that are in process move to the Suspended state. You cannot specifically suspend the subplan.
• When the parent plan is suspended, the subplan that is in the state Scheduled, remains scheduled if the referenced plan or activity is in the state Scheduled. Any changes to the referenced plan or activity are rolled up to the subplan.
Resume
Resume plan or activity execution if it has been suspended. You cannot specifically resume the subplans that are rolled up from a referenced plan or activity.
Complete Plan
Mark the plan or activity as finished.
This action cannot be undone. Once a plan or activity is completed, you cannot restart it.
* 
An administrator can enable or disable the Complete Plan Execution profile action for Product, Project and Program contexts.
Canceling, completing, and suspending a project performs the same actions for the plan.
When the plan is set to the Completed state, any activities that have not been completed are set to the Canceled state. While you can restart a project that has been canceled or completed, you cannot restart a plan that has been marked complete. For more information, see Terminating a Project or Program.
Auto-Execution State and Available Actions
When using an automatically scheduled plan, the availability and functionality of plan actions depends on the state. If you want to perform an action that is restricted due to the plan or activity state, you can often use the execution controls actions to set the state accordingly.
For example, to assign additional resources to a plan activity that has already started, select Suspend from the right-click actions menu of that activity. Once you have assigned the resource, select Resume.
Actions by Plan State
The availability of the following actions is determined by the plan state:
Action
Plan State
Scheduled
In Process
Suspended
Completed
Cut
X
X
Paste
X
X
Delete
X
X
X
Limited
X
X
Limited
Decrease Indent
X
X
X
Increase Indent
X
X
X
X
X
X
New Sub-plan
X
X
X
X
X
X
Expand
X
X
X
X
Collapse
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Start Execution
X
Suspend Plan
X
Resume Plan
X
Complete Plan
X
Actions by Activity State
The availability of the following actions is determined by the activity state:
Action
Activity State
Scheduled
In Process
Suspended
Completed
X
Limited
X
Delete
X
X
X
Cut
X
X
Copy
X
X
X
X
X
Limited
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Limited
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Insert Sub-plan Above
X
X
X
X
Insert Sub-plan Below
X
X
X
X
Insert Sub-plan as a Child
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Start
X
Suspend
X
Resume
X
Complete
X
* 
• Execution controls for activities (Start, Suspend, Resume, and Complete) are only available when the plan is in the In Process state.
• You cannot edit the Start No Earlier Than date for activities in the Suspended state.
• The Track Work action is not available for activity owners when an activity is suspended. Assigned resources can continue to track work, but only the Work, Remaining Work, and Status fields can be edited.