Mavericking Task Link Property Settings for Version 8.0

Introduction

What is “Mavericking”?

The subject of this article is “mavericking”. But, what is a maverick? In OnePager, the Glossary of Terms defines maverick task links, for example, as follows:

A task link is said to be turned into a Maverick if the task link has one or more of its default property settings manually changed (e.g. changing the “color” of a task link to red, when the default or data OnePager assigned color is gray).

Task link global property settings are initially established in OnePager Template Properties before a chart is created and these global property settings can be altered using the Chart Properties forms after the chart is created. That is, you always have the option to make global changes by altering task link property settings in the Chart Properties form.

Mavericking can be applied to Data-Driven task links imported from your source plan and Manual task links created in the chart.

Unlike with task bars/milestone symbols and rows, swimlanes, and text columns, OnePager does not provide the capability to use conditional formatting rules to change task link properties based on imported source plan data.

Finally, you can maverick or manually change task link property settings in the chart using context menus and forms provided for these purposes.

What “Mavericking” Does Not Do!

You can maverick task link property settings in the chart but these mavericked property settings are NEVER incorporated into the current Chart Properties form and they CANNOT become incorporated into a Template Properties form! Therefore, you should not rely on mavericking for making more than a handful of minor changes in the chart. Significant use of mavericking is inefficient and can end up taking more time in the long run.

Mavericking and Global Property Settings – The Hierarchy

When users apply formatting through a mixture of mavericking and global property settings, the following hierarchy applies:

1) Mavericking (takes precedence over all other formatting)

2) Global property settings (can be overridden by mavericking)

OnePager DOES NOT provide conditional formatting rules for task links. The discussion above is provided to completely describe the concepts involved.

The hierarchy becomes important when the editing features are used in combination and when you desire to restore property settings back to their default property setting values. So before proceeding into the details, let’s review the editing features you have available in OnePager.

OnePager Template Properties Forms

OnePager is shipped to customers with a set of Templates that can be used to produce different styles of OnePager charts. These Templates define the global default property settings for task links that initially appear in your chart. Settings from any Template can be reviewed in the Template Properties form prior to chart creation. The illustration below depicts the Task Links tab for the Single Project Gantt View – Detailed template:

You can certainly, before the chart is created, access one or more of the provided Templates, make changes to their property settings as determined by your needs, and save the altered Template for use later when creating OnePager charts. When saved in a Template, these changes become global from the perspective of any charts subsequently created from the Template.

OnePager Chart Properties Forms

You have the option to make global, chart level, changes to the default property settings after the chart is created. By accessing the Chart Properties form you can change default task link property settings at the Task Links tab. Changes made to any property settings in any tab of the Chart Properties form ONLY CHANGE THE CURRENT chart. The changes do not automatically change the Template that was originally used to create the chart.

The Chart Properties form’s Task Links tab is shown below:

Chart Properties Form’s Task Links Tab

When a chart is created, the task link property settings are taken from the current Template and applied to the Chart Properties form. In the Chart Editor, the Chart Properties form is accessible at the OnePager Home ribbon tool bar task shown below:

If you are satisfied with the “out-of-the-box” chart, there is no need to access the Chart Properties form and make chart level global changes to any property settings. On the other hand, if you want to make chart level global changes, that is, you want to change one or more of the task link property settings, access the Chart Properties form at the Task Links tab and use the controls to make the changes. When you are finished, click the OK button on the Chart Properties form and your chart level global changes are immediately applied to the chart.

Since the process described above has the potential to change the appearance of several or all task links in the chart, these changes are NOT considered mavericks.

Manually Changing Task Link Property Settings

Manual changes made to one or more specific task link in the chart by changing specific property settings DOES reclassify the specific task link as a maverick. Examples are provided in sections that follow.

For more information on this relationship, please click the link in the table below:

Related Links

Overview

This article covers the subject of manually mavericking task link property settings in the chart in the following two sections:

1) Manually Mavericking Task Link Settings

2) Manually Mavericking Task Link Properties Using Controls on the OnePager Home Ribbon Tool Bar Tab

These two sections are followed by a section discussing how to restore chart level global default task link properties settings from their mavericked settings.

