Example of Function Option Use for OnePager for Version 7.2

Introduction

This article provides a short and simple example of how the Function option can be used in timeline charts to show imported data from your source plan in an innovative way. In this example we use the Sum function option to create a text column that contains the sum of costs associated with a set of tasks that each have a cost value associated with them.

Importing the Source Plan

The source plan for this example consists of a multi-project source plan shown below:

The source plan above is a multi-project source plan with each project made up of a number of phases each with start/finish dates, predecessors, identification numbers, resource names, and, for our purpose here, a cost column. Note that the Flag20 column is set up such that the summary tasks are not imported to OnePager.

To keep things moving, we’ll go ahead and import the data using Flag20 to select the rows to import and use a Multi-Project Timeline Template Properties form which produces an initial chart that is shown below:

Each of the several multiple projects are shown as a swimlane containing all the task bar representing project phases. OnePager automatically provides separate colors for each swimlane set of task bars and the project swimlanes are ordered by lowest start date as we’ll see shortly.

Summarizing Project Cost

Our objective with the example is to have OnePager show each project’s cost in a text column associated with each swimlane. To do this we need to tell OnePager what function options to use and where to apply them to achieve the goal. This is done in the Chart Properties form’s Rows/Swimlanes tab as shown in the sequence of steps shown below:

Using Function options is an intermediately complex operation in OnePager so it’s not surprising that there are several steps shown in the Chart Properties form’s Rows/Swimlanes tab in the illustration above. Let’s go over each one of them:

Step 1: Set the Left#1 Swimlane to be Grouped by the Level 1 summary name. This will make the project names appear in the Left#1 Swimlane labels.

Step 2: Since we want the projects ordered by start date, we turn ON the Swimlane control group’s Sort on field: radio button and select the Start date in the dropdown list in ascending order.

Step 3: In the same sub-control group, check the Function checkbox ON which enables the dropdown and select the Minimum function option. Since there are multiple task bars in each Swimlane we want to make sure that the start date with the lowest value is selected for that Swimlane.

Step 4: Going to the Text Columns control group, check the Display data from checkbox ON for the Left#1 text column.

Step 5: Select the Cost column from the source plan’s dropdown list of imported source plan columns.

Step 6: Check the Function checkbox ON in the Left#1 text column control group which enables the dropdown window showing the list of available function options. Since we want to sum the cost values for each task in the Swimlane, we select Sum as the function option to use.

Step 7: Since the Cost column is a numeric type imported field, OnePager gives you the option to format the numeric value and in this case we’ve selected to have no decimal planes, to use the comma to separate groups of digits, and use the dollar sign to establish the currency type.

Last step: When the above settings are all made, click OK or Apply and OnePager updates the chart to look like this:

As a further note, the Left#1 text column header inserts the word (Total) after the Left#1 text column heading to indicate that the text column is using a function option, in this case the Sum.

Related Links

Conditional Formatting (Portal)	Conditional Formatting Rules for Task Bar/Milestone Symbol Decorations
Conditional Formatting Rules for Text Columns and Rows	Conditional Formatting Rules for Swimlanes
Collecting, Formatting, and Sorting Task/Milestones into Rows	Creating, Formatting, and Sorting Swimlanes Levels
Creating and Formatting Text Columns	Using Microsoft Project Alias Column Names in OnePager Text Column Headings
Using Functions with Text Columns, Rows, and Swimlanes for OnePager for Version 7.2	Snapshot-Dependent Text Columns for OnePager

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