Difference between revisions of "Deadlines for Version 7.0 (OnePager Pro)"

Revision as of 16:16, 18 September 2019

About Deadlines

1) OnePager translates Deadlines from your Microsoft Project source plan into deadline shapes in the graph to indicate the deadline date for a task or milestone.

2) To illustrate with a simple example, consider the Microsoft Project source plan given below with three tasks containing Start and Finish dates, a deadline date, and the Microsoft Project Flag20 field set to Yes so that OnePager imports the data for all three tasks:

3) When a simple chart is created from the source plan above and Deadlines are turned On, the example chart looks like this:

a) When deadlines are turned on, they appear (by default) as red arrow shape in each task bar's row at the deadline date position with respect to the time axis.

b) Above, deadline shapes that are not contained within their respective task bar are shown with back dash-dot connecting lines to illustrate the capability.

Editing All Deadline Properties

1) To display deadline dates in your charts you must first assure that the Microsoft Project source plan has its Deadline field populated with valid dates.

2) When deadline dates are present in the source plan they must first be turned On as the default setting in most distributed Templates is for deadlines to be turned Off.

3) To do this click the Chart Properties button on the OnePager Home tab to access the Chart Properties form.

4) Next, navigate to the Chart Properties Task Bars tab and to the Task Bars Decoration control group as shown below:

a) Check the Deadline shapes checkbox On to enable the Deadline Properties button to the immediate right of the checkbox as shown below:

b) By default, deadlines are mapped to the Deadline date field in Microsoft Project.

Set Deadline Properties Form

5) To edit the format of all deadlines, click the Deadline Properties... button, to access the Set deadline properties form shown below:

6) The form above provides all the editing controls for all deadline shapes that can be displayed in the chart.

Standard Basic Deadline Shape Controls

7) As stated previously, many of the controls in this group of the Set deadline properties form are standard.

a) The deadline shapes available are the same as Milestone shapes found in the Milestones tab of the Template and Chart Properties forms

b) Likewise, the Fill patterns available are the same for Task Bars and Milestone shapes also found on their respective tabs of the Template and Chart Properties forms.

c) The Height percentage control represents the percentage of the total task/milestone height itself, is covered elsewhere and behaves in a standard way. The default Height percentage is 100%.

8) Similarly, the Transparency control for the deadline operates in the same way as transparency controls for other objects.

a) The higher the value selected, the greater the transparency.

b) Conversely, the low the value selected, the more solid the deadline appears.

9) The Field dropdown in the upper right of the form allows you to select another Microsoft Project source plan date field instead of the default Deadline field typically used in Microsoft Project.

10) Contents of the Field dropdown list is shown below:

11) The Position of the deadline has a unique meaning.

a) Deadlines are always associated with a task/milestone and can be to the left, within, or to the right of the task/milestone itself depending on your Microsoft Project source plan data for the task’s start, finish and deadline dates.

b) The position in this context is about where within the task/milestone’s row area vertically the deadline should be placed.

c) There are three available positions for the placement of the deadline with respect to the task:

(1) centered in the task,

(2) above the task/milestone, or

(3) below the task as shown below:

12) The Use custom color checkbox can be checked On when it is desired to select a color for the deadline other than the color for its parent task/milestone.

a) When the Use custom color checkbox is checked On, the Custom color dropdown is enabled.

b) Clicking the dropdown button shows the standard Color Chooser form.

Showing Deadline Delays

13) The purpose of the display of Deadline Delays is to provide you with the capability to highlight deadlines that are missed as shown in the chart.