The final section is a short summary followed by a table of Related Links to this subject in the OnePager Wiki and elsewhere.

Manually Mavericking Task Link Settings

Suppose we create a chart that has a focus on task links with text columns showing each task bar’s Unique ID and Predecessor as shown below:

This chart was created using the standard Single Project Gantt – Detailed Template calling for task bar/milestone symbol colors to be based on resource assignments.

The OnePager Chart Editor provides controls for you to select a task links with a right-click which accesses a context menu showing commands that allow you to specifically edit the task link selected. The details for using these features are included in articles that are referenced in the Related Links section at the end of this article.

For example, suppose the task link between the Assemble Resources task bar and the Create Working Plans task bar are right-clicked to access the task link’s context menu as shown below:

The context menu has three (3) commands. These commands are explained in detail in other articles with links provided in the Related Links section at the end of this article.

Using the Task Links Properties Form

For our example, the Properties … command is of interest here because clicking the Properties … command accesses the Task Link Properties form as shown below:

The Task Link Properties form shown above allows you to make individual task link property setting changes to the selected task link or links. Such changes make the selected task link or links into mavericks.

For this simple example, suppose we need to change the width and color of the selected task link to highlight it for emphasis in a planned team schedule conversation. This can be done in two steps. First, increase the width of the task link using the up arrow in the Width window in the Line Style control group of the form as shown in the following illustration:

In the above illustration, the Width property is increased from two (2) to four (4) for the selected task link completing the first steps in this example. For the second step, click the down-arrow on the Color control to access the Color Chooser form and click the red color as shown below:

Clicking the OK button applies the newly mavericked width and color properties to the selected task link. The chart now looks like this:

You have the option to maverick all the enabled properties of any selected data-driven task link using the controls provided in the Task Link Properties form used in the example shown above. Additionally, when manual task links are included in the chart, selected, and the Task Link Properties form accessed, all control groups in the Task Link Properties form are enabled as shown below:

Using the Order Command in the Task Link Context Menu

As mentioned above, the task link context menu has three (3) commands where the Properties … command is covered in detail in the previous sub-section. The Order command has four (4) sub-commands which can be used to adjust the position (front to back) of the selected task link with respect to the levels in the display. This illustration below shows the Order command and its sub-commands:

An example on how these sub-commands can be used is provided in the illustration above where the selected task link has a portion of the link hidden behind the ADONIS Subcontractor Selection task bar. To make that selected task link appear in front of the ADONIS Subcontractor Selection task bar, click the Bring to front sub-command shown above to get the result shown here:

Using the Bring to front sub-command the selected task link becomes more visible when it is positioned in front of task bars.

Using the Hide Command in the Task Link Context Menu

Finally, you can use the Hide command in the selected task link context menu to remove the selected task link from view. Using the selected task link from the previous sub-section which we brought to front, we can hide this task link by accessing the task link context menu and clicking the Hide command to achieve the result shown below:

Hidden task links can be found by accessing the Where’s Are My Links? form which can be accessed from the OnePager ribbon Home tool bar tab’s Editing control group by clicking the Show/Hide dropdown which then displays the Show/Hide commands as shown below:

When you click the Where Are My Links? command the Where Are My Links? form is accessed as shown below:

In the form shown above, the task link between Create Working Plans and Engineering Team 2 Development has its Show checkbox turned OFF indicating that the task link is hidden. The Where Are My Links? can be used to restore visibility to hidden task links by simply checking the Show checkbox back to ON and clicking the OK button. Alternatively, you can click the Show All button to assure that all task links; both Manual and Data-Driven, are shown in the chart.

Manually Mavericking Task Link Property Settings Using Controls on the OnePager Home Ribbon Tool Bar Tab

In addition to the methods described in the previous sections for mavericking task link property settings, there are also controls on the OnePager Home ribbon tool bar tab that are provided for quick access for mavericking task link comment property settings and accessing the OnePager Color Chooser form to maverick the selected task link’s color. These capabilities are illustrated in this section.

