Revision as of 18:00, 10 December 2015

Custom Update (Replacing) of a Snapshot via Pull Operation - OnePager Express for Version 5.3 (X53-7_16_2-12082015)

The purpose of these articles is to acquaint you with the new “Pull” Operation features of OnePager Express and Pro Versions 5.3. There are eight (8) articles in this series, four (4) providing examples of the “Pull” Operation for OnePager Express Desktop and four (4) for OnePager Express Desktop. Please see the links at the end of this article to access other articles in the series.

This article shows you how to use the “Pull” Operation when you need to replace a snapshot such as when you have an existing snapshot, have updated the Microsoft Excel plan source file with the latest information and want that new information reflected in the snapshot.

What is a Pull Operation?

Before we get started with the example, this is a good point to describe the “Pull” Operation. A “Pull” Operation is performed when you start using OnePager from the Project View Editor. That is, you already have OnePager launched and running and the Project View Editor window is blank. Alternatively, a “Push” Operation begins when you launch OnePager from the desktop or from Microsoft Excel and perform the creation of a NEW project view, UPDATE a project view, or OPEN an existing project view from the “OnePager Express Start” form.

We added the “Pull” Operation because we found that our users were often creating a project view, finding something in the source file that they needed to change, going back to the source file, making the change and then re-launching OnePager to replace the project view.

The “Pull” Operation lets you launch OnePager once, create your project view, and, if you need to make a source file change, you may go back to the source file and do that. When you’ve updated the source file, you need only go back to OnePager and through the new “Data” tab quickly “pull” in the amended source file, update your project view, and continue.

In the “Pull’ Operation as described above, OnePager “pull” the data into the Project View Editor whereas in a “Push” Operation Microsoft Excel provides or “pushes” the data to OnePager Express.

The example below will illustrate a “Pull” Operation when replacing a snapshot using the “Custom Update…” button and its features.

Example

1) The “Custom Update…” feature provides you more flexibility in the performance of a snapshot replacement using the “Pull” Operation. Instead of automatically updating the snapshot in view by pulling in the updated Microsoft Excel plan source file, OnePager presents you with the standard “OnePager choices” form from which you may either confirm settings (See: REPLACING a Snapshot via Pull Operation - OnePager Express for Version 5.3 7.14.2-53) or change snapshot settings as needed. In short, the “Custom Update…” feature is designed to provide you with the most flexibility when replacing/adding a snapshot.

2) For this example, let’s suppose you have a Microsoft Excel plan for which you have already created a snapshot for a particular date, say, 12/2/2015. However, on 12/3/2015 you receive updated information and have updated your Microsoft Excel plan accordingly. You now want to update the project view’s snapshot for 12/2/2015 to reflect the new information. This example is performed for you in article REPLACING a Snapshot via Pull Operation - OnePager Express for Version 5.3 7.14.2-53 so we won’t repeat it here.

3) In this case you want to create a project view for 12/1/2015 that includes all tasks from the Microsoft Excel plan source file as a way of checking the entire project plan. Upon your review you may or may not want to save the results as a “Custom Update…”

4) Since the Microsoft Excel plan was updated and now reflects the latest information for 12/3/2015 we just need to use the “Pull” Operation to bring in the updated Microsoft Excel plan data and replace the snapshot.

Launching OnePager Express from the Desktop Icon

5) We are going to illustrate the “Pull” Operation for using the “Custom Update…” button for replacing a snapshot.

6) First, update the Microsoft Excel source file with the updated data you want to replace in the snapshot.

7) Launch OnePager Pro from the desktop and when the “OnePager Express Start” form appears click the “OPEN” button which, in our example, will provide a drop down menu with the name of the project view you wish to update by replacement. In this case it’s “BlueGrass 2J-303-PMO” as shown below:

8) The OnePager Express desktop application will bring the selected project view up in the Project View Editor window. This is the project view and snapshot we want to replace. To proceed with the replacement click the “Data” tab on the OnePager Express ribbon. The Project View Editor will look like this:

Pulling In the Microsoft Excel Plan to Do a Custom Update

9) To perform the “Custom Update…” replacement of the snapshot showing in the Project View Editor window simply click the “Custom Update…” button on the “Data” tab of the ribbon as shown below:

10) Taking this action will bring up the “OnePager choices” form as shown above. Note that the “OnePager choices” form is set up to use the “Show It1” field for task selection, to do a replacement of the snapshot taken at 12/2/2015, and to replace only dates. For this simple example, we want to change the Task Selection control to “Select all tasks”. When you make these changes the “OnePager choices” form will look like this:

11) When you click the “Next>” button, the second page of the “OnePager choices” form will appear as shown below. You may confirm column mapping settings or make changes to column mapping settings. Using the “Custom Update…” button opens up a great range of flexibility when making snapshot replacements or adds.

12) For project view with multiple snapshots it is important to make sure that you have selected the correct snapshot to display in the Project View Editor window before clicking the “Custom Update…” button. OnePager knows which snapshot is being displayed and will replace the visible snapshot with data from the parent Microsoft Excel plan source file. Navigating between snapshots in a multiple snapshot project view can be done prior to the above action by using the “View” tab on the OnePager Express ribbon as shown here:

13) The replaced snapshot for the “Custom Update…” settings given above will be a project view “BlueGrass 2J-303-PMO-X” for 12/2/2015 is shown below in this 3 page print preview:

14) The above example shows how the “Pull” Operation is used to create a Custom snapshot. Since we are using the desktop application of OnePager for this example it was not necessary to launch Microsoft Excel first. As long as you’ve properly prepared your Microsoft Excel plan source file just launching OnePager Express from the desktop icon is basically all that is necessary to utilize the new “Pull” Operation for snapshot replacement.

Compare Results, Edit, Copy to PowerPoint

15) Once you are satisfied with your project view you may save them, copy them into PowerPoint presentations, or share time in other ways.

16) The “Pull” Operation using the “Custom Update…” feature is an easy, fast, and flexible way to create multiple project views.

Related Links

Creating a NEW Project View via Pull Operation - OnePager Pro for Version 5.3 7.13.1-53

Creating a NEW Project View via Pull Operation - OnePager Express for Version 5.3 7.13.2-53

REPLACING a Snapshot via Pull Operation - OnePager Pro for Version 5.3 7.14.1-53

REPLACING a Snapshot via Pull Operation - OnePager Express for Version 5.3 7.14.2-53

ADDING a Snapshot via Pull Operation - OnePager Pro for Version 5.3 7.15.1-53

ADDING a Snapshot via Pull Operation - OnePager Express for Version 5.3 7.15.2-53

Custom Update (Replacing) of a Snapshot via Pull Operation - OnePager Pro for Version 5.3 7.16.1-53

Using the OnePager "Data" Tab's "Selected file(s)" Button 7.17.1-53

(7.16.2-53)