To get you started, we want to offer several examples of how Conditional Import may be used. As you gain experience with the feature, no doubt, you will find many more ways to take advantage of its flexibility.

Examples

In OPP and OPX version 6.0, the capability for you to control the import of rows from your plan source files is made even more flexible with the addition of new Conditional Import capability. In this section there are three situations you may have encountered in the past with OnePager that can be facilitated better with Conditional Import:

When a Flag Field Isn’t Sufficient

1) There are occasions where you would like to import a plan source file row but only when the contents of a specified column holds a desired value or range of values. In this case, using a flag field may not be flexible enough or may be too time consuming to use.

2) Suppose you might want to include plan source file rows where task/milestone Start dates are greater than a specified date. Prior to OPP/OPX version 6.0 you would have to manually locate and modify the flag cell contents for those rows meeting the desired condition before importing. With version 6.0 you can clearly specify, in a Conditional Import rule, defined before the import process begins, the conditions that meets any logical combination of criteria WITHOUT making modifications to the plan source file. Here’s how it might work:

a) We’ll use the BlueGrass Project 2J-303 Microsoft Project plan source file as an example. Recall that the column headers look something like this:

b) For this example you only want to import tasks/milestones that have a Start date greater than 10/11/2015 but less than 12/31/2015. You can do that by first launching Microsoft Project with the plan source file loaded as shown above. Next, launch OPP version 6.0 from the Microsoft Project tool bar as you normally do and click the NEW button option. When this is done the following OnePager Choices form appears:

c) The OnePager choices (OPC) form above has an additional radio button in the Task Selection section, Select tasks by custom filter and a new button called Edit filter…. Before clicking the Select tasks by customer filter button, update the project view name and snapshot date such that the OPC form looks like this:

d) Now, click the Select tasks by custom filter button. When you do, a blank Custom Import Rules form will appear as show below:

e) You can now compose the two rules needed to import rows that have Start dates greater than 10/11/2015 but less than 12/31/2015. When you do this, the Conditional Import Rules form will look like this:

f) Note that the All of the following rules are true radio button is selected so that the two rules are essentially an AND operation. When you click OK on the form, it will disappear and you will be back at the OPC form once more. At this point. click the Create new project view button and OPP will create the project view that looks like this:

g) In the project view above, there are tasks that extend beyond 12/31/2015 but there are no tasks that Start on or after 12/31/2015. Similarly, there are no tasks that Start before 10/11/2015.

h) When the project view is saved, the Conditional Import rules are saved as well and will be used to control the import for subsequent snapshots. Further, in either this snapshot or subsequent ones, the Conditional Import rules can be edited (i.e., changed, added, or deleted). When such changes are made to the Conditional Import rules, the current new snapshot or the snapshot being replaced will be configured by the active set of Conditional Import rules. Finally, you can always revert to using flag columns or select All tasks for import.

i) An important thing to remember is that the Conditional Import rules, like the use of a single flag column, applies to only the current snapshot. Therefore, changing the Conditional Import rules for a down timeline snapshot will NOT change the look for all previous snapshots unless further Conditional Import rules changes are specifically made for these snapshots via the REPLACE snapshot procedure.

3) Conditional Import is a powerful new capability that allows you to better control the content of your project views. Conditional Import also makes project views more useful in project schedule analysis presentations/discussions that usually accompany project management. As such, OnePager becomes not only a presentation tool but an addition to your suite of project schedule analysis tools.

When Microsoft Project/Excel Plan Source Files are Read-Only

4) Occasions may also arise where you are not able to modify a Microsoft Project or Excel plan source file. For instance, with a read-only file you might be unable to add the required import control flag columns or be unable to change them. You would have to first import them all and manually edit out or hide the unwanted row tasks/milestones after the project view is created. Again, version 6.0 allows you to specify import conditions that meet your needs, say, only the rows which correspond to a particular project Phase for which there are data already available in the plan’s source file. The example below will illustrate this:

a) Consider the Microsoft Project plan source file just below which has no flag field columns defined and happens to be Read-only:

b) For the sake of this example, we will assume that Flag1 through Flag20 are not defined and have no data in the rows even if these columns are hidden in Microsoft Project. You need, again for illustration, something to control the import of rows. We’ll use the Phase column which happens to be the Microsoft Project Text30 column.