The OnePager Home Ribbon Tool Bar Tab

The OnePager Home ribbon tool bar tab has two (2) controls for making changes to selected task links are shown below:

Mavericking Task Link Comments – Font Control Group Example

The Font and Format (Color) control groups on the Home ribbon tool bar tab are enabled whenever a task link and their respective comments are selected with a click as shown in the above illustration. The Font control group is used to make changes specifically to the selected task links comment. Making any changes to the comment property settings of the task link mavericks the task link. For example, clicking the BOLD control in the Font control group makes the select task link comment into a BOLD font as shown in the two illustrations below with heightened rows:

Task Link with Comment

Task Link Comment Mavericked with BOLD Font

The two illustrations above show, using artificially heightened row sizes, a task link containing a comment mavericked to show the comment’s text in BOLD font.

In a similar manner, you can change the selected task link’s comment font property to Italics or Underline. Other controls are available in the Font control group for increasing the size of the label’s font, decreasing the label’s font size, changing the font type, and change the label’s font color.

Mavericking Task Links – Format Control Group (Color) Example

You can also change the color of a task link by using the Paint Bucket (Color) button on the OnePager Home tool bar tab’s Format control group which is enabled when a task link is selected.

In the example below, the task link is selected and the Paint Bucket button is enabled. Clicking the Paint Bucket button accesses the Color Chooser form as shown here:

Assuming that the red color is selected in the Color Chooser form, when this action is taken, the Color Chooser form is closed and the selected task link is mavericked to the red color as shown here:

Restoring Default Properties to Manually Mavericked Task Links

Below is a complete explanation of how to restore mavericked task link property settings to their default values in the hierarchy.

Mavericked task link property settings can be restored to their default property settings on an individual maverick basis or by selecting multiple mavericked task links. The restoration of default properties setting is done in the Task Link Properties form.

To illustrate the use of the Task Link Properties form to restore default task link property settings, we can use the task link mavericking example presented at the beginning of this article. Recall that the example mavericked a task link used in the example looks like this:

If we again right-click on the task link, this action accesses its context menu where the Properties … command is at the bottom of the list. Clicking the Properties … command accesses the Task Link Properties form where the Use Format Defaults button is highlighted in the illustration below:

In the above illustration, clicking the Use Format Defaults button restores all mavericked property settings of the selected task link or task links. When the Use Format Defaults button is clicked, the color and task link width, in this example, are restored in the Color and Width windows in the form as shown below:

When the OK button is clicked on the Task Link Properties form and the selected mavericked task link is restored to its default property setting specified in the current Chart Properties form the chart looks like this:

Summary

OnePager has a hierarchy established for managing changes to task link property settings with manual mavericking at the top of the hierarchy and global property setting at the bottom.

Mavericked property settings made to task links in the chart are NEVER incorporated into the current Chart Properties form and can only be saved in the chart (i.e., .TAM file). Likewise, mavericked properties settings are NEVER incorporated into Templates.

Additionally, controls are provided with which you can restore conditional formatting rules or chart level global default property settings to any task link that was previously mavericked.

Conditional Import Filters (Portal)	Undoing and Redoing Changes
Manual Task Links	Data-Driven Task Link Import Rules
Using Task Link Filtering Rules for Showing/Hiding Task Links	Editing Task Links with the Chart Properties Form
Manual Editing of Task Links	Using the Where Are My Links? Form
Notes on Data-Driven Task Links	Data-Driven Task Links for OnePager Pro and Express
Data-Driven Task Links for Primavera	Data-Driven Task Links for Smartsheet
Data-Driven Task Links for Microsoft Planner	Data-Driven Task Links for Planisware Enterprise
Data-Driven Task Links for Asana	Data-Driven Task Links for Wrike
Editing with the Chart Properties form (Portal)	Task Links Tab
Managing Templates (Portal)	Managing the Current Template