14) When the Color-code delays checkbox is checked On, OnePager uses the selected Delay color (determined by the selection of the delay color from the Color Chooser form) to show all deadlines that are missed:

15) The deadline delay feature follows this logic:

a) The deadline is set to the selected Delay color if, for any deadline, the Color-code delays checkbox is checked On, the deadline date is earlier than the current snapshot date, and the percent (%) complete for the parent task/milestone is less than 100%.

b) If any of the conditions stated in the previous sub-paragraph are not met, the color of the deadline is set to the default color, unless a custom color is otherwise specified.

iii) This section illustrates the use of the deadline Color-Code Delay features. To set the stage, suppose we have a project of three tasks with the following initial conditions:

• Project Start Date – 10/1/2015
• Project Finish Date (Estimated) – 10/16/2015
• First Status Date – 9/11/2015
• Task A Deadline Date – 10/10/2015 (Task A Finish projected before deadline)
• Task B Deadline Date – 10/10/2015 (Task B Finish beyond deadline date)
• Task C Deadline Date- 10/1/2015 (Task C Start beyond deadline date)

j) With these initial conditions, the Microsoft Project source plan looks like this:

f) Connections. The central group of the Set deadline properties form deals with connecting lines. The controls available are shown below:

The form above shows the extent of control that you have over the lines that can be used to connect a deadline to its parent task/milestone. These include the specification of a custom color, line width and line style.

g) Setting Date Labels for Deadline. The lower group of the Set deadline properties form holds the controls for turning on and positioning the date labels for deadlines. This group of the form looks like this:

i) The form above shows the extent of control that you have over the display of date labels for deadlines.

ii) These are the same controls as for other decoration date specifications and include the specification of date format, the use of the fiscal year feature, the positioning of the date label text, and the font properties for the date label text.

iii) The illustration in the following sub-section shows an example of a deadline date labels which are positioned below their respect deadline.

h) Showing Deadline Delays. When the Color-code delays checkbox is checked, OnePager uses the selected Delay color (determined by the selection of the delay color from the Color Chooser form to show all deadlines that have been missed:

i) The deadline delay feature follows this logic:

i) The deadline is set to the selected Delay color if, for any deadline, the Color-code delays checkbox is checked, the deadline date is earlier than the current snapshot date and the percent (%) complete for the parent task/milestone is less than 100%

ii) If any of the conditions stated in the previous sub-paragraph are not met, the color of the deadline is set to the default color, unless a custom color is otherwise specified.

iii) This section illustrates the use of the deadline Color-Code Delay features. To set the stage, suppose we have a project of three tasks with the following initial conditions:

• Project Start Date – 10/1/2015
• Project Finish Date (Estimated) – 10/16/2015
• First Status Date – 9/11/2015
• Task A Deadline Date – 10/10/2015 (Task A Finish projected before deadline)
• Task B Deadline Date – 10/10/2015 (Task B Finish beyond deadline date)
• Task C Deadline Date- 10/1/2015 (Task C Start beyond deadline date)

j) With these initial conditions, the Microsoft Project source plan looks like this:

k) Creating the chart of the above schedule with OPP you’ll see the following:

l) Moving forward in time to the next status date of 10/5/2015, we can suppose that the percent (%) complete data for the three Tasks A, B, and C are 50%, 30% and 0% respectively. As a result of this progress, the Microsoft Project source plan looks like this:

m) Performing the Update function with OPP we get the following snapshot for 10/5/2015.

n) Again, moving forward in time to the next status date of 10/14/2015, we can further suppose that the percent (%) complete data for the three Tasks A, B, and C are now 100%, 75% and 100% respectively. As a result of this progress, the Microsoft Project source plan looks like this:

2) At this point, all deadlines for all three tasks are exceeded. Performing another Update with OPP, we get the following snapshot for 10/14/2015:

Modifying Individual Deadline Properties

1) Deadline properties can be set or changed for individual tasks.

2) A prerequisite for modifying individual deadline properties is the necessity for deadline data to be imported from the Microsoft Project source plan. Some individual task deadline properties can be changed by selecting the desired task or tasks with a left-click operation and then right-clicking one of the selected task to show the context menu below:

a) Select the Format… command which brings up the Change Task/Milestone Properties form. Next, navigate to the Deadlines tab, which displays the deadline control options shown below:

b) From the Deadlines tab of the form above, you are able to turn the selected deadline off or on, show the deadline connector to the task and display or turn off the deadline date label.

(10.9.1-70)