c) Following the same sequences as in the previous example, we’ll launch OPP from the Microsoft Project tool bar, select the NEW option from the OnePager Start form, and make project view name and snapshot date modifications to the OPC form as shown below:

d) In the Microsoft Project plan source file there are a total of six (6) possible Phase names. In this example, we’ll use Conditional Import to just build a project view showing Phase II task and milestones by creating a Conditional Import rule that looks like this:

e) This simple Conditional Import rule gives you access to all the tasks associated with Phase II. So now click the OK button on the above form and then click the Create project view button on the OPC form to create the project view as shown below:

5) Since OPP was told to generate the legend using the Resource Names column from the Microsoft Project plan source file, you see that only one phase name is displayed. Team 2 is shown in the legend as the only resource name participating in Phase II of the project. Using Conditional Import first overcomes any difficulty dealing with a Read-only file and, second, allows you to focus on the second phase of the project to see the details in the plan. In this case the resources assigned. Again, Conditional Import becomes an analysis aid as well as a presentation aid.

Analysis Using an Existing Project View

6) There are also occasions where you may want to go back AFTER a project view is created and update the project view to look at rows controlled by another flag column. You may also want to build project views to do some analysis on the project schedule. This is easily done AFTER the project view was created by looking at other logical relationship within the Microsoft Project/Excel plan source file data.

Changing the Flag Field AFTER the Project View is Created

7) Making changes to the flag field column case after a project view is created is quite easy using the controls from the OnePager Project View Editor’s Data tab.

a) First, launch Microsoft Project with the original plan source file and click the OnePager button on the Microsoft Project tool bar. Then, click the UPDATE button on the OnePager Start form. This will load the project view into the OPP’s Project View Editor (PVE).

b) With the PVE running, go to the Data tab and click the Custom Update button which brings up the OPC form shown in the illustration below.

c) In this form, make sure the Select tasks with ‘Yes’ in column button is on, click the dropdown menu, and select the alternate flag field column as shown below:

d) In the above project view, which was created originally using Custom Import rules, you are changing the import control back to a defined flag column, specifically, Flag10. When you do this and REPLACE the snapshot you get the following updated project view:

e) This example illustrates how you can revert from using Conditional Import rules to the more conventional use of flag columns to control import.

Changing Custom Import Rules AFTER the Project View is Created

8) As was mentioned earlier, before version 6.0, handling import condition change situations meant totally starting over by going back to the OnePager Start form and selecting a different flag column. Version 6.0 lets you change the import conditions from the PVE by using the Data tab’s Custom Update button to access your Conditional Import rules and edit them. Here’s how changing Conditional Import rules can be done AFTER the project view is created:

a) Consider the previous example where you wanted to create a project view consisting of tasks/milestones with Start dates later than 10/11/2015 and earlier than 12/31/2015. Suppose you have that project view in the PVE and you want to import additional tasks/milestones for display that have Finish dates less than 4/1/2016.

b) You can do this by first bringing up the project view from Microsoft Project by launching OnePager and clicking the UPDATE button in the OnePager Start form. This brings up the PVE displaying the project view with the two Start date Conditional Import Rules defined previously.

c) Next, go to the Data tab, click the Custom Update button bringing up the OPC form created in a previous example.

d) Then, click the Edit Filters… button to bring up the Conditional Import Rules form which displays the two rules. You can now modify the Conditional Import rules by Adding a new rule as shown below:

e) Now, click OK on the Conditional Import Rules form to return to the OPC form where you should click the REPLACE existing snapshot with date button and use the dropdown calendar to select a replacement snapshot date as shown below:

f) Then, click the Replace dates button on the OPC form and the following project view will appear:

Organization of Articles In the Conditional Import Section

There are four detailed articles in this section available at the links below corresponding to each of the desktop products offered by Chronicle Graphics, Inc: OnePager Pro Add-in, OnePager Pro Desktop, OnePager Express Add-in, and OnePager Express Desktop.

Within each article, there is an Overview sub-section and the articles are further sub-sectioned by the three options that are available to you from the OnePager choices form: NEW, UPDATE, and OPEN.

Related Links:

Basic Workflows (Portal)

Conditional Formatting (Portal)

Using the OnePager "Data" Tab's "Selected file(s)" Button

OnePager Express Import of Data from Microsoft Excel

Message to Assist with Setting Import Flags When No Data Are Imported

Understanding Project Views and Snapshots for OnePager Pro

Understanding Project Views and Snapshots for OnePager Express

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